Appropiate brush types

For much of this painting I’ll be using my long-favoured chalk brushes. I like to paint with something that’s fairly sharp or has a bit of texture to it; I tend to steer away from airbrushes for painting characters in particular. I feel things end up a little too muddy with airbrushes. However, using a large brush on an Overlay layer above the figure is a good way to add soft lighting.

Layer organisation

When it comes to layers, I take the view that the fewer, the better! But it’s important to approach each painting individually and with this one, there are separate elements that I’ll want to tweak and move around throughout the painting, such as the character, wings and gold sections. It’s much easier to keep them on their own layers rather than chopping things up afterwards.