How I portray… a netherworld conqueror

1 Rough drawing

Starting as a loose value sketch, I make a rough drawing to nail down the drawing’s big elements. This drawing doesn’t need to be particularly clean or pretty, but it does need to show that you know the forms of the painting. Trying to create a good painting from an uninformed drawing is an uphill battle and should be avoided.

2 Preliminary rendering

I compose a colour rough under my line art. Then I convert the painting into greyscale and render it to a semi-complete stage, before placing the colour rough on top. This technique enables me to manage the values of the painting easily, without losing the complexity of the original colour comp.

3 Final rendering

I work on top of the preliminary render and take the image to finish, with a very close eye on keeping the direction of the lighting consistent, and the various materials in the image identifiable. In other words, the metal should react to light like metal would, the skin should have the slight translucency expected from skin, and so on.