Spidey More WIP

final(ish) line art

flat colors

The thing I'm most proud of is the "spider face" hand. Believe it or not this is the first time I've actually finished a drawing of Spider Man swinging through the city. One more step to go.

Spidey Redesign pt.2

line art

color flats

final colors

Spider Man Re-Design Process

original design

Commissioner wanted a "turn around" of Spider Man based on this design I did a few years back for a contest. Or so I thought...

mask and glove ideas

Ended up with a lot of changes. Most of the details on this design came from the commissioner, who has been very specific and supplied a lot of references. My only real contribution to the look is the "spider face" gloves.

web shooter, boots, spider logo

Webs radiating out from the spider on chest look cool here, but they direct the viewers eye away from the face, which I find distracting. I like the idea that the web shooters have triggers that look like legs and spinnerets.

back designs

My original back design was bugging me (no pun intended) because it reminded me of Galactus' helmet. 

"inking"

color options

nearly finished line art

 Still needs some minor (hopefully) tweaking and adjustments, but this is more or less what I'm calling the final line art. The guy who requested this is way specific about the proportions (he even sent me YouTube videos about rock climbers with "ape" proportions) so I slimmed him down a little compared to the version above.

This is only a small taste of the amount of work that has gone into a $25 commission.

Pokemon Redesign Process - Drapion

For many years now I've been periodically redesigning Pokemon in a semi-realistic style. Originally started in high school, I made it through the original 151 and have been doing a few here and there since then based on requests. Here is a look at my current process, starting with the original Pokemon.

Drapion

Next I grab a few photo references of animals I'd like to base it on. Here's an example, usually I use about five.

Whiptail Scorpion, up close and personal

I start drawing very loose, using an adjustment layer to lighten up the lines as I draw on top. I'll usually starting painting in the flat colors under the sketch, then refine the lines over the top.

Rough sketch

Refined color lines (dodge/burn)

Painted with colors from original Pokemon art.

At this point I'm not really working linearly any more, just painting, playing around with layer settings, different brushes, etc... until I get to something approaching realism. I'll usually start painting with colors picked from the photo refs and adjust transparency to find something in between.

Uglier, more realistic color layers.

Finally, I throw on some adjustment layers to give the image a little more impact. Since I'm not going for photorealism, I usually bring back more of the color and contrast lost in the earlier stages. Here's the final image. Sometimes I'll paint a background if I really like the Pokemon I drew.

Adjustment layers (levels, gradient maps)