MTG Phage The Untouchable:WIP

Swat by RK Post

So, I've been out of school for a while now and while it might sound horrible, I have been struggling for purchase of an artistic kind. I've been thinking a lot about what lead me to pursuing a career in illustration, and spending monies on learning to better myself as and artist. 

Which brings me to two things really. Magic The Gathering art, and RK Post. As far as games go...I started out with MTG. And that was what got my attention at first via the art. I thought, hey...I can do this for a living! My favorite from the start has been RK Post (whom it turns out lives...or lived (not a stalker) a few towns over from me). 

In my quest for finding out what it is I want to do with my art, which has been open to numerous venues from pin-up to billboards, I come back to thinking about things I am lacking in. Composition and all that jazz...things I pointed out a post or two ago that I want to work on. And I thought about how much digital work I've been doing...which lead me to think of making a MTG image. 

Why not...?

Sketch 1

So I started a sketch. Actually I didn't have any grand schemes for this...I've been in kind of a bog so I thought to just sketch, and I had this figure and a bunch of lines drawn in lightly (which you can't see). And I thought to turn it into something....which wound up being Phage. There are some things I need to address still....the background for one thing, some issues with the anatomy. 

Drawing straight onto 140lb Arches hot press. Mmmmmm..hot press. And to your surprise I am using a pencil...yep, gasp! How horrific of me I know, but I haven't forsaken my pen. It's holding my hair up at the moment. 

Anyways....here's stage one of the sketch...I'll post another soon. 

Amended  Sketch

So...I went back into the original doodle on my watercolor paper and made a few tweaks as well as added in some details. Such as the second hand since I wasn't sure what she was originally doing. I rather like this sketch though I am still a little worried about the background, but some watercolor washes with some salt (oh yeah baby) and a bloom or two might work out nicely. And if not....I can always Photoshop in a different background. 

First Washes

So I started out with a few base colors. For the skin I started with a mix in the pallet of yellow orchre, Indian red, permanent rose and some water. I know some folks use white in their skin tones but...I'm not one of those people. I also laid in a light wash of what is apparently NOT blue but pthalo green...I must be color blind but it looks like Prussian blue to me...

Main Pallet

So right now I am still just laying in colors in places. Phage has color elements to her character that I am using though for the sake of painting I am making a few small choices to pallet. The dark 'black' is actually a mix of Windsor violet and viridian green with a dash of Antwerp blue in spots where I let the colors bleed. I did the same in the purple of the cape, first mixing my violet with pink to create a brighter hue, then letting in spots of pure pink and blue in areas for flavor. The green was mixed with Hansa yellow for the jade part of the breast plate, so far that's a straight wash. And in the face I let my colors bleed together but also am using a touch of violet and blue along in the original skin tone. 

As far as the background...I probably should have used a frisket to mask out the actual figure and thrown the background in first.......BUT....I hate frisket and tend to not use it so why start now? Depending on how the figure starts to turn I will probably use a mix of the skin tone colors for the background, though at the moments I am thinking about letting some grey and pink mix around back there. 

Anyways, this is the update...more to come. 

Update: As you can see I am still working....pardon the weird colorations to the piece. I need to buy a scanner and have been using my camera for the time being. Anyways, this is starting to turn out ok despite a severe lack of planning....however I did decide to take a look at this in grey tones....

There are some areas I keep gauging as I put paint down. Color has a habit of making the eye think that certain tonal ranges are being achieved when in fact, they aren't happening at all. This can be an issue since if the image is painted in black and white it suddenly becomes flat. So I felt it was time to look at it sans color...and indeed I can see that the areas I have been eyeballing are indeed lacking in tone. 

Think I am gonna call it quits on painting for now and grab a bite and sketch instead. Give the eyes time to rest.