Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Loki

Loki 

Here is the original entry for Loki in the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe".

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And here is my entry to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Redux.  

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STEP ONE:  I created a New Document 1,000 x 1,500 pixels in PhotoShop with a toned background and used a large Oil Pastel Brush to sketch in the pose.

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STEP TWO:  Here is the finished black-and-white under drawing. 

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STEP THREE:  I erased around the figure to remove the gray background and created a MULTIPLY Layer, then began to colorize the figure.  Once again, I decided to use the MULTIPLY Layer as the mid-tones and darks and the New Layer mostly for lights and highlights.

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Created digitally in PhotoShop.

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Harley Quinn (Colorized)

Harley Quinn

And here's the Colorized version.

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The first box just shows the flat colors done with a MULTIPLY Layer.  The next step shows some of the variation in the lights and darks on the same layer; I also put some texture and lettering on the hammer.  And in the last step pictured, I pushed the final highlights on a NEW Layer; I dropped the opacity of the lettering to 45% and went in with the Eraser Tool to make it seem like the lettering was a bit faded from over-use.  Finally, I thought it needed a little more focus, so I used a large air brush tool to darken the background around Harley Quinn as seen in the final picture above.

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Here is something a little bit different: an animated .gif of each step in the process from beginning to end.  It's sort of a larger file (1.4MB), so it may take a bit longer to load depending on your internet connection.

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This was done with charcoal on 11" x 14" toned Strathmore drawing paper, then imported into PhotoShop.

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Harley Quinn (Black and White)

Harley Quinn

I noticed my Blog was quickly becoming nothing but art for my posts to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Redux Blog.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course--it's a great Blog and lots of fun to work on.  But, I think I've been getting a bit lazy and decided I need to change things up a bit.  And, with that, I thought it would be fun to do some character studies.  In this case, it's a drawing of Harley Quinn.  I will probably do up a colorized version in the next day or two.

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STEP ONE:  I used soft, vine charcoal to loosely sketch the pose on a sheet of 11" x 14" Strathmore toned paper.  I like working on a toned surface as it gives three values for the price of two (the mid-toned paper, plus black charcoal and white chalk), as opposed to just the two values of black charcoal on white paper.

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STEP TWO:  I smear the charcoal to soften the lines and push it into general shaded areas.

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STEP THREE:  I used charcoal and carbon pencils to build up shading and a kneaded eraser to carve back out some highlights.

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STEP FOUR:  Here is the finished charcoal drawing.  I also didn't care for the angle of the right-foot in the original drawing and changed it.

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STEP FIVE:  I went in an added some highlights with a white charcoal pencil.  I then took this picture and opened it in PhotoShop to clean it up a bit and use it as a framework to continue the drawing/painting digitally.

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STEP SIX:  In PhotoShop, I darkened and smoothed out the shading, bumped up the highlights more, and also changed the expression on her face, as well as corrected a few other odd-and-ends.  I thought I'd leave this one as black-and-white for now, and do a colorized version in a couple days.  :-)

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This was done with charcoal on 11" x 14" toned Strathmore drawing paper, then imported into PhotoShop.

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