I decided to finish this piece a while back. With this style, things are fairly loose as you can tell by the backgrounds. This allows me to finish pieces a lot faster and it gives that painterly quality to them.
First and foremost, I establish my light source. Being that Super J is sad in this piece, I decided to make the light source come from behind. Gives him a feel of turning away from the sunshine (which is some cultures, symbolizes hope). I use a 20% opacity layer and a black brush to accomplish this.
Once my light sources was established, then I moved on to the coloring. Starting with a different layer called "COLOR", I started coloring the figure first. I referenced my character profile to match the colors exactly. You should always have a character profile handy for coloring and even drawing purposes. You want to make sure you are consistent with the character. As I have no editor, I have to do everything myself.
I then added some highlights on his costume using a feathered white brush with a 20% opacity. This gave the desired effect of a bit of light shining from behind him.
I moved on to the background (a new layer), where I used a scattered brush and loosely colored the stones where he is sitting.
I left the water for a separate layer as I needed it to be translucent and not have the hard black outlines as the rest of the piece. The water spritz was created with the same scattered brush, this time instead of smearing as I did with the stones and background, I dabbed to create the effect of water spraying.
Write me a comment, or email me and let me know what you think of this piece. Did you like it? Do you have any questions?
If you are interested in comic books, then head over to The Show Comic, and check out Super J and his band of superheroes.
Until next time, #drawwatuwant.
-Haro
Meet the insanely talented Paul Hill! Get to know the heart, hustle, and inspiration behind his incredible art — it just hits different.