Portrait Illustration of Haze

Illustration the main female character in my upcoming comic book series XEON.

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—Acrylics, colored pencils and pastels on pre-ruled comic book production bristol board.

Read more [below] to see images of the illustration process...

Creating the Artwork:

» I drew a quick 1:1 scale sketch of the portrait on 11"x17" photocopy paper. Using a lightbox, I traced the sketch on a 2-ply comic book production bristol board using a regular pencil.

[Note: Strathmore now manufactures their own brand line of comic book production boards. Click here to know more.]

[Note Again: You guys ever tried putting black light inside a lightbox??? Like, whoa! It's club party time! Not to mention, it makes your artwork glow on the front light a beacon of light! Plus, it gives your drawings a higher contrast and vibrancy feel similar to an animation cell.]

» At this early stage of the work, I'm not particular about details of the face. I'll draw them in later with colored pencils. I just want a basic form and shape to work with so I know where to airbrush the base colors of the artwork.

» I used gesso to give the board some texture and grain as prep work for the heavy colored pencil and pastel work to come later. First, I thinned down the gesso with water to about the consistency of watercolor. Gesso "cut" with water can be applied as transparent layers of washes over the artboard. By layering my washes over the drawing, I can soften the pencil lines and prevent any smudging of the graphite lead.

The label on the gesso bottle says, "Liquitex.... Value Series... For Beginning Artists." Haha.

» I went over the artwork with a thicker coat of gesso straight from the bottle and started building up surface textures. I contemplated about adding modeling paste to the gesso to simulate an Impasto look and feel to the illustration. But I quickly ditched that idea after noticing that the 2-ply comic book production board was barely liking the thick gesso layer. The board I have is for pen and ink work only with some light watercoloring. Anything more causes the board to buckle and wave.

Now you ask why I didn't use a thicker board... Say, an actual illustration board or canvas? It's simple really. Comic book production board is still thin enough to put over a lightbox even after some major layers of paint. Sometimes, what I do is I'll draw a full value rendering of the subject with pencil or charcoal on the back of the board. (Spray fixative keeps it from smudging during the painting process.) Then when it's time to do the colored pencil value work, I'll pop the board back on the lightbox and just follow my initial pencil rendering that is on the back side. I use this same process when drawing my actual comic book pages. I'll layout or sketch the comic book panels, perspective, figure drawings, etc on the back. Then clean it up on the front side via a lightbox.

» For every layer of washes and thick gesso application, I used a hair blower (bought from Walmart) to hasten the drying process of the paint. Gesso typically dries quickly. But quick is still NOT fast enough for me! I don't even have the patience to wait for the microwave oven to cook my food, much less watch and wait for paint to dry. (Probably why traditional oils never appealed to me. haha.)

This stage was where I encountered a slight problem with the artwork. A house fly decided to use the artwork as its personal residential area and it got stuck on the gesso. I had to—with all care and effort—peel that goddamn fly from the board with a toothpick and brush! I thought about putting a piece of drafting tape over the fly and ripping it off the board limb by limb, wing by wing. But alas, I'm not that heartless of a man. In the end, I used an exacto knife to surgically scalpel the insect right off!

» An airbrush was used to coat the board with base colors. I applied Cadmium Orange and Burnt Sienna straight out of the tube like a toothpaste. (Which reminds me, I need to go grocery shopping for a new tube of toothpaste soon.)  I also spotted some highlights of Cadmium Yellow for the bokeh lights in the background.

» My airbrush tool is an Olympos HP-100B. This thing has been with me since 1991! Back then, I had thought about becoming the next airbrush art sensation like Japanese illustrator Sorayama. Ah yea, sadly, like my other childhood aspirations to become an astronaut, race car driver, a soldier of fortune, ninja, knight, gigolo... none worked out for me. Life is a happy misery in many waysss.

» After the base colors, I jumped right on the board with Prismacolor colored pencils and started rendering the face. It's still very gritty at this stage, but everything will be tightened up, softened and cleaned later with heavier layers of colored pencils and a coating of soft pastels.

» I also emphasized shapes of what will later become bokeh lights in the background.

» The airbrush was used once more to apply color and shading to the hair. In the picture below, I made my own cheap (darn cheap) masking tool out of normal computer printer paper. I allowed some overspray from the airbrush to "creep" under the masking tool in order to get a soft edge on the shape of her hair and head. I didn't want to have an unnatural hard-edged template look on the masking. It would make the artwork feel more like a technical illustration.

» More freestyle masking work using computer printer paper. (Laser printer paper is too slick and makes the excess/overspray color "run" and drip. I've had accidents before where color dripped off the laser paper and onto the board! Whereas, the cheap printer paper is highly absorbent—and stops the runs—just like Charmin toilet paper.)

» After the masking work was completed...

» I used a small angular brush to paint the details on the hair. (Look at the tip size on that brush! Thank goodness I'm nearsighted! Geez!)

» And the clothing... (That brush again!)

» My portable painting palette... Basically a food tray and disposable mouthwash cups! Now guess which cup holds my coffee? Got me too. I don't know... And I don't care. They all taste the same after a while.

» After adding heavy layers of colored pencils, the chalky powered dust—especially on the bokeh lights—was beginning to flake off like a bad dandruff problem! A light spray of workable fixative kept the silly pigments in place while still keeping a matte finish on the surface for the pastel work to come next.

» Rembrandt brand soft pastels were used to blend the chalky colored pencils and create a kind of cangiante feel on the skin of the face. Okay, don't do what I just did—leaving your airbrush on top of the artwork. You'll never know if there is still fresh paint inside the airbrush cup and accidentally have it spill on the artwork!

» Just removing the border masking (tape) from the board. Do this part GENTLY! I once ripped an artwork by peeling the border masking too quickly. That's another horror story to share with you someday. But, it was surely the best touch-up job I've ever had to fix!

» Sharpie was used to define the borders around the artwork. Sharpie works great over acrylics, colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, gouache, plaster, a neighborhood wall, the sidewalk, someone's car, a friend's face when he/she is drunk and passed out, etc.

» Black gesso was used to fill-in the borders and create a full-bleed for printing. I chose black gesso because it dries to a similar matte finish as the entire artwork, and it has excellent opacity rating. In fact, it's a pain-in-the-ass to get it off your fingers once its dry!

» Added my signature with colored pencils. If you look closely around the signature, I used Sunburst Yellow and Vermillion colored pencils to gradiate the color on the background from light to dark... Yellow to that reddish color looking thingy.

» The finished piece! (Now time to play Starcraft 2!!!!)

» I tried digitizing the artwork on an 11"x17" size flatbed scanner. But the scanner—at every darn setting—still could not capture the entire fidelity of the artwork's subtle variations in values and hues. I also found that I was losing sharpness and depth in the chalky colored pencil details. The digital image turned out flat and without vibrancy and clarity. I suppose I could mess around with the scanned digital image in Photoshop until I get it looking as close to the illustration as possible. But I was never good at Photoshop as my other friends and collegues. (I hate you guys!)

» So I decided to photograph the artwork instead. The camera lens yielded much faithful color and sharp details than the scanner! I used an EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro lens by Canon. I love this version of Canon's line of 50mm lens as it's specifically made for macro photography of documents, products, food, flowers, insects, coins, textile, dirt, subatomic particles, Smurfs, etc. Unlike most other 50mm lens, this baby has no barrel distortion! So you don't get that "warped" or semi fish-eye look when capturing flat documents or any object at the macro level. The lens also works great as an all-around portrait lens for its good color and contrast results.

Using a remote shutter switch (bought off Ebay for only $5), I was able to shoot at a lower, noise-free ISO setting and slower shutter speed while keeping the camera rock steady on a tripod. And just to make sure I completely eliminate camera shake and image blurring, I set the camera's shutter on a 2-second timer. (Ideally, I would like to have at least a heads up of 5-second timer so I can gracefully move away from the tripod. But this camera has only 2-seconds timer setting! Gee, thanks, Canon! Do you guys know how reaaaaally fast a mere 2 seconds is like????)

To get an even fill light over the artwork, I used two shoot-through umbrellas each with a mounted flashgun connected to a wireless flash trigger. I positioned each umbrella on either side of the camera—cross-pointed at the surface of the artwork. It took a few direct shots at the artwork to get the right settings on the flashguns. (Is it me, or does this particular paragraph sound like I'm talking about a high-tech sniper rifle aimed at an assassination target???)

Luckily, my camera has a Live View feature (but it still does not make up for the stupid 2-second timer setting) that allows an on-screen display of what the camera lens is seeing. Using Live View's 10x magnification mode, I was able to zoom-in on the surface of the artwork and calibrate a perfect, sharp auto-focus setting with much more precision than looking through the dinky viewfinder!

» The photographed image. No need to screw around with the colors in Photoshop. The shot was an exact duplicate of the artwork. (I added the lower left corner text/credit in.... Photoshop.)

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—Cedric.

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