Warrior illustration process (talking about my first aprouch on digital art)

Hi everyone.

Long without post, I have been a little bit busy these days, I am working also in some step by step illustrations, but i am going to show you it soon.

In this post I would like to remember the process of one of my first illustrations that I have done when I started to learn and improve in digital art. I bought a wacom bamboo in 2011 but I not used it until 2014 (almost 3 years waiting my tablet to be use). I iniciated and started this wonderfull path of digital arts.

I dont have the step by step of whole of this digital illustration that I am going to show in this post you but I saved some screen shoot to explain how was this experience.

The canvas of this artwork is A4 (leter size) in 300 dpi.
Media: Adobe Photoshop.

1- Step sketch process. In this step generally I used a rough drawing of our illustration, It is always a reference of how it is going a be the image. Dont be afraid if in this step the illustration is not accurated.

2-I really apologise because I dont have the whole process of this illustration step by step, but I would like to show a global idea of coloring. Here I use a separate layer for each warrior part. First I use a plane color to delimitate the shape of ítems (for example the horn, or the helmet). With this layer I learned to use clipping mask to add into this color layer the shadows and after a second layer another clipping mask for the light and shine texture. I used texture brushes that I found as a default into Adobe Photoshop program.

3- The process to made this artwork was done in separate parts, I mean, first the helmet, after the gold helmet's parts, after that, the eyes and face details and go on.

4- Here with a lot of pacience the main character was done part by part. This document has almost 300 color layers (one layer for each part: base color + shadow color + light color).

5- I was not good artist making backgrounds and at this time neither do I jejeje. I found a free royalty forest background (really sorry, I don’t have the link where I found) and I used it as a landscape for the illustration.

6- I also made a blur effect at the background layer in that way it looks integrate with whole composition. And finally it is complet.

I remember that illustration took me a whole week (7 days) to completed it. I was really excited how was turned out and I was really proud of my illustration skills at this moment. I showed it to some clients and they was really astonished of quality's artwork and they help me to get some interesting illustrations Project.

When I started to work as an digital artist I realized that working on some real project I become better and increased my drawing skills. But I not worked all the time because as a freelance the work is sporadic.

So as an advice to all of you that are starting as an artist, dont wait to have a job to become a better artist. I suggest to start working on a personal project (personal drawings) that is going to be part of you portfolio as an artist. The illustration I am currently show you was not pay but was an incredible experience to improve into digital arts and it let me to find an incredible work opportunities.

It have been past almost 4 years since I created this artwork. My style of drawing had changed a Little bit. In fact I am more interested in color harmony and composition than that years. Would you like to see more fantasy artwork with my currently drawing skills? would be a interesting experiment make a fantasy artwork and see how I changed.

Before to finish this post I would like to show an animated gif of this warrior illustration process.

PD: After this image I made a sorceress illustration. I like some aspects of this artwork like lighting efects, but something that I feel that I could improve is the female face, here I show to all of you this illustration. It is not my best drawing but I would like to share it as a reference of my personal process.

Remember the phrase of Leonardo Da Vinci master: “Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigors of the mind.” this phrase inspire me to keep working and drawing every day! :)

If you like my post and you want to support my art, upvote me or reesteemit. I really apreciate all your feedbacks and opinions. Thank you so much to check my post and enjoy it. Also if you would like to see more of my work, follow me at instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abrahmatan/

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Media: Adobe Photoshop - Wacom Bamboo