Nulla è reale...

I'm currently in the last stages of finishing the Bad Girls of Gotham, and as soon as it's done, I'll be sure to update with the finished product and the second half of the process. While I waited to finish that (I need fresh X-acto blades), I got to work on my next project. Here's the first stage for your perusal:

I plan on finishing this one before November 15th. Hopefully much sooner, because I will likely be moving BEFORE then. Anyway, head past the break to check the process and progress on this one.


Since the Joker painting worked well for me using this method, I decided to try it here. I did the pencil drawing of the black and white two tone image to set the dynamic lighting effect here. The idea here is to establish the dramatic lighting into to halves, then develop each using about three steps of shading per half. This will keep the overall lighting dynamic enough to establish 3 dimensionality, while keeping the tonal changes manageable for the stop/start method I have to employ (since I can't afford to do this full time).

Here I start to block in the main robe. Here I've only used two colors, Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber, mixed with white in varying degrees. I know that eventually, I will need to work in some red and yellow, so I want to limit my palette as much as possible to build continuity and avoid muddiness. I dislike one portion of the tunic near the belt, so I went over it and will redo it later. You can see that I also penciled in the details in the black section.

Still only two colors here, until the very end. The face definitely shows the effects of the method I started with. I did the lighter side first, then built the darker half up around the black. I worked very alla prima, moving as fast as I could to allow the acrylics to blend in the short time before they dried. As I said, this is almost entirely only two colors- the blue and brown. Right at the end, I added just the tiniest tint of Alazarin Crimson to the skin tone to tint the lips just a bit, and I used straight Cadmium Yellow to put the stripes in the scarf.

That's all I have right now, as I was working on this while sick, and it was about that point my head exploded. I'll be coming back to this fairly soon. For now, I want to finish the pinup drawing so I can hopefully unveil it at the midnight release for Arkham City. Thanks for reading, and please, keep the comments coming.