Concept
For the beginning of the illustration, I wanted to upload my audio to Youtube for my Copywriting radio spot. I couldn't simply upload the audio, though, and given what I do, it would be really lazy to upload it with someone else's art. So I decided to use it as an excuse to make a new illustration. I knew, going in, that I wanted a custom horror host design, and to put him in front of a creepy carnival tent, going with the cirque theme.
Process Lineart: 1.5 hours
To begin with, I collected references, and made my anatomy and pose reference, using Poser Pro 2014's Ryan model as a base, as well as a cane geometry item to figure out how to best position the character's scythe.
Once I had the base for the design, I proceeded to illustrate the lineart using Photoshop's brush tool. I first created the geometry of the character's body, and once I had that done, I proceeded to illustrate the costume over top of it.
Using references of Victorian-era clothes, I drew the man's costume out, again using geometric roughs before refining. As I went, I mased parts of the man's body out, to make sure that it all fit together in form. The next step in the process was doing one last refinement once all of this was together, to make the base lineart for my overall illustration.
Color: 30 minutes
Once I had the lineart laid out, I proceeded to set up my color scheme. Using masks, I colored in the image one block at a time, starting from the circus tent up to the topmost item, the tophat.
Texture: 45 minutes
Instead of immediately going in to the shading, I first wanted to get my circus tent created, so moved from flats to the texturing. I set up a plank ground using a photo of wood planks I'd taken years ago, first. I moved from there to the actual canvas itself. I first broke down my tent into reds and yellows, via masking, so I could make each flap individually textured.
Once this was done, I created an effect using the filter gallery in Photoshop, creating a high-relief canvas texture. I worked with the blending modes until it interacted how I wanted with the flaps. Once this was matched to each flap, I duplicated the texture and reversed it, before turning it vertical. The end result was a burned canvas tent.
When all of this was done, I proceeded to fill the character's costume in using Muslin background textures. Lastly, I used a chalk brush to texture the skin, and give the character a more dead look.
Shading: 2 hours
After setting the textures up, I moved to the shading. I worked from dark to light, making the bottom right the darkest portion of the image. I went through three different stages of shading the whole piece. First, I set up the base lighting, setting up where my darks and lights would be on each individual element of the illustration. When that was finished, I refined the shading in a second go-through, adding more depth to each element. Finally, I worked with gradients to shade the image as a whole, to make everything interact with each other.
Effects: 40 minutes
I decided next that, to match my shading, I first needed to do more with my tent. It simply wasn't creepy and ragged enough, I felt. So I proceeded to mask elements out of the tent, using a large explosion brush to give it a heavily stained, aged look to it. The black background behind the entire thing added to the effect, making it hide various mysterious horrors. Using that thought, I drew in some red, monstrous eyes peering out of the tent's new tears.
To work with the image's atmosphere as a whole, I added fog. Using multiple layers of blacks and whites, and the maximize filter, I drew in the fog beneath my horror host. To finish off the effects, I did the same above the character, to give the whole image more depth.
Finalization: 30 minutes
To finish my illustration off, and make it useful for the video, I plugged it into InDesign. After working a bit with the proportions for the display I wanted, I went through a number of fonts for the title text and subtitle. I used the Arkham typeface as a base, and proceeded to customize it a bit, for the end result. Once this was all done, I threw the audio and illustration into Premiere Pro, exported a video, and uploaded to YouTube.
Result
The final product, I think, is pretty good. As infrequently as I do it, now, I really do enjoy illustration, and this was a blast all the way through.
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