Joker - Making of

Joker - Making of
An illustration Step by step

An illustration is never done at once. Sometimes it comes gradually and you decide the path you will take and your decisions will affect the final result. Here I'll post the steps that resulted in an illustration that I like very much, but that would not necessarily be taken by all. Each illustrator has his style of working, this is only one way to get a result. Hope you like it!

First of all, the drawing in pencil. This I did in Painter X, using a charcoal pencil, it shows more the texture of the paper. At this stage I indicate light and shadow.

After that, I applied a paper texture behind the picture - the lines are inmultiply mode - and I began to paint the shadows on his face and hair.

Other painting details are included, adding more drama to the character. Each step must be done on a new layer, it will facilitate some adjustments that we will see the next steps.

In this step, the face is almost done. Now it's time to adjust the colors - including the lines - add more shadows and highlights and paint the background in a new layer.

Last adjustments in the face. I added another layer with a yellow tone in multiply and I painted the bloodstains.

Now it's time to begin to illustrate the clothes and the hat. In a new layer, I began to sketch them without worrying about the tones yet.

Then just keep adding details.

In this step, clothes and hat gain bloodstains, few strands of hair are added and the face becomes more dramatic with the shadow of the hat.

Well, there should be a reason for so much blood ... So how about a knife? Much better: a knife in the mouth of the joker! I did a sketch of the knife and applied a texture of steel with zero saturation.

Like the hat and clothes, I paint his hand and add details to the knife with new layers. I like very much to use multiply and overlay to improve effects of light and shadow.