Jinx
I made a series of Teen Titans fan sketches back in 2016 with Raven being the only one rendered shortly after. I decided to revisit Jinx's for my illustration live stream near the end of 2019.
While I originally wanted to age the characters slightly, I knew the first change I had to make was digitally adjusting the size of her head, throwing that concept out.
I left the pencil work as it was and prepared the file in Photoshop by painting flat colors underneath against a gradient background, then transferring the file to Corel Painter. With skin being the undermost surface on the character, I started with the face, collarbone, and chest, saving the hands for later as they're resting on top of her clothes. With some slight rendering with airbrushes and the Grainy Water blending tool, including shadows under her bangs, I left the sharper details for later as the makeup and her chin will need extra attention. For now, I needed enough so I could start on the clothes.
Temporarily suspending my "undermost surface" rule by not starting on her legs next (because I forgot all about them at first), I added slight tints and saturation where needed on the black portions of the dress, formfitting to the sorceress's slenderness and athleticism using several swift small strokes to create texture. I began rendering her hands slightly, avoiding completing the fingers but finishing the back of the hands so I could draw her hips.
But first, I horizontally flipped the artwork to check and fix any misaligned areas or shapes, mostly using the eraser to fix them. From there, her fine facial details and makeup were applied, paying close attention to the glow of her eyes. The strands of her hair were made with multiple airbrushed strokes followed by flat dark violet shapes for the headbands with similar shine used on the collar.
Using shapes, adjustment layers, smart objects, and other effects in Photoshop, I made a mock-up comic book cover.
