Vernmilya Process

Here's my process of drawing 's OC, Vernmilya, from start to finish.

    1.       I do the base sketch on paper with a pencil.

    2.       Using my 0.5 Letraset Pen, I ink the sketch.

    3.       I erase the base sketch before opening the scanned line-art in Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.

    4.       Using the Brush Tool and the colours black and white, I “clean-up” the line art, fixing any mistakes I’ve made.

    5.       I’m not happy with the placement of the irises. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, I create a square around the right iris. I press Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V, causing a copy of the iris to appear on a new layer. On the new layer, I adjust the position of the iris and paint over the old iris on the previous layer. The same is done for the left iris. Next, the three layers I have are merged into one.

    6.       I create a new layer above the one with the now-finalised line-art. On the line-art layer, I select the Magic Wand Tool and have the Tolerance set to 100 before highlighting the line-art. If I make a mistake, I press Ctrl + Z to take a step back. On the new layer, I click on the Paint Bucket Tool, have the colour set to black and simply click on the highlighted line-art so it becomes completely black.

    7.        In order to do the base colouring, I create a new layer between the base line-art one and the fully-black line-art layer. I use the repeated process of going to the base layer, selecting the inside of the line-art with the Magic Wand Tool and then using the Paint Bucket Tool on the newest middle layer. For the white parts, I colour them darker before colouring them white.

    8.       Once the base colours are done, I create a new layer over the one with the base colours and then press Ctrl + G while the new layer is selected. I set the new Layer to Multiply, select the colour #b6b6b6 (R/G/B: 182) and then the Brush Tool which I use to shade.

    9.       I click on the layer with the base colours and click on the new layer icon. I set the new layer’s opacity to 50 before selecting the colour white and using the Brush Tool to add lighting the rings around Vernmilya’s wrists and the one she spins on her finger.

    10.   After adding my final touches, the artwork is complete.