Barbalien: Red Planet Variant
Added 2020-10-09 15:01:02 +0000 UTCSome of you probably already saw this on my socials but here is a little bit of a sneak peak into some of the steps that got me to finish. This isn’t as in-depth as my Hellion process post but it’s something. The series is about a Martian posing as a cop in 1980s New York during the height of the AIDS crisis where, in the underground club/ball scene, he befriends a young man named Miguel. That’s a lot to unpack right there, synopsis-wise, especially in our modern climate, so I chose to feature Miguel prominently, as it felt more important to highlight him as the anchor of the story.
When doing work for publication, I can digitally manipulate my artwork - which is something I don’t do for commissions, as the client will be receiving the actual hard copy painting. As such, for time management, and because there are certain effects I can only do digitally, I often create much simpler watercolor paintings and kind of treat that as my “flats.” I scan the piece into the computer, create different layers for all the elements of the piece - Miguel, the Barbalien, their skin, their clothes - all on different layers so I can manipulate them easily.
Sometimes all that’s required is changing some colors or values so the piece pops a bit more, but usually I will then take the file into Procreate where I can really render out the layers more. Add highlights to skin, create more depth in the folds of clothing, etc. For this piece, the background figures were done entirely in Procreate, whereas sometimes, I will paint the background elements on a different sheet of watercolor paper and composite it all together in PS. Makes the edges of my paintings much cleaner, gives me flexibility when positioning the final elements, and helps me paint faster during the “flatting” stage. If you have any other questions about this process, sound off below!
