#Preliminary Illustration

[mudwerks]

Virgil Finlay - Sci-Fi Preliminary Illustration Original Art (c. 1940-50s)

Ink and crayon over graphite on onionskin paper.

[smbhax]

Alex Ross

sketch for a The Matrix poster

[chocolatepot]

I've been so stressed today and yesterday that my whole body hurts. 😩 Not even over anything special, half of it is just my brain telling me things are going to go badly down the line, probably. Hurts so much I might take a covid test just in case.

[stone-cold-groove]

Forging a crankshaft.

[holmesoldfellow]

Preliminary drawings by Scott Gustafson for his oil paintings "Sherlock Holmes," "The Consulting Detective," and "Guardians of London."

[jpmorrow-art]

A floating island with cabin.

With preliminary post-it sketches of chickens for the little chickens pecking around there.  :)

[whattfisausername]

Y’all ever seen a black women with stretch marks, like veins of gold across her body 🥰😍🥵

[queercatboyrights]

anyone got any tips on getting art industry jobs w/o a college degree bc holy fuck this shit is horrendous /oAo;\

[kyleemm2]

S t a i n

Uraume of Jujutsu Kaisen

Watercolor on illustration board

Another idea I've had sitting in my head for a while. Even before it was revealed that Uraume was inhabiting a body other than their original, I assumed that red patch on the back of their head was a blood stain of some sort.

(if that is true, honeybunz could probably use a bath lol)

Here are some preliminary sketches of this idea, one in oil pastel and the other in pencil:

Side note, but I actually do have other jjk-related ideas but I just want to complete my ones of Uruame first. So please stay tuned for them.

[monstermonger]

I've been asked a few times now, if these kinds of illustrations are traditional or digital. it's both <: The inks are traditional, made with 03 or 05 micron pen.

Then I take it to Clip Studio. Paint-bucket and basic brushes are used for big blocks of color and some preliminary details.

Brushes: Dense Watercolor, Transparent Watercolor, India Ink Darker Bleed, Bit Husky, G-pen, Milli Pen, Cross hatching texture brush. Blend: Running Color On Fiber

Somewhere in there, I'll pick up a free-to-use watercolor texture and set it on overlay, to see how it meshes with the values I already sketched in. I'll finish up the rest of the smaller details/values with the same above brushes. And voila.

Hope that's helpful <:

[reejindeed]

Starting a project of illustrating the Wilde I've been reading, starting with Dorian Gray. So I figured I'd also include a portrait of the fantastic Mr. Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde himself, followed by some preliminary sketches of potential designs for Dorian and Lord Henry Wotton.

A huge inspiration to myself, queer, theatrical, and artistic communities, it's difficult not to want to make art of a man who was himself a work of art.

[vanessagillings]

I love your art so much!!! I've also been starting to paint with gouache, and I'd love to know a little more about your process! What kind of paints do you use, do you sketch first or start with paint, do you paint in layers over several day or all at once?

Hi and thank you! I hope you don't mind me answering this publicly and apologies for length, but:

MY ART PROCESS!

Supplies: I use winsor and newton gouache and arches cold press paper blocks, usually 140 lbs (the lime green ones) and sometimes 300 lbs (the teal green ones). Even though this paper comes pre-stretched in blocks, I actually take the sheets off and stretch them myself because I've found arches' glue isn't as strong as it used to be. This is how you get watercolor paper to lay flat! I recommend youtubing some videos on how to do it -- there's a lot of great tutorials out there. Also, I use princeton brushes, and kraft paper tape and these boards to stretch my paper. (these aren't affiliate links, I just shop at blick)

A word about art supplies: these are the exact tools I use but everyone uses supplies differently and two people with the exact same supplies might get different results! A lot of it is about what works for you and what you like, so I always suggest that gouache/watercolor beginners just buy a few tubes from a couple of different paint companies and some small pieces of paper from different manufacturers to see what you like. Just changing one ingredient in the above has created massively different results for me, but maybe that'll end up being something you'd like! The first step in learning a new medium imo is to play. Just have fun!

ALSO: gouache isn't super light permanent, check your tubes for which ones hold up to sunlight. Here is winsor and newton's color chart explaining which ones will fade when exposed to sunlight -- all manufacturers will give you this. I only use the colors rated A and AA, and I still frame my pieces with UV glass just to be safe. Not all gouache is re-wettable, but winsor and newton is. I just put it in my palettes and refill my palettes if it runs low. AND SOME PAINT IS TOXIC. A lot of paints have cadmium and cobalt in them. I don't use any of the toxic colors, but if you do, make sure you don't eat while working and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards. This information is also usually available on manufacturer's websites. As more people are rejecting cadmium paint, you'll see more tubes labeled things like cadmium-free yellow. This is why. More artists should be aware that their tools can be dangerous. You don't need that many tubes of paint to begin, just a warm and cool red, warm and cool yellow, warm and cool blue, white and black. I have around 50 colors and use 20 regularly. I always mix all my colors myself, and never use straight tube paint. Most of my colors have about 5-6 different tube colors mixed together. If you use re-wettable paint a tube of paint will last you years; even as a professional I only buy new paints every 5 years or so.

Process: I ALWAYS start with a sketch first. Not everyone has to, but because I do illustration work -- where sometimes a client gets input on a drawing -- I always do a lot of preliminary work before I even begin to paint. At this point, even my personal work usually involves the exact same process:

I start with a 3" or so thumbnail that I scan (left; I traced it quickly digtally for clarity to myself here) and then either clean up digitally or print out and clean up traditionally with tracing paper (right):

Then I scan the cleaned sketch in and color rough it digitally (left, this was for a gallery show, so no one had to approve my color roughs, so it's messy!) then I transfer my sketch to my paper (with either carbon transfer paper or a light table), stretch my paper, and paint (right):

I obviously changed my mind about the color of the ribbon in the trees, ha, and made everything a lot more vibrant. The benefit again of gallery work is no pre-approval!

You are correct, I paint in a series of washes, going from lightest to darkest, where I apply the same color beneath all shapes that are the same warmth (cools under all upcoming cools, warms under all upcoming warms). I paint a piece usually in one or two days, depending on complexity. I didn't take pictures of the above painting, but here's a different painting to show you a little bit what I mean:

I painted the peach color under everything (and twice for skin tones), and the gray color of the sky under everything that would be grayish (the rocks, trees, her pants, her skirt, and coat). I do this to stop me from getting darker lines where two different colors butt up against each other, and also for color harmony. I have step by step photos of this in my process stories highlight on my instagram; also check my FAQ and tip highlights for more info on all this stuff. Most pieces take around 25-30 washes before I start adding in the details (sometimes I add in face details early though because if I mess those up it's not worth finishing the rest of the painting! 😅)

All this might seem like a lot of work (...it is) but I do it so that I can show clients previews of the final piece and so I don't have to repaint the finals. I also used to pre-test all of my washes on scrap paper like this:

I still recommend doing this if you're just beginning! But at this point I only do it when testing techniques because I know my paints really well. (the above was my test for the pine boughs in this piece)

Painting by far is the longest part of the process, so I do more work up front to not have to do it twice. Every piece takes about 6-24 hrs of actual work time to produce. Stretching watercolor paper takes about 24 hrs to dry, and because I sell most of my originals in galleries, they need to be flawless, so planning ahead is useful and in the end saves me time.

And to conclude this novel of an explanation, don't be overwhelmed by all the information I've given you! I put it here so that people at various stages of their artistic journey can maybe find something useful in it. But seriously, the first step to learning how to paint whether it's traditionally or digitally is just to have fun. Try it out, see what's working and what isn't, and then try to solve specific issues that you're struggling with. I've been doing this for a loooooong time at this point, but here's my first watercolor piece from when I was re-teaching myself how to paint traditionally nine years ago:

Obviously, I was destined for greatness. Ha, yeah, no. If you scroll back through my tumblr archive, you can see me learning how to use these paints in real time. And keep in mind that I'd been working digitally for years before then, and years before that where I didn't post my work online at all.

So for anyone who needs to hear it: there's no such thing as talent, just hard work, patience, and trying again and again and again...and sometimes again. What I do is a skill and anyone can learn it. Sometimes, progress is slow. I'm 38. I only really feel like my art was half-way decent starting a few years ago, but I've been making art my entire life, and I went to art school at 18. 20 years later I'm kind of figuring it out.

The best advice I can give, whether it's about art or not, is find the thing you love so much that you'll keep at it even when you suck at it, because most skills you'll suck at to begin with -- and perhaps for a long time. I sucked at art for yeeeaaaaarrrrs. On top of the usual learning curve, I struggled with fine motor control and dexterity. But I loved it so much I kept trying every time I failed. If I can do it, so can all of you, no matter what stage of art you're at now, and no matter how old you are.

Anyway, thank you to those still reading this deep in. I wish you all the best on your artistic journey. Art can kick your butt sometimes, but it's also pretty dang rewarding 💛

[70sscifiart]

John Berkey's preliminary illustrations for a Star Wars poster

[immortalarizona-art]

“Only a fool would challenge the queen of chaos in her seat of power.”

— Wanda Maximoff, Scarlet Witch (2024) #1

so ya girl wanted a new tablet wallpaper, and also to hop onto the Chthonic Wanda train :>

this illustration started as a redraw of this panel from SW #1, which is probably evident in the color scheme and composition:

but then I decided I wasn't feeling it with the ribs and entrails and stuff, so I took cues from this panel in Darkhold: Omega and added some Chthonic tentacles in instead as another radial composition element:

the eyes and mouths are inspired by Russell Dauterman's cover for SW #1:

and the Wanda design is all my own :D

with this one, I really wanted to practice my skills with composition, color, and value!! I really focused on making sure the illustration could read well while zoomed out, as well as having the elements guide the eye to the focal point of Wanda's face. the preliminary value blocking I did during the thumbnailing and sketching phase was actually really really helpful in that regard!!!

painting has, like, minorly rewired my brain a bit, in that I'm now thinking in shapes and values rather than just Lines. still have yet to reach the point where I'm thinking in Forms (perspective on this one is a little whack lmao) but y'know what. progress is still progress, and I'm happy with how this turned out :D

[yumeka-sxf]

I would have included this scan with my recent miscellaneous collab scans post, but I decided it deserves its own post, not just because it's one of the loveliest official Twiyor illustrations I've seen, but also because the story of how I got it is...interesting 😅

This image is from the chara fine graph (which is basically a framed picture) that was included as a preorder bonus for buying the complete season 2 blu-ray set from a shop called Rakuten Books (together with badge pins of the same designs). I briefly mentioned it back in October of last year when season 2 was airing, along with preoder bonuses from other shops like Animate and Amazon. I only wanted to get this one though, so as per my usual process of trying to secure rare SxF goods, I made a note to myself to keep an eye out for when it released. Rakuten, which I believe is the main company for Rakuten Books, has their own proxy buying service, and as the season 2 blu-rays were released, I saw them appearing there. But as noted on their main site, the condition for them to send you the chara fine graph is that you must preorder all of the three season 2 blu-ray discs from them. Once you buy the third one, if they know that you've already bought the others, then they'll send you the preorder bonuses along with it.

I was concerned that if I bought the discs via proxy, they wouldn't know that I bought all three and would cancel my order at the end! I would be devastated if that happened after waiting months and spending all that money on the complete set. I knew people would sell the chara fine graph second-hand as soon as it released, so I decided to wait until then and try to find it on Mercari.

So the months went by and eventually I found out that the final blu-ray volume of season 2 would release on April 17th, 2024. I made a mental note to check Mercari for it then, but unfortunately something else released around that same time...CODE: White in the US, which had its first screening on April 18th. Admittingly, I got distracted by the CODE: White release and had seen it twice by the following weekend. I did do some preliminary searching for the chara fine graph, but not with my usual refined search terms. It wasn't until the 21st that I finally sat down and really started searching for it. And while I did find a few listings, they had already been sold.

I was hopeful that more people would sell it, since it had only been less than a week since release. But I guess I underestimated how popular this chara fine graph was because, after the initial five listings I saw that were sold within the span of a few days, none appeared after. I had, like, ten Mercari tabs open on my browser with different search terms that I refreshed many times a day, but nothing was showing up. I would groan whenever I'd see the preorder bonuses for the other shops like Animate and Amazon pop up, but not Rakuten Books. I did finally see one new listing of someone selling just the badge pins, but that was sold within a few minutes, which made me even more nervous. I would also be nervous getting up in the morning since I didn't want to see that a new listing was posted and sold while I was sleeping! Thankfully I work from home so it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for me to refresh the Mercari tabs on my personal computer whenever I had a minute. But as the days went by and I didn't see any new listings, I started getting mad at myself that if I had only started seriously searching for it right on release day, I would have had at least five chances to get it and could have saved myself this hassle. I even sent a message to Rakuten Books via their online form, asking (in Japanese) if they could somehow sell it to me and ship internationally, etc. But their response was pretty much what I expected...a polite "no."

But then, on the evening of May 4th, I found a new listing and immediately bought it! What should have been a red flag though is that the person was selling it for $30 (with the badge pins included), while everyone else had been selling it from around $80-$100. The title they gave to the item was weird too; they simply called it "Spy Family" instead of "Spy Family Chara Fine Graph" or "Spy Family Rakuten Books Bonus" or something descriptive like that. But the seller had a decent rating so I didn't think there was a problem. After I got the email from Buyee (my proxy service) that they successfully bought the item, I thought I was all set. I closed out all my search tabs and went to bed feeling satisfied.

However, when I got up the next morning, my heart sank when I saw that about an hour after I had gone to bed, Buyee sent me another email saying that they refunded and cancelled my order! The reason they gave was "due to the convenience of the seller" 😫

But what was most frustrating about this is that, when I checked the searches again, I saw that the same seller had relisted the item, with a higher price and more descriptive title, and it had been sold already. What probably happened is that the seller realized they made a mistake with the title and price of the listing and wanted to change it, which Mercari apparently allows them to do even after it had already been sold and paid for!

I was furious with Mercari for allowing this. The least they could do in a situation like this is give the original buyer, like, one day to buy the item again with the increased price before the seller is allowed to relist it again. I wanted to write to the seller and/or Mercari, but I wasn't able to make a Mercari account since it's restricted to Japan. I was also internally yelling at myself that if I had just started searching for it within a day or two of release instead of procrastinating, I could have avoided all this. So it was back to square one, but I wasn't going to give up! I opened up more search tabs with even more refined search terms. I also expanded to other proxy-supported shops like Surugaya and Yahoo Japan Auction. I even got my mom to help me, since she's often up in the middle of the night and can check in case anything is listed during that time while I'm asleep. I downloaded the Buyee app too so I could check listings even if I was away from my computer. With all this, I was hopeful I'd be able to buy it again, though it was more of a question of "when" than "if." With second-hand collectibles, you never know when they could pop up...I could find a new listing the next day, or not for a year or two. But I just kept up the searching, and finally, after another month went by, on June 3rd (June 4th in Japan, so technically Twiyor day 😁) I finally found it again...on Yahoo Japan Auction of all places!

I had never bought via auction before so I was a bit nervous I'd get outbid or something. But I immediately clicked the "pay buyout price option" (which was only a few dollars more than the original price) and, thankfully, a short while later Buyee informed me that I successfully won the auction! But after what happened before, I was still paranoid that it could get canceled for whatever reason. But that didn't happen, and after waiting for shipping, it finally came~

I always like to add a "lessons learned" in these situations, so I'd say the lesson here is don't be blasé or procrastinate when it comes to something you really want. And of course, being persistent pays off more than not!

[mispatchedgreens]

thanks so much to @gatoraid for commissioning this piece of a scene from 'a man of letters'. extra extra thanks for the help with the research after i realised i've never actually drawn them in canon setting. apart from descriptions from the books and what's depicted in official illustrations, the articles we used you'll find cited under the cut, as well as alternate versions of the piece

1. Oka, I. (2015). MONGOL CLOTHING IN THE YUAN PERIOD. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 68(4), 385–414. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43957434

2. LUO(罗玮) Wei. (2018). A Preliminary Study of Mongol Costumes in the Ming Dynasty. Social Sciences in China. https://doi.org/10.1080/02529203.2018.1414417

3. Serrano, Alexander Jesus, "THE MANCHU QUEUE: A COMPLEX SYMBOL IN CHINESE IDENTITY" (2022). Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations. 1496. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/1496

4. the sleeveless overcoat ayushiridara is wearing is depicted in the 'Vajrabhairava mandala' silk tapestry: metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/37614

Peace out, mwah mwah