#decided this was a freaky enough piece to experiment a lot with the style

[tapeworm-loser]

Yeah okay Freak Club

[dumpsterfire-allavita]

Context- I had been commissioned for this piece. Being in a financial pickle I picked it up and immediately set to work on it. Since I’m in need of money I put my all into the request to make sure it checked every box they could need. It turned out amazing I think! However I just checked our chat where I put the almost finished piece to find their account deleted. What’s worse is I had given them an update without my signature on it since it was unfinished and all…so if you see it floating around please message me!

Without further adeu~ the piece!

╔══*.·:·✧ ☎️ ✧·:·.*══╗

Information

I was messaged by the user Freaky (later changed to Dust) for the commission of their two Characters Brimstone and Karma. Ecstatic we began consultation!!

They decided on a photo reference from the anime “Soul Eater”. They liked the old anime style and requested their piece would be similar. That meant a full body with simple background but a lot of technique put into the old anime style! Ofc I wouldn’t shy away from the challenge (since my bills won’t shy away from me- the apple did not work on the doctor….no matter how hard I threw it)

Upon requesting their budget they said between 130-200$ which worked fine with me. I always tend to under charge anyhow. Due to my needs this time was no different. I assured they would receive updates to let them know how the piece was going and that I would collect their input on any fixes needed. They agreed and without further wait I began.

『•🪱•✎•🪱•』

[ T o o l s ]

✦ Cheap sketchpad

✦ Mechanical Pencil 7.0 lead

✦ My Phone (to send to the iPad)

✦ Fathers IPad (Im broke don’t judge)

✦ Procreate

✦ Color Pencil procreate brush pack

✦ Lineart procreate brush pack

✦Paint procreate brush pack

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°⁀✎ 🫎 P R O C E S S 🫎 *ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°⁀✎

Once saving the many provided refs I began by creating character reference sheets. Due to the customer not being artistic they provided me with several other commissioned pieces of their characters. Not all…looked the same… so I created these sheets to compile the parts that fit the personalities portrayed. Then I checked in with the user to figure out which features looked most like what they imagined for the characters.

Then I continued with the base sketch of the pose. The original reference for the pose didn’t entirely fit the characters so I chose to tweak it. I think I like the way they interact on the piece. I even made them doing rock paper scissors if you pay close enough attention! Karma lost but well…Brimstone would get what was coming for it later lol.

After all that it was finally digital art time!!! So I put my color references sent to me before adding the anime ref and my character refs. On the iPad I started with adding the details of the characters and sketching the pieces in further.

When that looked good I shifted the background a little to see it all before doing the motorcycle. (This is the first one I’ve ever drawn too- I know it’s funky! Don’t look too close)

Once the sketch was confirmed I began lineart. The title was changed to say Brimstone in big and in Japanese it reads “Freak Karma” the user of the customer and their second character.

Following that was color blocking which absolutely murdered me! I simply started with a big blob and did Alpha lock. Then I continued to block out base colors. Probably the worst experience of my life…goodness..

After I did a big dark brown layer with the opacity lowered for the look of a darker environment. From there I lightly erased the spots for lighting.

Then it was additional coloring and shading to the color block layer followed by additional erasing on the shadow layer. Building it up until I was satisfied.

Finally I did two layers- a layer for specific color lighting such as the flames reflection and the color to their skulls and a layer for the black and white liner.

All that was left was adding noise, Bloom, and a little bit of halftones to achieve the desired look.

With everything done I added my signature into the mirror on the bike!

ALL THIS ON ONLY 4 LAYERS! Due to the sheer size of the canvas (6000 pixels by 5000 pixels (ish)) I was only able to have 4 MAX layers. So pain…

🪳✨ Time ✨🪳

//this is the longest I’ve ever spent on a piece btw! (These are timed and rounded down to the simplest form. So these are all slightly UNDER what I actually did.)

Ref sheets 🎨 45 min

Layout Sketch 🔆 24.3 min

Digital Sketch 🛏️ 1 hour 30 min

Lineart 🍿 8 hours

Color Blocking 🥲 23 hours

Lighting + Final touches 👍 1 hour 25 min

Total- WAY TO FREAKING LONG! This has 26,543 strokes on it!!!!

Anywho! I hope you enjoy the piece as I sure as heck have not due to my suffering and now lack of money that I now have to try and find elsewhere with bills gripping my now every thought.

If you’d like to commission me I’ll have to ask for a base payment upfront now due to this situation. I am unable to spend such time to provide my very best just to be left when I truly need the money.

Thank you for your time!