Honestly, everytime I think about how much time I lost just because of that I feel like an asshole. So pay attention:

Some months ago (around May from this year -2017-) I learned a valuable lesson. I realized after seven years of working in the international industry of arts and entertainment I felt I was missing something really, really important and I didn't know what it was.

My technique was just fine I was able to render the shit out of things in such way that it didn't matter what it was, it would look pretty decent. But still, there was something missing.

I remember the words I had with a guy that was (for my understanding back then) way worse than me:
"your design sucks".

I didn't know how to handle this. I agreed with him. But didn't even know what design meant.

With the pass of the weeks and the months I learnt that the shape language, the way you analyze and research the visual language of the ideas a-priori (before the realization of the final artwork) and how you present them.

Said that, let me show you what i mean...

Since some months ago I decided to always do a previous research, big or small, for each one of my artworks. Looking up for the shape language, the design of the characters and/or composition of the final frame before even starting it.

See, what makes an artwork beautiful is not how rendered it is but the base and design you make for it.

For this particular artwork I knew I would draw an elf and some trolls on it. Therefore I put myself on design mode and made a basic concept for each character.

You can also see a small guy with the shape of the elf at the right of the troll. That's a size comparison, something really useful when it comes to the understanding of character against character or structures-assets.

After few different composition tests I came up with a nice comp-shot. But had one main issue with it.
See, after a while of trying different alternatives I recalled that the main objective with this piece was to create contrast between the BIG trolls and the small elf. By the way this is the way you can create that feeling of "epicness" in an artwork, placing the small against the big.

I chose one, even tho' I liked pretty much few others, but this one was just representing what i wanted to show.
Sometimes, it's better to sacrifice decision and gain a better artwork instead just doing the hell you want and have a non-outstanding piece of art.

This one I chose was speaking to me to another level, but there was still something odd going on: as you can see on the left one, there is no contrast between sizes... The elf doesn't feel really small against the trolls.

Luckily enough it is something really easy to fix

This is completely a personal way of getting started with a painting, honestly I think it is one of the fastest I've ever tried... but from this point I believe you can have your very own way and it will be totally okay.

What I do here is to clean up a little bit the mess of the very first lines (I always have at least one or two clean ups so I can 1. Keep the gesture and spontaneous rhythm from the sketch and 2. Add some details for understanding at further stages -such as adding shadows, painting and rendering-.

After that what I do is -on few different layers under the linework- to define the area of work with alpha painting.
Which means that I will paint the areas I want to define as different layers of the artwork and then I lock the alpha lock for only working on the painted places or pixels.

From this point until the end of the painting, it is all about how to think the light, the color and the textures.

These are the elements that we all consider sexy in a painting and those that you should master after knowing how to do a proper base...

And that's the end if the part one!
Thanks a lot for your support and I see you in the next one!