Before I was officially brought on as the new artist for the comic webseries, What the Fott?, I was commissioned to create fan art featuring the characters. The main protagonist is the titular Fott, Cera O'Malley. She has somewhat of a bad temper and sometimes it gets her in trouble (or out of trouble, depending on the situation). Of course she's never far from her gun.
The Wire Frame
The purpose of the wire frame is get the composition in place. My wires are pretty simple. Sometimes I will give form to the skeletal lines, other times I only need the lines to show me where and how long an appendage is going to be. The head, however, is crucial. The size and simple cross hatch lines reveal where the eyes are and the direction the head is facing.
The Sketch
Once I have my guides in place, this is where I let loose and start getting messy. I fill in the details and give shape to my wire frame. I overlap lines all of the time but it really doesn't matter at this point. Some artists can create a great sketch right off the bat. I find it so much helpful to have the underlying wire frame first, even if it's just a few simple lines.
The Line Art
I can't help but notice that I draw with pretty thick lines. Across the board, my line arts are strong and dark. I follow many artists, and I'm under the impression that it's more common to see thinner lines. I think this is because I use a lot of pressure when I draw on my Wacom Mobilestudio Pro drawing tablet. It's become something of my style, I guess.
The Flat Colors
Since my lineart contains action lines to indicate movement and focus, I couldn't use the paint bucket fill tool for all of my shapes. Therefore I had fill in the empty gaps with the color of choice before filling in the rest. To help with the illusion of movement, I bled colors from one shape to the other in the same direction of the action lines.
The Finished Illustration
I used a center focused zoom blur to make the movement more noticeable. Of course the blur is on the gun being raised and aimed directly at the viewer, but the clear focus is actually on Cera's facial expression. She's triggered (no pun intended) but she's also a little scared. On the whole she's not a bad person, so don't take it personally when she acts out of frustration. There's more under the surface that you're not aware of.
To find out more, please read the webcomic series What the Fott?, created by
