S Curves, Witches, and Varsity Jacket

Final painting

It started with S curves. I have been studying images that caught my attention while browsing Reddit and Twitter, figuring out what attracted my attention. One element was S curves that span the width or height of an image. So I drew such an image.

As usual, I started with thumbnails.

Thumbnails

From the top, the S curve starts with the hair, continues through the face and neck, and ends midway through the torso. I extend it to the leg to our right so that curve spans the whole figure. These sketches show the proportions I am most accustomed to (i.e. action manga proportions) as well as the kind of poses I naturally think of (i.e. action manga poses). Hence the clenched fists and "don't mess with me" expression.

I stubbornly added a magic wand because I wanted to stick with witches as a theme. The second sketch (on the right) gave me the idea of varsity jacket.

For background, I went for more curves, making it the theme. However, what concrete shapes would these curves take? I took inspiration from Ayane's drawings (see her works on Twitter). The long, curvy, blobby shapes suggest water; so I drew shapes with water in mind.

At this point I must confess that I forgot to scan the pencil. I did take picture of this work in progress image, in which the background elements were still in pencil.

Inking in progress

Compared to the thumbnails, I softened the girl's expression. She had multiple earrings because she was rebellious punk; while the bracelet was a talisman, probably magical.

I do not have much to say about inking process, so here is the inked piece.

The inked drawing

Next step was painting. I started with painting color thumbnails.

Color thumbnails

Unlike with previous paintings, this time I liked both color schemes. I could only paint one, though. So I went with the one on the right. I do not recall a specific reason; maybe because it felt more like summer than the left one? 

I tried to by conscious about warm and cool colors this time around. Usually varsity jackets have white sleeves, which may grab too much attention. I did not want this, so I gave the sleeves dark shades of orange. To differentiate the jacket from the hair, I made it red.

Adjusting jacket

I experimented with what Marco Bucci called "color vibration". (You can watch his video on YouTube: How to Make Colors Vibrate.) I applied it to the background water. I liked it; my mistake was adding it too soon for this painting. I ended up painting over it later on.

Next, I inverted some part of the inked lines and made them glow lines. I found it great in adding interest to the image. (I feel I should be careful not to rely on this trick to much.)

Glow lines and vignette

I painted cyan rim light to the hair to get cool-warm contrast even though physically it does not really make sense.

At this point, I arrived at the never-ending state in which I kept seeing things to improve or fix. Still, here are the major aspects I worked on to get to the final painting:

• Painted details on lower part of background water.
• Painted over the middle and upper part of background water. Bye bye color vibration.
• Painted blush on the face.
• Painted glow particles.

So here is the final painting. Do you like it? Let me know in the comments!

Final painting