Really cool! I always like seeing how people approach their work

wow I love this!

This is really fascinating! I've always had such a huge love for your eye for colour and the way you shade, I really enjoy the fact that you lay down the dark blue base and then pile the lighter colours on top. Really good technique and works so well with your art! Love seeing this, really inspired me!

I don't ALWAYS work dark-to-light, but it's been the method I'm favoring for this particular series. :) I tend to always lay in some kind of mid-tone at the beginning when painting, though, either super dull and destaurated (like this one) or a bright complementary (like blue if the character is orange, etc.)

So the inital sketch shots are they done in pencil or on the computer? I'm looking to improve my technique and its the line work I want to start with.

It's all-digital, meaning the sketches are done on computer as well. Though in this case, I do try to mimic a pencil look at the beginning (and then next, "ink") to define the lines well before I start painting.

I love how the progression shows how much work you put into a simple bust. It's surprising how muted the colors are at first.

They might look deceptively simple when finished, but they take a good amount of time!

Mmm~start from duel to bright ehh~That's new to me :3

furaffinirty

hahaha x3

looks awesome

WOOPS, fixed that!

ermagerd, furaffirnirteh

Awesome. Thanks for posting this. As someone who's getting more into color and digital paint this is a big help. :)

I love how some artists work dark to light, and others work light to dark. It's like the difference between a carver and a modeler in sculpture, taking away versus adding to. Or vice versa.

Do you do all of your color on one layer and paint it up, or do you have a shadow layer that you take away from?

I work in many different ways, depending on the style and effect I'm going for, and of course the medium. :) It just so happens I'm working mostly dark to light here in this one, which I chose for its relatively straightforward steps.

With a lot of real media, like watercolor or marker or pencils, you pretty much have to go light-to-dark, so I've done lots and lots of that, too; it's digital that gives you the freedom to easily play around with bright colors on dark background! But yeah, in either case I find painting is a lot like sculpting, adding and subtracting to the form until it looks right.

Sometimes I'll work on a single layer, but more often I'll work some on a layer, work some more on a new top layer, sometimes throw in a multiply layer if I want to deepen shadows, etc. Generally one of these headshots has about 10-20 layers, though not all of them are visible by the end (sketch layers, white masks to dim them, experiments I discard, copies of the linework for edits, etc.)