The Great Wolf Sif -Studio ghibli style (Process)

Hi everyone,

I posted this painting on a seperate post and i wanted to share my process on how i created this. the entire image is based off a boss battle from the game dark souls. personally i felt that dark souls has a very anime feel to it, so i decided to re create a scene from the game using a studio ghibli style for the image.

First off i gathered some reference that i would use for the image.

I chose this image because of the overall composition, its from the game and gives me a clear guide on how i want my final image to look.

This was chosen for color choice so i could capture the night time colors correctly.

and i used this for style just to understand how studio ghibli draws their wolfs and colors them.

The Process

Step one - start off with line art, i ensure that the characters line art is clear, clean and almost final, the reason being that with studio ghiblis style the characters or any non-static objects in the animation have line art still present, while the background and environment objects are painted out.so its important that its preserved.

Using my reference's I establish and block in the background color on a separate layer, and for-ground and mid-ground elements on separate layers.

My process usually works from a background to foreground approach so with that in mind i start painting out the sky, stars and moon.

I used a speckled brush and used a light yellow color to give the sense of seeing stars in the sky, and i added in some luminescence to the moon.

Next i paint in the clouds and using various smudge brushes i give the clouds a slight sense of movement. also note that with this style i usually use 2 to 3 tones in order to create a sense of form for the clouds.

Once the sky is done, i continue by painting out the greenery of the forest and paint out the gravestone sif is sitting on top of. after i have all the elements in place and i finished the background i remove the line art for the environment as now only the line art on the characters will stay to the final image.

onto the foreground i paint out the sword sticking from the ground. once im happy i copy and paste it to various spots on the image, distorting and changing the shapes slightly to make them feel somewhat unique.

Now with the major parts of the image out of the way, i start coloring the characters. personally this is the easiest part as the characters are only two tones, between light and dark. so the only important element to keep in mind is the lighting and how the form will shape over the characters.