Last year I was doing a series of illustrations based on Japanese demons, and it is time to start a new series for this 2023.
So I was thinking about something that I would like to draw, but that at the same time would help me to improve my art, and immediately two ideas came to my head, fantasy, something that I have always loved and that I will never get tired of drawing, and cityscapes, is something I don't usually paint and without fear of being wrong I think the last time I did something moderately urban was two years ago, so putting these two concepts together gives as a result something that I also like a lot, the modern fantasy, where the beings of fantasy stories live and interact in the modern world.
That's why I wanted to start with something simple, portraying a young orc girl in the middle of the city, who if it wasn't for her green skin and her big hands and ears, could be a normal girl going to the mall for an ice cream.
I wanted the illustration to look great on my smartphone, so I opted for the 3500x5000 px resolution that gives me as a result an elongated image that can be easily adapted as wallpaper, that's why I didn't want to place the girl in the middle of the composition, but I gave a little more space to the urban elements.
Then with the pen tool select the silhouette of the orc, following of course the lines of the sketch, by the way, using this tool to select silhouettes is the fastest and most accurate, because with the lasso tool if your hand shakes while selecting any area that imperfection will remain in your final selection.
On the other hand, I spent some time looking for the ideal color palette, since the orc's clothes had to blend perfectly with the green tone of her skin.
And of course you have to give the lights, since I first applied the base colors with a dark tone, I only had to look for lighter tones for the illuminated areas and try to get some three-dimensionality in the objects of the illustration, where I could be more drastic in the brightness and color changes, was in the jacket and I wanted to get a shiny texture.
Now finally comes the urban environment, I had as reference a multi-storey house, but I didn't want to spend days making every detail in its doors and windows, so I focused on the brick wall, in which I played with the shadows to avoid saturating the scene with information, but still noticed that this wall was composed of bricks that support a roof over the head of the orc.
Now comes the main reason why I didn't give too much detail to the multi-story house, because I wanted to get depth in the scene, that's why I applied a Gaussian blur, but on the other hand the brick wall remained untouched by this filter. Besides this is a modern fantasy, so a smartphone in the girl's hand was 100% necessary, I also added a soft glow to the skin with a layer in the "overlay" blending mode, looking to give more prominence to the orc that at the last minute I decided to call "Selene", I don't know, I think it's an attractive and youthful name, do you like it?
I will leave you a GIF with the whole process on it, so you can better appreciate the illustration process.
Tell me in the comments if this Oni should have had tattoos all over her body..
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