Well I finished up this Angel of Jupiter yesterday and thought I’d share a post about my process for any artists out there that might be interested. I’ve learned a lot from every angel I’ve painted so far, and refined my technique a little with each one, and this one was no different. The entire piece was completed using Photoshop.

I made the initial mistake in this process of trying to go straight in with colour and shapes too soon, and essentially skipping the line drawing stage. I thought that perhaps I was slowing myself down by always doing such detailed sketches before I started the painting phase, but my initial attempt at ‘straight to paint’ only proved how important it is to build on a strong drawing foundation. This was as far as I went with sketching at first. I knew he was going to be a mature man, on a throne, at the centre of a giant orrery, with some eagle symbolism, and the top of his head open. The themes would be circles, planets, cycles, wheels, golds and royal blue, he would be a little proud, arrogant even, like Zeus, but also peaceful, like a Taoist who knows the rhythms of nature so well that he simply enjoy their unfolding. So, with all that in mind, I sketched this incredibly generic warrior who seemingly expressed none of those qualities…

Then I dove straight in with colour and promptly threw out my orrery idea in favour of him being sat in some kind of tree throne which held the planets in its branches. In retrospect, its obvious that I only opted for this idea because an orrery is practically impossible to freehand without carefully drawing out all the perfect ellipses and spheres first, and wiggly branches are much easier. 

I was pretty excited at first to have something come together so quickly. Then I thought he looked too much like he was either deep underwater, or somewhere beyond our atmosphere in space, when he was meant to be more of a sky god. I also wanted more gold and metal generally, so I tried to add in more of a golden throne with slue skies behind.

And that’s when it became clear that he was broken and unsalvageable, and that I needed to draw and draw some more until I had something I was sure was worth painting. So first I did this guy.

Then with the basic composition in place I shaded him in. This was the final sketch before I started laying in some colours.

At this point I’m excited about it again, I really liked the drawing. Thankfully I’ve come to recognise that this is always a peak in the process before a hard drop into the beginnings of the colour stage. The drawing looks good, and then it turns into a kind of garish cartoon as I make my initial colour choices. I was prepared for that this time though so I only spent 3 or 4 days at the most questioning my worth as a human being and my prospects as a professional artist before it started to come together…

One of the main issues I noticed while laying in colours was that there wasn’t enough going on in the mid-ground to really give the sense that this was a huge, galaxy-tracking orrery. I also wanted the walls and window behind him to look rounded, like an observatory, and as it was it just looked like a flat wall behind him, and not very far in the distance. So I lightened and muted background blues to give a sense of distance, and added in these ‘arms’ holding up the planets behind him, coming off the central platform, which were also painted in more muted tones to give a sense of depth and atmosphere. I also added in a lot of detailing on his clothes and boots that I hadn’t originally planned, to further add to this theme of fractal complexity.

Finally it was time to add the special effects. Any kind of elemental energies and lighting effects always come last, so at this point I added the electricity and some colour layers to show it reflecting off his gold throne. I also added some shadows behind his head because I was afraid that his circular head piece looked too much like it could be part of the throne itself because of the way it was symmetrically positioned. And finally, it was finished. This is one of my favourite angels I’ve done so far, and I won’t make the mistake of trying to skip the drawing phase again. 

After about six weeks of trying to squeeze in an hour or two here and there on this piece in between designing tattoos, I finally finished it! This here Moon Angel is the first of many angels that I’ll be painting for a new strategy card game that I’ve spent the last year developing and playtesting, which, I dare say, is pretty awesome. I become fully aware of its awesomeness at Christmas time a few months ago, when we set off to Colorado for two weeks and spent the days we were snowed in playing the game with my brothers, sometimes for 5 or 6 hours at time, and when I saw how obsessed they became with it, I knew I was on to something. 

Anyway, I thought I’d share some process shots of each piece as I complete them, if for no other reason than to encourage aspiring artists who might stumble upon this to realise that what seem like mediocre or downright terrible sketches may be the beginnings of a nice piece, if they just keep working on it. They say great stories aren’t written, but rewritten, and that’s true of art as well. 

For example, look at this sketch at the top! Nothing special, that’s where this one started. But once I’ve got a rough pencil sketch worth developing, I scan it into Photoshop and start trying out different ideas for it. So here I decided I wanted her face to be more bug-like, or more like a mask than an actual woman’s face, and also decided she needed some extra limbs to make her less human.

The idea for this card was that she’s a kind of shapeshifter, that can take on multiple animal forms at once, so I wanted her to look like she was in the process of transformation. 

Once I was happy with her general shape in Photoshop, I printed her out, lightboxed the sketch, and began a more detailed drawing. That’s when I added a lot of her more specific features, her tendril hair, her beetle feet, and played with another idea for her face. 

Then I scanned that in, and started shading it in black and grey on Photoshop again. The main changed I made then were to her horns, I just felt that the larger, wider, more antler-like horns fit the shape of the composition better, and I also decided that I’d swung too far and her face wasn’t human enough anymore, so I gave her more soft, feminine features. Once I was happy with the black and grey layer, I started adding some colour washes.

Finally  I started adding in more subtle colour effects, and giving more consideration to light sources and the reflections they would cast. Her face was still bothering me, and I realised that I could keep her feminine features but give her big bug eyes at the same time, and once I did that she had the look I wanted, alien, insectoid, dangerous, but also seductive, playful and wise.  

So there you have it. Next up, the Angel of Mercury!