May 14, 2011

The Art of Anton Emdin

Rough and Sketch

Bucks Party art by Anton Emdin



Bucks Party art by Anton Emdin

Inks

Bucks Party art by Anton Emdin

Colour


Bucks Party art by Anton Emdin


Bucks Party artwork by Anton Emdin




Thumbnails


Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Sketches


Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia
Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Tight rough drawing.
Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Inks


Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Colour


Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia
Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia
Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia
Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Quicksand cover art © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia

Quicksand cover © Anton Emdin for The Spectator Australia


‘Schmaltzed to Death’ illustration

I originally started sketching it up for paper and ink, but halfway through I realised I could better achieve the look I was going for by doing it digitally, in Photoshop.  My brush and ink is a lot looser these days, and I wanted to keep this a little tighter.

Roughs

I tried taking some photos of myself and my wife for head angle reference, but I just couldn’t get the right look.  I found this one online, which was pretty close, so I used that as a rough guide.
Rough 1
Rough 1
Rough 2
Rough 2
Rough 3
Rough 3

‘Finished’ sketch

Because this was just for me, I didn’t refine it too much – just enough for enough detail to ink it properly.
Sketch
Sketch

Inking

Well, digital ‘ink’, anyway!  Still drawn the old-fashioned way – by hand – just using a Wacom Cintiq tablet display.  I take the opacity of the sketch down and also add a blue/green background as a base.  This is not only good for adding colours to a more neutral background, but is easier on the eyes when settling down for a few hours of inking.  White screen can really burn into the eyes!
Inking progress
Inking progress

Colour Areas

Next I block in the rough areas to separate the planes.  I do each on a separate layer, so I can Cmd-Click them to easily select that area later when adding more colour and shading.
My wife, Ash, also flagged the girl’s tongue as looking a little strange.  I agreed – it had niggled at me till then, so I revised it.
Block colour areas
Block colour areas

Base Colours

Next I carefully colour each element so I can use the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop to select the areas if need be.  In this illustration, I actually wasted a little time by doing this, as I ended up going in and colouring without selection for the most part.
Base colours
Base colours

Colour work

At this stage I started playing around with colours.  My initial vision for it was for a multi-coloured sea of cute characters (below), but it wasn’t gelling.
Work in progress - colour variation 1
Work in progress - colour variation 1
I also tried a quick colour gradient (below), which was looking a bit better, but still not what I had in mind.
Work in progress - colour variation 2
Work in progress - colour variation 2
And then I thought that black and white would be better, so I gave that a go as well.
Work in progress - black & white
Work in progress - black & white
Colour crisis! Working freelance from my home studio is great, but you do miss out on interaction with fellow artists.  Luckily, the internet makes things a lot easier, so I emailed the super-talented Dave Follett to ask for a bit of advice on the colouring.
Dave, like me was being a sad, sad person… drinking and drawing late on a Friday night, and he looked at these with fresh eyes, made a few quick adjustments and sent these suggestions back:
Dave's colour work-up 1
Dave's colour work-up 1
Dave's colour work-up 3
Dave's colour work-up 3
Dave's b&w work-up 1
Dave's b&w work-up 1
Dave's colour work-up 2
Dave's colour work-up 2
Dave’s advice was to differentiate between the planes, and force the eye into the middle.  He suggested that the last one (above) worked the best, and I tend to agree, but I felt like I was cheating on my original vision for the piece and struggled along trying to get the technicolour look to work. I ended up incorporating this theory into the next stage of the illustration.
I started by using his background colour suggestion (below), but I felt it made the illustration feel a little too dark. I wanted to keep it a little less sinister… well, as much as possible considering the ominous underglow and subject matter! It also felt a little claustrophobic – I wanted the scene to take place outdoors from some reason.
Colour and shading 1
Colour and shading 1
So I lightened up the background and made it a dull green (below). I also made the border weathered, but later changed this, too.  I have also darkened the foreground to push your eye into the centre.  I’ve also started to colour the linework on the characters to make them a little softer.
Colour and shading 2
Colour and shading 2
And below, the final art, again.  I added clouds, made the glow a little more subtle (I used one of Chris Wahl’s great brushes – straight hatching, I think) plus finessed the colour and shading, adding many small details.
'Schmaltzed to Death' illustration by Anton Emdin
'Schmaltzed to Death' final art


See lots more samples of his works and the process behind them here.

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