A recently finished Guild Wars 2 painting for Enzo! This one is in the “Tier 2: Watercolor-style” of commissions.
A few process steps below:
Sketch Revision 2
A sort of fun things about this one is, in the time between when I was asked to do this commission and when I could begin, this time span is when I became enamored by Varré from Elden Ring. I think right before I started the initial sketch for Enzo’s painting, I had started my first drawing of Varré. I didn’t realize until doing the initial sketches for Enzo’s mesmer how both characters are wearing masks! It was almost like drawing Varré first was a pre-sketch for Enzo’s painting, haha.
Sketch Revision 3
Above is the stage the painting was in before finalizing it (the top image in this post).
One more panel preview! I’d say Chapter 2 is a little less than half-finished now. I might update this post again later today with more progress. I’ve kept much of the process saved in the files, but I’m finding it smoother to continue progressing the pages and sorting through what to share later on. I know I said this for Chapter 1, but I’m really excited to finish Chapter 2 so I can start working on Chapter 3, haha. Chapter 3 has some of my favorite scenes in the whole project.
“The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
Wanted to post a few panel previews from the current stage of Chapter 2! I have the majority of chapter 2 blocked out now – what feels like the bulk of the work for me. Progress is going smoothly, more than chapter 1, as I’ve been able to apply everything I learned from doing chapter 1 to chapter 2. Chapter 1 had sort of a haphazard workflow, because I didn’t really know what I was doing – the way I drew the pages was very inefficient. But necessary, I think, for figuring out a workflow that works for me and feels natural. I estimate new pages should be ready later this month.
Above and below are color tests from yesterday. Below was the initial color test. I liked the contrast of the warm colors, but comparing it with the cooler version (above), I thought the color version was a better fit for this page’s tone and dialogue.
Initial color test for the previous panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
I’m using a different method for coloring this chapter’s pages, which I tried on some practice pages for a different project alongside doing The Harbinger’s Path first chapter (Nightmare’s Embrace – a short side-comic about my personal sylvari characters, which I haven’t shown anywhere yet). I really like how the colors for those pages are turning out – they give me a little more control compared to the workflow I used in Chapter 1.
“The Harbinger’s Path” | Panel preview (in-progress / artwork not final)
This is a panel early in Chapter 2 I like – the composition for this preview is the full panel.
Close-up of the previous panel (in-progress / artwork not final)
Close-up of the previous panel.
The workflow I’m using right now is loosely: Layout >> Block-out >> Color or Refinements (order is interchangeable) >> Final Refinements
Layout = Very loose, messy sketches. Likely only understandable to me because they are incredibly loose (maybe I’ll post examples in the future, though they aren’t anything to look at because they likely won’t be very readable)
Block-out = Changing the loose layout sketches into readable forms and shapes. The color tests above are the block-out stage with very loose color just added, while the panel below is a little before I’d consider a block-out “complete,” because the shapes for Trahearne’s hair are not fully defined/decided on yet. But I also sometimes leave this to the “refinements” step, when they are smaller details like these, and if I think they will not take me too long to figure out during refining.
Color = Initial colors.
Refinements = Refining the block-out lines, as well as any color changes. Maybe this should be two steps, but I’ve been thinking of them as a combined step.
Final Refinements = Fix anything I’m dissatisfied with in the page at this stage. This is arguably the most important step, in some ways – Harbinger Chapter 1 hovered in the “Refinements” stage for a long time. It was “mostly presentable,” but there were many things on all the pages I saw I wanted to fix or improve. It wasn’t until doing a second “refinements” pass that the pages began to look more finished to me. They’re small changes, but ones that make an impact disproportional to what I’d expect (at least, it was surprising to me how much adding this step improved all the pages for chapter 1).
Above is just a personal favorite of mine – I really like how Trahearne’s expression is turning out. Doing these pages is forcing me to learn a lot of things about line weight which (to my detriment) I’ve never had a strong interest practicing with very much before, but which has become endlessly interesting to me for some reason this year.
