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This is the original sketch (in a 9x12" spiral sketchbook). I first start with a small figure thumbnail (in the top-left corner) just to get an idea of the pose. Then I'll start the full-sized sketch, first—as a really rough sketch—using a non-photo blue pencil and then—more precisely—with a 2H pencil (I find it smudges less than "standard" HB pencils).

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Next, I scan my sketch into Photoshop and increase the contrast so the background's mostly white, because I'll print this out and use it to trace a "clean" copy on bristol board with a lightbox.

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For the clean-copy, I'll start first with the non-photo blue pencil, then to the 2H pencil, and finally to HB pencil (HB is darker than 2H, so I'll use HB for most of the lines, and 2H for most of the shading). This is the finished clean-copy (it needed more birds!).

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I mess with body proportions (namely the head), and bird positions in Photoshop. (Hint: open this image and the previous one in different tabs and switch between them quickly to see the changes!)

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To make the non-photo blue lines go away, I go and select only the green channel in Photoshop.

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Next I do a non-photo blue sketch of the background—this is on top of a print-out of the above sketch with some layout stuff.

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This is a sanity-check of sorts to see which areas won't be covered up by the foreground and therefore need more detail and stuff.

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Here's the finished drawing of the background. Again, it's done with non-photo blue first, 2H second, and HB third; in Photoshop, I'll use only the green channel to get rid of the non-photo blue sketch and wind up with a (more or less) finished background drawing. I wasn't happy with my hand-lettering, so it'll get axed in favor of some real fonts.

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This is a composite of the finished foreground and background.

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This is a composite of all the things (finished foreground, background, and layout... and some sketches, I think)!

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Now on to the coloring part—I do this in Illustrator. The colors are sorta off (and kinda terrible), but I'll go and adjust them later, because this part is just "blocking" out all the different colored areas.

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This is how the drawing looks once I'm done coloring in Illustrator—the colors are flat and still subject to change (notice the purple eyes!).


I'll export the drawing to Photoshop and start doing the shadows, highlights, textures, and various other color adjustments. This part's a bit more subtle and the colors and stuff sorta just builds up over time. Also—because I've done my blocking earlier, I can now just use the magic-wand to select only what I want to color (i.e., "coloring between the lines")—this helps a lot in this stage.


Here are the links to the individual Photoshop stages (in case you want to open them up in separate browser tabs and switch back and forth):
Photoshop step 1
Photoshop step 2
Photoshop step 3
Photoshop step 4 (final)

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And done! (Actually I'll usually go mess with the hue and saturation levels a bit before it's final)