Succubus Tutorial

I am putting up this tutorial as it is coming along. I actually haven't finished it yet. I realize that this may make it a bit confusing, but i promise to rearrange it later so bear with me, folks.

Step 1:

Laying down the line. Unfortunately I didn't put this together in the traditional way. That means a lot of the basic line work is lost - I sculpted this as it progressed. I have however outlined some of the underlying base lines in step two.

Step 2:

This is the basic skeletal build for the succubus.

Step 3:

Getting some color in there. This is a very early color scheme. The drawing isn't even done yet. I prefer to have some color reference for later development. The swatches on the right are the working colors at 100%. I usually prefer to work with a 40-45% opacity on my brushes: mainly to keep the lines visible.

Step 4:

Cleaning up. Though the drawing's not actually done, I felt it was time to see what it would look like. I always feel the face is a good place to start. I added the lines with a very fine filt-tip pen, directly on top of the pencils. Now I have a feel of how the whole thing is gonna pan out. I won't do any more inking until the entire thing is done. I allowed myself to do it with the face, because I knew I didn't wanted to add anything on top or across it - the rest of the body is still being tuned in terms of details, so that will have to wait.

Step 5:

Line work. Most of the inking is done by this stage. I've screwed up a couple of times along the way, but fixing it will have to wait, till all the inking is over with. Right now, I'm gonna focus on getting the last bits and pieces right. I have a tendency to slack with the last parts, because I'm so close to being done and it's basically just background. But take your time, and consider what will support the focus of the image. Don't rush it.