Blackboard

I’ve been working on some illustrations of my dog Lilly over the past week and a bit. I plan to post some of these images later. For now I thought a catch up on the Tasmanian Coffee Roaster blackboard is well over due.
I’ve been mainly working on Japanese anime characters, partly at the request of the coffee shop staff and partly as it is an interest of mine (except for C3PO which was drawn for my Star Wars loving son Tallis). The challenge for me is still learning how to draw with negative space. I want the black background to do as much work as possible. This is more obvious in the Astro image and the Naruto bad guy. The heavy use of black means that I have to be very precise with the use of light and colour. The Naruto ‘coffee coffee coffee’ image (created this morning) is more challenging in a way, as it is complex, but it is also closer to my normal working process on paper. I am building the image definition through layers of colour. I put down light colour on the blackboard as a ‘ground’ and building shades on to it.
The C3PO image shows the steps used to build the image. I think this was one of the most difficult drawings I’ve done on the blackboard as I was trying to get a metallic look. I was also unsure throughout the process if it would be successful. Just before the last stage of rendering I considered wiping the board clean and drawing up my plan ‘B’ image. Lucky I have learnt to have some faith in my ability to pull the image together in the end.