The Accountant

I had a rough picture in mind, before I started with illustration: I wanted to depict an arrogant elf in a red dress, communicating with a green goblin. My very first sketch, however, lacked punch.

Making several photos of myself in different poses helped me find the perfect pose for my elf. Using these I ended up with the second sketch.

Some illustrations profit from a base 3D sketch to find a good composition. It's easy to try out different angles and lighting before investing lots of time. In this case I already knew how to pose the main character, but was unsure about the rest.

So I put my sketch into a 3D room, I modeled some quick shelves and put some light on, and tried out different scenes, until I found one I was satisfied with.

With the knowledge gained from my 3D sketch, I drew up the sketch with the final composition. I worked on this sketch in greyscale afterwards to make sure I am using the best contrast for my scene, until I move on to detail work.

After coloring my greyscale painting all that is left is the tedious drawing of all the details with a color correction here and there to end up with the final piece.