maeinschein

step 1: comp thumbnails! super ugly is fine, and i usually am lasso tooling/erasing/moving stuff around until I find a composition I like (the framing is v important in this stage). I work very small, so I can't go detailed, and keep trying stuff until 3-5 thumbs that I like.

step 2: Sketch a little more to figure out shapes, head orientation, and flesh out the 3d a bit more (ie unbald my girls)

step 3: research!!!! cannot stress enough how crucial this is, I use pure ref and try to find SPECIFIC reference of things-- lots of historical dresses, victorian interiors, chairs, portraits, maid uniforms, maids dressing their mistresses, vintage trinket catalogues-- ideally lots and lots, because then you can pull little bits from many different references to create something fresh and new :D

step 4: pick the thumbs I like the most, and try to capture the energy in a slightly more refined sketch, using reference to make things specific. I also like to take some time and do some studies of whatever I'm unfamiliar with, so I know how to design/draw it for my illustration. In this case I was looking at furniture, and specifically the kinds of detailing on the furniture that give it that victorian feel.

step 5: okay sorry after that I just do the rest. I know it's very "draw the rest of the fucking owl", but if I've planned well enough, from that point onwards my brain turns off and I just grind it out.

I kinda do different stuff for every illustration, but for this one I did lineart -> flats -> paint until i'm done. Some process shots:

For painting, I mostly think about warms vs cools and where I want my focal point to be. I think the most active brainpower is used in the earliest stages, personally. da final: