Poor Sad Goblin
Fantasy Illustration Step-by-Step
I love watching other artists work and seeing how they work out an illustration from original sketch to finished process. Thought I’d share this step-by-step of an unfortunate goblin, completed quite a while back. I found this series of images while cleaning out my portfolio, and was reminded that – years ago – I had originally set out to illustrate fantasy. I got my first job illustrating wildlife and, well, now here I am. I’m thinking I need to go back and reconsider my love of fantasy…
While a lot of my work is done digitally (although…that seems to be changing lately – much more watercolor) my original sketches usually start in a notebook. In this case, a poor, unfortunate little goblin.
Next, I do a bit of shading in monochrome to add drama and get a sense of how I want the light to work.
I start to lay in some colors. I use a multiply layer so the original shading can come through.
The final layer of color, with some opaque added over the top to enhance drama. Et voila! A sad little goblin.
