Process Post- Goblin Climber

During Goblin Week I drew a mining goblin repelling in a crystal cavern. It was my favorite drawing I created that week and decided to take it to a finished piece and documented the creation of the illustration while working.

The theme I added to Goblin Week was to create a mining company. In the beginning it's all little drawings of poses and ideas. It helps to layout the shapes before deciding details. Sketchbooks aren't meant to be pretty so I scribble down any idea that comes to mind even if it doesn't end up working because it might be useful later on. After sketching the repelling idea on the left page, I took the idea and scaled it up to a larger sketch. Then I took that sketch and cleaned up the idea on a piece of bristol to prepare to ink.

Having a solid drawing makes inking much easier. I don't leave anything blank to 'fix later'. It always ends with taking more time to fix later then just doing it right the first time. I get out my lining brush and ink bottle and get to work. After doing the first ink pass, I let it dry then tackle detailing. When the piece is completely dry, I scan it and clean up any mistakes or random ink blobs to prepare it for digital flats.

 

The cleaned up ink drawing becomes the lines for the digital piece. In photoshop the base colors are laid down on multiple layers, this is the time I experiment with different palettes. I want to nail down the palette before I end up adding shadows and highlights. But that doesn't always happen so I adjust some colors. For this piece, the character came together easily but the rocks and crystals had a lot of experimenting. 

The final step in to add the highlights and shadows. Those are also done on their own layers in a new folder. Labeling layers and folders makes it much easier to keep track of things for me. After adding shadows, the highlights come next. Since the back of the crystals are black, I added a strong purplish white highlight to add punch. 

I'm still learning how to use photoshop more efficiently and am enjoying learning to use photoshop as a medium. Though I am experimenting with new ways to apply watercolor in a flat manner similar to my digital work. More pieces are in the work.

Goblin Week Day 7

It's the last day of Goblin Week and I've finished this drawing in the last hour. Goblin Week is a great challenge in world building a goblin society. I didn't let myself to create concepts until Goblin Week started, making each a day a new problem to solve in drawing and writing. It really helped me just throw down any ideas I had in my sketchbook and weed out the best. There are many pages of sketches (maybe I'll do a post of Goblin Week Concepts). 

For the last image of The Goblin Mining Company is a sad, beat up Goblin taking a break. Working in the mines is not always an enjoyable time, its hard labor and it doesn't always pay off in finding crystals. Goblins can get defeated when weeks or months go by with out physically finding anything. And this Goblin is wishing to be at home with a bowl of rat stew in his favorite arm chair.

Goblin Week Day 1

Today is the first day of Goblin Week on Tumblr and Twitter. Started last year by comic artist Evan Dahm (Rice-boy.com) as a week to world build using goblins. The theme that links all of the goblins I'm going to draw is crystal mining.

The first goblin in the series is a basic miner. They are the ones chipping away at the cave walls to harvest the crystals. Crystals are the main source of trade income for goblins. They trade with other races since the crystals hold magical properties and are located in only a few known places, which happen to be mined by either goblins or dwarves. The goblins have pale skin since they spend a lot of time in the darkness. The hard hats and goggles are used to help protect their heads and eyes from falling rocks. Many goblins have been knocked out and even killed by falling rock. Sometimes they use their scarf to cover their mouth from dust so they don't breath it in. The clothing they wear is different to each goblin, though many prefer to wear overalls. Though goblins often get a bad reputation for being wild and crazy, many people consider the mining goblins to be hard working and easy to trade with.