Paperclip asked me if i’d post a step-by-step of my recent ‘Romanes Eunt Domus’ (or ‘The Last Call’). I thought i’d post it here, rather than on the original thread, because of the request for contributers to the Art Techniques forum last week!
I produced this image over a few lunch hours at work so it’s more of a concept than an illustration. It’s a slightly different style to my usual stuff, but it was for a mini-contest over on conceptart.org and i thought it’d be fun to experiment. And i was experimenting a bit with technique so if the process seems a bit bizarre, then don’t get cross with me! If you fancy dropping by the original thread for a HiGHER ReSOLUTiON IMaGE, go here:
I hope some of you find it interesting!
‘Romanes Eunt Domus’ was an image for a contest on conceptart.org. The topic was ‘Rome 3000’, ‘Imagine if the Roman Empire had thrived and survived to the present day’. I started off with a bunch of quick sketches and went for this because it actually made me smile when i sketched it… and i thought it’d be fun to colour. The sketch took about fifteen minutes. I don’t always work in blue pencil but i think they’re great for roughing stuff out. I usually work in blue col-erase on Goldline Marker PAds.
The next step was to scan the image into Photoshop 7 and do some tweaks on the drawing. I used to do subsequent sketches with an animator’s lightbox, until i got the pencil drawing ‘just right’, but i’ve changed my process a little to give myself more freedom and be a little less dependant on the pencil sketch. It makes the colouring more fun and creative and less a ‘colouring in’ exercise!! I sketch in with my favourite brush that i use for colour and black and white and everything which is Photoshop’s 17 pixel Chalk, but with opacity set to ‘pen pressure’. I increase and decrease its size all over the place, but i really like the feel of this brush. I also like ‘Conte pencil’ and ‘Charcoal pencil’ for the drawing. Most of these lines will disappear so i’m not too worried about the finish of the line work, but it’s still nice to draw with Photoshop’s brushes.
Next stage is to make the drawing a layer and set blend mode to ‘multiply’ and then block in some base colours. For those who don’t know, using ‘Multiply’ as a layer blend mode makes everything white transparent and everything black opaque, so you can paint beneath your drawing with only the lines visible. I’ve started using a deep blue/grey for the base for characters, particularly in daylight conditions. It works for me at the moment, but i may be doing something completly different in a month or two… 
Then i start working quickly on the colour, with the Chalk mentioned above. It gives a nice sketchy mark with opacity on pen pressure and a lovely wacom pen. I generally use a 6"x8" wacom. All these quick marks at this stage will gradually be covered up, but they’ll form a nice base to the image and will subtly show through subsequent marks and give some nice depth to the image. even on a quick concept like this, it’s good to build up layers of colour.
I decided to switch the head direction. I couldn’t get it to look natural the other way with him talking on the phone. He looked like he was staring and bemused by the phone, rather than talking. That could’ve been a good thing, but it wasn’t what i was after. This is the best thing about working digitally… it’s so flexible!! I also created a shadow layer with blend mode set to ‘vivid light’ and painting in a very very deep blue. It’s a bit of a cheat, but it looked right. I paint shadows in quickly and apply a layer mask (small rectangle icon with a circle in it at the bottom of the layers palette) so i can quickly adapt the dark areas as i work up the image. I also dropped it briefly into Painter (i’d love to get more familiar with this program) and slapped dwon some big brush strokes on the background.
Add in the graffiti. I knew i wanted graffiti, but wasn’t sure what. Then i caught myself singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ one day, and remembered the graffiti scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian!! So in went ‘Romanes Eunt Domus’. I actually did a screen grab from the movie one night and copied the graffiti very closely!! It’s supposed to mean ‘Romans go Home’… but it’s the wrong spelling and means something like ‘People who are Roman go to the house’… or something…?? I loved this bit of the movie as a kid. And anyone who hasn’t seen the movie should go out and rent it!!
Splendidly done sir!
