Rorschach's Journal. February 4th, 2016.

Almost finished with my documentary project - just a little bit of editing left to do. In the meantime, I thought I'd shed some light on the process I've used to create my cel shading studies of my guitar idols with these frankly wonderful images.


Layers are man's best friend when it comes to this process. I start by finding an image of the subject that I like and pasting it into a blank canvas in Illustrator. This is my "Image" layer.


Now I can start tracing the main outline of the subject straight over the image. I've turned off the image layer here so you can see just what I'm producing. New layer - "Main Outline".


 Then it comes to adding details. I start with clothing. New layer - "Waistcoat".

 Next I've added the shirt details. New layer - "Shirt".

 Then the guitar details. New layer - "Guitar"

And finally the face details. New layer - "Head". This completes the black-and-white outline tracing of the image. Further details are added (like shadows) using live paint groups which I usually merge together.

A shorter post this time, but I hope it's been insightful all the same. By the way, if you're wondering about the title, I chose it because I've started reading Watchmen, a fantastic DC comics graphic novel, and watching clips from its accompanying film adaption to serve as reference for my art style. Give it a look, you might just enjoy it!

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