I’ve always been fascinated by realism, and because of this it is really important to me that the base line-art sketch has got proper proportions. I usually use the old trick by putting a grid on top of a reference photo I’ve shot, and then
I copy the same grid onto a blank canvas and start drawing grid by grid from what I see on the reference photo.
I make sure to keep the grid on a separate layer so that I easily can remove the grid at a later stage, and also
keep the drawing on a separate layer underneath the grid.
Step 2 : Blocking in, and grey scale shading
Once I have the line art version ready, I delete the layer with the grid, and then I make another layer behind the line
art drawing which I fill with one grey scale colour using a hard brush. Once this is done, I collapse those two layers
so that I only have the background behind and the character in a separate layer.
Now I start shading with grey scale tones only by looking closely at the reference photo. I use only grey scale tones
at this stage only because I like getting the shape up and running before having to think about colours. Some like
it the other way around and start out with colours. However, you should do what comes natural to you.
