Dragon 397 and a little process...

Recently I did another cover for D&D's Dragon Magazine, Issue 397. The scene depicts the True Priests battling their corrupted brothers in the defiled holy temple. Jon Schindehette was AD on this and as always it was a pleasure working with him.

For this post I thought I would include a little process or step-by-step on how I approached this illustration, and pretty much how I approach all illustrations. I start with a super rough thumbnail keeping it loose. There were a few others, but I just included the one I went with. I usually do a little value or lighting comp over these thumbnails as well, but on this project I was working a bit fast to hit the deadline and I skipped some of my usual steps. After the tight pencil I normally do a full value comp and a fairly rough color comp. I basically lay the colors I am after over the image in Photoshop so I can see where I want to take the finish. Then, magically I paint the finish! Ta Dah! I would like to post an actual timelaps painting process video, but that will have to wait until I can figure out how to do it.

Cheers! Dragon 397