Howdy folks. I got an idea for a Vampirella piece, and I thought I might share the bits of work I generate as I go along, on the off chance that anybody else is interested in how I go about this kind of work.

If anybody would like, you can feel free to ask me questions about this process, why I've made certain choices, stuff like that.

BTW, yes - I did try doing this with an Air Ace piece a while ago. However, I really didn't like where that one was going, and felt I had other things to work on instead. So, I abandoned it. I would like to try that character again at some point, but not today.

So. Here were my initial thumbnail sketches, just trying to work out the pose for the character. I'll frequently do this, overlapping poses until I find the one I like the best.

Here, after deciding which basic pose I wanted to work with, I tried another sketch, fleshing out the character a bit more. I really like her with a cape, something you don't see a whole lot in the old Warren magazines (honestly, I haven't read much Vampi since it moved over into comic books), plus it adds some flair and movement (and, since I put a sword in her right hand, it will give her left hand something to do).

I also ended up doing larger sketches of each of her hands, picking out areas that I wanted to concentrate more, to develop more, for the final illustration.

I don't often use photo reference, but once in a while I like to play around with it.

Since I knew I really wanted to nail the two hands in this picture, I had my fiancee pose for several photos, changing up the angles and the grips on the sword and cape. This gives me a lot to choose from later.

One thing that I should probably mention - the lighting I'm going to use in the illustration won't match the lighting in these photos at all. They are strictly for anatomy reference, but will end up looking weird if I try to follow them too precisely (as the light will be falling in a completely different direction).

I also grabbed up a reference of a sword for Vampi to use - I didn't want her to use any of the swords that I own.

Here is the completed pencilled piece. This took me between four and five hours to complete.

I went for a very rough feeling with the background, knowing it was going to be painted afterwards (well, in Photoshop). I also like playing with water features (like this fountain), and have been wanting to add more to some of my drawings lately.

Ian, will you use the grey of the pencils to add to your colors? I think I've seen you do that in other pieces, but wanted to pick your brain on it a bit. I really like what you've got here so far. You have a difinitive look to your pencils for sure.

Thanks

Yep - this will be one of those pencils-to-colour projects, where the pencil shading will end up becoming a darker version of whatever is under it, and then a bit more black ink will wind up over those pencils as well.

I find the effect is somewhere between painting and coloured pencils, and I really like playing with it.

Here is the pic after adding in some flat colours to work with later.

I probably won't go with precisely this colour scheme...I'm still not sure about the bronze sword, for one thing...

Oh, and, in case anybody is curious about these sorts of things, the full-size file at this stage is in CMYK, about 6x10", and 450dpi. Almost 10megs in size (that size will change a lot later in the process, though).

One other thing:

Normally, Vampi is drawn with funky go-go boots. As much as I love them, I ended up going with bare feet instead. Really, her main 'costume' (and therefore the part you have to get right) is just the red swimsuit, so I wasn't worried about having the picture look odd by changing up elements like the cape, sword, and lack of boots.

I like drawing bare feet. They are a real challenge (there are a couple of artists who are known for always hiding the bare feet of the characters in their books), and I thought adding the painted toenails would work really well with Vampi. Plus, a friend of mine recently had her toenails painted, and they looked very striking - the image just kinda hung with me when I was composing this picture.

You could have drawn her painting her toenails...

Ya know, I don't think anybody has ever done a Vampi picture quite like that

No charge for that one.

Here is the pic with a more-or-less completed background.

Because I am going to paint Vampi with very warm colours (her red bathing suit and tanned skin - I guess Vampi is the most-tanned vampire out there because she isn't really a vampire, but an alien. Who sucks blood. And can't go out in the sun. Whatever ), I'm sticking to a cool, subdued palette for the background, with the foreground elements (the fountain, the ground at her feet) warming up a bit to convey a sense of distance and separate planes.

The background will still need a bit of tweaking, but most of that will rely on decisions made after Vampi herself is coloured.

Oh, in case anybody is interested, the file (as it is now) sits at about 33megs. It will get bigger

And here we go, the final version. I even picked out a couple of spots for glow fx.

Again, if you are interested in such things, the final size of the working file for this is about 103megs and the version for printing (the one I would send to a client, had this been a commission) is about 29megs.