Following up from our interview, artist Jack Crowder has broken down the method to his madness and shared a step-by-step process on one of his piece.
What’s better practice than taking a character from a very apparent style and manifesting it again? We’re going to take C.C. from Code Geass and rebirthing her in a different image. To do that, we need to create her. With all my bodies, I make sure to craft them some bones. I retain some things that I personally think are anime elements but most of it is fever-fashioning.
My dependency to lines really shows after we sketch her out on top of the bones. I usually delete the original layer/image now. Only when I’m doing a set or a few pages do I keep the original build. A lot of the work that I get is spontaneous. I keep my whimsy while I reference the costume.
Now I color these lines. This also begins to set up where I play later. I like to give an auburn glaze on my art palette or keep it sterile. I’m going with that here because anime naturally has that sterile look to its cel-shading.
After doing this since ’09, these stages have become very strategic. I use the color to control that. With the use of color, I add back in some natural.
I consider this my post production work. I go back in and include some special effects. I bring in texture across the form. If she was within a scene, I would probably also include some light reflections on all those buckles.
Final illustration. My take on C.C. from Code Geass.
You can find Jack in his cell at Arkham Asylum…wait, that’s Jack Napier.
You can find Jack on his deviantART and his own website. Feel free to check out his career in comics too.
