Knight Sister is the latest illustration for my art book that I’ve uploaded online, but I’m not showing every single image I’ve done since the last entry–I’m actually up to 86 images now.

How I put the Knight Sister together

This one was kind of a process. Still getting used to drawing on my Chromebook Plus, I decided to start it in an Android drawing app called Infinite Design, a vector app that’s really awesome. (It has an infinite canvas! Started your drawing too close to the middle and feel like you might have to cut the feet off? Not with this…just zoom out.)

But after I got comfortable with it, I said “eh, I think I want to go traditional” so I printed the rough out.

Then I said “nope, I need more clarity”. So I opened the digital rough back up and cleaned it up a little in Clip Studio Paint on my Cintiq Companion. Then I was like “okay, NOW I’m ready to go traditional” and I printed out the clearer rough on cardstock paper and inked it with a Sharpie Pen.

I liked it, but even if I wanted to color Knight Sister traditionally, I wanted to protect the inking first. So, I scanned it into the computer so I could AGAIN take it to Clip Studio Paint and do the final rendering. I decided to get a little looser with cel shading to give her armor a sort of weathered, not-smooth look. Honestly, I think the lines suffered a bit from all the back and forth, but I like the color.

Moving Forward…

The road to 100 Random Practice Babes continues, including a basketball player (see my Instagram for that) and something much more mythical (you probably won’t see that until the whole book is done though).

Production is going to slow down a little as I’ve picked up some client work. I’ve been enlisted to create some toon likenesses of models for a series of book covers, and it’s going well so far. Grateful to have gotten some commission work again, and I need to be sure I’m putting my all into it. The subject matter suits me perfectly; it focuses on beautiful black women.

Jon