Step-by-step : Dollhouse Girl Illustration

I have a habit of not sharing any of my work as it is being developed since my early sketches are very loose and dirty and take a bit of clean-up before I get the desired end result. But I figured I would share my progress step-by-step.

Step 1: Loose Dirty Sketch

I always sketch a new character as a nude and then add on clothing, to get the shape of the body right before draping it with anything. For this I one ended up looking at Playboy centerfolds from the 60s and 70s, to use as reference material. Playgirl/Playboy really is a great use for that.

A loose sketch in graphite of a woman sitting on a bed in her underwear.

Next Step: Clean up…

Step 2: Cleaned Up Sketch

Plenty of erasing and redrawing. Some of the perspectives are off and needed adjusting. And I realized that I might have created a giant girl that is sleeping in a doll bed. But if it makes her comfortable, who am I to argue.

A cleaned up sketch of a woman sitting on a bed in her underwear.

Next Step: Inking…

Step 3: Simple line inking

Breaking out my Rapidograph technical pens, I know, I little bit of old-school to use refillable pets but I like the ritual around it. Keeping them clean, refilling ink etc.

Straight lines are always the most difficult, I could use a ruler but I feel like that takes away from the ‘hand-drawn’  feel of an illustration.

A simple ink outline of a woman sitting on a bed in her underwear.

Next step: Inking weights, and shades.

Step 4: Inked weights, Vectorized

After adding some weights to the lines and shades, I scan and vectorize the artwork in illustrator. My husband got a chance to give his option: “You have a problem with feet… (silence)… but it doesn’t matter, all everyone ever care about is the hair. You do great hair.”

He is right, I don’t like drawing feet. And that means I should draw them more often.

A detailed inked illustration a woman sitting on a bed in her underwear.

Next step: Coloring.

Step 5: Basic Color, Vectorized

Finally, have gotten around to continuing this. Work has been really hectic and left me with very little time for anything else.

I have added basic colors in illustrator to the vectored outlines. The illustration looks a little bland and is in serious need of some shading and highlights.

Next step: Shading and Highlights.

Step 6: Brushed Shading and High-lights, Photoshopped

And now the final result: After exporting the vector artwork to photoshop, while maintaining layers, I have added shadings and highlights using photoshop custom strokes.

Final result.