Man in the Black Cloak - Process

Process shots for the Man in the Black Cloak painting. These were taken with my phone's camera during the painting process, so they aren't the highest quality, but should be good enough to give you an idea of how I worked to complete this painting.

Photo 1: Concept art done digitally to get the design, structures, and values how I wanted them.

Photo 2: Line art transferred to a piece of 12"x16" Crescent 110 cold press illustration board. I did this by printing the digital image, covering the back of the paper in pencil, putting it on top of my illustration board, and then going over the lines with a pen. This is a pretty easy transfer technique that I learned by watching Jeff Miracola's youtube videos (highly recommended).

Photo 3: Here I've just started getting rid of the white of the illustration board using monochrome washes of acrylic paint. This is the first step of my under painting.

Photo 4: More underpainting.

Photo 5: Underpainting done. At this point I'm regretting the brightness of the blue I used and hoping it doesn't come back to bite me.

Photo 6: Starting work on the background sky. This image proves that every painting has to get real ugly before it gets better.

Photo 7: I'm starting to feel like the sky is going where I want it to so I begin to re-establish the mid-ground and foregrounds since I won't be slopping paint over them quite as much.

Photo 8: With the sky feeling good, I finish up the moon and start work on the tree.

Photo 9: Continuing to work on the tree and some elements of the foreground.

Photo 10: More tree work as well as some work on solidifying the shape of the Biltmore Estate and the low clouds in the sky. 

Photo 11: Feeling pretty good about everything behind the man in the cloak, I begin blocking him out in the final colors I'm planning on using.

Photo 12: The final image after I finished the man in the cloak and added more contrast to the tree.

The full size painting can be found here: