tinymediaempire:

     this is the last two days of work, ive lost track of what ive been watching. but right now at 3:04 am, its BAR RESCUE on-demand. before that it was sci fi’s FACE OFF monster movie makeup show. basically, while i work on stuff, i like to see other people work on stuff. honestly, its weirdly motivating. try it sometime.
     ok, step one was to scan the straight finished linework. i want a strictly black lineart scan of the whole piece, for when it eventually gets made into a screenprint. because the piece is oversized, i scan in multiple chunks with an old HP scanner flipped upside down with the lid torn off. sometimes you have to smack it because unsurprisingly, HP didnt design their scanners to operate upside down. it then gets pieced together in photoshop. save that, set it aside.
     masked off the buildings, did a tonal ink wash over the sky. this is a terrifying thing. you mess it up, theres really no coming back from it. the board will suck in and dry that wash very very quickly. you can take second passes to darken, you can quickly blot with a paper towel to pull out a highlight, but you have maybe 10 seconds. too much water, or too many washes, and the clay surface will break down. i let that dry overnight, just to be careful.
     i decided to fully hatch out the sky, just so its consistent texturally and so i can give the clouds a certain dimensionality and movement. i made a directional and tonal guide in photoshop, and then projected it onto the original. and started in with a tool capable of broader lines. a day and a half later i had a sky.
tomorrow i rescan the whole thing, and start assembling the final image.

     theres a part of me thats nervous about really breaking down my process on this stuff publicly (ive already had a stellar year of being wholesale knocked off), but im like 60 hours into this piece with a ways to go. you know what? if you think attempting a process that takes 60 hours sounds like your cup of tea, go nuts. i love the nature and devotion of truly laboring over a craft, sinking myself into it. so welcome to my hell.