HEADER Process:

So I decided to give it a shot, to explain how i did it to, since mine was a little less graceful than Joy Ang's process - albeit still interesting.

So I started with my blue line sketch in my Q book, which by the way is goddamn fantastic. Best buy for 6$ ever. I didn't particularly plan this one out, I started with Alex in the middle and everyone else just came naturally. I realize at this point that Jenna (wheelchair, bottom right) is far too low, but my sketchbook page isn't wide enough to fit her. I'll have to move her digitally. Also, Michelle (clipboard) might also be too low, but we'll see.

So I put the lines in photoshop, and adjust the levels. They're really ugly right now, and I have to clean up their faces a bit - so I do. This is the colour that I want, but the lines are doing so fug things that really don't look nice right now. I'll have to do some levels and clean it up a bit more. Blue just doesn't like it when I adjust it.

Okay, so I got it to behave and not be ugly. I cleaned up their faces a bit, but the outsides are still a little messy. And Jenna's still far too low. But the line weight isn't silly looking, and now I'm gonna adjust to be the colour that I had earlier -

Hooray! I also moved Jenna, and threw a Soft Light Gradient on the top. I had to redraw Kiyoko's boobs, but I just used a pencil brush for that. It looks not bad. It'll look better once I start throwing tones on it.

Like a boss. I just block in the tones, choosing the basic values but some of them are too close right now. But it's a good start, I GUESS. :)

Now because every artist is a little bit lazy, I want to block off what I'm not going to be working on meticulously because it'll be cut off in the header. This is a rough cut. I'm realizing the lines are a bit too hard right now, especially on Lisa (diary)'s face and hair, and the other girls in the background.

I was worried that it was looking a bit too slick and losing the paper quality, so I threw a paper texture on top, which also brightened it too.

I throw in a rough background, but I'm a bit sloppy right now, so I'll have to clean it up. It was like 3 AM at this point.
So instead of cleaning it up, I start adding the darker tones to make things pop. Hooray. The tones are basically done, I don't want this to be super tight, it is a blog header. But I realize at this point, it's lacking something - the colours I've chosen so far...are very desaturated but not very descriptive. So I'm going to play with gradients.

So I throw a Hard Light Green Gradient over everything, to start lighting it and changing the colours up...

Then a few spot red gradients here and there along the tops of the heads...Which also knocked down the green gradient, because although Hulk chic is charming, it doesn't have a place here.

...Then a nice big orange gradient coming from the bottom left, which changes the colour of the last two girls on the left a bit...

And a bright red one on the top right - which does the same thing for the right side...The green is almost completely lost, however if I take it out it looks really silly and far too red. It's almost done, but I'm realizing now that the gradients have knocked back the lines a bit too much. Solution: Exposure Filter. I turn up the Gamma and Exposure.


Almost done... just need to crop it now.

C'est Fini. I also adjusted the background layer to be darker on the bottom. And that's how that was done, in 2 and a half hours.



I recently realized if I want to pursue the ultimate dream, and not deal with people I can't particularly stand, and utilize all of my skills - I'm pursuing storyboarding. Sorry layout. Sorry decisiveness. Maybe next time.

EDIT: Julia pointed some things that I thought were good - so i adjusted them and changed the top a bit.