DOOM
Doom is the first digital artwork that I did, and had almost no previous knowledge about drawing in the digital format as well as its tools.
When faced with new challenges, I prefer diving into the first work without any research so that I am able to experiment on my own.
Hence, DOOM was full of mistakes, but it was crucial in helping me to improve.
REFERENCES
Although I plan to dive into Photoshop without any prior research and draw, I still needed to choose an image to reference off. I decided to go with an Doomguy from the DOOM Series, specifically his character design in DOOM ETERNAL, as well the Marauder's axe from the same series.
The main idea of this drawing is to replicate a realistic art style, thus with this reference, I can focus on getting the color details right without thinking about how lighting works if I had no reference.
SKETCHING
To begin I started working on a rough sketch of Doomguy and the Maruder's axe. The drawing is not very clean, as the rough sketch is only meant to get the proportions and details right.
In order to get finer details done, I had to use smaller brushes, which led me to set up brush presets for different situations.
LINING
After the sketch, the next step is to do lining to give a much cleaner look so that it is ready for coloring. Although this part should only show the black lines, there are colors mixed in as well when I had to adjust the lines as it did not fit well when coloring.
This could be easily avoided if I had created one more layer above this lining layer.
COLOURING
Coloring is the next step and to make it easier for me to pick out colors, I used the color picker tool in Photoshop to get the exact colors I need before adjusting it for shading.
After placing down the different shades, I used the blend tool to create a more smooth shade that creates a realistic look.
The base color and shadows were all done in one layer and although it produced results, it would have been a better idea to create different layers for base colors and shading as it allows for easier edits.
I added glow effects to the sword and the blade of the axe to create a more realistic look. Without this effect, Doomguy would look like he was plastered into the drawing and look out of place.
Glow effects like this create an illusion that the different objects are interacting with one another, making the drawing have more depth.
FINAL TOUCHES
After coloring, the only thing left to do was to created a background that fits. I used black, orange and yellow to create a scene reminiscent of hell, which would fit the objects in the drawing.
Although the color palette was good, the colors were not blended properly and ended up ruining the final product as the background made the objects feel out of place.
While doing this background, I had the mindset that a background does not affect the final product too much, and realize that this is not the case after having drawn DOOM. A background is just as important as the rest of the objects in the drawing as well.
THINGS TO TAKE AWAY
Brush presets are extremely useful, as they help me switch between different sizes quickly for different parts of the drawing.
Layering is important and I should make more use of it as I had barely any usage here.
Background is just as important as rest of the artwork, and should be worked on just as well to provide better harmony to the artwork.