My drawing process meddles between freehanding and using references online. Normally, portraits, animals, wings, scales, hair, and horror elements such as teeth, blood drops, webs, etc are freehanded. This is because they’ve been drawn so often that there’s no need to use reference to capture the details. Another instance of doing freehand is drawing some custom ideas.
However, when reference is needed for a drawing, it is to merely capture the basic details of an object, not to completely copy/paste.
Freehanding is still implemented because it comes in handy during spontaneous or last minute changes.
When it comes to curating a collection of designs, or a flashsheet, a combination of freehanding, using references, scraping initial ideas, drawing or re-drawing new ones, and last minute changes tend to be the typical routine (not in order).
Not only a design has to visually ‘make sense’ and look finished, but multiple designs have to be in harmony together, whether that is through the theme, colour, or both.
Freehanding is still implemented because it comes in handy during spontaneous or last minute changes.
When it comes to curating a collection of designs, or a flashsheet, a combination of freehanding, using references, scraping initial ideas, drawing or re-drawing new ones, and last minute changes tend to be the typical routine (not in order).
Not only a design has to visually ‘make sense’ and look finished, but multiple designs have to be in harmony together, whether that is through the theme, colour, or both.
Occasionally, old designs and ideas are remastered. Sometimes, it’s nice to look back at them and be inspired to bring on a new take.
Overall, this drawing process applies to all of my illustrations, both digital and traditional.