People seemed interested in the textures/technique of my previous subsmission (KadoHusky in color), so I thought I'd share what the original pencil drawing looks like without the color. :)

It's less complicated than it might seem: 98% of the coloring is underneath the scanned pencil layer (set to multiply) in order to preserve the textures. The only things painted above the pencil layer are the few brightest highlights (on the nose, eyes, ear plugs, etc.) and a bit of line cleanup at the end. That's it!

This is a technique I used to use quite often, years ago - I'd forgotten about it for awhile, but have recently been picking it up again! Partly because, as wonderful as purely-digital art can be, it can sometimes start to feel really... un-grounded, for lack of a better term. Too sterile and perfect, no tactile or visual frames of reference in the real world. As an artist who learned to draw with pencil and paper (as most of us did) it's what I always find myself going back to, whenever all-digital all-the-time starts to feel a bit unnerving or unsatisfying.

So, this blending of traditional and digital offers the best of both worlds, at least for me: the solidity and character of a drawing on paper, plus the speed (and undo!) of digital painting. :D I'll be doing more of it, for sure.!(Including the other two portraits from this batch; still working on them, but getting there!)

(Note: I'll put this into scraps after it's fallen off the recents)