Once more into the Fray!

Fray magazine, who, in their own words “…is about true, personal stories and original art…” is back. They went away a while ago as you might recall. I’d actually been a fan of the mag in the past.

When my friend, and art collective compatriot, Chris Bishop exercised his capacity as illustration wrangler there and asked me to contribute an illustration for their (then) forthcoming relaunch, I was pretty excited.

The final image is seen above, the full article it accompanies can be read here, and the (extensive) process work behind creating the image can be found below.

Initially, I doodled a quick sketch in Alias Sketchbook Pro. I like the program’s simple tools. They force me to not spend a ton of time on this step, which is good. As you’ll see, the image changes a lot from this color rough as we go on.

After figuring out the colors, or so I thought, I started inking the piece. I knew that the bank robber in the tale needed to look smug and satisfied. He thinks he got away with his heist. I planned on putting a helicopter in the side window, but time would later dictate otherwise.

Herein lies the point of derailment. I had just reinstalled Painter 6.1. Yes, you read that right, Metacreation’s Painter 6. Not Corel’s subsequent releases. What can I say? I’m a purist! I wanted to try and lay some painterly colors under the inks as a sort of cathartic experimentation. No one wants to stagnate, right? Trying new things is integral to getting better.

Note the pathetic, laughable, placeholder helicopter!

I wasn’t feeling the color scheme any longer, so I jumped into a total repaint under the inks. Since this method isn’t my typical one, I was really feeling around blindly and hoping for something to just click.

While not bad, my lack of experience with this style ultimately slowed me down.

As I should’ve done from the start, I opted for my normal style. Things immediately started to feel right with the piece.

Some further tweaking with the colors, and I was pretty confident I could wrap it up quickly (which was necessary - I had wasted much of my own time with the painterly experimentation).

Ultimately, I opted for a strong red and blue lightsource to indicate the presence of the police and, while not as fun or engaging as a helicopter, it suffices. Lesson learned: experiment on work that doesn’t have a deadline!