Picture Process: Gem Kitties -Sketch-

I've always had a lot of people ask me how I do my pictures from start to finish and if I would mind putting up a tutorial. Well, I haven't had the time or patients to sit down and put together a complete tutorial about my picture processes...until now! xD I figured I could put up a section a week so it wouldn't be so time consuming and maybe at the end, stick it all together to make that complete tutorial. *is so lazy*

So this week, we'll be starting with a pic I'm currently working on called "Gem Kitties". Featured are Crystal Beast Amethyst Cat and Crystal Beast Topaz Tiger from one of my all time favorite shows, Yu-Gi-Oh GX. It's also one of the few real media fan art pictures I do. ;3

Step 1: Sketch


The key to a good picture is making sure you have everything planned out. The sketch phase of any project will help you making sure you have everything like you want it. ;3 It doesn't matter how messy it is, since it'll be all cleaned up in the next step. I know most of my sketches aren't the best in the world but neatness doesn't matter when you're planning stuff out. 

So here was the sketch for Gem Kitties:


(Click to make bigger)

Messy! You can still see the construction lines I used for Topaz and Amethyst's face, legs, body, and tail...not to mention the way Amethyst's right shoulder goes through her gem. Anyone can tell this is far from finished, right? x3 Next we'll see what it takes to "clean up" this pic.