Pirate Assassin Tutorial

Written by Stephen Hinds

Step 01

As in my previous tutorials, I start off with a silhouette shape of whatever subject matter I am painting. For this tutorial I will be painting a quick 40mins painting of a Pirate Assassin using a calligraphy brush and a soft/hard edged brush with a falloff. Start off painting your pose by using a silhouette to make your shapes readable. Also keep in mind when choosing a pose that different parts of the body should be readable as a shape. Try to avoid putting arms in front of the body, unless the pose requires a specific gesture, as they will disappear and bleed into your silhouette, making your drawing difficult to ‘read’. Also try to create negative spaces with your drawings to make it more dynamic and readable as a pose.

Step 02

Also when painting with shapes, try to think of planes and boxes. This will help determine where your light will hit, and where shadows should be placed for lighting your figure or object in an environment. This helps create depth and adds structure to your drawing.

Step 03

Then you start to add values to your painting. What parts will be dark, which areas the light will be affecting (using aspects of step 02 to help), etc. Start adding minor details to your drawing. But only indications of where things will go in terms of design.

Step 04

Begin adding more detail, and quick design elements to give some spice to your drawing. Keep in mind that it’s a quick painting, so it doesn’t have to be heavily detailed.

Step 05

Adding some hair that bleeds into the background gives it a contrast and an appealing design look. If I were to paint his hair black it would disappear and bleed into his coat. So it’s a black and white, negative and positive effect where you can either paint black on white silhouette or white on black silhouette. I added some tentacles for a more dynamic look as well, and made them a mid-tone grey so it gives an overall balance of tone and contrast with the other values.

Step06

By using a soft air brush eraser, I faded the edges of the tentacles to give them some depth and atmospheric perspective. Then I did the same with the back of the coat to make it look like there is distance and volume between the front and back. Add a ground shadow so your character doesn’t look like they are floating and just go over anything you missed. You can also take your painting and do variations of costumes on top of it, on a new layer, to make a series of choices if you happen to be designing. It just saves time rather than being forced to repaint your whole figure wearing something else.