Wolf Painting In Progress

A painting that I am currently working on in photoshop. The battle of wills and spirits between two dangerous foes of the canine variety. It is quite obviously not completed yet, but I figured I can use this to show a bit of my process.

A lot of the time, when I'm working on things like this, the very basic picture is in my head, but I let whatever muse has me to tap out the fine details. Like right now, I have no idea what the other wolf is going to be colored like, but I'm having thoughts of making it something of a yin-yang realism, since the above wolf is mostly silver with a little black.

My first step was to create a very rough sketch. I put them on two separate layers so that I wouldn't have to worry about messing up one while I did the other, and so that I could position them the way I wanted to after I finished sketching.




I start with basic shapes, usually circles, and then I just draw outward from the head and torso to define the body. I might use the warp tool if I find something slightly amiss.

 Afterwards I take the rough sketches and I fine tune much of the lineart. I'm still loose, since because this is a painting, the lineart isn't going to be visible in the end, but it helps me define where the muscles are, and it finalizes the shapes of the bodies and limbs.

Currently I'm working on painting the silver wolf, as you saw in the first image. I have the basics down, at this point I've started working on fine tuning details and replacing the lineart with digital paint.

I'm looking forward to finishing this piece! I can't wait to show you when it's done.