Witcher Fan Art Henry Cavill | Procreate Art Timelapse

Hey guys, Anna here from YourArtPath.com and today I’m doing fan art on Witcher.

Witcher – a beloved fantasy series of novels and short stories, game series and now a TV Show on Netflix! It was written by a Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski beginning in the mid-1980s.. It’s about “witcher” Gerald of Rivia who in this fascinating world hunts beasts. And witchers are just humans who at a young age develop supernatural abilities to battle with all of those monsters and creatures of this world. There are also 3 awesome games, film “The Hexer” and two TV Shows, one of which recently came out on Netflix and has been an absolute pleasure to watch! Henry Cavill, whom you might also recognize from Tudors or Superman, is acting as Geralt of Rivia and does so really well in my opinion. He was able to portray the atmosphere of his character so well. And today I will be painting fan art for the Witcher the TV Show. I’m using iPad Pro 13inches and Procreate app. I’m also going to be uploading some step-by-step work to my blog yourartpath.com, at the end of which you can also get some free Procreate brushes from me as a gift, if you are into that sorta thing! So make sure to check out the links in the description for more content. And leave like, comment if you have any questions or feedback or ideas for future videos, and give me a follow if you’d love to see more of my future content!

Alright, so this work took me about 4 hours to complete and for the sake of this video I changed the speed of the recording to 1000% so it’s not too long for you guys to watch and I can cover the most juicy parts of the process. The video on the right I recorded with my Canon camera and a tripod, and the one on the left is the recording of my iPad screen, not the one Procreate automatically creates for you. Let me know in the comments if you like seeing the recording from the top of my hands doing the magic, or if you feel that the recording on the left is more than enough! 

Okay, so I want to point something out that many beginner artists often misjudge. I spent about 1.5 hours just working on the sketch and a more refined sketch on top of that. And still, the drawing wasn’t perfect and had to be fixed a bit as I moved along. This is just kind of the process I go for, at the beginning I try to feel the mass of my subject, the weight, the basic shape and proportions and only then I get into smaller and smaller shapes refining as I move along. But I never proceed until I’m pretty confident with the basic shapes. And I think it’s important to notice when you watch this video. The fun parts at the end of adding some filters, some highlights on the face and the eyes – they are just the cherry on top of a well-defined drawing. If I left the sketch the way it turned out from the first try, all of the details wouldn’t matter as the subject himself would look awkward and funny to your eyes with all of the mistakes in anatomy. The big picture is the key!

And as you can see I keep refining the drawing. I use the selection tool to select the parts I’m not sure of. I move them around, sketch some more, flip the canvas to always try to see from a fresh perspective if you know what I mean. I’m using a reference image that is right in front of me as I am drawing. It is a reference image on my phone.

So. Uh, when you’re just getting started with a drawing, it’s good to have a small image or even a blurry image because then your eyes will not be focusing on the details rather on the big shapes, which I find very, very important, especially at the beginning of your new drawing. Another thing I also do when sketching is, you know, your eyes get used to all of the mistakes that you made, and they start looking like a good thing.

But we know that they are not. And then tomorrow you could… Well, okay, so did it ever happen to you that you create this drawing or painting and you’re like, this is the best thing ever. I literally just spent five hours in this and I’m so proud of it. And. Oh my God, it’s my best piece. And then you’re so proud, you show it to your friends and they’re like, “yeah, that’s great”. And you’re like, “I don’t get it, It’s a masterpiece!. It should be in some museum” and all that stuff. But then you go to sleep and the next morning when you wake up, something magical happens in a sense that you’ll look at your drawing and, wow, this sucks.

I don’t know if that ever happened to you, but honestly, the happens to me way too often, or at least it used to. Right now I wake up, and I’m actually happy with how it turned out. I still see more mistakes than I see seen the day, the night before, but I am happier now. So what changed from me being so frustrated In the morning with all the art I created? Versus right now when I’m actually pretty satisfied and happy to see the work in the morning without being afraid, it’s going to be turned into a disaster overnight?

So the one thing that happened was you see, when you wake up in the morning and you see your artwork again… You look at it with a fresh pair of eyes with a pair of eyes that wasn’t just staring at the screen or a piece of paper for the past three, four hours. It’s the fresh eyes that just had some sleep and now you’re back to being your normal self. So you start noticing all of the little and big mistakes that you made along the way.

And you know what? It actually sucks! Because, uh, you wake up and you’re so excited to see your work again. Maybe you want to post it on Instagram, maybe you just want to share it with friends or just look at it for yourself and your own pleasure. But it turns out that it doesn’t look so good. And it’s not that overnight you have achieved some perfect sight or you improved your skills so much that now you’re seeing all of the little mistakes. No, it’s just that while you’re drawing, you are seeing that work and all of the mistakes become not mistakes the more you look at them and get used to them.

So one of the things you can do is flip the canvas. That’s why people flip canvases. Because you can notice all the mistakes since you are forced to see your work from a fresh perspective. And it doesn’t even have to be only horizontal or vertical. I mean, it could be horizontal or vertical. I know that if you flip it vertical, it’s more challenging, but it also is a brand new drawing to your eyes.

And another thing that I try to do as I’m painting or as I’m drawing is while I’m looking at the big shapes at the beginning, and then I get into small details, I like to always keep my canvas zoomed out a little bit so I can see the big picture. If I just focus on details, it’s kind of hard to see mistakes because all you see is this one finger forgetting that the hand is too big and that’s exactly what happened to me that I had to fix.

And one way to check if your hand is a proportionate to the rest of your body. If it’s not foreshortened, then all you have to do is do this exercise right now. And you will remember this forever, but pretty much put your hand on your face, and as you can see that when you open your hand and put your Palm on your chin. The tips of your fingers will be about in the middle of your forehead. So if you’re eyeballing it, don’t make the hand bigger than the face because it’s gonna look weird and if the hand is closed, imagine what it would look like if it was open and on the face. So that’s kind of my idea on that.

Also, look at the negative shapes. It allows you to see your drawing from a different fresh perspective that you’re not looking inside of the character that you’re drawing, but you’re also looking on the outside lines of what you are drawing.

So as you’ve probably noticed by the time I was talking to you guys, the time-lapse video showed how I created the rough sketch. And I and another rough sketch on top of that, that’s more refined, and then I colored the insight of the character in black. You’ve probably seen it before with other artists. It’s pretty much done so that you have a strong shape. Then you alpha lock that layer and then you can paint on top of it without the paint leaving the already colored parts. It’s actually really amazing and it’s such a big time saver. You will see soon what I mean.

But before I get to that, I always start with the background first. And the reason for that is the background is far, so it doesn’t have to be detailed. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It only has to be seen as the background, so more blurry, less saturated, fewer details, and so on. So you just have to keep in mind that it’s not the main focus, but it does give the atmosphere and the feeling to the whole painting. And right now, I pulled up the palette as before I started recording, I actually uploaded a picture that I’m referencing and I took some samples from it for my own references.

So I get the same mood. I could go ahead and try to eyeball it, and I’m sure it would look just as fine, but, I like having the swatches beside me, so I get the basic feeling and then I can separate from it. I can add my own colors, I can change the colors completely, but I like starting with having a swatch.

Sometimes I just use the swatch colors and nothing else. Sometimes I completely change them and they’ll be looking very different. But in this case, I decided to go with this, with these colors and with this atmosphere, and you saw how quickly I filled up the character. If I didn’t fill in the inside of the character and Alpha Locked it, it would take me way longer because I would be worried to get over the lines I created and to ruin that shape that I designed with the sketch.

But I wasn’t worried because I Alpha locked it and then I just painted on top and it was super, super fast. And now that I have all of my colors on the canvas, there’s nothing white in there, I can begin by adding bigger shapes. As you can see, I’m not focusing and zooming in on a nose or an eye and going detail.

No, I am very far away and I continue working on these colors. And this is a mood that is shown through this painting because that’s the big picture. And the big picture is always very important. And as you can also see, I am pretty zoomed out. It’s not even in full size of the iPad screen. And I do that so I can see the big picture.

Some amazing artists use Photoshop and when they zoom in, they would still have a window on the top right corner showing them what the big picture looks like. And this is kind of the idea, but because I don’t have that other window, I like working from far until I am ready to zoom in and work on more details.

Like right now when I’m starting with the face, I did all of my darkest darks and I did all of my mediums, and now I’m adding some highlights and starting to refine, starting to sculpt that, and every time that I paint, I try to think, what would it Feel like to touch that part of the body, that bone or that fat or that skin.

Uh, what’s the texture? What’s the feeling that I would feel and that helps me create work? It might sound funny, but I actually learned from my professor in school who said, before you create a figure drawing, it was a figure during class. She said, before you create a figure drawing, imagine what the body would feel like if you touched it, and that helps your lines be more fluid.

And also it helps you understand where are the points in the drawing or in the character that go down or up that have different shapes, you know what I mean? So I always try to imagine what it would feel like to touch that part of the body before I paint it. And it’s very helpful. You should try it sometime.

It helps you understand anatomy as well. And if you’re not sure about something, always touch your face. Your face is the best thing you can use for your drawings. I know a lot of people would buy, um, dolls and skulls and those are all amazing and you should totally get them if you want to play with all of this anatomy, but you can always just close your eyes and follow with one finger around your face, what do you feel, uh, is that a bump or is your finger going inside? And it will help you understand your anatomy much, much better. Uh, so I’m pretty much just using one brush for this. I’m experimenting later with some other brushes, the new brushes from Procreate App, but as I’m not used to them, I just kind of use them for texture at some point.

But that’s about it. I usually just use one brush. It’s called “all” I called it because I made it, and I honestly just use it for pretty much everything in this piece, apart from some texture and his clothing. As you can see, the videos didn’t sync properly, so they used to be fine, but right now, one is faster than the other, but I guess it’s alright to watch anyway. And if you miss something, you can always look at the other video.

With his t-shirt, I also just try to see the big picture. Where does the light hitting it from? Where are those deep pockets of shadows and where are those highlights? Volume is all I care about at the moment.

Because I already took care of the colors and the atmosphere. So now it’s all about making it look believable, like the character is actually in that picture. As you can see, I’m playing with changing the background because I’m not too happy with how close the values and the colors are of the main character and the background, and I ended up actually not changing the background and continue working on the character.

But spoiler alert, by the end of this video, I change the look of the character entirely because I am still not satisfied. For the hair, sometimes I use a regular brush and sometimes I use this hairbrush that I’m using right now for his hair. And this is a brush you can get for free on my website.

When you click the link in the description, I’m giving it away. So if you want to, it’s really easy to use. It’s just like three strokes and you just paint hair with it. I suggest starting with the big size of the brush and a full opacity, and then smaller size, smaller opacity or the other way around it should be fine.

As long as you have some differentiation and not just one size, one capacity, one color, and then it looks funny and it won’t be helpful. In my work, I think I try to figure out how can I make more art in less time while still having the quality that I want. And some ways for me to do it would be to use different brushes for texture and for hair and stuff like that.

Otherwise, I just keep working on it. And the more I work, the more art I create, the faster the process is going. So that’s always fun to see. When I used to spend 20 hours on a painting, then 10 hours and then eight hours, and now I spend about three to five hours on a piece, and while it doesn’t look 100% finished, as long as I’m pretty happy with it, I just finish.

The painting is only finished once you kind of abandoned it because I believe you can always make bank better choices, better decisions, better strokes, better textures. Painting is such a huge process. There are so many different things involved that if you focus on just one at a time, you can literally spend hundreds of hours on a painting before it’s finally done, and then, when you look at it again, a few months later, you will see that it’s not actually done and you could still probably add some more stuff. So I don’t want to be that perfectionist, I just want to bring it to the point where I’m like, yup, this is cool. And if I think it’s cool, then I just pretty much kind of finish for the day.

So this one took me four hours, and it was super fun to paint. And while I was painting, I was actually rewatching Witcher on Netflix. And that helped with the atmosphere. I think one of your paintings, you should, um, watch or listen to music or do something else that helps with the atmosphere you’re trying to create with your painting.

At least it helps me and it’s always fun. If I want to create something happy, I watch cartoons or listen to happy music and if I want to create something sad, I listened to sad music or like watch drama movies or something. It just helps my mood to be consistent with the work I’m creating. So for this time, as I continue painting it, I am pretty much super close to where I want to be.

I’m already adding details. I added highlights. I continually add more highlights, more shadows, more highlights, more shadows, and try to work at a particular area at a time. Something like a face, I try to work on it and then move to another part of the painting and then work on it again and then move to another part again.

I think that just helps me not get used to the mistakes as much so that after I work on the hand, I’ll be back to work on the face and I will see it with little fresher eyes if you could say so. And this will help me make better choices on how to continue working on it. If I just work on the face for the next hour, it will look perfect to me and in reality it won’t be. I guess it’s kind of the theme off this video now. How do you see your work with fresh eyes and make better choices? You know, because it’s definitely very, very important to understand how your choices work because most of them are not conscious choices. And because that’s the truth, uh, we have to be consciously aware of how to improve our unconscious choices.

Right now I also selected a noise brush and a color that would be for his. Not beard, but whatever’s left of his beard and just to add that texture and make it look bluer, because usually for men, if they have a beard or they shave, the lower part of their face is more blue or more green.

But in this case, the whole painting is like blue/ green, so it just kind of works altogether. And making these final choices is always very fun. So in this instance, I decided to add some backlight because I think it will really make him pop. It’s not on the reference image, but I am not trying to copy the photograph and I am trying to create a fan art that also speaks to me and how I see this character. So I added this backlight and I think it really helped this piece and help him separate from the background. I then duplicated it and blurred the second part of it and lower the opacity and just made it a little more believable, which was really, really fun.

So on the left, I’m still experimenting with how to change the stuff. How to change him, how to make him look better. I played with levels, exposure, brightness and everything, and then I ended up changing the colors of the main character a little bit, which you can see on the right. He is now more towards blue, which helped him pop from the background.

I also added contrast and I added noise to him and to the background, which really brought everything together and made this look like a more believable piece of work. And I honestly think it looks pretty good. There are definitely parts that I’m not happy with, which I, of course, noticed the morning after.

And if I could change anything, I would change how his left hand is very bright. I would make it darker. And, just little things here and there that are kind of annoying to me. But that’s the beauty of art. You can go always go back and change it. Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please leave a like comment, subscribe and let me know what you thought.

Thank you for watching! It was Anna from yourartpath.com and I’ll see you soon. Bye. Bye.