Fae Goddess: 'Cause sexy ladies and roses are extra fun to draw

If you follow my drawings and paintings, it doesn't take very long to figure out: I love drawing me some ladies. So when I was reading The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss and read the steamy and awesome parts involving the Fae goddess Felurian, I knew I had to draw her.

Here's the overall process. On the left there are the thumbnails I came up for the scene. I was torn between depicting a scene between Felurian and the main character of the series, Kvothe, but decided to focus on Felurian and do a character illustration. Below thumbnails is the first lineart with a color rough. I then digitally colored the illustration, but wasn't happy with it. Since this is a piece for my thesis, I wanted to re-work it until it felt better. I decided to re-draw Felurian because she didn't feel sexy or dangerous enough by far.

Here is a comparison of the lineart. I also opened up the top of the illustration so there would be more breathing room, as well as room for type if desired.

Then I drew and painting it mostly traditionally. I felt the digital version I had previously done lacked the textures I can get when painting with watercolor and ink washes, and so decided to start over traditionally. I transferred the rough shapes of the drawing, then refined and drew it in the different color of lines I wanted with Prismacolor Col-Erase Pencils.

I did a monochromatic value series of washes to unify the color and begin laying in the values. Of course, I wanted to go right to the black of her hair and the details of her eyes, but had to restrain myself until the end!

I was pretty into working on this, so this is the only other in-progress photo I took. Here most of the colors are roughed in. I did several more washes--especially on the cloak, and then go to my delicious blacks and details.

The final illustration! I punched it up in Photoshop and Painter (mostly for the stars). I'm much happier with this version and had a great time painting it.

I hope you all enjoy the illustration and a peek into the process of making it. I have a lot more to share in the coming days, and will also be getting back onto my Thousand Heads Drawing Challenge, so the best of 600 should be coming in the next week or so.