But like any other professional works, the commissioner was very picky and precise since real money was on the line, not just on the commission fee side, but on sales return as well.

Okay, so let us begin then.

Step 1

So the work process began with providing them a couple of thumbnails. The precise description they gave me was ‘Anime girl and mechs’ so I was given a basic concept to work with. For most part I tried avoiding Five Star Stories or Gundam Wing styled mechs in favor of more realistic, down to earth mechs. What I gave them is 4 distinctive mech style in different views. They wanted me to have 2 thumbnails for each one, with hatch open and hatch closed.

Step 2

In the end the number 2 won out in their secret meeting of death and agony (dunno lol) and they had forwarded their intention to me. The guys at IFX made sure that I keep them updated with the progress as this whole cover project was a very sensitive process.

As soon as I was given a go I began painting in details in black and white to make sure of the overall design – before I moved onto full color. Personally, this is my greatest regret working on this piece. It proved to be fatal as it forced me unnecessary amount of extra work painting both in black and white and then color, as opposed to straight to color techniques which is much faster.

Step 3

At this point it was clear I could not paint the mech accurately without having a full view of the mech. I then had the canvas size increased and added rest of the body – which looks quite awful at this time. At the moment I’m still unsure of which direction to take this mech to. This whole concept brewed gradually over time as I added more piece in and painting further in detail.

Step 4

And here I extended the canvas beyond the top hatch so that could be included as well. The upper body now looks noticeably more structured, but I’m still feeling a little uncomfortable with the general design.

Step 5

So I play around with the design for a while and finally settled with this. Before settling in, I tried couple different things with how weapons are laid out and what the weapons will be for. The basic concept I came up for it was an all-purpose mech that’s able to carry anti-personal, anti-tank missions.

Step 6

Here I add in some perspective guidelines for later use with backgrounds and proper mech placement. It may be easy to mistake it as a one-point perspective, but it’s really a two-point perspective. There’s a trick I learned from Andrew Hou on how to accurately do this, but I’ll save that for another time.

Step 7

The background is added roughly just to get the basic idea. You notice that I’m already going with the whole garage/warehouse concept for the background.

Step 8

The hatch perspective is corrected and the design tweaked. I really wanted to draw the hatch as if it will actually fit.

Step 9

Just adding more details here… I also change the perspective on mech’s feet so it’ll be more in line with the perspective guidelines I laid down.

Step 10

More details, but here I’m really trying to think how the mech will move and function, adding all those joints and sockets while giving spaces so the parts can bend and extend. Proper implementation of functionality to your art may not be the most ‘artsy’ thing, but it does add realism.

Step 11

Flip image trick again, but then I do this after drawing the hatch closed… The girl is actually safe under that closed hatch layer. Don’t you worry.

At this point I send what I have to IFX guys for periodic check-up and they tell me to drop the hatch in favor of just the girl. I immediately delete the hatch layer following their message.

Step 12

Now I feel that I have laid out most of important stuff and I feel confident enough to move on to coloring. I first use a layer with ‘color’ option to subtly give color to various parts – mostly blue.

I have a bad habit of throwing blue on everything I’m not sure how to color. Don’t do that.

Step 13

The image is flipped back to continue painting normally.

Step 14

Here I’m indicating cast shadows and cockpit glows. I don’t remember my precise thoughts back then, but I must have decided to go with this particular color concept quite early on.

Step 15

The cockpit receives some detail works. I also improve the color of the girl probably with combination of color layer and overlay layer. (That’s how I always do it when something is off color)

Step 16

And a touch of normal layer on top, and painted to bring out the mech. Common newbie mistake is that they don’t really detail something that’s inside the shadow, but you gotta think of the reflected light casting to the shadowy area.

Step 17

At this very moment I was like, ‘Fuck it. The perspective sucks and my life sucks.’ and then erased the entire background. Something just didn’t seem right and I really wanted it to look and feel right. If you can’t get the perspective right the first time, you can always redraw the damn thing until it does.

Step 18

And my solution to it was to pop a layer on top, use shift key to draw straight lines, and erasing parts where the mech intersected. The result was pretty clean perspective indicators which happened to be very accurate (well, it wasn’t really an accident, but anyways).

Step 19

A thing about my painting style is that, quite frankly it’s schizophrenic. I’m all over the place and it really slows down my process overall. Anyways, more detailing.

Step 20

Here I have laid out pretty much everything that’s gonna go in the background, plus most of their colors. I’ll probably do coloring tutorial some day.

Step 21

Bit more details… and indicators for 2 chars I’m gonna put in and then remove…

Step 22

More details, shades, and shadows. I’m running out of things to say.

Step 23

Larger car, step ladder, florescent lights on the ceiling, and darker shades overall to bring out the cockpit.

Step 24

Larger car, step ladder, florescent lights on the ceiling, and darker shades overall to bring out the cockpit.

Step 25

For now I remove the laptop wire connected to the mech, for the same reason I put electrical cords on ‘City of Discontent’ at the last part. I’ll just skip on things that are obvious to spot from now and concentrate important changes/directions.

Step 26

Overall detail improvements here again. It’s starting to look pretty polished.

Step 27

Some improvements on the fueling car, junks by the toolbox and the whole left wall. Those parts from here on is left pretty much untouched.

Step 28

Here I test out how I’m going to do the ceiling, but it’s a big pile of failure. I’m gonna be throwing that upside down fairly soon. Same goes for the bullets.

Step 29

Biggest change in a while: I finally decide to do something about the girl who’s been looking pretty dull over the course of the process. Interestingly enough I thought the gloss on her was one thing she needed the most.

Step 30

Obviously it was too much so I tone down the gloss.

Step 31

And fixed her damn leg for the same reason I fixed the hatch steps above. I can’t and shouldn’t have her sitting sideways when the mech is almost facing forward.

Step 32

And I darken the scene overall, while reaaaaaally bringing out the girl via overlay layer. I recognize that it is a mistake almost immediately.

Step 33

And revert back to more subtle brightness. You can also notice that I’m getting really conscious of the hatch light as an actual light source (as opposed to arbitrary glow) and use that source to cast shadow on the mech itself.

Step 34

Here I use overlay layer to do all sorts of wonderful things again. This ends up making the girl white instead of beige.

Step 35

You can’t see it but I’m merging all the layers I made every few minutes or so. I’m basically doing all this in few layers or none. I merge them here too – including the overlay I just created above – so I can paint the details over it.

Step 36

More details and improved depths.

Step 37

More details plus some light reflections are indicated as grayish bleed on the mech’s ass.

Step 38

I’m pretty cautious when introducing new elements while painting. I carefully test out the camo on the mech on a separate layer just to see if it will work; and it does.

Step 39

But then it’s not the time for full camo yet. The mech still needs polishing before additional details can be implemented – just like how the wood must be sanded before it can be varnished.

Also I scale down the girl’s head. I thought it was big at the time but I kind of regret it now.

Step 40

More details.

Step 41

And more. When you can’t seem to be able to produce very detailed art, first increase your image size to something like 5000×6000 pixels or so – and really zoom in while working.

This piece however went up to something like 8k and 10k.

Step 42

Much like what I’ve done with the chain bullets on the shoulder, I just used the same one bullet, copy & pasted them to really cut down on repetitive process.

Step 43

Just a bit more detail until I can start my camo…

Step 44

Now the ceiling is gone. In this place I’ll be just painting in some textures and add florescent lights.

Step 45

I was probably approaching my critical mass moment where I just collapse and give up the whole thing. At least I’m nearing one very soon down the line. There were so much to go but so little time.

Step 46

Camo camo.

Step 47

So this is basically how I painted my camo. A separate layer on top, and just painted all normal like, but in one stroke per area – using black and white. After that I just reduced the opacity and it just looked damn good like that.

Step 48

The ceiling light is added with a slight indication of cover in shape of a grid. I just made one grid graphic (in flat view) and used the transform tool to manipulate it in perspective. Works great in certain situations.

Step 49

Just like that.

Step 50

Veeerrry minor detail improvements. See if you can notice it.

Step 51

Same deal.

Step 52

Alright so this is where those guys meet their agonizing end. I pretty much broke up at this point and went in to ‘FUCK IT’ mode. It was like 11am in the morning and I hadn’t slept for nearly 50 hours and I needed to sleep. When it’s like that, those extra guys are just a burden, not a character.

Step 53

I quickly move through places where it lacked details and try my best to wrap it up. The deadline is approaching.

Step 54

And then I realize- FUCK I DIDN’T ADD THE CONTROL MECHANISM.

Yeah. I had planned for it a VR display controller since I could not find a reasonable way to add traditional joystick / buttons, but I left it for later since it would be difficult to add in something floating and semi-transparent in mid-painting. So I just add in something really simple to just pretend something is there.

Step 55

And then some of them didn’t work out too well so I remove some of them to avoid excessive crowding.

Step 56

A VR keyboard is quickly added just so she can pretend she’s got some buttons she can mash…

All of a sudden I realize the piece is finished (well, not really but anyways), so the next phase I go into is this violent orgasm where I just let out sigh for at least an hour (while uploading the file so I can send it to my commissioner). When you’ve exhausted yourself to meet a deadline, the feeling of relief is so great it’s almost as if your soul is escaping from your body.

Luckily the tutorial (for ifx) of this piece wasn’t due the same day the cover was so naturally I went to sleep after sending over the file. That probably was the sweetest, most delicious sleep I’ve had in a while. As a professional, however, I don’t recommend you to exhaust yourself in this way EVER. Even if it means delaying the deadline, it’s better that you take time and go over your work thoroughly. That way you get to sleep, you get to eat, you get to be healthy and your work looks better.

Step 57

After finishing and sending the piece, there were parts I immediately realized I could have improved or made mistakes with. The mini-gun barrel is not bound at the end, the mech’s feet needs WAY more detail and etc. But anyways, the guys at IFX loved it and the response was generally extremely positive. This work to this date is my most faved piece on DA.

Working on something that is beyond 10th hour mark is just extremely boring and I don’t think I’ll be capable of pulling off something like this for a long while – at least until I’m feeling crazy again.

I started of by sketching my character whom I’ve named ‘Father Time’. I have given Father Time a few watches and clocks for effect and a walking stick to add a sense of age and frailty.

Sketch out your character

Once you have your character sketch in Photoshop give it a tidy up with the rubber tool.

Tidy up your line drawing

Adding vectors with the Pen Tool (P) is ultra simple and easy to do. Take your time defining the edges of your character. Make sure you group all edges inside one folder (I named mine lines), to keep things neat and organised inside your PSD. While you create your vector outlines you may find it helpful to give your layers an opacity of 50% or so to enable you to follow your outlined sketch behind. Once finished just put them all back to 100%.

Start creating your vector outlines

Your characters edges will not all be the same thickness. Staggering the thickness of your outlines gives your character a less mechanical style and a more hand drawn look.

Spend time getting your lines perfect

Once you are happy with your outlines you are ready to start giving your character its base colour. Remember to create all your base colour layers in a named group within your PSD below your edges/lines group.

Finished outlined character

I use the Pen Tool again to create my coloured layers below the lines folder.

Adding base colours

Finished base colours

Once you have all of your base colours in place it’s time to start adding the definition and shading to your character. Decide now where your light source is coming from. Above, behind, left, right, maybe below? Once you have decided, start creating your shadows and highlights in a separate group above your base colours group but below the lines group.

Choose your light source angle

You may want to add textures to your character – if so, follow these quick steps.

- Open your texture in Photoshop and go to ‘Edit’ – ‘Define Pattern’ – Here you can name your pattern.

- Select which layer you want the pattern to appear on and open its Layer style. Select your newly created pattern in ‘Pattern Overley’ – Choose the scale of the pattern here also.

- If you wish the pattern to be slightly darker, lighter or even to have a slightly different colour, I apply ‘Colour Overlay’ in ‘Layer Style’ – select your colour then take its opacity down to unveil the pattern underneath.

Adding a jean texture

Once you have your shadows in place take a little time to decide if your character needs more defining or colouring. I found at this stage that little Father Time needed more shadows on his face and his coat as they were far to plain a colour.

Needs slightly more depth

Father Time - Tick Tock

I hope this Tutorial has given you some inspiration to create your own characters in Photoshop. If you find yourself enjoying yourself far too much try your character in several different poses and situations.

Different poses

You’ve been illustrating for a fair while now, is it something you always knew you wanted to do for a living, or was it just something you found yourself doing?

I went to art college with the aspiration to be an Illustrator, but I really didn’t consider art as a career until I was 17. Originally I was planning on pursuing biochemistry & horticulture, & was studying towards that. I was studying art just for fun. But the realisation grew on me that I wasn’t really enjoying studying the sciences any more & as I spent all my time drawing, art college beckoned.

After college I pretty much started immediately working on getting my portfolio together & trying to get commissions, though it took a while to get regular work.

You have a very recognizable style — some of the guys here at SixCrayons have described it as a vectorized eboy style — how would you describe it yourself?

Drawing based, retro tinged, detailed character filled landscapes inspired by contemporary culture kind of fits I think. I often get mentioned as being pixel art because of the isometric perspective of lots of my work, even though it’s all vector based.

I think it’s important to indulge your personal interests in your work & create your own unique voice, as that is what will set you apart from everyone else.

Your work is seen across a whole range of industries. Do you remember who your first paying client was and what the job spec was?

My first published paying commission for an editorial illustration for the women’s erotic magazine For Women. It was for a short fiction story about a woman having an erotic encounter with the spirit of the Cerne Abbas Giant (the chalk giant in Dorset)! Things could only get better after that.

But I’ve always made money from my art. While at school I’d paint rock & heavy metal designs on peoples leather jackets. And at college & after I graduated I would do murals for various venues. So I was used to the idea I could actually make money from what I did.

For your latest book, “Where’s Stig”, were you approached by the BBC or was it your idea?

I have worked on & off for years for Top Gear magazine. Last year the the Top Gear team asked me to create “an unrealistic cartoon simulation” of the Top Gear studio for the Big Book of Top Gear 2009. When I completed that, it got them thinking that we could expand the style into a whole book, so the idea of Where’s Stig? was born.

I was immediately interested in the concept & the challenge of creating such a book as there’s such a wealth of visual material from the show.

It’s been a challenging & creatively rewarding project, & great to solely concentrate on one huge project for so long. It’s in the shops now.

When you were younger were you as good as us at finding all the Wallys, and do you think you’d be even better having completed this book?

Actually I never owned a Where’s Wally? book until I started working on Where’s Stig? Thought I’d better buy a copy to see what it was about.

You seem to be at the pinnacle of your career right now.  Where do you see your work taking you in the next 10 years?

Further books are already on the cards. I also want to do more large scale installations as I enjoy the challenge of working at a large size. My work being vector based it lends it’s self to interactive & motion graphics, & I’m increasingly being asked to work in this area. A long term aim to to work in film & animation when I find the time. But really anything that challenges me creatively & enables my work to be seen in new mediums.

Thanks again Rod for the interview and good luck with your new book. Finally, congratulations on your recent election as chairman of the AOI! As head honcho, what is the best advice you can give to a young illustrator looking to further their professional career?

Thanks. I feel greatly honoured to be elected as the new Chairman of the AOI, a hugely important role for the Association and for British illustration.

First off, get out there and get your work seen by as many people as possible. You should never be afraid to show people your work. You maybe the best designer/illustrator in the world, but if no one sees your work, you won’t get commissioned

Perseverance. It can take quite some time to get your creative career really established.

I’d recommend joining the UK Association of Illustrators (AOI).  They’re constantly campaigning to protect all illustrator’s rights, and if you need advice on pricing commissions, contracts, promotion, etc, it really pays to get help from the experts.

Maintain control over your Copyright in your Illustrations. There are very few occasions that clients need to own the Copyright in your work. Your body of work is your livelihood, and you should be entitled to the financial benefits of your talent and hard work.

Check out more of Rod’s work and follow him on Twitter.

Website » rodhunt.com

Blog »   rodhunt.blogspot.com

Twitter »   twitter.com/rodhuntdraws

So what got you into illustration in the first place pushy parents or natural talent?

Hi thanks for having this interview with me it’s great! Well I always started off teaching myself, since I was about 5years old.. Through the years I become attracted to cartoons and ideas started to flow through my head, I became really creative and had a HUGE imagination. So since my younger years I’ve been sketching all the time and drawing pretty much anything..

What’s your main source of inspiration?

I love Deviantart.com, I discovered it almost 2 years ago and have pretty much made it my life.. It’s what really brought out my abilities! When I am lacking motivation I always search DA for cool pics to boost the mind.

How would you describe the Patrick Brown style?

Haha I like the sound of that! Um I don’t really know, maybe “serious/cartoon/modern” style! I really like to keep things looking sharp and clean in my pics, even in my grungiest, dirtiest or bloodiest pics I’ve always kept things neat! I think it gives it a modern look!

What software do you use everyday for your design and illustration?

I use Photoshop CS3 for pretty much everything, I use Illustrator for logo design. And my graphics tablet is my best mate!

How much is a pint of milk?

Haha random question! Not sure about pints, here in Aussie we don’t use that term but for a litre of milk would cost about $2..

If you could work on any one project in the world what would it be?

It would definitely be for the cover art of the next Grand Theft Auto game by Rockstar Games!

If you could work with any designer/illustrator in the world who would they be?

I’d love to work with Humberto Ramos, he’s my biggest inspiration! He’s a legend! I love his style and vibe!

Which of your pieces is your favourite and why?

AW THAT’S A HARD ONE! Uh I’d probably have to say my GTA LEGENDS III picture, where all the lead characters of GTA are partying in the Malibu club of Vice City. I had so much fun making that one, listening the the 80s music from the GTA: Vice City soundtrack, it was just so enjoyable to look back on all the great memories of each game!

Being Australian how did you feel about losing the ashes so badly? (not that we care too much here at SixCrayons)

Haha I barely know what Ashes is haha, I only know because I work in an office full of cricket fans haha! To tell the truth I hate sports.. It bores the crap out of me haha!

What are you working on currently and what are your plans for the future?

Currently I’m working on a HUGE Grand Theft Auto IV tribute! I’m focusing just on GTA IV and putting all the characters in one big picture, like a montage! I’ve got about 20 characters crammed in and a few action scenes from certain missions as well!

My plans for the future are to keep doing what I love. I really REALLY want to be the best I can possibly be!

I’d love to work for a gaming company such as.. ROCKSTAR GAMES haha! Really I would, But anything similar would be a dream! Maybe creating concepts for character design or cover art.. Anything like that would be awesome! Wish me luck, I hope to go far!

Well thanks again Patrick us guys here at SixCrayons cannot understand why Rockstar haven’t already hired you! All the best for the future mate.

Thanx again for the interview! I look forward to seeing how things go! You rock! -Pat

To check out more of Patricks work go see his Deviant Art page and stare in awe!