Vessel of Lunar Wrath | step by step (with commentaries)

Character belongs to KikiCanuck on twitter
Quick design I made on holidays. It was inspired by night elves from world of warcraft and night warrior/wardens aesthetics.

1 - Rought draft of character design. I originally drew it for personal use (inspired by an earring design I saw on Pinterest), so I didn't try to go into too much detail. Here I concentrated mainly on the whole idea and its silhouette.

I also usually draw such sketches in color, just because it's easier for me. This works the same as working with black and white tones, and I can always change some of the colors or the whole color scheme later.

2 - Lineart. I'm drawing it on one layer over the rough sketch. Here I also added some dark fill spots to add depth (since I did not originally plan to make a heavily detailed render).

3 - Basic colors / gradients. Slightly changed some colors here to make the whole character look more solid. At this stage, I usually check the color and black and white options in parallel to see the tonal structure of the work.

4 - Adding shadows (two layers in multiply for additional volume) and highlights. At this stage, when working with light, it is important not to overglare the entire character. It is important to remember that different materials (such as metal, skin, and hair) reflect light differently.

Since this art is heavily stylized, I added hightlighes mostly to character's metal armor.

5 - Deep shadows (the darkest places) and graphic spots/lines. I wanted to do something in style of "Hades" game, so I used a similar technique to refine the art.

Also, added decorative glow.

6 - Final! Just sanded down some details, added more glowing details and contour light (this thing always helps in separating the silhouette of the character from the background).