Bonus: Episode 15 making of

Hi Patrons! Here is a  big image 4200px x 11860px showing side by side the four main steps of the production of previous episode 15. If you can't open the full-res image you can access the full jpg image file here : http://www.peppercarrot.com/extras/weekly/2016-03-29_ep15_4column-montage.jpg ( 8MB ). The four columns represents key steps in this production. This episode was all done using Krita 2.9.11 and my Wacom Intuos3 tablet. Here is a bit more descriptions about it: 

★ First column: Sketch

At this step, I'm adapting the storyboard to my page template ( https://github.com/Deevad/peppercarrot/blob/master/lib/page.kra ) , and focus on the main volumes of my characters and the composition of the panels. I'm working with a grey digital paper, because it's easier for my eyes. When this step is done, I often turn every lines sketched to a very bright and low opacity blue ; ready for some more serious drawing on the top.

★ Second column: Inking/Drawing

Over the sketch ( turned into a bright blue ) I'm drawing my best to 'render' the character and backgrounds. I still work over a grey paper, but for this presentation, I showcase the result over a white background. I don't really 'ink' or produce clean lines; I feel too much pressure when I try this and my result often has no-life. So, I just take a pencil brush preset and I try to just draw and not really focus on producing clean lines or special line-width. Then I do another pass over it to clean-up with a little eraser, and make various line width. That's one of the advantage of working with digital tools. I still have a lot to learn on this step! :-)

★ Third column: Color Sketch ( translator beta version)

Under the lines, I'm sketching the color. This time I found two new good tips: not trying to be too clean ( color can bleed outside the areas) , keep zooming out on the full page ( I zoom out even to see two documents : side to side with previous page in multiwindows mode ) and paint under the line-art layer turned to very low opacity ( and even with blury filter on it ) to not be distracted by coloring details. The priority is about catching good values, an ambiance in my colors and follow the mood of the  storytelling.

★ Last column: Detailing and rendering

This time, I decided to use a big stack of layers and work in a 100% non-destructive fashion ; you can spy my new complex layer-rigg on the sources Krita files of episode 15 ; the  *.kra are available here ( http://www.peppercarrot.com/0_sources/ep15_The-Crystal-Ball/zip/ep15_The-Crystal-Ball.zip , zip , 325MB ). I found a way to control the line-art itself and edit it on-the-fly, play on the opacity of the line-art independently,  attribute a color to the line-art independently too, add a pass on top for depth of field, a pass on top for corona, highlight and halo. I also used the 'filter-layers' of Krita to do post-effect on the top of my stack ( sharpening pass and Gaussian blur masked for elements out of focus).  This new approach is better for editing! I imagined my previous method to flatten all and paint-over was the simplest and most straight-forward way to edit all ; but now I'm convinced to adopt a structured layer-stack to reach the artistic result I have in mind. I'm only at the start of working this way, but as soon as I'll have a solid receipe, I'll share tutorials about it. 

That's all! I hope you liked this little debriefing I made about the 'making-of' episode 15. A big thanks again for your support!