Tough Luck

Tough Luck is a personal project created out of the idea of wanting to create a video game character. I wanted to create a character that was cool, punk, confident, and not afraid to be themselves or speak their mind, but fun. I was hoping to create that personality by just looking at the character.

Date Created: July 14, 2022

Tracked Time: 30 hours 27 minutes

View Illustration Process Below

Sketch

I started out with a rough sketch. I found a reference image of a woman aiming a baseball bat toward the camera and I thought that the perspective would be interesting and possibly challenging to use. I drew my own unique character with different identifying features but with the same fierce pose. I added some things that I thought would fit her personality best such as headphones for her love of music, tattoos, a choker, a bat with writing on it, and stickers stuck to her clothes and accessories. I refined my rough sketch and added crosshatch shading.

Refined Illustration

Next, I wanted to create a background. I came up with the idea of using stars. I drew various sizes of stars for the background and filled the empty space with a pattern of small black dots.

Refined sketch of a young fiece video game character that wears a set of headphones and points a bat toward the viewer of the piece. Stickers are decorated all over the character. A background of stars and halftone textures are added to the illustration.

Illustration Version 1

Then, I tried to acquire a color palette for the piece. At first, I thought that neon purple and green would go well with each other since they are complementary colors on the color wheel. But, I felt as if how I used the colors didn’t align well and clashed instead.

One version of a refined sketch of a young fiece video game character that wears a set of headphones and points a bat toward the viewer of the piece. Stickers are decorated all over the character. A background of stars and halftone textures are added to the illustration. The piece uses the colors green, purple, and white.

Final Product

After much thought for a different color palette, I decided that cooler hues may match the feeling of the piece better than warm tones. I used a cool green and blue to finish off my piece. I used dark blue to create shadows and a diluted hue of green to color small details and highlights throughout the piece. Lastly, as tradition, I added a rough texture overlay over the entire piece to bring it all together.

Final version of the illustration with a young fiece video game character that wears a set of headphones and points a bat toward the viewer of the piece. Stickers are decorated all over the character. A background of stars and halftone textures are added to the illustration. The piece uses the colors green and blue.