Process – Leon and Mathilda

In Artwork, Process 12 July, 2017

So a little bit ago, I upgraded from my teeny Bamboo tablet to a Wacom Bamboo Connect pen and tablet, a trade for a drawing. The gent that traded me the tablet wanted fan-art for “Leon the Professional”. A challenge, to be sure!

First of all, I’ve never been great at likeness. I’ve since been practicing a lot with it, but it’s still a big challenge. Second of all, I wasn’t sure what I could bring to this piece. I wanted to come up with something cool and moody, but this is kind of out of my element. I played around with different sketches until I realized I wanted to capture this scene:

Leon and Mathilda from The Professional — L – “Why did you hide your cigarette?” M – “This building’s full of rats…”

First concept felt very flat to me.

At this point, I thought this was a decent composition so this is what I went with.

Stripes are hard. So are children heads.

Leon work in progress — I was actually happy with how he turned out. Jean Reno has so much character in his face, he was easier to draw than 12 year old Natalie Portman.

Mathilda work in progress — Adding definition, and trying to capture Natalie Portman.

Leon and Mathilda work in progress — Scene coming together

Leon and Mathilda — Final piece, after details defined, colour correction, and materials overlayed for a grungier look.

I loved working on this, and I took my time at it, because I wanted to be able to sit back every so often and try to stay objective. I know I could improve on posing, and the the overall composition with it, these are lessons for other pieces down the line.

The final piece with details are in my gallery now.