My Straightforward Strategy to Create "Hit" (A Four Characters Complex Composition) - Video Process + PSD File

Hey everyone, some thoughts about the process behind "Hit".

Concept

I decided to make an interpretation of this picture with raccoons because I thought this contrast between casual raccoons and the white one would be visually interesting, also I wanted to make more than two characters this time, it is often more challenging but I balance this by making the outfit of the characters less complex.

I did a quick research on popular ideas about raccoons and the topics were various like they are commonly known as Trash Pandas, Clever Thieves, Masked Bandits, Dexterous Paws, Carriers of Disease, Adaptable Survivors, Cultural Depictions, Cuteness Factor. I used these points of information as reference to come up with an interesting concept. Which led me to the idea of "thieves", but not regular thieves, more like fashion female models stealing luxury, I guess I wanted an excuse to make women with tattoos involved in questionable behavior, you know, the kind of stuff I often do.

Execution

The first goal was character positioning, I made four rectangles in order to go way more minimalistic and then I proceeded to "sculpt" each rectangle with brush strokes in order to convey an anthropomorphic gesture that resembled the raccoons in the reference. After I did three rounds of line art on each, the first for anatomy, second for face and costume, and the third one for refinement, my process might change always but the end goal remains the same, good shapes and clean line art.

I was not too obsessed with each character's personality as I often show this mostly through face expression and since their faces would be covered I tried to make them different through body posture, eye shape, and eyebrows.

Colors were particularly out in this piece, raccoons might have some tonalities in the fur but they are commonly recognizable by the combination of black, white, and grey, I still put some saturation on skin, eyes, and accessories, just to bring some balance. Then later I pushed the saturation and direction on colors with lighting and adjustment filters.

I've tried to work with a totally desaturated shadow but it was too grey for me, eventually, I chose a brown tone to make the mood a vibe more warm, the cold light was a good contrast in my opinion. I think I could have done a better job with some values as they should be less and less darker the further they are and currently the black in the two characters in the back still have quite strong dark values, but I'll excuse myself saying that it was so late at night that my vision was not very precise, nevertheless, I still like the outcome.

Conclusion

Compositions with many characters are never easy, even if characters are simpler they still need to be refined in some way, my advice is to assume where the viewer's attention will go when reading and put extra effort on those points. Check the process and file and hit me up with questions in our Discord in case you have any.

Thank you so much for your support.