Curious question about planning illustrations

[pinkecofreak]

Is it a bad thing to not plan your illustrations like sketching out poses,
environment, clothing ect.. ? Cause I usually skip planning and work straight to the image itself on the same paper.If so...any advice you would like to contribute?

[FrozZT]

Well if you add more structure to your workflow you might be more certain that you deliver what you need to do on time, more suitable for industry work i would say. I myself do not structure my work that way most of the time, especially not in my personal work. Less structure brings more creative freedom and Inovation I would say, experimentation often brings more interesting work than a strict pipeline.

-Niklas

[grimdc13]

I like more spontaneity myself, but I'm learning to have more structure/work flow to work. If i leave it more freeform it won't be as good as if I planned each step, and I'll overlook things.

My Illustration Process(I'm not pro): Thumbs, reference sketches, rough line drawings, color roughs, adjustments, final line, media testing, transfer of final line to new surface, final illustration work, printing/ scanning, matting etc. ( this is for my traditional work , not digital) If painting a canvas, its all about rough sketches, studies, line drawing and then layers of paint. ( I'm still transitioning to digital work).

[walrus]

I tend to work in an extremely structured fashion, and have my final layout and characters before I even think about values and colors. I don't agree with Niklas that it removes all spontaneity from the painting - it just shoves it all up front, when I do dozens or hundreds of thumbnail sketches to generate as many good ideas as I can.

Is this the right way to work? It is for me. It might not be for you. There is no right way. You have to do what works for you as an artist. I'd suggest trying out different workflows, if only as an educational exercise, and seeing if you might get something out of them.

[kanga]

Depending on how high budget the work is, clients, your boss, want to see the layout before work on the final product starts. If you are talking about personal art then I rekon a wip process would be helpfull. Sketching and designing your layouts well is a real talent.