Designing Ripley Poster, Alien - Part 1

I thought you might like to see the latest on a character poster I am producing. I wanted to create something graphic, but still retain a paint feel to it. I have always loved Ripley from Alien, and thought she would make a good focal point for the image. I generally mock a composition up very roughly in photoshop and then transfer it to the board using a 1 inch grid system. For this image I decided to use cells of the film to create a collage background.

1. Sketching out the comp.
   Im using a standard mechanical pencil, 2B 0.5mm on an MDF board, roughly A2 size.
   

2. Finalising background aspects of the image
   Whilst I will end up painting over the entire image, I am attempting to get as much detail into the sketch as possible. This will ensure that i have enough information to work from when adding in the tonal values later on. I also like the fact that the sketch sometimes shows through the layers of airbrush and acrylic, giving the painting a more illustrative style to it.
   

3. Adding tonal values
   To ensure that I have the full set of tonal values to play with once the paint has been applied, I go over the entire background with ProMarkers. I generally use the grey set, ranging from the blender, through to warm greys and a black for those all important shadow areas. In this instance I will be applying a fairly solid colour of blue to the entire background so I do not have to be to use any alternative colours, the greys and blacks will serve their purpose and give me the tonal values I require. Eventually the background will appear subtle against a bright and vibrant Ripley in the foreground. You will notice I am not being very neat, I'm blocking the colour in fairly robustly to ensure I have a good blend of sketch and tonal values to paint over. I will come back later to edit any mistakes with Prismacolor pencils
   

4. Paint the background
   Using heavily watered down Gouache, I layer up the colour, allowing each layer to dry a little before reapplying. I used a blue and grey set of washes to give the background a reduced and muted feel. Although it feels like you are covering up the sketch underneath, it is imperative you layer the colours up thick enough to cover some of the darker, black areas of the under sketch. The idea here is to create a background that is made of entirely of blue tones.
   

5. Add the Prismacolor pencil detail
   Once the background paint has completely dried (I used a hairdryer to speed things up), I start to add in the light and dark tonal values of the image using blue Prismacolor pencils. The only time I will use white is to highlight a very small sections of each image cell. Less is more where white pencils are concerned. I am careful not to use blocks of colour as I do not want to hide all of my previous hard work on the underpainting. I use short lines drawn at the angle of that object to create the sense of shape, depth and texture. Eventually i will do this for the entire background, and then move on to the foreground image of Ripley herself.
   

6. Current Progress
   To ensure the image does not feel too clean and polished, I will add a series of splashes and "splats" of a dark red watered down Gouache solution. this will turn dark and will retain its transparency. Also using a toothbrush I will flick red paint lightly onto areas that I feel do not contain important character illustrations. The aim is to create a feeling of grime, dirt, dust and of course a little blood. But, I will show you that next time. Hope you have enjoyed. Thank you for reading.