I recently completed this digital painting that illustrates a pivotal moment in a friend’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign. This Medium story documents my process and approach to creating this illustration.

Table of Contents

Software and Tools

Conceptualization

References

Laying down the values in Krita

Base color layer

Detailing

Software and Tools

This painting was created in Krita 4.2.5. For years, I’ve used Adobe Photoshop for my digital paintings, as is the industry standard for the medium. However, I’ve found that I was never able to achieve the results I wanted with it. On the other hand, I tried Krita for an afternoon, and was immediately able to produce results to my liking.

Where Adobe Photoshop is more of a general purpose image editing software, Krita is more specialized for digital painting, and has a suite of tools that allows you to easily translate skills in traditional media to digital. And as a bonus, it’s free!

I worked on this painting using my Wacom Cintiq Pro 13". Any digital painting tablet you have should work fine!

Conceptualization

I first started with very rough sketches of ideas for the illustration. I wanted something which would convey the narrative I’m trying to capture.

(I unfortunately misplaced the notebook where I have all the rough sketches. I’ll update the story with scans as soon as I find it!)

The Exaltation of Dawali takes place in the D&D universe of Faerûn. This piece captures the moment when Dawali, a rogue tiefling, is visited upon by the deity of hedonism, Sharess. This was the pivotal moment in her character’s story that made her multi-class Paladin. Some character development!

What I wanted to show is the rogue in the midst of combat, all of a sudden, touched by a divine force. I wanted to deliver the same saintly and hollowed feeling one would experience when looking at a sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Specifically, this piece is influenced by Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa by Giancarlo Bernini. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Once I had a general idea of the illustration and the composition, it was time to acquire some references to use as guides for anatomy, props, and lighting.

References

Getting the proper references for a painting that has a realistic style is the most important step. If you’re trying to emulate reality, the best way to do it is to copy from life and reality itself. Getting the references would help you deliver 75% of the impact of the painting. References will help you understand and better study anatomy and lighting, instead of simulating everything in your mind.

Clint Cearley, an illustrator for Magic The Gathering says it best: