ORIGINAL ART, SEXY Angel TRANSFORMING into Demon, STEPS + GIF. First REAL piece after huge breakup.

Hello my steemit family!! Im back with a BRAND NEW PIECE!! I told you that I was back and I wasnt kidding!! I spent all week on this and now its time to show you all what Ive done. It was tons of work and I really pushed myself with this!
I'm really happy with it but... I MUST GET BETTER!!!! Follow me now on my journey where I explain what I did and how I did it with a step by step process and also a GIF in the end bringing it all together!!

• The Reference..

I stumbled upon this image while I was just browsing facebook and WOW what a beautiful girl!!! I had saved it into my folder... * where I save many a pretty girl* and I came back to it and I just HAD to make a study of her!! here's the reference and also her instagram.. she is quite famous.

OVER ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS!!! :O

https://www.instagram.com/fegalvao_/

So yea after seeing that I HADDD to sketch this.. no I had to make a full illustration of this.. SO LETS BEGIN!! =D

Step ONEEE- The sketch..

Always one of the most enjoyable parts of this whole process is being able to just free sketch and feel out my subject.... oh the feels hahah. ^_^. But seriously I love expression and good pencil strokes and trying to get as close to the image as I can! * because of course I never trace.... this is considered to me a cardinal SIN!* my traditional roots will never allow me to do such things....

and of course... knowing me... I had to add horns.. demon girls are my WEAKNESSS.. haha.

Step 2- DEFINING THEM LINESSS

Sometimes I do really really clean line work, sometimes I don't. This time was definitely one of the messy times BUT THATS OK!!. You got to feel out your art and what you want to do. I really wanted this one to be smooth and not too comic like with the thick defined lines.... so I went with this last messy step before throwing down some color.

33333333!!! Time for some color....

NOW I know there is a really nice technique with photoshop where you can do everything in greyscale and then color later.... but I never really cared for it * on later projects I will force this technique for learning reasons* But for now I love coloring underneath my sketch layer and then slowly taking away my lines or my foundation!

Step 5- GIMME THAT FACE!!!

Yes these steps aren't very conventional.. and I hope you all learn something about this whole process but I'm not exactly going on a strait and narrow path. Here you can see that I skipped painting the whole underneath and starting painting over on top of the face!!.... just because I wanted to. haha :)

Step 6! Where STUDY becomes a piece...

Lots of the times when I'm working on something, whether its a piece or a study or a sketch... a real meaning comes into focus, a story for the piece that I'm working on. Because rarely do I ever do anything without purpose! NOW shes no longer just sitting on a bed.. in a room, she needed wings, she needed to be in the clouds. She needed to be a demon, no an ANGEL turning INTO a demon! But here is just the messy concept phase of it.... a good step though.

Here you can see an actual image coming into fruition.. the hair is becoming more like hair, her sitting on a cloud... I was excited at this point * as if drawing a pretty girl wasn't exciting enough haha*

STEP 7!! Time to REALLY draw some wings.... AND a halo... and I needed some more ref.. haha

Ok well I did a quick sketch but I didn't want the awesomeness of her figure to be destroyed by my lack of knowledge of how to correctly draw wings!!! SOOO when in doubt.. do SOME RESEARCH!!! its really really important in illustration, don't be stubborn... get help. It will look much MUCH better in the end!! So here is my reference and then my next step. Also I acquired some cloud ref.. because thats also really important haha. :)

STEP... OMG THOSE CLOUDS!!! THOSE WINGS!!

Its pretty obvious what I did in this next step. I spent about 2 hours on those clouds to get them just how I wanted them. It was really peaceful. Sometimes you can find yourself lost in certain parts of your piece * equipped with the right music of course...* This with the softness of the wings that I also worked on was a great combination of peaceful painting time.

Step 10. Working on places that were lost!

Here you can see that the whole lower body was worked on, the hand... the legs... I added a lost feather. I was really really honing in on the image that I had in my head when I decided that this was going to be a fallen angel piece. I was so close.. but actually hours away from finishing.

STEP I NEED MORE DETAILS!!!

At this point it gets really hard to tell what I was working on but TRUST ME! There are hours here, subtle things in the face... the eyes, feather work.... shades and shadows... skin tone. So much little detail that I worked and slaved on and I STILL wasn't done yet!

ITS FINISHED!!!

Here again is the final piece!! There is about.... 2 more hours from the last step to this one... just so much detail work I needed to do.. but I am SOOOO happy with it!!

I AM BACK EVERYONE!!!

Its been 7 MONTHS since I did a piece like this... a 6 year breakup for me did a HUGEEE toll on my mental health.. But I finally finally broke through that wall.

Its crazy how a relationship can feel like your whole life, and when it ends.. especially when it ends terribly and even though you did everything you could to prevent it... it kills you. Its almost like your spirit and your soul itself suffers and sinks. BUT you HAVE TO CRAWL BACK OUT!!!

I thank all my followers and my friends for loving my art and being here for me, im back guys! And I really really hope you enjoyed this post.. OH one last thing....

MAGIC!!!!

Again my name is NYCTO!! be sure to say hello... give me a follow, share some art... DO SOMETHING!! haha ^_^

Here are some of my old favorites!! Ill leave you with that. I hope you all have a greaaattt weekend.

• Nycto <3 <3 <3

Thanks again everyone.... for everything.