The Art of Juno Mendiola: Banner Girl Progression

This one is for my buddy Duong, who suggested that I do progress pics of my work. So here we go. This is the initial sketch, which I will often go back to because sketches carry a certain energy to them that is hard to hold on to as you progress through a piece. I find that a lot of your gut feelings are held in your initial sketch and should be built upon. I used reference for the pose, but tried to capture the essence of the pose without just copying it, which I tend to do sometimes.

As my drawing style goes, it gets very chaotic and hard to clean up with so many lines. So I retraced the drawing in order to rework the piece. I got rid of the megaman boots and tried to draw feet like a real artist. Still working on that one... I saw these awesome shoes (yeah, girlfriend!) in a department store and thought the style would look cool on girl characters. I attempted some hands which I still find hard to draw after four years of art school.

At this point, I started thinking about suit design and color scheme. Tracing paper is awesome for this stuff because you can just throw something into the mix, tear it down, and try again.

Now the piece seems to have lost some of that energy from the initial sketch. Back to tracing.

I decided to push the arch in the lower back more to show off that booty. I simplified some of the features because the style of the face and the body just didn't fit. Okay, so now we're getting somewhere, but it's still missing something. Back to the sketch, and I notice that the sketch had this powerful back arch that was no longer in the drawing. Also, I started to skimp on the boobage along the way. Hey, I don't discriminate. I appreciate boobs of all different sizes, but something's gotta keep this girl weighed down. I jest...