Draw with Brian #8
Magician Sneaking Away 2 — Roughs
In this episode of Draw with Brian, we continue work on Magician Sneaking Away 2, moving into the rough drawing stage.
This is where composition becomes structure — refining character placement, perspective, and proportions before inking.
Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome back to Draw with Brian. I’m Brian. Let’s get into today’s drawing.
We’re continuing work on the next illustration for Derrick and Max’s Beach Adventure. Last time, we blocked out the composition. I thought about turning the knight more fully away so he looked like he was sneaking off more dramatically — but then I realized we’d be looking at Derrick’s back, mostly the King’s back, and definitely the Black Knight’s back. That’s a lot of backs.
So I think we’ll keep the magician more in profile, similar to how we had him before. He still feels a little big to me, though, so I think we’ll push him up slightly and shrink him down just a bit so he sits farther back in the scene.
When I’m doing roughs, I like to start from the back and work forward. When I’m inking and coloring, I go from the front to the back. From your perspective on camera it looks reversed, but from my point of view this is the back of the image.
Our first background rough was pretty sloppy. It did its job, but let’s clean it up a bit. I’ll create a new layer called “Background Rough 2” and refine those stone blocks. They don’t need to be perfectly straight — in fact, slightly imperfect lines feel more organic at this zoom level.
Perfection is the enemy of done. If you try to make every rough perfect, you’ll never finish.
Now let’s move on to the Magician Rough layer.
I actually liked the previous rough of the magician, so I’m going to pull it in as a tracing image for consistency. If you’re tracing your own work, is it really cheating? I don’t think so. It keeps your character model consistent from shot to shot.
We’ll trace in his exaggerated sneaking posture — tiptoeing, staff in hand, puckered lips whistling innocently. I noticed ArtRage behaves better when I switch back to pure black instead of trace color mode. Good to remember for next time.
One of my favorite upgrades in ArtRage Vitae is the autosave feature. Earlier versions required constant manual saving, and I’ve lost work before. Autosave alone almost justifies upgrading.
Once the magician rough is down, we’ll scale him up slightly. He was too small relative to the foreground figures. After some transforms and adjustments, he feels more balanced in the composition.
Next up: King Rough.
We’ll use a tracing image again to get proportions right, but we need to adapt him to a new angle. He’s no longer yelling — now he’s facing slightly away. That means we see more back-of-head, less facial detail.
We don’t have a full back reference of the King, so we have to invent it based on what we know — oval head shape, thick neck, long beard, strong brow.
We’ll adjust posture so he stands more upright and rotate him slightly to match the new perspective.
Now for the Black Knight Rough.
We’ve mostly seen him from the side before. From this angle, we’ll see the back of his head with just a hint of his long nose and squared-off ears visible in profile. He’s slimmer than the King — not nearly as broad.
Finally, Derrick Rough.
Derrick is now the most foreground figure. He’s pointing. His head shape is consistent from all angles — a design choice I borrowed loosely from cartoonists like Bill Watterson. A consistent head shape makes a character instantly recognizable.
Even in armor, Derrick has that distinctive “Coke bottle” silhouette — narrow waist, broader shoulders. His hair shape remains consistent from front, side, and back.
We’ll rough in his pointing arm, gloves, elbow pads, and shoulder armor. It’s not perfect — it doesn’t need to be. That’s what inks are for.
Zooming out, I think the roughs are looking solid. The magician rough is strong. The King and Black Knight are reading clearly. Derrick anchors the foreground.
Next time, we’ll move into inks and start refining everything properly.
Thanks for watching. I hope you’re enjoying these behind-the-scenes looks at the process as I work on this next book. If you did, please like and consider subscribing.
You can learn more about my books and artwork at bdcrowell.com.
Until next time — do some drawing. Put some beauty back into the world.
Created November 1, 2025.
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