Paint Video Game Character Art

Oliver Ödmark reveals his process for tackling a character-focused illustration, as he paints Jesse Faden from acclaimed video game Control

- Oliver Ödmark

For this workshop I’ll be taking you through my painting process, starting from my initial rough sketches through to making last-minute edits.

I’ll be working primarily in Photoshop with the exception of my sketches, which I’ll be making on my iPad Pro using Infinite Painter. Any excuse to draw while sat on a sofa! I’ll share my thoughts on the key parts of each stage, and help you avoid some common mistakes. I won’t be using any photo textures for this piece because I want to keep the artwork as clean as possible.

I’ve been drawing character concept art for about nine years now. In every instance good reference has significantly increased the quality of my work. When working for a client it’s important to spend time gathering the appropriate reference materials. So if you’re applying my process to your own art projects, do yourself a favour and snap some pictures of a friend/family member with some make-shift props and costumes. At the very least, do a Google Image search. It’ll be worth it, I promise you!

If there’s one piece of advice I can give you before starting any painting, it’s to produce a range of sketches and thumbnails. Don’t constrain yourself to a specific reference image before you’ve spent some time exploring the layout and the flow of the image.

For this workshop, I’ll be painting Jesse Faden, the protagonist of our latest game Control. Let’s get started!

1 Draw some rough sketches

This is the most important step of the whole process. We’re forming the foundations of the whole illustration and so I focus on balance and flow as well as making sure it remains dynamic with overlaps and twists. An image that doesn’t contain a hint of space by letting parts of the character overlap or travel to the fore- or background will look stiff and boring.