The trick with composition is to draw arrows that point in the direction where you want the viewer to look, and take him on a tour around the canvas. Then you place shapes on top of the arrows. Skipping these initial stages can be the kiss of death for the composition, but I’m still impatient sometimes.

I really like the advice of Hirohiko Araki: “Once the final art is finished, after sketching, penciling, inking, and—if applicable—coloring, I deliver the pages to my editor. Because I value the feeling of a live performance, I don’t correct minor errors.”

In case you’re wondering, the character classes are Ranger, Assassin, Knight, and on the second row: Monk, Summoner, Mage.

This is painted in watercolour with graphite pencil in my analog sketchbook. There’s also some Muji pen and watercolour pencil in some of the figures. I’ll come back to it later to do a second pass in Corel Painter.