long time no see!

I started this painting a while ago, but slowly chipped away at it from time to time.  Finally got tired of seeing it unfinished on my desktop so I spent a few hours this past weekend noodling away.  This group of characters have been my go-to team since I started playing Ultimate Marvel v.s. Capcom 3.  Although their synergy sucks and none of the characters are top tier, I still prefer playing characters that I think are awesome.  And these three are the most douchebag looking, trash talking, ugly characters and I love them for it.  Anyways, thought I would do another step by step.

Started with some loose, gestural shapes with enough detail to describe the form.

 Did a quick color key of how this painting can be lit and seeing if the color palette will work.

Instead of adding three more images, I decided to show how I approach painting a character... on 3 different characters... on one painting.  Confused yet?

I usually go in and refine the line work especially on characters that have defined forms.  I turn that layer onto multiply and paint flat colors underneath on a new layer.  Once enough form is painted, I take away the line drawing and continue rendering.

More rendering and also adding textures to the bg.  I've also started adding a secondary light source.  

Add some fancy glows to separate the characters.  

Anime swirls always make paintings badass.  

And finally I added textures on the overall painting to unify it and give it more drama.  Although sometimes I still prefer the stage above. Thanks for looking!