I was given scene U7_4 (Grigory, Boris, and Oleg relaxing in a banya) to illustrate, and it was my first attempt at scene illustration as an STA!
I started by compiling references which were provided by the professor and put them into my art board.
After examining references, I made a rough sketch of the background.
After sketching the background, I roughly sketch in the characters (Grigory, Boris, and Oleg) into the scene. Just rough poses to try and figure out how I want them to be situated and how I want them to interact with the background.
Once I’m happy with poses and placement, I make a new rough sketch and add in props and clean things up a little more.
After some more rough sketching, I finally started lining the illustration. I like to make rough notes while I draw—this helps me think better and helps other people understand what I’m trying to draw (in case it isn’t clear at times!)