Kiseop/U-KISS progression.

It started out as just me sitting outside one day sketching on the lawn, I drew a typical manga guy, and then added some cool military fashioned clothes, and it sort of morphed into a U-KISS type guy.
Using the hair- I was going for Kibum but with his longer nose and eyeliner, My sisters agreed he looked more like Kiseop. And since Kiseop is my favorite, I had no qualms about that hehe.
  I was going to work on the sketch some more and try to improve it over the weekend. I went up to the cabin for some R&R and sat down with my sketch book. I decided to see if I could work on a more interesting pose rather than a token head shot of my typical manga-ness.
After some struggles and ridiculousness, I decided on a pose, but I needed Abby to help me. So she posed and I took a photo. Working off of that I made a reasonable sketch. I used my phone to browse google for photos of Kiseop and I worked more on the sketch.

Corrected some identifying features for him, and kept working on making it more Kiseopy.  

Looking back he still has a large nose, but It's a good first try. Kiseop doesn't seemto be popular where artists are concerned, but hopefully this will get the ball rolling. 

When I got home, I scanned the drawing and printed it out in a larger size. After that I traced it with my light box and kept tweaking it. I photocopied my sketches in order to test things before I committed ink to page, and from there Tweaked some more, ditched the sleeves according to personality, finished the line art, and started to make color test pages.

I had two choices, do a dark suit or a white suit.

Testing both, we (Emily and I) decided on dark for a richer look. Plus when I envisioned my drawing, I wanted a dark room type vibe.

I tried out watercolor pencils and some marker tests. Then I began the serious coloring, and kept at it. Fixing my mistakes here and there, and adding more and more to it.

I'm always nervous about doing things, so I have to force myself to push it further. I'm really glad I went back for one more layer on the black/gray suit. Now it pops :) 

I wanted a dark background too, so after I finished coloring him I had to figure out a way to do a background without losing him, messing up the paper, and not having photoshop. So in the end I used up the last of my lighter cool gray markers trying to make a decent background. It looks kind of photo studio esque and that's not all bad.

 I think it was a good compromise for having very little ink left, not wanting to risk watercolors on weak paper, and not doing a streaky marker fill.

I'm really happy with it.  I even rosied up his nose, knuckles, knees, and elbows for a cute little glossy look. The thumbnail looks spot on, but seeing it up close it doesn't look AS much like Kiseop as I'd like. I'll do better next time. :) Right now I'll just enjoy. xD