I've always been a fan of american and french pencillers, it came naturally that when switching to digital I had to look for the tools that where able to simulate a lead pencil very closely to the original (minus the gray spots!)
I'm using Corel Painter digital 2B lead pencil, wich do the job pretty well.
I set a partial pre-established 2 point perspective grid on a either portrait or landscape 8.5x11 inches 300 pixels per inches canvas to help me get the idea in wich universe I will create.
Once everything is sketched in (characters, background, props, ...), I start the design of some objects that requires it if they're complex or specific, then I makes myself a new clean layer on wich I go crazy with some good lead pencil rendering, to be sure we get the feel of volume and texture of every shapes.
I add flat colors on another layer under my clean linework layer and work on rendering natural hue gradients first on that layer. Then by adding ambiant shadows, cast shadows and highlights (highlights are often applied above the linework).
That's my ''modus operandi'' for a classical illustration!
It gives a versatile 2500x3300 pixels illustration that can easily be used as print, or on many other surfaces.
