Common Raven
I painted this raven in Procreate using a greyscale-first workflow to establish strong values, then layered in subtle red tones to create a darker, mysterious aesthetic. The red-tinted sky and the bird’s outward gaze help emphasize a bold, slightly unsettling mood, with the most detail focused around the head to draw attention.
Designed as a 9×12 inch banner in CMYK at 300 dpi for the Carolina Raptor Center, but the contest ultimately fell through.
Tools
• Procreate
PROCESS
I began with loose sketches over opaque background shapes to explore the strongest pose and silhouette. From there, I built up the piece through color blocking and grayscale rendering before developing finer details.
final
The landscape works in its favor to make the raven more bold, and stand out. He is also placed in a way where his head carries the most detail. I aimed for the piece to feel mysterious and alarming. I painted in greyscale and added my colors at the end for cohesive values.
