Method Man Poster

Welcome back to the second Royce breakdown. We’re gonna go through the steps I took to finish my Method Man picture (draw in 2014). This is one of my personal favourite pieces and I had fun making it.

I don’t exactly remember what inspired me to draw this pic, but I was using a certain style with markers that I wanted to fully test when I made this one. Like the Melo pic, I had an idea of which pictures I wanted to use. The pic at the top I saw online and saved it a couple of weeks in advance. The pic at the bottom I had seen many many years ago and it’s actually extremely hard to find a good version of it online. But here’s what went down.

I found the pics I wanted and placed them in the layout I wanted on photoshop and used the grid method on paper. I drew out the top first and just did the outline of Meth. I usually finish every outline on the pic, but this time I decided to colour the top portion before drawing the bottom. I put the reference pic on my laptop on a distorted filter so I could reference the spotty/shadowy effect the drawing has:

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I used cool-grey prismacolour markers to make the background effect and Meth’s skin. These markers come in a set of 12 and give you 9 different shades from extremely light grey to black. I’ve learned that going from light shades to dark one works best. And layering the markers gives an even better effect. If you’ve never used these markers, they work in a unique way. If you shade a spot in and let it dry, when you go over that spot with the same marker, it makes the spot a bit darker. So the trick is to use the same shade twice before going to the next marker level. For example, I’ll use the PM108 (very light grey) marker around Meth’s face, let it dry a bit, then go over the outer edges of the shading with the same marker, let it dry, then use the next shading level marker; the PM109 (slightly darker grey). I did this with about 4-5 shades for the cloudy background. I made sure to use the blacks to write out Method Man and colour his shirt:

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The next step was to draw the bottom picture. I used my grid method again for placement and then began colouring. I coloured the skin with Copic markers because they have better skin tones than prismacolor (in my opinion). I also did the skin first because it’s lighter than the blacks, so if I miss a line or make a mistake, there’s a chance I can correct it by just using a dark marker over it. The same steps I used with the layered shading applied to this portion of the picture.

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The last bit of the pic involved drawing out the Life and Death words besides Meth. He has this tattoo on his forearm and when it’s flipped upside down it goes from spelling Life to spelling Death. One of the most original tats I’ve seen. I found the pic online and drew out the Life first using pencils and micron pens. I flipped the pic upside down on my computer and redrew it on the right side. I did a light-shading effect in the back and then drew the border with a black marker.

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These are the steps I took for this pic. Unlike the Melo pic, I didn’t use any digital colouring steps or scanning. It was all done on paper with pencils and markers. Every picture in my distorted series was done with similar steps. Check out my store and see my Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, and Marvin Gaye pieces. Those were all done without using the grid method and just completely free-handing each pic. That’s it for now.

Be on the lookout for my next breakdown!

Royce.

IG: theroyceproject

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