How the work is made

Process

Conceived, drawn, and finished by Stephanie Bradley. No generated imagery.

Every piece on this site began as a blank page and a rough first idea. I draw it, I finish it, and I keep the working stages as I go, so the making is something you can look at rather than something you have to take my word for.

How a piece is made

01Brief
02Finished
“Gatekeeper”2026 · Digital illustration№ 023 · its record →
  1. 01Black and white draft before colour tests
01Timelapse
02Block-in
03Finished
Wizards Cat2026 · Digital Illustration№ 025 · its record →
  1. 01Timelapse of this piece
01Block-in
02Finished
“Cryolophosaurus in the Jungle”2026 · Digital illustration№ 008 · its record →
  1. 01The value study. Grey blocks for the animal, warm and cool for the clearing, everything else decided later.
01Study
02Block-in
03Finished
“The Dead Lands”2025 · Ballpoint & digital№ 007 · its record →
  1. 01The first sketch, from a page of creature ideas. Almost nothing about it changed after this.
  2. 02Line work and flat colour in place, before the fog and the final colour pass.
01Thumbnail
02Block-in
03Finished
“Dark Mermaid (’26)”2026 · Digital illustration№ 018 · its record →

A drawing usually goes study, block-in, finish. The study is where the thinking happens, and where most of the mistakes get made. The block-in sets the masses and the light. The finish is the long part, and it is mostly texture and small decisions nobody is meant to notice.

The sketchbook

Everything starts here. These are pages out of the sketchbooks I keep going beside the finished work, mostly ballpoint, drawn without much of a plan for where any of it ends up.

A two-page sketchbook spread of ballpoint drawings: armoured animal and machine creatures, heads and whole figures, worked out at speed.
A coloured-pencil study of a human skull with each bone labelled, surrounded by smaller pencil skull studies from other angles.
A close ink drawing of an armoured creature's head, worked in heavy black marker over a faint pencil rough.
A ballpoint drawing of a many-limbed creature with one large eye, its bone-like arms fanning out from a tree stump body.
An ink sketch of a hooded figure in a long cloak, with handwritten costume notes in the margin.
Ballpoint sketchbook page with a loose study of a mechanical creature head, goggle eye and articulated shoulder details

The tools I use

I primarily use Clip Studio Paint for all digital work, and also have experience in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Procreate. Plenty of pieces start on paper in ballpoint before anything goes near a screen. The tools are ordinary ones. What is in the file was drawn stroke by stroke, on a tablet, by me.

What no generated imagery means

It means no part of a finished piece is output from an image generator. Not a background, not a texture, not a hand I did not feel like drawing. Where I use reference it is a photograph, a real object, or my own earlier work, and I am happy to say which if you ask. I am not pretending the software does not exist. I am telling you none of it ends up in your file.

The record that comes with the work

Every published piece carries a number, and that number opens a record: the facts about the piece, the stages it went through, and a plain line saying who made it. Work that ships as a print or an original comes with a certificate as well, signed, carrying the same number. A record only ever shows what I have actually written down. If something is missing from one, it is because I have not filled it in yet.

Want something made this way? Tell me what it is for →