Marco Bucci Tears My Illustration a(Part 3)

The slow grind is real.
In this third installment of my Marco Bucci Tears My Illustration Apart series, I’m revisiting an illustration I first created years ago during a mentorship — and giving it a complete overhaul before Marco sees it again for critique. This session is all about those late-night hours, the quiet focus, and the patience it takes to bring an idea from your head into a polished illustration.

Working from my small home studio instead of my usual space, I’m pushing through the tiny, incremental changes that make a huge difference: refining characters, balancing composition, adjusting color values, and fighting to preserve energy in the piece while layering in detail. Even in a loose, painterly style, there’s so much narrative work to do — every brick, shadow, and shape has to support the story.

If you’ve ever stayed up too late painting, gotten lost in the details, or wondered how to keep momentum on a long-form illustration project, this one’s for you.

Watch as I:
• Rebuild a past mentorship illustration from the ground up
• Work entirely on one layer in Affinity Photo using a Cintiq
• Refine anatomy and character poses without losing gesture
• Wrestle with color balance and value structure
• Embrace the slow, methodical side of illustration

Whether you’re an illustrator, concept artist, or aspiring book illustrator, you’ll see the unfiltered creative process — mistakes, breakthroughs, and all.

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