#THEN TOP LAYER DETAILS THEN OVERLAYS THEN

[starscreamingg]

okay I know the amazing spiderman 2 isn't the best but why does Electro's theme FUCK

[xitsensunmoon]

HOW TO GLAZE YOUR WORK WITHOUT A GOOD PC(or on mobile)/TIPS TO MAKE IT LESS VISIBLE

Glaze your work online on:

Cara app. It requires you to sign up but it is actually a good place for your portfolio. Glazing takes 3 minutes per image and doesn't require anything but an internet connection compared to 20-30 minutes if your pc doesn't have a good graphic card. There IS a daily limit of 9 pictures tho. Glazed art will be sent to you after it's done, by email. It took me 30 minutes to glaze 9 images on a default setting. Cara app is also a space SPECIFICALLY for human artists and the team does everything in their power to ensure it stays that way.

WebGlaze. This one is a little bit more complicated, as you will need to get approval from the Glaze team themselves, to ensure you're not another AI tech bro(which, go fuck yourself if you are). You can do it through their twitter, through the same Cara app(the easiest way) or send them an email(takes the longest). For more details read on their website.

Unfortunately there are no ways that I know of to use Nightshade YET, as it's quite new. Cara.app definitely works on implementing it into their posting system tho!

Now for the tips to make it less visible(the examples contain only nightshade's rendering, sorry for that!):

Heavy textures. My biggest tip by far. Noise, textured brushes or just an overlay layer, everything works well. Preferably, choose the ones that are "crispy" and aren't blurred. It won't really help to hide rough edges of glaze/nightshade if you blur it. You can use more traditional textures too, like watercolor, canvas, paper etc. Play with it.

Colour variety. Some brushes and settings allow you to change the colour you use just slightly with every stroke you make(colour jitter I believe?). If you dislike the process of it while drawing, you can clip a new layer to your colour art and just add it on top. Saves from the "rainbow-y" texture that glaze/nightshade overlays.

Gradients(in combination with textures work very well). Glaze/nightshade is more visible on low contrast/very light/very dark artworks. Try implementing a simple routine of adding more contrast to your art, even to the doodles. Just adding a neutral-coloured bg with a darker textured gradient already is going to look better than just plain, sterile digital colour.

And finally, if you dislike how glaze did the job, just try to glaze/shade it again. Sometimes it's more visible, sometimes it's more subtle, it's just luck. Try again, compare, and choose the one you like the most. REMEMBER TO GLAZE/SHADE AFTER YOU MADE ALL THE CHANGES, NOT BEFORE!!

If you have any more info feel free to add to this post!!

[homunculus-argument]

God, how you learned to draw? Its so hard and your stuff is far too pretty for my eyes

Every time I draw I keep repeating the same phase: Draw the vague idea of what I want to draw, hide that layer and do that again, overlay the two with each other, and then draw on top to average them out. And then I just keep doing that until the lines stop being different from each other.

And I then do the same with shading. Repeat ad nauseum.

Also everybody who has told you to never use smudge or blur tool is a liar or a coward, and I do not take advice from them.

Then I up the contrast to satisfaction, and by GIMP wizard bullshit that's too complicated and irrelevant to explain here, I make the shadow side a cool colour of my choice, and the light pale yellow (or whatever colour the light source is, or whatever looks good). Some assembly may be required.

Then I colour the object, and using various kinds of layer overlay fuckery, I put the shading on it (once again, layers and layers and layers doing vaguely what I want them to do, overlayed on each other and averaged out):

Smoothed out, averaged out, heehoo highlights

in conclusion, starting with black and white, shit tons of layers, smudging and tweaking and smoothing, and only after that fucking with colours, and only after that add details.

[rosamundpkes]

Hello!! A couple years ago I posted this tutorial for making gifs with a moving overlay effect. In the two and a half years since I made that tutorial, I've learned some new tricks for this gif effect but most importantly I've learned how to explain things better.

For that reason, I've created this new and improved tutorial for my overlay gif effect. The basics are the same but it's simpler, I go into more detail, give better explanations, and have more comprehensive instructions.

The easiest way to do this effect with this method is to use smart objects and work in timeline. For this tutorial, I’m assuming you know the basics of giffing like cropping, resizing, colouring, etc. If you need help with this I’d suggest you look at some other tutorials and guides!!

First, we’re going to start off with three things.

1. A completed gif converted into a smart object that is going to be the base gif. I'm going to call this "gif1". You’ll want this gif to be at least 3 seconds because it needs to last as long as the overlay plus a little bit of extra time in the beginning. This is the base gif I’ll be using in the example (except I trimmed it so that I could meet the size limit).

2. A second completed gif converted into a smart object that is going to go over the base gif. We’re going to call this "gif2". This gif should be at least 2 seconds but I’ve made it work with shorter. Gif2 needs to be the same dimensions or bigger than gif1.  This is the gif I'll be using in the example (except I trimmed it so that I could meet the size limit).

3. An overlay in video form. These can be found on tumblr and youtube by search for overlay or transition packs. For this example, I'll be using an ink drop overlay I found on youtube.

Step 1: Turning the overlay video into an overlay gif Most overlays aren’t going to instantly fit the gif effect you’re trying to achieve right away. This is the overlay I got from youtube and as you can see it’s too slow and needs a crop/resize to be usable.

To fix it, I sped the frame rate up, cropped the overlay, and resized the overlay so it fits over my base gif. I also sharpened the overlay (500% amount, 0.3px radius) so that the edges were smooth. This is the new overlay gif and the one I’ll be using for the gif effect. 

A tip: I also like to add a brightness/contrast layer to get rid of the grey on the overlay gif. Because we’re working with blending modes to achieve this effect, any parts of the overlay that are grey will be a blended mix of gif1 and gif2. If you think this will look good for your gif effect then don't worry about it!

Another tip: try to get the entire overlay movement to fit into a 2-3 second window. Anything longer than that will likely be cut off when you have to trim your gif to meet the upload size limit and it would suck to only have half of the overlay.

Step 2: Creating the gif effect Drag a copy of gif2 and a copy of the overlay gif onto the gif1 canvas. I like to use Ctrl+Shift+V so that the layers are pasted in the same position as they were on the previous canvas. MAKE SURE that both overlay layers are in the same position on the canvas. If one of the overlay layers is higher/lower/etc. than the other then the effect won't work properly.

Then, make a second copy of the overlay and invert it (Ctrl+i). These are the layers you should have:

Before you go any further, trim gif2 and both overlay layers so they are all the same length.

Now, we need to rearrange the layers and set blending modes. The top layer should be whichever overlay goes from black to white. This is because when we change the blending modes, the white part of this layer will disappear and look like its being replaced by gif2. In this case, that is the overlay (inverted) layer. Then we want gif2, the other overlay layer, and then gif1.

A tip: this process can be done the other way where the top layer is the overlay that goes from white > black however, you are much more likely to have an error where there is a grey/black line around the overlay effect in your final gif. In order to avoid that, I always use the black > white layer on top.

Next, set the top overlay layer to darken. You should only see the black part from the overlay and gif2 should fill in the white part. Here’s how that looks in my example. 

Next, select the top overlay layer and gif2 and convert both layers into one smart object. Your layers tab should look like this now. 

Now, set the new layer’s blending mode to lighten and the overlay layer’s blending mode to darken. Once you do this, you should be able to see gif1 as well as the overlay gif. 

Step 3: Timeline and exporting At the moment, gif1 is still significantly longer than the overlay gifs. Since this gif is just over 10 mb (which is pretty small for this effect) I’m going to trim about 1/4 of a second off the end of gif1 and then drag the overlay layers so they all end at the same time. 

Now you’re free to export the gif! This is the finished effect for the example gif! 

A tip: sometimes, when I convert to from timeline to frames, the gif becomes a little longer and slower. It has to do with different frame rates across the videos and photoshop but I'm not smart enough to understand it. If that happens, just set all the frames with the overlay layers to 0.04 speed instead of 0.05.

And we're finished! I hope that was helpful and made sense. If you have any questions feel free to drop them in my inbox or send me a message!! <3

[wszczebrzyszynie]

OUGH, I LOVE HOW YOU DRAW SO MUCH!!! If it's not too much to ask could you show how you do it? Because like, your art is so yummy! And how do you color pick?? Every time I see the colors you use I'm just gen flabbergasted

not entirely sure what to give you here, as i dont do speedpaints/timelapses (they slow down my csp a lot). I just draw. When it comes to colours, i usually have an idea how to colour when i do the sketch, as its easier to plan it out at that stage. If it helps you: i try to reuse as many colours in the drawing as possible, to not make it look too much, especially when theres a lot of details going on. It helps keeping the artwork consistent, i suppose. I choose one "leading" colour beforehand, same with an accent colour, if there is one (and its usually red for me). In the Przemek drawings case the leading one would be grey (greenish grey to avoid using blue, as its not a colour i ever really use, and you can trick your brain into believing its blue with context; my limitations extend to not using the other half of the colour wheel, but i know many people dont like to limit themselves like that) and the accent colour would be red. In the other two drawings i try to not use accents much, relying on black (or the almost black) to make the artwork feel fuller. Which is why a lot of my drawings have the black border around; it helps to balance things out. And its good for posting online. If you have trouble putting the colours down, maybe try to do thumbnails? They help me a lot with figuring things out. Also i use a lot of different layer modes, with the ones im most dependent on being overlay (usually greyish reds to make the drawings warmer), colour burn, brightness (very dark colour on low opacity, i just like the effect it gives) and glow dodge (golds and oranges usually, especially on character faces, to light them up a little and make them "pop" more. Just be careful not to overdo it). When i have trouble with values, i make a black layer on top of the drawing set to saturation, to make it a greyscale of sorts. It helps me see where things should be darker for balance. I dont know. hope this helps?

[greenroze2]

your rendering is so good how do you do it

Thanks, I love your rendering too!! Gonna try and make a tutorial ^^

To start off, I'm on Clip Studio Paint and these are the brushes I use! First two for rendering characters (round brushes) and the other two for mostly backgrounds (square brushes)

I used to do lineart, but it takes too long >:( now I just make a sketch and sorta clean it up!

Next I fill it in with a gray color. For simpler pieces I just put in the flat colors, but for more paint-y pieces I do grayscale -> color! I'll be doing that here :)

Also, I make 3 clipped layers on top of the gray - two are multiply, and the top one is screen. On the first multiply, I do a soft gradient using an airbrush

On the next multiply layer, I fill everything in with either a cool-ish or warm-ish gray, depending on the mood ^^

I also determine a light source, and use the lasso tool on the screen layer to block out where (I think) the light hits! Tbh I just do wherever feels right lmao, but I recommend having a reference! I like doing it in triangle patterns

Then adjust the opacity of each layer to whatever feels right, and merge everything (I don't merge the sketch/lineart yet, I do it before adding colors in!)

Now... rendering. Some tips I have are color pick (greys) off of the canvas and use them to paint! Clean up the sketch more, erase edges, but I save details (like Galaxia's red gem, his eyes, etc.) for the end, or during coloring.

After I'm sorta happy with it, I merge the sketch layer, then duplicate it, and add a gradient map! I did this sunset-y one but changed the hue to yellow-ish, then lowered the layer's opacity ^^

Play around with the hue-saturation-luminosity setting!

Now go crazy with blending modes! Multiply, overlay, color, glow/color dodge, etc. Feel free to layer them up on top of each other too, and this is to add the character/piece's actual colors in. For example, I used a white-blueish overlay layer for his mask and glove, blue for his cape, blah blah

Now I clean the sketch up/refine it more. Also, to "harmonize" the color palette, you can add a colored gradient on top. Then set it to multiply, and add overlay/glow dodge layers with any colors you see fit! I like using teal and light/warm orange! Here is an example of a colored gradient:

Another tip is to add saturated colors on the edges of both lighting and darker shadows, before blending it:

Also I usually add in a light blue/grey in shadowy areas, and lower the opacity for reflective light:

Also! You can lasso + use an airbush with a light blue to block out parts of the background (his cape here, for example). It helps with more depth!

Finally, I like adding sparkles on low opacity :3 And gaussian blur to certain areas! I'm using radial blur on this piece though ^^

For the background, I like doing blocky shapes!! I use my square brush on 90% ish opacity, to color pick different hues from the piece. For lighting I use a glow dodge layer, here's a mini timelapse as well as the finished art!

At the very end, play around with the hue/saturation and contrast tools to change the colors :)

[foervraengd]

Quick tutorial on how to paint still water?

Whatever idk i just gotta document what i have learned recently before i forget and the best way is to explain it.

What you will need:

- Any art software that have layers and especially some sort of layer mask feature. (i use clip studio paint)

1: (first image) You can start by first adding the core objects of the artworks before adding any water. You can start on a gray or dull brown canvas if thats your thing. The rock here is going to be half-submerged in the water so thats why only the top part is more rendered here. But depending on the setting and your own style you pribably can render the lower half too, just remember to have the submerged part in a separate layer since the reflection of the water will be placed between the top-rock layer and above the bottom-rock layer.

2: (second image) Now you add the color of what the bottom of the river is. Most rivers where i live have muddy bottoms so im going with a brown color. Depending on how deep or shallow the river is, the more objects is visible. Note how i added a darker shade close to the grass but also at the bottom of the canvas. It’s not mandatory but i’ve noticed that it helps to give more depth.

3:

Now i make a new layer (or in my case a layer folder because i never end up using just one layer) and just add a sky! You can make it daylight or evening or lit up by the moonlight probably. Use either your favourite brushes, the default round brush, or some weird custom brushes for the clouds - whatever suits your style and fancy! Just keep in mind that the angle of the clouds should match the angle the overall painting has - but you can also just give the cloud an unspecific shape that works in any angle.

4 and 5:

Okay so this is where the layer masks are your friend. You can probably be brave and just use the eraser but that method is quite unforgiving imo.

In the first image i used a big soft airbrush eraser (you can use a gradient tool as well) to lower the opacity on the bottom part of the water. I have noticed that, in certain angles, the sky reflection on water is more faint the closer it is to the viewer.

This isn’t necessary but i used two layer masks here, the first gradient one is on the layer folder. The second layer mask is on the blue sky layer. I know that not all art programs might have this, so you can just do all of this on one layer mask if thats all you got.

Now technically these are reflections of the rock and the grass that i am masking away. But since theyre so close to the water we dont get much visible details and mostly just the silhouette. If i had just added a 100% mirror-like reflection here it probably would make the water look like liquid metal or something. However, reflections in water can vary a lot depending on the setting, so look up references that match the setting you wanna go for and take notes.

And this is essentially it!! Yes i know the example image isnt a masterpiece, but i didnt wanna expand this post even further and wanted to keep this simple. You can absolutely go further with this and add more vegetation or animals or droplets or rim light or 50000 overlay layers. I hope this made sense and is of any use or help for y’all out there!

[seiishindraws]

I noticed when looking super close at your line art that the there's slight red green and blue on the sides of the lines like an old 80s anime and i think that's super cool! How do you do it?

oh, that's chromatic aberration! i guess you could say its a kind of colour/visual distortion.

it's pretty simple to do, but i usually just use a csp auto action to do it for me to make things go quicker, but i can teach you how to do it manually in most programs.

i'm going to use this silly doodle of me as pompompurin as an example lol

youre gonna wanna merge everything onto a single separate layer first and then we're gonna work with that merged layer. make two copies of that merged layer so you have three of them in total.

the top merged layer will be our red layer, so youre going to want to got to EDIT > Tonal Correction > Level Correction

the level correction graph will pop up. since the top layer will be our red one, select the green level and drag the rightmost arrow on the Output scale all the way to the leftmost side. do the same for the blue level.

the image should be red like this afterwards.

the middle layer is going to be our blue layer so do the same thing we did for the top layer except youre going to reduce the green and red levels instead, and the middle layer should be all blue like this.

for the bottom layer, it will be our green layer. same process as before, reduce the red and blue levels so its all green.

your layers should be looking like this now

from here, you want to set the layer modes of the red and blue layers to Screen, DON'T do the same for the bottom green layer though. you'll notice once you've done that, the image will look normal again!

from here, all you need to do is shift the red layer in one direction, and the blue layer in another, to as much of an extent you want. the further they are from each other, the more drastic the effect will be

and that's how you do it! my other personal tip would be to add a layer of noise set to Overlay or Soft Light at a lowered opacity over the drawing bc it goes well with the aberration, or even sharpen the image.

if you dont want to do all that hard work though and you happen to have clip studio paint, just use an auto action, like this one!:

https://assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail?id=1713222

anyway i hope that helps? ^^;;;

[nekohooch]

I promised I would provide some detail costume breakdown of my Azem summoning circle. It took me about 85 hours total over 19 days. The skirt is overlayed over a red petticoat (because it’s the only one I had long enough) I made the skirt about 7 in longer than floor length for me because I’m wearing platform shoes!

The skirt is two layers of black chiffon. The bottom layer is a normal circle skirt, top layer is a seven panel circle skirt. Figuring out the math for this part was hellacious I do not recommend it. The top was gold lamé with black chiffon overlay. The waistband circles are gold upholstery bolts that I used bolt cutters to remove the stabby bits of and the beams from the waistband are from a fringey door cover that I dissected. I then twisted the beams (fringe) and fastened them to the skirt.

The Ps and the filigree things are from bathroom wall decals that I cut into pieces. Then I added rhinestones, these triangle book decorations, and sequins for the designs and the giant summoning circles.

The rest of the designs are various additional pieces of fringe, rhinestones, and hand painted designs with gold calligraphy ink. I almost added my statics job symbols into the summoning circles but I didn’t have time.

There’s still more I want to add to this but I’m ecstatic how it turned out and felt like an absolute goddess.

[calocreek]

Hi! I was looking at some of your painterly stuff, and I am in awe of the emotion, softness, and texture of the pieces. I wanted to ask what your general process of making painterly artwork is? Do you freehand without a sketch, how long it takes you to finish a piece like that, how you utilize layering, etc!

You are, of course, not obligated to share about your process or answer questions! If these questions are too invasive on your work, I completely understand. Thank you!

My process for those particular pieces is super loose! I try to use art fights as an excuse to try new color combos and try to get fast and comfy with painting bc I rarely do it it any more. But basically it looks like this!

Loose sketch, I think this was the second or third sketch that I thought looked the best :)

2. I normally start with the complementary color to the character's main color (which was red here) unless I have a specific lighting goal or color palette in mind

3. I block in colors under the sketch layer! In this case I was just picking whatever colors but if I'm not feeling too confident I do color pick from photos or palettes I find on google images.

4. My emotional support overlay layer, of course <3. Not much thought process here, just trying to make it look good + more contrasty!

5. Then I make a layer on top of the sketch and just go ham! Try to separate the light and shadow, detail the teeth and stuff. I start with big blendy brushes and then scale down to smaller brushes towards the end.

All of my art fights take like 45 min-3 hrs (I definitely struggle on people faces so much). I think this one took a bit over an hour, which is where most of them fall! The one below was closer to 3, you can see I used a second sketch layer and did a lot of tweaks.

And finally, especially if you're focused on improving your skills, always collect inspiration pictures from artists who you want to emulate! My art fights draw LOADS of inspiration from @ikrutt + @polararts for example. I hope this gives you some insight to my process! As always, if you want to fuck with my brushes msg me, I can email you them :)

[nectar-cellar]

4t3 Conversion: Littledica Soft Tummy Overlay (Accessory)

I really wanted to give my sims some soft bellies without removing all their muscle and vein definition.

To show the before-and-after effect, my sims in the pictures have the muscle definition slider set to 100%.

Details:

accessory (sock section) with custom thumbnail

for male sims only - the female body is uv-mapped a bit differently and I am lazy ok

this accessory layers on top of the skin, but underneath body hair

1 recolourable channel

3 presets from strong to medium opacity

texture blends in best with maxis match skins

TS4 original here

Matching the colour to your sim's skin tone exactly can be tricky, so you might have to switch between live mode and CAS a few times to get it right. You can see I left it a bit too light on Rainer in one of the pics butt fuck it

The ab muscle definition might still appear visible in CAS with this accessory on, but it will be covered up in live mode.

This accessory goes great with the torso mesh edits in my downloads btw 💋

Download: simfileshare / mega

[enden-k]

my back ups for process of this piece i drew, as asked (hope it makes sense jkbjkb)

this site loves destroying quality so pls do click/zoom in how u want for better quality

1-3: rough sketch of the vision i had — proper sketch — prepped sketch

4-6: flats underneath — some small highlights (face), color correction (hair), small details (hair, shirt and hat) — more, finer details (hat details, glow effects of hat and boob gem, gold details) and kaveh sketch (i usually just paint him as a blob and add details to flesh out later)

7: at this point i merge my layers again so i can more easily paint on top and adjust things. fleshing kaveh out more (his eyes, teeth, feathers and their shimmer) — 8: dupe + blur like i do as usual for softer/dreamy effect

9: bunch of blue and pink overlay and 10: blue hard light layers to set up the atmosphere i want ft bg (i also added haithams chisel light mirrors here bc i forgot them earlier, so i also added some of their reflection/light on his hat)

11-12: adding lights/rim lights and reflections + glow effects until im satisfied

[thedustyleaves]

Sorry if you’ve answered this before, but I really love how your illustrations have such a cohesive color palette, how do you pick your colors to have a certain theme without looking monochromatic?

(In your breakdown on the saloon/western BP illustration, you mentioned that the overall color was reddish brown so you added blue to the main group to set them apart. But like how did you decide on which reddish brown colors to use for the flats?)

Thank you!! Your art is really expressive and the colors always work so well in the illustration. I’m always in awe of your pics

That’s an excellent question! My drawings actually start out pretty monochromatic because I tend to put most of my effort into the lighting and shading part to help differentiate where I want people to look.

For all of my pieces, I want my characters to be in focus. So no matter what, I always have to keep their main colors in mind and make sure their outfits and the background don’t clash with them (Kain’s red hair tends to be a problem, pft).

For my flats, I generally work with two main colors that tend to contrast each other and then I mix a lot of neutrals around them. (Sometimes the main colors are in the light and shading itself, but I’ll just focus on the flats!).

Sometimes, I will change the hue of their colors. So while Kain has bright orange hair, I will dull it down if it overwhelms the piece or doesn’t fit with the tone - like I did for the cowboy drawing - but never so much that it no longer looks like him.

With the cowboy drawing as an example, if I strip it down to my flats, it instantly becomes very dull and monochromatic. I really enjoy working with these colors because they’re easy on the eyes (or my eyes specifically) and I can see the difference in subtle hues a lot better than if they were very high in contrast. I like working with subtleties when I want background characters to become a single unit but still be separated as individual people.

When I picked the colors for the background, I wanted to separate the characters from the walls. Therefore, I kept the walls red and gold, and the characters brown - they’re still within the same warm-colored family, but they’re far enough away from each other that they don’t become one with each other. I also like to not have clothes from different characters blend together, so overlapping colours can't be the same. I made one coat lighter than the other, the glove warmer than the dark jacket, and so on.

(their coats are also in the same realm as the green/gold colour of the details for the curtains and the frames on the walls)

For the paintings I actually chose to put a bit of blue and green in to help create some interest for the main characters and keep your eyes around that area, as it matches the blue they’re wearing, just a whole lot darker. It also makes them pop just enough so they look interesting against the wall, but not enough to overshadow the main characters

I know, because of the way I work with layers, that when I add my overlays, I automatically brighten and saturate the colors a lot. It’s a lot easier for me to saturate something “dull” and move it into all kinds of hues than saturating something already high in contrast and then trying to force it into a new color theme.

But because of this, I usually have to go back and change the colors I work with constantly while the overlays are on. Since the overlays don’t know what sort of materials they’re laying on top of, everything gets lighter and washed out, so dark skin tones, hair, and clothes have to be corrected one by one afterward. If I were to remove the overlays after I corrected it to make it feel like a dark blue outfit on Raki, it’s basically just a black void now; but with the overlay, it’s a dark blue outfit. Before that, he simple blended in with the background too much and he didn’t feel like he was a part of the group either. 

I always try to put down colors how I imagine they’re going to look like, unaffected by light, but I’m also naturally drawn toward more earthy and warm tones, so all of my color choices will tend to lean that way.

Here’s another example of main colours vs. neutrals; the main colours are red and green/turquoise, with dark browns and greys to encapsulate them, and gold for accents or to make certain things pop (the chair, Dakon’s dark coat, etc.).

I never want them all to wear the exact same color, but I want them to feel connected and be in the same 'colour family,' so Dakon and Kain have nearly the same dark red/brown, and Christie and Raki have nearly the same 'bright'/red.

The blacks and browns, I’ve kept warm as well, so they stay within that realm of red. I also make sure that none of them are too close to Kain’s hair since he’s in the middle of the piece, and I want your eyes to be drawn toward the middle, and his orange hair helps with that.

The paintings I basically do not care too much about, as long as each individual painting has a single dominating colour. I mute them down with a darker overlay and ensure they don’t have strong shadows and light, so they get pushed to the background, so despite being a bunch of different colours, each painting feels like a solid color and they’re still cast in the same light as the rest of the piece, so they feel like they belong in the same room.

I try to help move the eye around the piece as well, so I keep the big painting sort of in the same realm of red and brown as the main characters, because it’s so big it shouldn’t dominate with a new color and force interest toward it. The blue/purple ones melt in with the background as they’re close to the turquoise background, but without disappearing, the yellow ones work sort of like the gold accents and blend in with the frames, and the green paintings at the top give the illusion of a monochrome fade, so everything gets more eerie and green as the image goes up - there’s also a subtle green fade that affects the gold accents from the top down, to enhance that effect.

This is just a few examples, if there are any pieces in particular you were thinking of, and it’s neither of these, just let me know, and I can break those down as well!

Thank you for the question; I hope I answered it somewhat, and thank you for the kind words! <3

[kozachenko]

(Click the image for better quality)

Yipeeee that Keiki and Mayumi fanart I posted the WIP of is finally done woooo- This piece was a very experimental one that I'm kind of OK on. Maybe because I've just gone insane looking at it for so long and I'm my own worst critic lol.

Artist's Notes;

So I've once again been playing around with my rendering style, mainly because I have been wanting to improve my lighting for a while now and as I was just scrolling through Tumblr, I saw some of the official art for that one webcomic-turned-animated-TV-Show Lackadaisy and was immediately inspired. I also have seen a technique a few times in the past where the lineart and shading are merged together, so I've been meaning to try that for a little while.

I did some experimentation on this one sketch of Keiki I posted in my sketch dump and I really liked the results of it, so I carried those over to this piece.

I ended up scaling up Keiki and Mayumi from the original WIP because I felt like they were both getting lost in the composition, and I'm glad for that because I think it works a lot better. I'm not a fan of how Mayumi's sword turned out at all, but it's not really meant to be the focus of the piece so eh. Overall, I think I could do better with my colours, probably because with Keiki and Mayumi's colours, I did them flat in greyscale and then used a brush on the overlay blend mode to colour all of them over, after which I changed the base layer for their colours from white to yellow and then lowered the opacity so it all went together better. I also decided to use gradient maps for a lot of the background elements, mainly to experiment with getting in my values first to make them pop out more. I ended up finding a really nice sky gradient on Clip Studio Paint that I really liked, and that kinda helped to establish the colour scheme of the background a lot. I think the whole "start in greyscale then colour" thing really works better with painterly styles rather than more illustrative ones, and while it is good at making sure your values are more readable, I honestly don't think I have the skill level to pull that off yet. Honestly, I think I've been looking at this drawing too long or maybe I added too much to it, but I wish I could've made the colours less monochromatic, but I'll just save that for the next piece I do.

I do love how the flame (...well it's more of a weird space rift than anything in this piece) and the lighting turned out, those were fun to do. I was initially struggling with the flame and how Mayumi is positioned in front of it before realizing "Oh wait! This is a weird abstraction of a weird creature! I don't have to follow the laws of anatomy!" and just dislocated it's flamey bottom jaw from the main body. I also changed the colours of it since I was really not liking how incredibly bright it was when it had lighter colours. Again, the gradient maps served the more painterly style of the flames well.

I also love how Mayumi turned out. I could do her sleeves better but that's more of just me needing to study how those types of sleeves fold in that position more. I'm also very happy with the posing, the technique I used for that was taking photos of myself in the positions I wanted, blocking in the silhouette and then modifying that by adjusting it to my lines of action that I drew on top of the original photos, and then sketching over the silhouettes and drawing in the shapes of the hands overtop of the photo if I needed to get the fine details right. As for what I do to take the pictures myself, I use a tall chair I have, prop up my phone with a phone stand, put on a ten second timer and scramble to get in position. Yes, I did have to use a bunch of thin markers I had to try and get the hand positioning on Keiki's pose right, yes I do have a fake sword that I used to get the positioning of Mayumi's arms and hand right, the sword was for an old Halloween costume from several years ago. I really like how both Keiki and Mayumi turned out in this drawing, I'll have to play around with these designs for them more in future drawings.

Also, if you wanna know why I draw buildings like that, when I watched Fantasia 2000 as a kid (One of the Disney movies where they make really beautiful animations to classical music) the way they drew the buildings in the first few sections Rhapsody in Blue segment (the jazz one with the cities) changed my brain chemistry and now whenever I need to draw buildings really quickly, I refer back to that. Since the buildings aren't really the main subject, I didn't put much thought into them.

As you can tell I am very tired of this piece, mainly because I made things harder for myself by overcomplicating the process compared to what I usually do, mainly with the whole "starting in grayscale then adding colour." I'd honestly just prefer having a black layer set to colour that I can just toggle on and off when I need to see the values, but it was good to experiment. And that was mainly the point of this whole drawing, to experiment. I'm definitely going to have to play around with this new style I'm going for, mainly because I liked how it turned out a lot in the augmented Keiki sketch, and also because I want to find ways of making it suit my style more. I also really want to keep experimenting with my lighting like this, it's very fun. Last but not least I am never starting in greyscale again because dear god I do not like the workflow it forced me into. I don't have a problem with the method itself it's mainly just a skill issue lol.

If you wanna read my headcanons for these two, I put them in my WIP post, so you can read them there if you want to. The more I look at this the more I prefer the simplicity of my WIP. I might go back to this and just take away the fancy colours and effects to see what it looks like without all of that stuff and reblog this post with that drawing, but for now, I don't think I can look at this drawing again for a while.

[copperbadge]

My latest wax seal stamp is actually slightly too detailed to do cool cutout work like I do with many of the others, but I've found if I make a multicolor version of it and then overlay that with a second stamping of "clear" wax, it gives a really cool stained-glass effect.

[ID: An image of a brass sealing stamp, showing an ornate oblong stained-glass window with a round "rose" window at the top; to the left of it is the result of a seal made with it. The seal has a base of black, red, and purple colors, sometimes asymmetrical and sometimes following the lines of the window's arches; there is a semi-clear layer over the top of the colorful parts, which gives it a faintly luminous three-dimensional appearance.]

[tangledinink]

I love your style and how you utilize halftones and textures and colours. It’s just so tasty! I’m curious if you’d be willing to show a bit of your process on how a comic page comes together?

Ah, thank you! ; w ; And sure, I can try, at least! Usually I start with some kind of a script. Sometimes it's a bit more detailed, like this:

... And other times they look more like this.

It just depends on my mood! But either way, I typically have a pretty good idea in my mind's eye of what the comic is generally going to look like. Once I know what I'm making, I do all the rough sketch pages.

... And then I line it!. For Gemini, I go for a dark blue rather than black 'cause I like the way it feels, and it lends to the overall 'papery' vibe. I usually lay down a grid pattern at this stage, which helps a lot with keeping panels and dialogue straight, and with perspective. I always do the gutters and the words first, then the figures and backgrounds. I been leaning a lot into really heavy shadows recently-- one of my professors in college told me once that a black-and-white comic page should be about 50% black and 50% white, and I've been trying to bring that to the table, lol.

I can ditch the grid at this point, and I put down a really light, pale-gray 'wash' on all the panels. It's a pretty subtle effect, but helps separate the panels from the 'background' of the gutters/negative space, and also just adds texture.

I lay down all the color next. Flat colors first, then a second pass over some parts to add depth/shadow, and then all the spot-colors like Leo's red stripes, light gray eyes, etc.

I use a pretty fine-grain half-tone brush for the background, and then a slightly more defined one (layer set to overlay) on the characters.

Once that's done I go back in and add highlights and such (white shine to eyes, hair, etc.) and go and add light outlines to any areas that need a little help being defined-- like Big Mama's arms and hands, for example.

And then the absolute last step is adding paper grain textures and gradient overlay over the top of everything!

(A lot of the brushes I'm using for this comic I got from True Grit Texture Supply, just by the by for anyone who's curious.)

... With Swanatello I kinda tend to just. Go for it. I (sometimes) start with a vague script and then I just draw it. 🤷🏻‍♂️ No thumbnails, no sketches, no heroes, no gods--

Just Swanatello.