#also first time using this pixel brush thing

[em7raen]

first real post HII

[odetoscavengers]

screenshot studies from thief, wanted to test out some color + material stuff and thought thief would be a fun subject heavily referenced from my own screenshots

[nin-nyan-ve]

आठ

|| रेणू हरीकरण ||

Hakurei Reimu with an indian twist for the toonsutra contest on instagram. calling her Harikarna Renu.

[redslug]

Coloring tutorial I guess

That's my most default shading style, a hybrid of line drawing and painted shadows, and I'll tell you exactly how to get this look. But before we start, you need a weapon This is my main brush for basically anything, including line art on days when I don't feel like switching to something actually intended for inking. It's a lightly textured square brush with color variation on every stamp. Intended for Procreate but you can always just rip the alpha texture out of the file and use it for a brush in any drawing program. That out of the way, let's go. I'll use the same line art as the one in fluff tutorial. Set the line layer to ~60 or so opacity and get to blocking in the base colors of your character. The jitter brush will introduce some color variation on it's own, but changing the color occasionally will add more visual interest.

After this I add a multiply layer on top and dab orange or red in places where we might be able to see the base of the hairs or peek at the carapace underneath.

It's places where hair parts and where it's shorter. This accent color works great on joints as well. Example of the thing I'm going for in real life:

Especially visible behind the head. It's not present on every moth to be fair, but I like to add these accents even where it wouldn't make sense, just because it looks nice. Even on insects without hair. Block in the eyes and mandibles now, best if it's on separate layer.

Now, the actual funny tricks begin. If you're one of the people who only use multiply or add blend modes, stop it, get some help Understanding the math behind blend modes is gonna get you a long way. My lineart is set to subtract more often than not. I find it produces juicier and more colorful results than multiply. I want to give this picture a warm orange feeling, so the color of my lines should be the opposite - blue.

And, subtract.

Perfect, but not quite. We can push the lines to an even softer feeling. Take the line layer, copy it, invert the color and set to multiply. I then throw gaussian blur on the resulting copy and reduce opacity until the lines bleed into the surroundings just a little bit.

On to actual shading. People who shade without getting in some background first scare me, so let me throw something together real quick.

A simple gradient will also suffice for this use. We just need some information on which colors are present in the surroundings. Copy your background, bring it on top of your character layers and gaussian blur it real hard. Set it to multiply, remove all parts of the layer that go beyond the pixels of the base color layer. Adjust opacity until the character fits in the background.

Let's identify the light sources. In this case it's only the sky, but it produces two distinct colors - soft blue lighting comes from the top, slightly stronger red comes from behind. The blue light I set to exclusion blend mode because it felt most appropriate in this case. Both add and screen looked too strong to be the light coming from such dark sky.

In this lighting context the lower part of the body will receive less light that the upper part. I use the green of the bushes set to multiply to darken the bottom.

The character is surrounded by all kinds of soft light, but it can't get everywhere. It's time to add ambient occlusion, or contact shadows, for those without a 3d background. Anywhere where there is a crevice or surfaces almost touch, a soft shadow will form.

I do it on a multiply layer with a neutral gray-green color. Gray because any color light isn't really getting in there and green because the fluff is somewhat transparent and whatever light does pass through it gains a greenish hue.

Last step, red rim light from the fading sunset behind the character.

Since it's rim light I just work with normal blending mode. Setting it to add or something of the sort would make the rim light brighter than the source of the light. And it'd be odd.

And that's it. I usually throw on some post processing in Snapseed. Pull some curves, throw on a bit of grain, etc. But it's a topic for another time.

In conclusion, try to think about the environment more when shading. What route does light go through to reach where you're coloring? Did it reflect off of any colored surface? Did it pass through something transparent to gain a different hue? What color shadow would this ambient lighting produce? Go have fun with your colors now.

[darckxlady]

could you please do a tutorial of your game of thrones 'so much for stardust' gifs where it has the ripped paper textures? it's so pretty, and i'd like to learn how to do one with just the texture in the middle and two gifs on either side, like half and half and just having a rip in the middle. it's so cool how you did a gif in the middle though so i wanted to ask as well! all of them are so cool looking. you are extremely talented. if you don't want to though i understand :) thank you

TORN PAPER EFFECT + BLENDING TUTORIAL

thank you so much for your sweet words, dearest anon and i'm sorry it took so long to answer but it's here now so i'll try my best to explain <3 disclamer: this is the first tutorial i ever made, it's very screenshot heavy and it assumes the basic knowledge of ps and gifmaking. if there's something you don't understand, don't hesitate to ask <3 so, let's get to it!

1. PREPARING THE BASE As you can see in this shot there's a lot of space between Rhaenyra and Alicent and that makes it perfect for the ripped paper overlay without hiding much of the base gif. So the first thing i did was to crop it like this:

Also you want to make sure that the highlighted box (delete cropped pixels) is unchecked! After taking the usual steps for the animation (creating frames from layers, reversing the frames, setting frame delay) you continue with the video timeline and convert your frames into a smart object. psa: if you don't have the motivation or the time to play around with coloring here are some psds i recommend: 1, 2; as for the sharpening i think this one is the best.

now that you have your smart object sharpened and colored what you want to do next is drag it to the end of the canvas and duplicate it. after that you move the copy on the other end like the original and make sure it's under the coloring layers, like this:

After that you have to create layer masks (the highlighted icon above) for both smart object and the copy and change the blending option of the copy to screen or lighten (whatever looks best!). So this is how it looks now:

pls ignore that there are no layer masks on the smart objects i just added them after changing the blending rip </3 Now, as you see both gifs are like fighting eachother for their rightful place on the canvas. (fgfgfdf) To fix that you have to use a soft round brush to delete the parts you don't want. (feel free to play around with the brush however you want to get the result you want!) Here's my result:

2. THE OVERLAY

Now for the both gifs you want to use for the ripped paper effect you pretty much apply the same steps as the ones you did with the gifs for the base. Here are the two gifs i chose:

Before blending both gifs however you want to create a clipping mask for each of the smart objects coloring layers, like this:

And now you're ready to blend both gifs together! You choose the group with one of the gifs and change the blending again to screen or lighten and place the said group on top of the other. So this is how it looks now:

optional: if you feel like the base gif doesn't pop out enough you can always add a gradient map on one of both gifs and play around with the opacity and the color you think fits best.

Then you add a layer mask on the overlay gif group and again play around with the brush to delete what you don't want. So this is the final result:

ps - don't repeat my mistake by placing the group with the layer mask under the other group. it should be on top and the blending option should be lighten or screen.

After blending both gifs together, you're ready to place them on the base. So first thing you want to do first is place both groups of each gif in one single group together. Then you duplicate the said group in the psd of the base gif and create a layer mask. This is how it should looks:

Now, in order to create the ripped paper effect, you'll have to download a ripped paper brush pack. This is the one i use. After loading the brushes in ps (if you don't know how here is explained) you're ready to begin! Change the size and angle however you'd like to make it look how you want. And if you want you can move the overlay gif by choosing both groups in case you aren't happy with the adjustment. This is how it looks like so far:

We're almost done! Now you have to find a paper texture, (i got mine from google) place it between both groups of your gifs and create a layer mask, like so:

What you have to do here is pretty much the same thing you did with the overlay gifs. Still, make sure there's enough space for the text you want to write in. However, if you think that the space isn't enough you can just delete a bit more of the overlay gifs. Here's mine:

3. THE TEXT

You're finally ready to type out the text you want! If you're having troubles with choosing the right font and size, here are my text settings:

You can always play around with the angle and if your text is too small, zoom in so you can place it just how you like it. And since i'm a bit lazy to deal with it later, i choose to add the highlight color while it's still zoomed. You just have to add an layer above the text and use a soft round brush with opacity from 70-75% and flow from 15-18%.

For the repeated text you want to make sure you create a big space for writing so it can contain the whole space of the torn paper. Also, write where the text will be seen only and use the tab button to skip the space where the gif is. This is how it looks:

Once you're done with writing the repeated text, you want to select all the character layers and the highlight layer and move them under the overlay gif and on top of the paper, like this:

With the layers still selected and in order to contain the text within the paper the last thing you want to do is create a clipping mask. And that's It. You're done! This is the final result:

[fafameow]

Sorry to come out of nowhere but I just wanted to say that your art is so warm and so colorful and so ROUND in all the best ways and your style really captures my favorite things about Kirby! I've always found it really inspirational!

Also, I love the way your line art looks?! I have to ask (you don't have to answer though) is there a specific brush or technique you use to get that soft, multi-layered effect?

Either way, wishing you a wonderful day!

Thank you so much for your nice message, it means a lot!! I've been wanting to make a small tutorial about how I make my Kirby art, so I guess your question came right on time hehe ^^ As I'll be explaining all of my process, I'll also answer your question about my line art! Btw my art program is Paint Tool SAI and I'll also be showing the brushes I use as well as their settings (i made up most of them a long time tho).

So first here's the brush that I use for basically anything, whether sketch or lineart!

It took me a while to understand what you meant by multi-layered effect, but no the brush doesn't do that, that's actually my way of doing "lineart" (ig it's not really lineart cus I just do sketches that I clean later on).

I then clean up everything, add the details and block by using a grey color.

Afterwards I add the flat colors! I already have my own made up color palette, but otherwise I always use a purple color as overlay.

And I also use that same shade to color the lineart!

Next comes the fun part, shading! Here's THE brush that gives that soft effect to all of my drawings ^^ It's the same setting as my eraser too!

And yeah I also shade with light purple lol

There's also some other brushes that I use for more effects, like the airbrush! (I don't think I've touched the settings that much) I mostly use this one for lighting effects.

And finally the water brush! I sometimes use it for blending or for quick backgrounds,

but you can also see that when put it to "Spread" it also becomes the one that I use for my blushes hehe

Aaand I believe that's all of the brushes I use for my art! I do have more, but I only use those for other specific stuff like animation or pixel art.

Adding some details AND VOILÀ!!

Now you know how I make my Kirby art! (but this also applies for all of my art) I sometimes redraw on the contours to give that "pop up effect" a bit like what they did in rtdldx lol ^^

I really hope it was easy for everyone to understand cus this is my first time making a tutorial! And to Desultory Novice, I hope I managed to answer your question too!!

Thanks again and have a great day :D

[verdart]

I made the unfortunate decision to comment on a tiktok saying

"Blitz has every right to doubt Stolas' intentions and I will di on this hill defending Blitz"

Which made me actually realize in the context of Stolitz how much the fandom vilifies Blitz.

Upon rewatch I realized that he is actually kinda innocent lmao. So here comes the rant hop on in Verda rants at 4am again train.

The thing is first of all we need to work our media literacy muscles. So Stolas stans who think he is a uwu babygirl that dod nothing wrong repeat after me. "Blitz didn't watch "just look my way", "owl in a cage" or any other Stolas longing scene that we cried over"

Now that thats setteled I don't want to hear any "he is trying" bs because as of now (pre full moon s2e8) he hasn't actually done anything that Blitz is aware.

Lets start from the top my initial comment was about how Stolas treated him for so long before actually catching the feelings and how Blitz has a right to think he is not genuine.

Up top lest start with the condescending pet names and I won't be hearing Blitz cant be mad at that Stolas does it bc he thinks he likes it... jesus okay s2e1 when stolas starts the imp dirty talk what does blitz do a) encourage him b) get naked and dtf bc that was hot, c) shuts him up

Ding ding ding C. Stolas can still take this as bedtime play sure but we have a case for Blitz not liking it from day one. Other than that we all know he views Stolas' (perhaps in his mind endearing) pet names as condescention.

Secondly even if we ignore the power imbalance Stolas is the one to suggest the transactional fucking... s1e1 even tho in the forst time it was Blitz's doing, sorta. So don't at me saying well Blitz just uses him for the grimoire, like girly duh that was the premise. But Stolas also uses Blitz. Imo lending a book vs fucking in payment is a bot excessive but for Blitz's case beggars cant be chosers.

Now to the elephant in the room... Ozzie's. Does Blitz invite him (Stolas) purely out of selfish intentions that has nothing to do with him? Yes. Is he a dick? Yes. But Does Stolas hide his fucking face when he has a reality check? Yes. But then y'all be mad bc Blitz pulled his hand back.

That night Stolas was read once, Blitz was like at least 2 times... if we don't count the stuff for Stolas by proxy. He was having a hard night bro. And after Stolas invites him he is like no and Stolas respects that. Which if the show didn't add s2e2 in between it wouldve been a perfect stepping stool to get the Stolitz on healthy communication territory but that didn't happen.

I cannot for the life of me pin point when Stolas genuinely falls for Blitz. If its from day one damn it took him long enough to understand what he was doing was wrong.

Anyways we as fans can't be mad at Stolas because we know he is starting to understand the absolute power imbalance he created and the position he left Blitz in. He has realized that the thing is lets remember and repeat "Blitz is not watching the show with us". Blitz doesn't know of this sudden change of heart.

Now to adress a few meaningful interactions we have after ozzies. The fucking pixelated phone texts from s2 western energy.

Stolas apologizes but in that way that I look down upon. "Sorry if" like girl own it up anyways Blitz brushes it off and Stolas instead just goes hehe I didnt care either. Yall need relationship therapy my god. Important thing is Stolas was trying to reach out. But instead of going anything I said that made you upset etc he could've actually apologize properly for getting ashamed. Tho Blitz should also apologize for inviting him on a date for his own gain but thats another bag of worms I won't open tonight.

Other than that he has put off seeing him and doing the transactional fucking for a while. During those times. And as we know from all the phones Blitz breaks after talking to Stolas and hearing hus dirty talk he isn't too excited about. We don't exactly know if he comes or not on those nights. But he is also showm to be quite comfortable in s2e2 with the "my dick is good but its not that good" comment so maybe they do continue the arrangement... idk. Either way we know they haven't really talked.

All I am saying is that both parties of this ship are guilty af of hurting eachother and taking advantage of eachother. But as the power house of this power imbalance, Stolas needs to be held accountable. And he is doing that now!! Or will, in s2e8 and I can't wait to see how that goes. Overall, I can see totally why Blitz shuts down any signs that Stolas might actually be into him. He has a good bunch of reasons too. And as far as we've seen from the trailer we will get to hear him say it out loud as he should.

[crazy-lazy-elder-sims]

i never really talked about this but since im getting back into things its best to get things out of the way

when i first started this blog i was all bout making elder sims and finding as much cc as i can that works with elder sims

it was going fine until 2 things happened 1) i saw a video by a sim youtuber styling an elder sim too and it seemed like they used my lookbooks to find the cc ( cause it was the same cc put together) and never gave credit

i brushed it off and said it must be a coincidence also i don't own the idea and they might have just looked in the same places i did i was alittle discouraged but i was letting it go

until 2) i got an anon message that said i should stop because "as a cc creator" they don't want to see their cc on stinking elders that don't look good..... i never published it or addressed it but i was angryyyy

i was like whats the fucking point of me scouring the internet only for it to be rejected this way so i stopped and just did whatever else i fucking wanted for a few years which confused people but it was what it was a nice break maybe

now that there is much distant between me and those incidents i look back at them an laugh at how naive i was and how a "cc creator" had beef with me over pixel old people lol

anyway i might try to get back into things again and this time i wont be as sensitive as i was before, if anyone tries me again im gonna put them on blast lol

oh yeah and im gonna try and restore my queue and see if tumblr fixed it or not ( i stopped it because no matter what timing i set tumblr would publish all my queue at once)

so yeah anyway im glad thats off my chest now

wish me luck!

[basilpaste]

HI i have. A question

Which program/brush do you use for redrawing the CGs and sprites? It’s so scary accurate and i need it so bad 😭

welcome to the basil is not a professional corner.

i use ibispaint x! technically i paid for it but its also just as functional free. not a perfect beast, ibis, but shes the one i know best.

heres a handy little guide i whipped up real quick.

the felt tip pen is the one i use most of the time. for anything but the 'just attack' and the first few sprite edits i did, this is the one you see.

but theoretically the more pixel-ish brushes are more accurate to how the dev probably drew stuff. things get their resolution crunched in game sometimes.

[holycorrupt]

if you have the time/energy to elaborate, what's your process like for coloring stuff you ink traditionally? i've figured out a few different methods over the years, but i generally stick to fully digital or traditional for a piece, so i'm curious to see how you do it! :0

This is such a fun question for me because I get to both ramble about my art process and have an excuse to throw some colors on this Breloom I drew ages ago.

I use Clip Studio Paint and an Ipad for my digital stuff so I'll be referring to the processes on that but I'm sure there is a work around for other programs as well :^)

I scan my traditional art at 400dpi because it's always easier to work bigger with digital stuff and resize it smaller then the other way around :^)

So here's our raw scan, which already looks very decent but when I want to color something I like for everything to be much cleaner/sharper/more contrast-y and to get rid of the noise from the paper texture lmao. A well lit photo will also do the job because that's what I did for many years before getting my scanner but tbh if you're a traditional -> digital artist like myself a scanner is like a best friend you can buy HAHA

First things first, I apply a Gradient Map Layer > New Correction Layer > Gradient Map

Clip has a really nice black and white map preinstalled but I made myself a custom map just by pushing the black and white a little closer, it completely clears up all the noise and makes everything really crisp! Make sure you check on your lines when adjusting things because super fine feather lines can sometimes be lost if you make the contrast too high. Extra tip! If you want to make Graphite Pencil or Ball Point Pen really nice looking as well, just add a dark grey point in the gradient map closer to the black then middle...works perfectly :^)!!

This is the point I look for stray pixels, cat hairs, ect and make sure to erase any surrounding doodles or sketches I don't want included.

GOD DAMN Those lines are CRISP-Y!!!

Next up we're going to want to go Edit > Convert brightness to opacity

Tbh If I didn't have this method idk what I would do with myself.... I've tried the whole "Lineart on top layer set to multiply" Method and ...ehh....

Now that I have a nice transparent line art I'll stick a new white layer down below it because the checker pattern hurts my eyes LOL

I'm going to add a read more here since this post is getting lengthy haha

I'm going to quickly go over the style I use for MTE! It has been refined to be quicker and easier to do since you know...I have a week time limit per page ... 😭 I have a completely different way I do colors for other things I want to spend more time on but I might explain that one in the future...I'm running out of steam tonight LOL

I use this really awesome brush pack that has a pencil like texture and I love it to bits...here's a link to it if your interested!

At this point I might add some overlay layers or play around with an airbrush but I think this guys done for now :^) I tend to stay away from highlights with my shading for MTE..My biggest goal is to make sure everything is clear and readable! That being said I break my own rules all the time for special panels that need the extra 'oomf!'

Slap a lazy square background and yay!! He's done!

Hope this was interesting aaaa Thank you again for the ask!!

[rusty-gloinks]

i've always been so in awe of your rendering style, and i just have to ask... how did you learn how to do it so beautifully? your textures and lighting are breathtaking!!!

ps: thank you for getting me into the amazing digital circus :)

aagh thank you so much!!! I got inspired by people who would draw over the lineart and I wanted to try it for myself. It did take a bit to get used to since most of the art didn’t come out like how I would’ve liked it to, but I’m pretty proud of my art style now!! So I’ve stuck with it for a while now, while again the rendering does take a while (and I end up procrastinating sometimes), the finished product always looks good!! I think the only thing I changed was adding the lighting and coloring the lineart and then merging it together, which makes it easier for me a WHOLE bunch!! Here’s a time-lapse to show the whole process:

** the longest part about this to me was coming up with a proper background and the sketching (mainly the face cause I got frustrated with it!!)

As far as textures, I like using brushes that just kinda finish the art itself (I made the first one myself since I didn’t like the pre-made one this app had)!

and this pixel/dithering brush I use often now too:

There will also be times where I draw the hatching by hand, like how I drew it on pomni’s hat a bit! (There are other spots where this is visible like her chin, pompoms, outfit, etc)

[sundaysplayzone]

Hey Sunday I’m a fan of your art and I’m inspired by it but I gotta ask how do you do lineart and sketches I wanna know please thank u

First of all, thank you ;o; But yeah! I can let you (and anyone else) in on how I ink/sketch. I do almost all of the actual art in Sai. I don't even use Sai 2 haha. I mainly draw everything using the s1 stability setting as well. Only really bumping it up to s4 if I need to make some really round circles. I usually keep my sketches pretty rough. I like to discourage people from cleaning up sketches because not only are you wasting time on something no one will see, but it leads to people getting attached to the sketch. Due to this, people often dislike their inks in comparison. In the end though, do what makes you comfortable! That's just what I do. Usually my sketch will look like this. I also never use black to sketch because I think it makes things harder to see when inking. Here's the brush I use to sketch in Sai:

After that I just lower the opacity of the sketch (usually to like a 15%), make a new folder, and make 3 new layers, choosing to ink on the 3rd. This is so you never end up merging your sketch and ink layer on accident haha. Plus keeps things looking clean!

Then I guess I just ink! I don't really have a method. Just lots of practice. I keep my cavasses around 2500 pixels and ink with a 2 point brush. Here's my ink brush and the inks compared to the sketch:

After this I add the colors, and the lines then get smoothed out when I add filters and effects. Mostly it's the lens blurring in photoshop that really gives it that old animation feel imo.

Other than that, all I can really add is try not to be so hard on yourself. Your inks don't need to be perfect. Honestly in my opinion, if you're looking to make art with an animation vibe, the imperfections make it even more convincing. Old animation was riddled with errors and shaky lines, but it gave it charm. That and just have fun!

[katzenklavierr]

I realized I'd never made a process breakdown for my pixel art (at least, not one in a long time), so here's one for a test asset for a project I'm working on.

My current software of choice is Aseprite, and I almost exclusively use the pencil brush at 1px and the bucket tool. I use my mouse for everything but the sketch; tablet strokes are too unruly.

Images enlarged x4 for visibility; actual size is in the top right.

Sketch

I tend to start it like any other digital drawing, then scale the sketch down to the size I want the sprite. These aren't usually coloured, but this one wasn't originally intended for pixel art.

Lines & Greyscale blocking

Depending on the sprite, I'll do one or the other of these first, or do them at the same time. This is where I define the basic shapes and values (which parts are light and dark). In this case, I did the lines first and then blocked in the values.

I sometimes work with colour right away, but not usually.

Shading & Anti-aliasing

These are also things I work on simultaneously, usually moving from one area of the sprite to the next. I start by "softening" the internal linework by making it lighter greys depending on how much its meant to blend with the adjacent shape. Next, I block in the shadows and highlights, and add anti-aliasing pixels where I want it to look smoother.

During this step, I often end up making small changes to the shapes and linework as I refine the sprite. Readability is key to a good sprite, and precision is key to readability.

Colours

While on sprites like this I'm not keeping to a super restrictive palette, I do try to use as few colours as possible. I like to use "websafe" colours for the bulk of the sprite, but sometimes I use shades halfway between them for anti-aliasing.

I start by mapping the main gradient I want to use over the grey values. I use the bucket tool with "contiguous" disabled so that every pixel of the same colour is affected. My colour-picking philosophy could get it's own post, so I'm not going to go into detail about that here.

Next, I go over any areas that are meant to be different colours with their own gradients, trying to have at least some overlap with main palette. Finally, I tweak the anti-aliasing where necessary.

And there you have it. Here's the finished sprite at actual size:

Hope you found this helpful!

(Also disclaimer that the project this sprite is for is super early in development and all design elements here are subject to change lol)

[kattzsz]

HEYYY! Hehe… first of all, YOURE SO COOL WTH‼️, I LOVE UR REDESIGNS SM! And I just wanted to ask for the specific brushes that you use for doing redesigns or art in general; that pixel effect yk. And, if it’s not a problem even the name of the platform, you’re such an inspiration, I kinda want to try to do some redesigns for fun, do you have any tips? :3

Thank you so muchhhhhh for your time! >:) ^^ Also thank you sm for the follow 😭💙

hello!!!!

i use ibis paint for drawing and i use four brushes, two for walksprites/talksprites, one for pesterquest, and three for panel edits:

walksprites/talksprites:

pesterquest sprites:

panel edits:

these are some tips:

use multiple sprites if you don’t know how to draw something like feet, eyes ect.

use the farragofiction doll maker (linked) for oc bases.

this is an oc corvine made in farragofiction that i edited:

another thing is: USE MULTIPLE LAYERS.

the jade harley god tier sprie i made has ten layers, i suggest separating the head and the body on different layers for when you re-color line-art.

also thank you!!!!!!

feel free to request bc my requests have been dry lately :<

[tedlebred]

if youre comfortable sharing, whats your rendering process? what are some ways you learned? your art is very yummy

HSHSHHSHS hello!!!!!!!!!! first off omg,,,, thank you so much,,,,🤭🤭

secondly!!!! heres my attempt at a rendering process explanation. uhm. warning ive never really been asked to explain it before please bare with me

BUT. here goes. this'll probably be ungodly long apologies

so when i render my biggest rule is basically Do Not Blend Ever. what i do is do my sketch, then flats, then basic placement of blush/shadows+darkest parts/etc and then i go in and just colourpick the inbetweens+place them between colours in small strokes until the changes in colour don't look too sharp/jarring

here's some examples of the process;;;

(still a wip but HSHSHHS) so i work on 3 layers primarily (sometimes i do the hair+items that cover the face on another layer, too, though they might end up getting merged):

^ with just the sketch layer n flats / and then with the render layer added

i go in with a bigger brush to block in colour variation on the face on the flats layer and then paint over that, as well as over the sketch, with smaller strokes on a render layer- i never do lineart lol, and any "lineart" thats visible is just the sketch peeking through. I try to rely on colour and shadow to create shapes and boundaries instead of lines though this isn’t a hard and fast rule.

i also try to stick to the same pallette the entire drawing- once the flats and shadows are first roughly blocked in all the other tones/midshades/colours are basically just inbetweens picked directly from the drawing. Just me zooming in real close till I can see the pixels and colour picking where they sort of mix. (any smaller shifts in hue/tones are just colours with saturation slightly turned up or down, usually) im also not sure if this helps but i use the Sol brush from the clip studio assets store for literally everything from sketch to render, which is basically just a slightly soft opacity brush which ive deluded myself into thinking helps give my art a softer look. idfk if it does or not.:)

I like to use really saturated blush and for shadows I usually use two base colours; a warmer one and a colder one- a warmer one for smaller shadows and shadows near light and then colder ones for planes more in darkness. Also, usually, at the very end of the drawing I’ll add a layer that’s just fully yellow with colour burn or linear burn or multiply turned on and the opacity turned low just to make everything warmer. (a little thing I like doing for shadows sometimes is never making them reach the edge of the plane; the actual edge is usually a slightly lighter shade and it sort of looks like stylised bounce light that would probably not be there but anyhoo)

but yeah,,,, Never Blend But Make It Look Almost Blended. I’ve been doing it forever,,,,,, and I really like the almost shiny feeling it gives things:)))

And where did I learn. Ough. A lot of what I do I figured out through trial and error and just drawing a bunch (IM SORRY THATS REALLY NOT HELPFUL) but some sources I looked towards were sinix design and bluebiscuits on YouTube!!!!! Sinix has a really good video on rendering skin which is where I sort of took my principles from and ran. And bluebiscuits was a huge inspiration for me when I started trying to render things beyond flats!!!!!!! They’re also where I found the sol brush, lol. Also just,,, the impressionist movement as a whole is a massive inspiration. The use of light and shapes to create form is just,,, omg. Especially Claude Monet in particular. (and for the basics of drawing I learnt from my aunt!)

and honestly, just observing people. A lot of the time when I’m watching a movie or on a walk or even just talking with someone I tend to start looking at their face, and the different planes, how light hits it and how shadow interacts with it, where the shadows are harsher/softer……….people are wild man

I really hope that made sense!!!!!! I’ve never tried explaining it before and honestly, I’m not even really sure how I do it. I just sorta. Switch off and start drawing, yk? BUT I HOPE IT HELPED!!!!🫶🫶💞💖

in case that was all utter nonsense here’s a speedpaint that’ll hopefully demonstrate my process;;

I also have straight up screen recordings of me drawing but. I don’t think anyone wants to sit though that

thank you for the ask!!!!!have a nice day/night and SORRY THAT ENDED UP THAT LONG

[rainyraisin]

2023 YEAR IN REVIEW!!!

My artstyle changed a lot this year, especially after my shift from ibis paint to procreate after getting my iPad (drawing on an iPad is the BEST btw 100% recommend I love it way more than a phone and it didn’t die after a month like my old wacom 💀💀). I’m relatively happy with where my art is atm and I hope to continue to improve in 2024!

Explanation of all the silly art down below! (Mostly so I can tell y’all who the fanart is for but also cause I like rambling)

January: A drawing of my Rise Leo human design I did to test out a pixel brush I found for Ibis Paint. He’s very fun to draw hehe I need to draw him more-

February: I wanted to learn how to draw the future designs of Leo and Mikey along with CJ so I planned to draw them all together! I struggled with Leo though so I just got rid of him. Sorry Peepaw 😞😞💔💔💔

March: Fanart for @beannary ‘s TLP au! I love it so much so I had to draw smth for it hehe 😈😈💥💥💥 which reminds me I need to draw more at some point- might redraw it at some point cause I’m not super happy with how it turned out but I do like the idea a lot

April: The month I created Reticent! April’s Fools was the first episode I came up with so I drew a chapter poster! It ended up being very different to the chapter cover I drew a couple months later but it’s still cool :D Leo is being weirdly affectionate to Mikey though what the heck that isn’t like him smh. Although I guess it was meant to be purposefully exaggerated sooooo 🥰

May: Reticent Casey!!! I don’t have much to say it’s just Reticent Casey HDKSGXKSHD this wasnt a very good art month

June: Krangified Donnie is literally my favourite concept ever thats it that’s all I have to say dbskdbwkh I adore Krangified Donnie and if the Rise brainrot takes over the Reticent brainrot for a while then I will probably be drawing Krangified Donnie during that time sorry not sorry

July: Reticent Chapter 3’s cover yippee!!! Still my favourite Reticent cover although Chapter 8’s is a close second (I can’t wait to post it once it’s been betaread yippee!!!). The scribble over Leo’s eyes is literally just because I was struggling to draw his eyes and i was getting annoyed dbskdbskdb it’s actually a very common issue with him (common Ret!Leo L). Also Mikey being reflected in the mirror is a reference to Mirror Man by Jack Stauber which I’ve basically considered his theme song since @aaronymous999 introduced it to me ebwjcbkwhd thank you Mr. Aaronymous! Also somebody said he was in the barbie box and I still need to draw that to this day because Mikey would’ve killed to go see Barbie.

August: RET DONNIE WOOOOO he’s being bullied again!!! I drew that piece for a colour palette challenge request and realised I got the prompt wrong so I just made it into its own thing 💥💥💥 it’s usually a flickering light gif but I chose to just use the version with the light on for this post. The photos in the background were really fun to draw hehe either April’s or Mikey’s is my favourite.

September: MY 500 FOLLOWER DTIYS YIPPEE (/my 150 follower DTIYS for tumblr). This one took me. Forever to draw and I love it to pieces hehe it was really fun to design Mikey’s room and figure out outfits for the sillies and idk the concept of a sleepover just seemed really fun to me dbskbdkdb- and all the entries I got were so so awesome I loved them all to pieces!!! I still look at them all the time hehe

October: FANART OF @endlesslogo ‘S HUMAN RISE LEO DESIGN WOOOOOO!!! This was the piece I started rendering on hehe it was so much fun to draw!!!! Although I did have a fight with rendering the hair for over an hour svsjegksbdk HOW DO PEOPLE DO IT FR!!!

November: Me and my friends were working on a crossover between our TMNT iterations so I drew all of our Karai’s together!!! Confluence Karai is on the left, created by Salem and Marine, New Stars Karai is in the middle created by Starla, and Reticent Karai is on the right created by me! All our Karais have such cool designs AHHHHH literally dead over them constantly/pos

December: Most of December I spent drawing Christmas presents so this was my present for Salem!!! Confluence!Jonatello my beloved….