#assets aren't often perfect so i edit a lot. it also makes it more original y'know

[princepipper]

I was looking at my art today, comparing old and new works. It's kind of funny how the amount of effort I put into my art varies depending on the medium. Don't get me wrong, in the end the total amount is usually the same, but it balances differently in certain areas of my art and that is affected by whether I'm making art digitally or traditionally!

I find the best example of this is with backgrounds. When I paint, a lot of my work relies on the line art, really. I'm still pretty new to watercolours and even though I know some techniques, I'm not the greatest at rendering things. To make up for that, I draw a lot of details with my pen and use wash/bleed techniques to create fun backgrounds for the characters I draw! It's where most of my time is spent, and it helps me make art that is both visually appealing and fun to look at.

Now when I draw digitally, it's a little different. I've been drawing on the computer for about 17 years, and I have never really been one to study or use tutorials, so I'm truly self-taught! But that's probably why I have less patience to draw things like backgrounds in my digital art. With all the free use assets and brushes in CSP, I whip up cool backgrounds in no time and instead focus on the subjects a lot more, with proper rendering, details and lines.

That said, I'm not 100% comfortable JUST using premade assets! I instead will take them and edit them with my own drawings, and of course colour corrections. I also supplement certain parts of a bg with my own art- I don't need a special brush for everything.

You can see below what I mean! In the first pic, the flag is 100% drawn by me. But the bushes, the building, even the clouds are all assets. The brick wall is both! I used textures and a basic guide to create the shape of the wall and such, and then with a pen I added the smaller lines and details. Then in the second image, it's very much the same- the trees and building, even the people in the bg are assets, but I drew the sign from scratch (which I am quite proud of tbh), and of course added the details in the grass myself too. And with everything there's lots of colour editing and overlays to give it that perfect look. It's a lot of fun to make these backgrounds, and it still saves time compared to drawing it all myself!!