#but also gradient maps look nice

[justanotherjaydrawing]

It it is summer where I live, it was like 36 degrees today, but I can dream of snow. Atsumu, please go inside, standing shirtless in the snow is a bad idea, even I know that. anyway, enjoy a mildly moody Atsumu because I am tired.

[wilsons-journey]

A little (unfinished) experimental piece of art feat. Valefor.

I was playing around with gradient maps in photoshop. And I’m still not sure if I like it or not. But I still wanted to show the result!

(It could have been more refined,... but I sadly lost patience with the fur ;_; ...)

[seafoamsol]

The best years of my life...

... what I wouldn't give to have them back.

I had the great pleasure of working with @spiderscribe on a DeadCeptor work for the @tf-bigbang, which you can (and should!) read [ HERE ]!

Details and artist commentary under the cut!

Okay, first off, I just wanna say, thank you so much to @spiderscribe for picking up my very loose scribble and taking the jump. She's an absolute champ, and I IMPLORE you to read her writing. She did a knockout job on the fic, and guaranteed, these two pieces wouldn't have been so elaborate without her. If you're a fan of deadceptor, parallels, lovers to enemies to apocalyptic teammates to ???s, I'm sure you'll find that and more in there.

[ HERE ] is the link to that, if you missed it the first time around.

The background for the supermarket was a MASSIVE undertaking. I ended up blurring it in the final to keep the dream-like quality, but there is a lot happening there! Most of the time I spent on the background was (jokingly) complaining though.

Anyone who works retail will know the agony of customer-misplaced stock. The little canisters of energon additives seem like prime candidates to be placed willy-nilly.

The little warning sign... My favorite soda, apple sidra, has a carcinogen warning, so I'm familiar with it. It was slightly surprising to me that those warnings are not countrywide, despite the fact that they very clearly say "California Proposition 65", and well. Not something else, like "Federal" or whatever.

The bags of nuts and bolts below, I asked several people what flavor they would be, and I suppose I failed in my job, because I wanted the purple to be the "regular" flavor, and the green to be the "sour". But grape and lemon-lime work as well!

The tub is full of rust-sticks. I have no idea if that came across. My friends kept calling the individually wrapped ones slim jims, which I mean, I guess!

The car batteries... My idea was that they were similar to shots, in a way? So that's how I ended up with a battery with enough terminals to rival an international airport. It's also sunset-coloured, because, I don't know, that's what Party Flavor is to me.

Okay. The second illustration. This one was a headache, mostly due to my own lack of planning, and the fact that I lost the file for... basically everything I did, including the above illustration. So it was a bit of a rush job.

The background bots started off as these very vague silhouettes, which I'm a little proud of. Look at how nice and somewhat readable they are! Okay, now what if I ruined it? What? You don't like that? That's rather unfortunate, because that's what I proceeded to do. In fact, if I take off all.. 10 or something adjustment layers, they look like this:

My process went: Shadow block> Fill rest of form> Color randomiser> Copy and skew (to populate background)> Hue adjustment> Gradient map> Fill Light> Chromatic aberration> Vignette> Levels> Curves.

The.... Magenta cube is there because due to the nature of the color randomiser, the foot had a high value, and stuck out like nobody's business in the end.

Here's what it would look like without the cube. Begone, distracting white blob! (I didn't have to worry about the lava arm because Percy happened to cover it up. What a save! But if he didn't then... there would have been a second cube.)

Basically, it was a mess. But... at least it came out fine in the end! I hope!

I'd love to have speedpaints on hand, but I was switching between CSP and PS for a good majority of the work.

I'd say that's it for these two pieces! I actually have more, but those demand more time. I'm much slower at doing inks than I am at painting, but I hope you'll get to see them soon.

[1x20]

hello and welcome to my tutorial on how to create gifs like this one! full explanation under the cut, but if you wanted to take a little peek at the gifset attached to this tutorial, here ya go!

for the purposes of this tutorial i am assuming you know

how to make a gif

what vhs footage looks like

STEP ONE: MAKING YOUR GIF

choose your footage and plug it into your desired software of choice! i use photoshop for this so i can only attest to the efficacy of these methods in that context

as for shot selection, you could feasibly choose anything. however, i prefer shots without too much movement in them - makes it look more like a home video.

because of the heavy amount of colors and filters, i'd recommend a gif somewhere around the 40-50 frames! but of course you can play around.

oh i also set the frame delay to 0.08 seconds. this is slower than most gifmakers tend to set theirs, but it makes it run buttery smooth imo.

STEP TWO: MAKING THE COLORING

here's where we get vhs specific. if you're unfamiliar with vhs footage, i recommend clicking through this youtube playlist! if you're not interested in the coloring, skip to step three (smart object fuckery + filters)

now while making a set i tend to choose some primary colors for my gifs. in the gifset i linked above, i chose to work with blue and orange-y yellow. in some of the other gifs i'll be using as examples (from an unfinished set) i chose green and yellow.

to create the above coloring i generally use these steps:

1) curves

i'm a maniac so i use the same curves layer to initially edit the luminosity AND colors of my gifs. the purpose of this layer is to edit brightness/contrast like i normally would and already start the process of changing the colors a little bit. this is my curves layer for the blue house gif:

to make the gif go from the left image to the right image:

as you can see i used the brightening curves to make the footage a whole lot lighter. i also increased the reds to get rid of the cyan tint a lot of blue footage has, slightly increased the blues, and once again decreased the greens to get rid of any cyan. this does make the blue hue a bit more purple, which is a nice bonus!

as for the gif of the boy, that one's a little harder to show a before and after for, but i'lls how the curves for good measure:

the original shot was already quite bright so i only edited the brightness a litttle bit. because i knew i wanted the gif to be green and yellow, i increased the greens, decreased the reds (except in the shadows), and decreased the blues (to get yellow)

2) channel mixer

now the channel mixer layer takes a little getting used to so i recommend experimenting. ALWAYS USE THIS LAYER ON THE COLOR BLENDING MODE for a more even result.

i use channel mixers to sort of... unify the colors a bit more. for the house gif, for example, i increased the blue channel to +110% blue, but decreased the blue in the red (-12%) to retain the yellow in the window.

if you want me to explain this more in depth, send an ask! it'll be kinda longwinded though

before / after of the boy gif with curves/channel mixer.

3) levels

this is where it starts looking more vhs-y! vhs footage has light shadows and dark highlights.

first, set your levels layer to luminosity blending mode to retain your beautiful colors.

then, crunch the hell out of your gif to make it very... mid.

this may feel a little wrong at first but i prommy it'll look okay at the end. a before/after for the boy:

now that's starting to look familiar right?

4) color fill/gradient map

because i want to unify my colors/make sure my gif is saturated, i usually add either a color fill or gradient map layer. in the case of the house, i chose to go with a dark blue color fill:

because the coloring of the boy gif was a little more complex, i decided to go with a brown to green gradient map.

this will make the shadows yellow, and the highlights green.

BOTH THESE LAYERS ARE SET TO OVERLAY. i usually fiddle with the opacity of them until i like it, but it's anywhere from 7% - 17% depending on what i feel like that day

5) curves (again)

this layer is probably useless but i do it anyway to make myself feel better. this is just a regular curse layer to up the brightness a tiiiiny bit and amke sure everything's clear. also it helps counteract the darkness your overlay color will add in.

6) color balance

this is my most subtle layer so i won't be able to show before and after but i fiddle with the color distribution a little until i'm satisfied. set this layer to color blending 'cause that's what you wanna affect!

i decided i wanted the house gif shadows to be a little more purple, for example, so i added in red (+3), magenta (-1) and blue (+1). etc etc. do what feels good!

STEP THREE: SMART OBJECT FUCKERY AND FILTERS

OKAY that was a lot. sorry or you're welcome. but good news: now's the fun part. convert your animation to a timeline, then select both your coloring and gif layers, right click, and select convert to smart object.

now that your gif's a smart object, i usually crop it. i tend make vhs aes gifs a 4:3 ratio (so 540 x 405 px) because that's what vhs footage was usually recorded as! crop your gif, resize, and then we can continue.

1) color bleeding

vhs footage usually bleeds its colors - this manifests as a short of... weird subtle halo around any object. the way to recreate this in photoshop is to duplicate your smart object.

set your copied smart object to color blending. now move it to the side a couple of pixels (i usually do around 5px, but you do you!)

as you can see, the tree and chimney (and everything else but less prominently) have a yellow shadow to them. this is exactly what we want!

2) filters

now's the time to add your filters and make it look like shit (but on purpose!) first, select both smart objects and convert to smart object again. this will ensure the filters apply to all layers evenly.

i use the following filters:

unsharp mask (amt 35%, radius 4px) - this will subtly add some sharpening but only on the edges of objects

add noise (amt 7.5%, distr. uniform, not monochromatic) - this will add the signature vhs grain.

box blur (2px) - i edit this to be 75% opacity with the little arrows to the right, just to make sure you can still make SOMETHING out when you're looking at the gif. MAKE SURE THIS FILTER IS ON TOP OF YOUR NOISE FILTER. tumblr will kill your gif otherwise

4) ONE LAST THING

usually at this point i'm not happy with either the saturation or levels. (usually the levels). so on top of your smart object, add another saturation or levels layer and fuck around!

in the case of the house gif, i thought it was too bright still so i set my output levels to 13 and 216. for the boy, i thought the shadows were too dark, so i set my shadow output to 11.

BEFORE & AFTER:

aaaand that's it! thanks for reading! if you have any questions, feel free to come to my askbox, i'm always happy to explain my process. happy giffing 🥰

[ursiday]

im curious, how do you color your lines? they always look so pretty!!!

Thank you! I pretty much just use a bunch of layers lol I start with something like this in just one color (I used a soft round brush on like 70% opacity for lining this)

Then on a new layer in multiply I go over all the parts I want to stand out more in a different + darker color. I also make a clipping layer to lighten certain parts of the lines from the first step. Explaining which lines I color is difficult to describe but I'm mainly thinking about defining the edges of distinct objects and the light source

You can stop there but I like to add some kind of color filter top of that. My favorite way is make a solid color layer on exclusion mode above the lines > merge all visible layers on a new layer > set this to "color" layer mode so it colors all the lines underneath, but there's a lot of ways you can do similar stuff. I think a gradient map would probably be easier and give you more control for a similar effect

Then I add flats on a multiply layer above all that. TLDR I like to have variation in value of the lines and then vary the hue depending on the value. I don't have a method for how I pick the filters or line colors really I just play around with what I think looks nice with the colors of the piece 🫶

[souperluminal]

Hello!! I'm a huge fan of your art and I thought I would ask about your colorwork, because it's genuinely super impressive to me how all your pieces have amazing palettes and they add so so so much to the general atmosphere. Do you have any process to pick colors for pieces? Like using picture references, gradient maps, etc or do you genuinely just eyeball them? I'm super curious :]

But yea I really love what you do and love seeing every new piece!! Have a nice day! Ty for reading <3

Thanks! I very much use references, though I don't use the color picker on them, gotta train the eye. I have an ever-expanding reference folder of photos and paintings with colors that I like so that when I start a new painting and I have an idea of the color scheme I want in mind, I'll already have some reference on hand. Good reference really makes a world of difference!

I also like to bias colors a little bit away from their standard versions:

The more blue green and the more yellow green are both more interesting to me than the "just green" green. Nothing wrong with that average green though, sometimes that's exactly what you need. It's always situational.

Lastly, a fantastic color tip for digital art specifically that I got from Mike Hernandez: Use the RGB sliders instead of the HSB color selection!

By default, Photoshop gives you the HSB (Hue, Saturation, Brightness) color picking setup which looks like this:

It's perfectly functional and has its uses, but it doesn't really feel like mixing color. On the other hand, if you use the RGB sliders:

Now you can add a little more blue if you think that's what the color needs, or you can take away red, add some green, etc. It gets you actually mixing color and thinking more about how the colors relate to each other. It can take some getting used to if you've only used the HSB setup before, but it's worth it!

[warmfuzzyanimal]

How do you get that grainy texture on your art? It’s very nice!

thank you!! i love art that's soft and fuzzy...

i generally do it a handful of different ways, but i tend to bounce between a color noise filter layer in soft light mode, between 30% and 50% opacity,

... or i use something from my wide array of paper textures, and usually set the layer to overlay and play with opacity till i'm happy with it

......oooorr i do a combination of the two! which i did in the final version of this piece, which i Also added a gradient map to to make the colors a lil more ✨Dramatic✨

here's where i got (most of) my paper textures and here's a rainbow color noise texture (that i don't personally use but looks rlly similar!)

[icolo]

hi everyone!! my wrist is too sore to draw today, so instead i thought i'd share some of my favorite csp assets + how i like to use them! i also linked some procreate brushes at the end of the post!!

lineart brushes:

SU-Cream Pencil: i swear by this brush and i use it very often!! if you lower the pen density and use a gradient map over it when coloring your drawing, it has a nice effect. that's what i did in this drawing here! i also use this brush like i would draw on paper, so as a sketching tool. recently i've been enjoying blending it for shading. the pics below are drawn on one layer; left is more manga style while the one on the right is from a WIP of my singer sargent study, so it can be used for more realistic styles pretty well!

Found Pencil: another pencil brush that feels really nice to use, created by @/pigpenandpaper.

PS style brushes: a recreation of photoshop's (i believe) default brush. very versatile and also blends well!

analog wind variant pen: a nice pen that i like to use for lineart that is intended to have a bit of a sketch look.

zakutoro real g-pen: i used it for the lineart of this piece. although, it was drawn before i started using 600dpi in my works, so the lower resolution might make it look a bit unclear.

sets of rough pens: great for manga lineart with a rougher vibe; some of them have varying line weight.

coloring brushes:

zaku brushes: very nice and painterly mixing! i definitely recommend it for those who like to leave their colors a bit unblended.

softie marker: as the name implies, it's very soft! i like to use it for blush in chibi illustrations.

analog watercolor brushes: realistic-looking watercolor brushes. i recommend using it with csp's default paper textures, or those i linked below!

993 coloring pen: it's very soft and watery, though it can be made more solid by adjusting the paint density. i actually think it works very nicely for lineart too.

rock dog pen: another soft marker brush i like, that i once again also use for lineart and doodles.

thick coating brush set: recommended for paintings that show brush strokes.

cartoon cloud: don't let the name narrow your vision!! this has to be one of the BEST brushes for painting in my opinion, and of course it's great for clouds and explosions but so so much more!! and it's FREE try it try it!!

decoration/miscellaneous brushes:

neon pen

paper textures

symmetry move brush

close and fill without gaps

rope brush

sphere fisheye guide

flash balloon

speech bubble set: a lifesaving collection for comic artists!! dimensions and line weight can be adjusted by using the operation tool.

gradient map to use in color mode at 15% and another gradient map to use at 20%: the percentage refers to the opacity of the gradient map layer, but they are just the creator's recommendation and i tend to actually increase it. to use gradient map efficiently, i recommend putting all your colors (and lineart if you want) in a folder. then, right-click the folder, select "new correction layer" and then "gradient map". this allows you to modify the gradient map without worrying about affecting the original colors in case you decide not to use it in the end. to import a gradient map from your downloaded csp assets, click the wrench icon next to the name of the gradient set that's currently in use, then select "add gradient set".

you'll also notice that the creator recommends to use their gradients in "color mode". of course, this is also only a recommendation and i suggest trying as many layer modes as you like! to change a layer's mode, simply highlight the layer and click on "normal" (the default mode) and csp will display the available modes.

fruit ninja gradient map: fun to use if you want really drastic/vibrant colors! the names of the gradients are cute too, as you can see in the above screenshot!

BONUS: jeremy fenske's free photoshop brush pack: these aren't csp brushes per se, but they can be imported into the program! excellent for environments, i recommend watching fenske's video on how he uses the brushes to get a clearer picture since there are so many in this pack!!

BONUS 2: my good friend clem has a few brush packs for procreate that are ideal for painting,decorating drawings, and y2k-inspired illustrations, i definitely recommending checking out her shop!

in conclusion i hope this post can be helpful to you!! i tried to explain how to use the brushes as best as i could, but feel free to let me know if anything is unclear!! i hope you will enjoy using them! :D

[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.

[for-those-who-wait]

Oh hey you use medibang? That's awesome! I miss using it, had to buy clip studio since it refused to work on my pc after my laptop died

Amazing art, I adore how skrunkly you draw everyone!

I used to use Photoshop before I realized/got fed up with just how insanely abusive their subscription service is. I used MediBang before it and I now use MediBang after it! (The blending brushes on Photoshop were so nice but I never should have left.) It sucks your computer didn't want to run it anymore :( But any one-time purchase of software sounds like a good deal to me! FireAlpaca is a good substitute for MediBang but with rudimentary 2D animation capabilities on top of it. I actually downloaded it recently for the animation part but IDK if I'll ever get back to it haha

Funnily enough, MediBang is currently selling a different version on Steam for like 70 bucks and the onion skin/animation stuff looks like the main attraction for purchasing it (also gradient map but ignore that), which is just wild to me when FireAlpaca exists and does the same thing for free

Anywho this doodle was made in my notes app hahaha. He is eepy! Skrunkly and eepy! I hope Clip Studio works well for you :)

[canarysage]

…make a psd?

this is a question i get pretty routinely, and i’m going to tell you upfront: there is no one way to make a psd. there’s no ‘better’ way, no ‘easier’ method, you just have to figure it out yourself.

with that said, this post is going to be how i, personally, make my psds, just for the sake of reference. my way isn’t better or worse than anyone else’s—it’s just the way i do things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i. making a showcase/moodboard

depending on the psd you want to achieve, your moodboard will probably look different—if you’re making a blue psd it will be mostly blue, if you’re making a psd based on a certain character or card set it will be based around that, etc. i made myself a general showcase that i test my psds on that includes both irl images and darker skin characters, because i like for my psds to work for those purposes most of the time. my showcase is below if you’d like to use it!

it’s best to include sources you edit frequently so you know what works on them and what doesn’t but how the moodboard looks exactly is up to you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ i also recommend using swatchies (original by zeroresources on d*viantart) as long as you bear in mind that swatchies is not a great guideline for actual dark skin

ii. creating the base

actual step two is creating a folder but that takes like two seconds. do make a folder though or you will be sad.

after making a folder, start making the base of your psd; whatever the foundation is going to be. depending on how you want your psd to look, this will look very different. i personally always start off with a gradient map, just to get things going

my settings for this are the default black and white gradient map set to reverse, and it’s set to blending mode soft light at 35% opacity. i typically do something in the range of 20-45% opacity depending on how i want it to look

i’m honestly not sure where i picked up this habit but it does make it a little easier to get things going for me personally. it’s a simple change but it’s a good start. if you want higher contrast you can do the same thing but without reversing the gradient map

next thing i do when creating a base is add a selective color layer, which helps things pick up the pace. i’m too lazy to write it all down but these are my settings:

worlds ugliest collage so i don’t max out my images LMFAO apologies. obviously depending on what colors you want to focus on this will look different. for this one i completely axed magenta and emphasized blue and red/yellow. i also maxed out the black in white, which is extremely typical in my psds. this is what our psd looks like now:

pretty different already, right? nice!

next thing i typically do is another selective color layer. it’s typically pretty similar to the first, but once again that depends on the psd! the worlds worst collage again:

pretty much the same but a little different. and our results:

as you can see, this is pretty saturated and a little all over the place. not to worry—let’s move onto the next step!

iii. let’s get serious

this step varies a lot depending on what my psd needs, but because this one is pretty sayurated right now and that seems to be my main problem, i’m going to add a photo filter in a light grayish-blue to help desaturate and cool it down

(i unchecked preserve luminosity here because i think it looks neat. i don’t recommend doing that if you’re using a darker color bc it gets hard to see, but you can do whatever forever)

obviously this isn’t the only way to desaturate but i find it fun. observe:

definitely better, at least to me, but still not great. we’re going to add another selective color layer bc the skintones look kinda wack. welcome back world’s worst collage:

i only adjusted some of the colors in this one because i wanted to fix specific problems; namely that the darker skin tones were too dark and ashy.

mission accomplished

with that done, it’s time for hue/saturation! for funsies ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ this part i just had some fun with. a new collage:

and the results:

purple! this wasn’t what i originally had in mind but it was much more fun to do tbh LMAO i decided to turn the cyan/blue into purple because it looked better in my head

iv. okay now get silly again

now that the main meat—so to speak—of our psd is done, we can add some fun layers. if you want ideas for this, i have a post about it, but what i’m gonna add as my first silly layer is channel mixer, which is one of my personal favorite layers

pretty simple adjustments for channel mixer honestly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but i thought this would look fun. as a general rule of thumb i don’t mess with the red channel so much because it tends to screw over my skintones, but, as with anything, you’re free to do whatever forever

next fun layer i’m gonna add is a noise gradient map, also just for funsies

i randomized until i got a nice pink-ish kinda one. i was hoping for blue but all the blue ones were too green and i got impatient LOL

a little fucked but for sure fun. i set the gradient map to soft light at about 15% opacity. it gave the psd a fun texture and a bit of extra warmth

v. finishing touches

sometimes i add a couple more layers, sometimes i add less, but this psd feels about done so imma wrap it up. i typically don’t save my psds as the showcase for my storage’s sake, so i’m gonna grab something to use as an icon. i typically go ahead and size it at about 300x300

hello, haruka! once i have my icon set i duplicate the folder into the new project and name both the project and the folder. how you name it is up to you, i usually either use a random word generator or just whatever comes to mind. in this case, i’m just naming it ‘tutorial psd’ lol

then go to file and save as psd, bada bing bada boom you’ve got a psd ☆〜（ゝ。∂）

as i said at the beginning, there’s no one way to make a psd. this isn’t the only process or even the best one, it’s just how i personally work. the best way to make a psd on your own is fuck around and find out <3 canarysage out

…so that’s how you do it.

P.S. the psd i made here will be posted under the tag #tutorial psd. you’re free to poke around in it and use it as per usual. if you want to copy it, feel free, but don’t claim it’s your own or repost it as your work. thanks!

P.P.S. wondering about adjustment layers? see photopea for dummies. wondering about something i haven’t covered yet? shoot me an ask ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

[peteytheparrot]

how to make. comic

Step one after coming up with a really epic idea (aka daydreaming for hours on end) write it down and doodle it really shitily in your notes

Step two forget about it for months on end before making it (I have so many random comic ideas unfinished) (this is why you write it down before hand)

Step three finally get your ass up and make the sketch 💞💞 Step four spend way too much time making the panels because they HAVE to be perfect for some reason (or else I’ll freak tf out and die /j)

Step five and six make the lineart and coloring, and then add the speech bubbles, this is where you can tweak the wording and or change where the speech bubbles go (mostly done so it flows better)

(Don’t be afraid to cover up your art with speech bubbles if needed, ik it kind of sucks but reading ability is very important in comics, and having your speech bubbles all wonky WILL turn off readers, no matter how good your art is)

step seven make a REALLY lazy background because you do NOT want to do shit this time!! (Pretend they don’t have lighting on them I merged the layers 💖)

Step eight spend too long on rendering aka lighting and shading!! Step nine add more epic effects aka final touches!! This is always nice to do because it makes it look a lot prettier (like adding overlays, gradient maps, blurs, and noise… idk)

Andddd you’re done, I usually work on multiple comics at once because I CANNOT sit on one thing only!! Nuh uh!! Comics take fucking ages and will ALWAYS take ages so if you don’t have the patience for it I’m sorry bro 💔 you will not handle it 💔

Although! When I started making mini comics they took me like? 10+ hours but the more I did them they now take around 3 hours at the shortest. This one took 5 hours.

This is just how I make comics btw, most comics I see don’t go fucking crazy on the rendering/lighting/shading (usually on comics I see there is none tbh! And it works for them!) I’m just insane and like to make my comics look really pretty or else I’ll explode for some reason.

Also 😇 if you wanna see more comics of these guys go here for places you can read them at 😇

[praysia]

hello!! this isn't a request but rather a question - do you have any tips on making layouts like you do (not in the literal sense, but when it comes to making layouts in general ,,)? i usually struggle to make the coloring look good/fit the theme, and i can't seem to find any good pngs to use ,,,

you're not obligated to answer this, by the way!! and thank you in advance!!

Generally, I'd say to collect a bunch of resources you can use, like PNGs, laces, colouring PSDs, etc. You can find a bunch by browsing related tags here on Tumblr ( ie. [aesthetic] png, rentry png, [colour] png, etc. ) or on Pinterest by searching similar things and things like [aesthetic] frame, [colour] frame, rentry frame, rentry resources, etc etc. You can also look on sites that have a bunch of free use PNGs, vectors, etc ( though I'd highly recommend having an ADblocker and popup blocker ). I have a large collection of random things I use and it helps a lot!

I don't have many tips for making layouts since I honestly just mess around a lot until I get something I like, so I'd say just play around with placement and combining things until you get something you think looks nice! Trust the process and just have fun with it, if something doesn't work out, that's fine too! The important part is just having fun with what you're doing, it's a hobby, not a job you're forced to do.

As far as colouring goes, it's just something you learn as you go, I think. I'm still not terribly good at making colouring PSDs and I've been editing for over a year now. You can always search DeviantArt or Tumblr for colouring PSDs by searching things like 'free psd' or something.

Some sites you may find helpful: da-lace : has TONS of laces, you can navigate via the shapes at the top or by category on mobile I believe. vecteezy : tons of free to use downloadable PNGs, vectors, etc. pngtree : ^ same as above, I'd recommend an adblocker / popup blocker. gif editor : does cool gif effects remove gif bgs : what it says. gif effects : can do fun stuff with it but it adds a background.

More specific sites: barrachiverio : custom error message PNGs. gradient maps : what it says.

I hope this helps you out a bit, happy editing!

[buildthoughts]

Pearl Builds #1

So Pearl did a series four years ago where she built a build a day. Then she released a weekly video summing up her progress/process.

These two builds from the first week stood out to me because they are cyberpunk and starwars/mars inspired, which inevitably led me to drawing comparisons between the current cyberpunk builds on Hermitcraft s10 as well as Rendog's sci-fi themed base.

I like her diagonal approach to the cyberpunk build and the high contrast colors (black, white, red). The canal(?) between the buildings is an especially interesting detail to me (placed beside the stairway/hedges, it low-key reminded me of the Halo Reach Boardwalk map).

Pearl's take here is distinct from the Hermit projects! Her lush green rooftops stand out especially. Impulse and Bdubs' Pixel Pulse Valley is designed to be more dilapidated, lacking foliage, full of garbage and wear. Joel's City takes influence from Japan and makes heavy use of banners.

In her video, she mentions she didn't have very many glowing blocks to chose from. Which I do think is a weakness in the build. Those red signs she built are begging for the existence of froglights paired with glass.

The sci-fi inspired build is great too. The straight wall contrasts nicely with the cylindrical buildings. The fencing details on the wall and the antennas on the roofs add so much visual interest. The lower tower has a partial awning that breaks up the tower's symmetry nicely and complements the desert landscape.

In season 9 of Hermitcraft, her sci-fi builds focused on creating two distinct build styles within one mega-base: round and organic shapes for the aliens, square and blocky for the humans. You can see the antennas on the human buildings are arranged to look thicker, while the ones in her build a week series taper more dramatically. And while the two builds share a color palette, her human builds don't use any cylinders.

And with this tower, the shapes are less uniform, intentionally more organic/alien than the consistent cylinders of the build a day.

Ren's sci-fi base on Hermitcraft s10, while using similar colors, is much more bright, making white the star and blue/orange as accents. Pearl's build has orange as the main color and lets the white and greys sit back. Pearl's gradient work also give her build a more worn feel, while Ren's is pristine (just ordered from gigacorp).

I think its fun to see builds with the same theme showcasing such different stories and styles.

[shadowsageingempress]

Tierlist of the Great Sea costumes from Hyrule Warriors Legends.

I plan on doing more for the other costumes from the rest of the Adventure Mode maps.

(Costumes and explanations below the cut. There's a lot to go over, so it'll be long)

They probably couldn't make Warriors' costume based on Toon Link because it would likely be too similar to the Skyloft outfit, so they went with the crayfish pajamas. And I gotta say, I really like it. The blue shirt, white scarf, orange pants and gray boots go really well together.

I don't know why they made Impa wear pink. Maybe they were trying to reference the King of Red Lions? I'm not sure. But I do think it works pretty well for her.

I only just realized that Sheik's costume is colored that way as a reference to Tetra. That makes me like it a bit more. These colors are very striking, but they look good on her in my opinion.

Lana's costume is apparently based off the koroks, which I don't know if it matches up well with her. But the outfit looks really nice. My only complaint is that I don't know if the green hair fits her, so I've deducted points for that. Otherwise, she looks pretty cute and festive.

Of course, they gave Valor the princess dress that Tetra wears for the latter half of the game. The color of the dress is fine, but the dull armor and too bright hair kind of ruin it for me. Also, my partner is PISSED that this costume isn't based on Tetra. I think that would look substantially cooler, even if Sheik's costume would make it redundant.

I don't know who decided to make Ganondorf's costume fuck so goddamn much, but I am so glad they did! Everything about this Phantom Ganon costume is incredible. It kind of gives me Metroid Prime vibes, which is a very good thing.

Darunia's Phantom Hourglass goron costume isn't too big of a change, especially when compared to the masterpiece that was Ganondorf's. I don't really care for the brown spikes, but the stomach tattoo looks pretty cool.

The Laruto costume that Ruto has is very striking, and I think it works very well. Between the color combination and the character reference, I like it quite a bit.

I'm not sure why they decided to make Agitha a goth with this costume, but I think it suits her. Unfortunately, the way her face paint looks kind of lessens my fondness for it. But I definitely don't hate it.

Midna is already my favorite character in this game, so I was probably going to like whatever costume she had. But this Floormaster-inspired look is incredible! The changes are pretty slight, but the pink markings and the darker color of the Fused Shadow adds so much to what was already peak character design. In fact, she probably could have been on the top of S Tier if they'd leaned a bit more into it.

I don't know if Zant's costume is based on Gohdan or Jabun. Neither of those options really fit him, in fact they're kind of the opposite, and it may seem a bit weird to give him such bright colors. However, I actually like how he looks in this costume, even if it does look a bit more regal than he deserves.

Given that Fi's design was partially based on the Fairy Queen, this costume was only natural. And I'd describe it in the same way. This coloration is perfect for Fi, and the purple ribbon-markings down her legs are a nice touch.

Kalle Demos is one of my favorite Zelda bosses from a strictly aesthetic view. So it only makes sense that they were the base for one as, shall we say, colorful as Ghirahim. I love the gradients on his suit and cape, and I only recently noticed the green gem on his belt.

Like with Agitha, I don't really get the reference in Cia's costume. But I will not deny that she looks really good in that dark red, especially with the sunset colors of her shoulder cape. I do think that her hatless outfit is the best looking of the three, though.

Volga's costume is another with a subtle change. But like Midna's, I think that this one looks really good. The colors look good, and the reference to Valoo is quite fitting.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Wizzro. I think his costume is based off of Jalhalla, which could have worked. But I really don't like the brown.

I'm already conflicted about how I feel about the design of Midna's true form, or 'Twili Midna' as she's called in Hyrule Warriors (I don't get why), and this costume only adds to it. I don't know what the reference was here. And while I don't hate the color combination they used, I don't think it works with her. It's really a shame.

Also, why did they change the color of her skin here?

I have a lot of questions about Young Link's costume. What is the costume supposed to be? Why is he purple? Why does he have red hair? I don't hate this costume, but it doesn't make much sense to me.

This may be surprising, but I actually kind of like how Tingle looks in this costume. The gray and blue work well together, and I like the reference to Ankel or Knuckel. It's good.

Given what costume they gave to Warriors, I think it makes sense that Linkle's is based off of Aryll's dress. Not only do the colors work, but I like the little flower designs on the tunic. It's adorable.

Oh, Hell yes! I love Skull kid's costume. Not only do the white and purple go well together, but they look perfect when put with the colorful Majora's mask. I think it's also based on the poes, which also works. I can't think of anything I would improve with this one.

Another Link, another set of crayfish pajamas. I don't know why he has a belt, but it doesn't take too much away from the appeal. It's just a solid design. Although, if they did this one twice, then maybe they could have made Valor's costume look more like Tetra

Speaking of Tetra, her costume is also pretty cool. I think it's cool how the colors of her jacket and bandana are swapped. My only complaint is that I don't really care for the striped shirt. But I guess it helps to get the reference to Niko across. I like this one, even if my partner doesn't get why she needs a Great Sea costume

Finally, we have King Daphnes. I really don't know who or what his costume is based on. But I also don't hate it. The bright colors are very striking and mesh decently well together. It actually kind of reminds me of a movie I saw when I was a kid.

[bluismie]

I'm sorry if you have already said this, but your drawings are so so gorgeous, the use of colors is everything, so soothing and nice to look at. Can I ask what program and brushes you use? Ty! nn

Hello! Your questions are no bother ^^

I use procreate as my main art application.

For brushes I rotate between Sketching, Inking, Calligraphy, Painting, Artistic group brushes. (not all of those brushes in the folder but I choose a top 3 ones and rotate them depending on my rendering). The best thing I think is to callibrate the brushes on your workflow or regardless of the application.

I used to do traditional art so I callibrated the sensitivity and flow of my brushes to feel like I’m drawing on paper. It’s quite hard to determine what works first so every piece I do is just trying out new stuffs and hope it sticks). Also, I try to lower my stabilization as it gives me more freedom to be loose on my works.

Here’s some notes on my main brushes:

I did Import some brushes. But my most used ones are the Multi-line brushes by FOOARC (it’s free ^^)

I’d say my easy trick for the ‘ethereal’ look is blending using the smudge tool and gradient maps for colors (I also customized some colors to fit what I want)

Hope this helps!