#procreates liquify tool is my new best friend

[aurriearts]

[id in alt text]

so those identity issues huh

[pichirobi]

I absolutely adore your art, especially the asheiji painting you did. I am new to painting digitally, so if possible, I would love to learn a bit about your colouring process 🥺

ahhh thank you so much friend!! 😭💗 welcome to the digital art gang! i love getting these kinds of questions, so feel free to send another ask if you want to know anything else in particular ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

here's a speedpaint of that asheiji artwork:

my painting is nothing refined! i get a sketch going on my first layer. the sketch is semi-clean (i erase and clean up guidelines as i go), but i will also write out notes on this layer and more strongly define shapes that i want to emphasize, like those little pouch lines under ash's mouth or the crease on eiji's cheek.

underneath this layer, i lay down my flat colors, and sometimes block in accent coloring (the blue and pink i've shaded with). i eyeball all of my colors from the rgb/cmyk wheel. no hex codes or value sliders, we die like men.

what i'll often do next is something i can only explain with respect to the procreate program: i will duplicate my flats layer > clip it down onto my sketch layer > turn the duplicated flats layer to the "hard light" setting > lower its brightness, increase its saturation, and add gaussian blur > merge it with the sketch. this is just a quick way to color my sketch lines, as one would color line art.

now that i have just one layer, i paint. you can check out how i do this in the timelapse. if you'd like to know what brushes i use, i'm not entirely sure how to upload them here on tumblr, but i'll give it a shot if you'd really like me to (FREE RESOURCES WOO 💪💪🔥💯)! the liquify tool is my best friend for tweaking proportions.

finishing touches are also super important to my painting style. here's where i adjust saturation, hues, contrast, and add details like freckles, eye shine, light source, etc. this process combines a variety of techniques and brushes which i could also break down in a longer, separate post. i definitely think this is what makes or breaks my artwork. (also, never doubt your ipad's gallery effect options!!)

thanks for your time! 🥰

[same-side]

Do you have any tips on digital lineart and/or digital painting? I’m practicing on ibisPaint X and was wondering if you had any wisdom to part.

Hey there! I tag all of my art stuff under #art reference . You’ll find step by step processes of some of my works in addition to full tutorials, tips, and other answered asks there. I also sometimes post wip vids to my Instagram @sameside1301

I’ve recently answered a couple of questions that you can find in there on just general wisdom with painting/drawing (how long it takes me, how to use references, etc.).

That said, some tips I shared with a friend recently...

Note that my program is Procreate, but most art programs have analogous tools and brushes.

For lineart:

I see a lot of new artists start out with using brushes like these two, monoline and fine tip:

The names are inconsequential - they differ programme to programme. Just pay attention to the shape and oppacity. They’re solid; they have no pen pressure or tapering or flow. This makes the lines stiff and one dimensional; they appear to end abruptly which is.... generally unappealing.

Try using brushes shaped like this instead:

Brushes that taper at the edges, like studio pen, will provide better contrast and guide the eyes. The lines will be more natural and provide better differentiation between the start and end points. Personally, I use the one below it called hard airbrush. Note that while it doesn’t have taper, it does have opacity, which can achieve the same affect in conjuncture with pen pressure.

For painting and lineart, these are the brushes I typically use:

I get asked about anatomy a lot, in addition to how to get such smooth, stable lines. One little trick I used when I first started drawing was a silhouette method. Since I’ve got uhhhhhhhhlotofhours under my belt now with drawing I don’t tend to need this method any more, but when starting out, I found it extremely helpful. I still rely on this method for paintings, just not for lineart.

I start with a colorblock just to get the basic flow of the picture out. from there, i erase or add to fill in details, and keep working until the silhouette resembles the idea that I have in mind. Once I’m satisfied that the anatomy is correct and the pose is proportional and the flow/pose feels interesting, I trace the silhouette. Then I add in the central details. Its way easier to just zoom in and mindlessly trace the silhouette than to struggle with perfecting the lines and proportions from the start! This also ensures smooth lines because you’re not having to try and redraw and recorrect the same line five hundred times.

This can also be useful if you don’t have a pose in mind already. You can just scribble out a blob and go hey that looks... vaguely like an elephant.... and then come up with an interesting and unique elephant. I’ve heard of a lot of artists using this method for art block.

This also helps with something I’ll refer to as “white space distortion” for lack of a better term. When you’re doing lining, the white space of your canvas will make everything seem wider or “fatter” than it actually is - its the same concept as how a room painted with a lighter color will appear larger than a room painted black. A dark room can feel claustrophobic. So keep this in mind when working on a lineart. By using a colorblock, you’re directly projecting the shape as a silhouette and ensuring your brain is properly processing the proportions. This distortion happens most often to me with heads!! Whenever I draw a head it comes out bigger than what would be directly proportional, because I’m referencing it from a full-color screenshot! If I started on a head silhouette, I would know that its already proportional! But instead, I just have to adjust it afterwards to suit the body!

When painting, if you have a liquify tool - that will be your best friend!! I frequently use the “push” aspect of the liquify tool to adjust things... moving the bridge of a nose ever so slightly higher, widening the corner of an eyelid, etc. using this ensure I don’t have to repaint the same portion of a face over and over and over again until I get it to be perfectly proportional / perfectly located.