#static tutorial

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

GOOD AFTERNOON FELLOW ROB ENJOYERS!!

DO YOU WANNA DRAW YOUR FAVORITE GUY? ARE YOU TIRED OF USING THE SAME THREE STOCK IMAGES FOR THAT PESKY STATIC BODY? WOULD YOU LIKE TO LEARN HOW TO ACHIEVE THE SAME EFFECT USING ONLY YOUR PEN AND LAYER EFFECTS?

WELL THEN BOY DO I HAVE A TUTORIAL FOR YOU!!!

IF YOU FOLLOW THE SIMPLE STEPS LAID OUT DOWN BELOW, YOU TOO CAN BECOME CLINICALLY INSANE LEVEL UP YOUR ART SKILLS BY LEARNING HOW TO MAKE REALISTIC STATIC IN THE DIGITAL MEDIUM!!

okay i'll stop yelling at you now. on with the tutorial!

Step One: Blocking!

this is usually part of the coloring process for me, so you'll need a mostly complete drawing to start out with.

now, draw out where you want the static to be with white. the average hard round brush will be good for this step, but you can use whatever you like! i for example prefer to use the polygon lasso tool to get more crisp edges (however this effect can also be achieved with the eraser tool).

for his arms and legs, just outline them in white and color them in.

depending on the pose/perspective you might have to separate certain pieces into different layers. for example, here his left arm and lower torso are clipping through the line art

so we move them to be below the line art layer and boom! problem solved.

important note: you can not use another color for the blocking. the white base color is critical in achieving the most convincing static look!

Step Two: Brushes and Blues

now for this step, we will be using these four shades of blue-grey, as well as plain black and white. for your convenience, the hex codes are also included!

HEX: 1d2427 HEX: 4d5c65 HEX: 899eac HEX: cce6f6

now go to the different brush presets for whatever program you're using. chances are, they'll have some variety of a paint-splatter brush (and if they don't, there's probably a way for you to download one or make your own).

the best kind to use is one where all of the particles are fully solid and not varying too much in opacity.

Step Three: Jackson Pollock That Shit!

now's the fun part! make a new layer and start layering the blues with your splatter brush in any order you like. just color vomit all over your canvas and don't worry about getting any of the particles outside of the base!

go back and re-layer any particular color as many times as you like until you're satisfied.

sometimes, all of this layering can result in loss of the original base color, like you can see here.

but don't worry! this can be fixed by tossing some white back into the mix.

once you're happy with that, go through and lightly sprinkle in some black. remember: a little is a lot! keep it subtle.

Step Four: Layer Effects!

this is where the magic happens! turn your blue splatter layer(s) into a clipping mask!

ka-boom! looks great, right? well, its about to get even better! go into your layer effects panel and select "Hard Light"

Step Five: Motion Blur

now, this step is optional depending on whether or not your program has more than one kind of blurring effect, but for the sake of the tutorial we'll pretend that it does.

find the motion blur panel and open it. set the angle to zero.

(ignore that i had my distance set to 2 here i just needed to have an example screenshot lol)

now crank that shit up!!

if your static layers had to be separated like in our example, make sure to do the same amount of blurring there as well. depending on your preferences, you can change the level of distance to highlight some kind of feeling. having it at 2 allows the viewer's eyes to rest on the darker colors, but having it at 7 brings out the brighter colors, calling attention to how annoyed he is with me right now.

depending on how you mix the different colors and level of blurring, you can get a lot of different variations in the static's look. feel free to experiment with it!

Step Six: Glow (optional)

unless you're drawing a dark/low-light setting, you can skip this part entirely. again, for the sake of the tutorial, lets pretend its dark!

now, since its supposed to be super dark here, i've selected the base layer for the static and deleted the black from it.

now for the fun part! make a new layer above the one we just made, then take the lightest blue color and cover the static with it! in the next step, this will become your glow!

i like to use a typical hard round brush and then apply a gaussian blur until i think it looks appropriately blurry, but you can also use your average pressure-opacity airbrush! both have their strengths, which you'll see in the next step!

for this step it helps to already have some knowledge of how light interacts with objects, but its not required! if you don't have a lot of prior experience, take this as an opportunity to practice! take it from me, making fan art of specific things is a great way to get good at drawing in general.

once we have an appropriate amount of glow and blur, we set the layer mode to Linear Light! your program might not have this layer mode, so try to find a mode that does something similar or is close enough

here you can see the strengths i mentioned before!

in the areas where i used the solid round brush + gaussian blur, i had a bit more control over how concentrated the light was at the center and how far it could spread, making it look more artificial/computerized.

meanwhile in the airbrushed areas, there's a very different vibe! on the right side where i applied the airbrush harshly in one stroke, it has a sort of cloudy look, but on the left where i applied it in multiple strokes, the varying opacities create a more painted aesthetic, which adds a lot of visual interest!

now we have arrived at the final step of this process! go to the current layer's opacity box and lower that sucker!

you should raise/lower this meter depending on how dark it is. Keep messing with it until it feels right. for our specific example(and more specifically the gaussian blur areas), a good opacity level is 73% !

and with that, we're done!

thank you for reading this! i had a fun time putting it together :)

before you go, please know that you don't have to follow every step of this to the letter!! feel free to break away from my methods and do your own experiments! mess with the hue of the static colors, use different brushes for the glow lighting, add variation in your particle sizes - go crazy with it!! half of art is experimentation and i wouldn't even have this process without it! :3

if you end up using this tutorial for Rob art on tumblr, please tag me in it!!! i would be absolutely overjoyed to see whatever you make :D (not a requirement though! either way, i'm very proud to have put this out into the world)

if you need help with any of these steps or the process in general, feel free to reach out in the replies of this post or in my ask box! i'd be happy to help out with whatever you need :3 thank you for reading this and i hope you have a wonderful day!

[dragon-subway]

for artists who have a lot of experience in drawing characters (the furry and human or just generally organic kind, that is) and little else, it can be super difficult to even begin comprehending how armour and robots work but if said artist were to have even the slightest knowledge on basic perspective clone trooper armour can be a gateway in this essay i will--

[petrapixel]

here's a list of all the intermediate coding tutorials i've written so far!

git / github tutorial

npm (and node.js) tutorial (+ how to use the command line) (this one's a prerequisite for the following 2 tutorials)

webpack tutorial (a module builder for JavaScript and (S)CSS)

11ty (eleventy) tutorial (a super easy static site generator!)

if you have ideas/requests, feel free to contact me!

more beginner coding tutorials are coming VERY soon! meanwhile, check out my common questions and common mistakes pages!

[kowaindar0u]

you ever just have an idea to draw but like. your brain didn't come up with any context for it? LOL so now i have this but it's finally out of my system so

[spotlightstudios]

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