#process

[possumcollege]

I have templates with pre-labeled layers that I like to start with so I can better keep track of primary characters/body shapes vs backgrounds/details/accessories/environmental elements. I have preset layers for %greys (named 10, 15, 30) halftones, masking, gradients, and textures that are nigh impossible to unfuck once they're accidentally combined with others.

Almost all of them have very stupid or misspelled names. Junk like, panlines, charlines, scnlines, txtyr, werds, upmask, blulines, noizpat. My word bubbles are always on a layer called "bubbble" because of a Stephen Malkmus song, which arbitrarily made me need to call my base color layer "colorrr" forever.

It helps enough that it's a pain in the ass to open a new file and start from scratch without 'em.

Digital artists who use layers: do you actually name them?

[koyoriin]

next one!

[ bluesky | patreon | instagram | twitter | prints ]

[iceghosto]

I wanted to try recording a warmup earlier. Getting the video to be uploadable was honestly the hardest part haha. its a little messy cause my posture was off to avoid getting in the way

[dinodanicus]

The process for my phytosaurus illustration.

[refinedstorage]

stand alone Adam and process

[st-hedge]

Wow I wonder what this wip is of :)

[superdrivel]

The U.S. fired 92 THAAD interceptors during the conflict, Cicurel’s research shows, cutting into its total estimated supply of about 632. THAAD interceptors are produced by Lockheed Martin and cost about $12.7 million apiece, according to recent budget estimates from the Missile Defense Agency. The U.S. acquired 11 interceptors in 2024 and is scheduled to receive 12 more by the end of the year. Between 25 and 37 additional interceptors are expected by the end of fiscal year 2026, but replenishing the stockpile could still take three to eight years, according to JINSA.

23 Jul 25

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[kelogsloops]

forever repeating 'trust the process' in my head while making these marker portrait studies 😅 #brbchasingdreams

🎵 Blue Wednesday - Things In Between

[queenoftheantz]

I actually took photos of my process this time! I always look for these when i try to learn the medium, so here you go! Details on the process is in the alt text!

[lackadaisycats]

I’m obsessed with the Lackadaisy comics way of shading/colouring! Could you please give a tutorial of how you do that and what brushes you use?

Here's a sample I used for the Lackadaisy Essentials art book. About 98% of the time, I'm not using specialized brushes - just basic soft and hard-round brushes, with various opacities.

Digital scan of the establishing shot pencil drawing - I added some some grid lines on top to double check the 1-point perspective. I didn’t include the characters here because I knew I’d be using the art as a background for more than one panel in the comic.

Initial lighting pass - This was done almost entirely by burning shadow directly into the pencil art scan. This way, I preserve a lot of my pencil lines (rather than painting over them) and the grain of the paper remains in play. This helps retain a sort of aged, natural media look despite the largely digital nature of it.

Contrast and brightness adjustments - Here I hand-painted more minute details into the rug, decor and fixtures with small diameter round brushes. I drew a wallpaper pattern on a separate canvas, then applied it as an overlay layer here too. And, of course, the characters arrived as raw pencils on new layers.

Character compositing and color wash - I didn't want to go fully monochrome with the colors, but I also didn't want to treat this like a full color digital painting. Instead, I opted for something resembling a warm-to- cool wash, achieved with a color layer on top of the grayscale base. Young Mordecai and Rose were toned to match the scene with a combination of burning, dodging and painting.

Lighting effects and atmosphere - Overlay layers can be used to push warm values into a much more saturated, vibrant place than a color layer alone can manage, and that's what I did here to create the streaming sunlight. I used a screen layer to include overexposure on bright colored elements as well. Floating dust motes in the light were added for atmosphere, and I polished the characters up with their own color and overlay layers to match the scene.

There's another, older process breakdown here on the Lackadaisy web site too, if you want more information.

[staticcolour]

Commission o7 Process below the cut

[missusruin]

wip vs finals; paint-blob edition

[alfheimr]

a collection of my favorite clip studio brushes that i shared on bsky a while back - i figured i'd share it here too! they are all FREE!! (or were last time i checked like 6 months ago)

[skunkes]

how would you go about drawing a double chin on a thin person with a thin neck? i have one and i never know how to portray it

oh i have this bc i have a weak ass chin

dis is some examples of how i like to do it...this is with the assumption of not much face fat as well. i like the half line leading to the chin, half line leading to the neck to make the fold.....but depending on how much fat, the chin bump just sits separately from the sides of the face. i find the neck also widens closer closer to the jaw bc of the mass accumulating there

as for 3/4s it also depends on how much fat but the chin existing as its own separate little landmark to imply more fat below it still applies