#I'm not good at photoshop woops

[captain-coffeebean]

“Unable to perceive the shape of You, I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love, It humbles my heart, For You are everywhere.”

[bloodydamnit]

heyy i love your robin drawing!! i was just wondering (i'm sure you've been asked this before so sorry if it's repetitive) what your drawing process is. do you make renders then draw the lineart separately? idk why i always thought you drew directly on renders ahaha

Hey!!!! first off, thank you so much! That’s a really good question. So, for little spurts like my Robin drawing, I made that render ages ago. It was our original image of Robin since Season 2 was just an idea. I did the drawing separately because it was just something to keep my hand and mind going. The render just acted as a quick reference. 

Normally, I make a full render of the painting that I’m going to make. Most of the time, it’s just a base goal. So I know how everything will lay, how the lighting falls, etc. I’m a very visual person and I need things to be close to what my painting is going to be. Otherwise, I’ll fret over lighting and shadows for days lol. 

Then, I trace the render (because I cant be fucked redrawing the whole thing. it’s a waste of time imo. If it’s just a portrait though, neck up (like robin), I’ll just draw it separately. I’m really anal so it usually ends up being exactly the same as the render anyway. Again, for me, tracing is just a time saver. I don’t have the time to draw something for 6 hours when I just spent 8 on the render.). If there are things I’m changing, I’ll get rid of the render and finish all the details with just the drawing. After the lineart is finished, I begin to paint. Normally I pull up sections of the render and paint on whatever color background I think will add to the painting the most and compliment skintones primarily. 

Here’s an example. I’m making a big Witcher piece right now. I made a full render of what I want done: 

After the render, I pop it into procreate or photoshop to mess around with the colors, brightness, etc, and get them how I want them. After that, I make the lineart and then, sometimes, quickly plot out a background. 

(geralts head got erased. Woops. I was posting to instagram and the blue lines were distracting me lol)

Now, I didn’t really like Geralt or Yennefers faces. There’s only so much that 3D renders can do. So, I quickly went to google just to get the actors for reference, so I can make them as close to the actors as possible, since I’m using the TV show as reference. 

Doesnt have to be the same pose or anything. It’s just so I can see their facial structures, while still using my renders as reference. For example, my render of geralt has a higher cheekbone and it’s flatter. Where as Henry Cavill’s is a bit lower and he has a stronger jowl. I added that into my final painting so it looks more like him. After I make all the reference changes in the lineart, like where the shadow might fall differently, etc, I begin painting.

Going back and forth between the actor and the render as reference. 

Now this is just my process for something like a movie or show that people can look at and will probably go THAT DOESNT LOOK LIKE THE ACTOR AND BLAHBLAHBLAH. If it’s a book or an oc, I just make the characters how I see them and nix any photo references in favor of making it my own in my renders. But its pretty much the same process! 

Hope this explains things and thank you again!

[perdizzion]

Hi! Can I ask you how you make your merch? Like, how do you print the design on a keychain\make stickers\ecc? I'm just really curious, I saw photos of your merch and it looks awesome!!! (If you don't want to answer for whatever reasons feel free to delete this though)

hello!! NONSENSE i’d be honored to share my merch-making experience with all yall!!! you guys are the ones who have been keeping me afloat after all!

well ok so the first step to making merch is creating the design of course. i draw using adobe photoshop cs6 with a wacom intuos, just in case you’re curious about that as well! its super duper important that i draw it with a 300dpi resolution so i wont have any trouble with the printing quality! 

next up is contacting the supplier and giving my designs to them. this is…..the tricky part. finding a supplier that im comfortable with took me AGES! one of them messed up a great portion of my keychains, another one took a month to reply back to me, another one ended up being too expensive, and the list goes on. it’s extremely important to make sure that i communicate every single detail about my order clearly to them! it doesn’t matter if they think i’m being annoying or bossy, what matters is that the results come out satisfyingly and are up to par with my expectations! the whole process usually takes about 3-5 days, but sometimes when i need to rush things, i make a special request about how i need them faster. this usually results in a more costly price, but some suppliers don’t charge extra for this (bless their heart), so again, it’s just a matter of good communication with your supplies!

right now i’ve only done acrylic keychains, pins, standees, art prints and stickers, but im planning to expand a lot more with (possibly) plushies and pouches!! wish me luck! oh and all of my suppliers are located locally, but i heard alibaba and taobao have really great international suppliers!! my friend linked me to an enamel pin supplier from one of those sites and they actually look very decent so i hope i can try my hands on an enamel pin design one day too!!

moving on, next up is quality checking and packaging! i always make sure to quality check all of my products first before i pack them up. i usually print about 4-6 more products than i need to make sure that i have spare extras in case the supplier made a mistake on a few of my orders. this way, i won’t have to wait for them to make more!

once all products are checked, i pack them up in padded envelopes! it’s suuuuper duper important to use a shitload of bubble wrap. our mail service is absolute shit and our mails get tossed around very often, so it’s absolutely obligatory for me to utilize as much bubble wrap as i can! i also like to put in a few extra goodies like personalized cards, free stickers and some candies as a form of thank you to my customers! it needs a lot of effort to prepare all of them but it’s all worth it because i’m always so grateful for my customers’ support and i want to SHOWER THEM ALL WITH MY ETERNAL LOVE AND GRATITUDE

a few tips i can share for merch-making is probably:

count your prices accordingly!! make sure to check shipping prices so you won’t lose a shitload profit over a stupid mistake like miscalculating the shipping fee!

i cannot stress this enough: BE ASSERTIVE TO YOUR SUPPLIERS!! check up on them about how your orders are doing every goddamn hour if you need to! im kidding. maybe not every hour. every 12 hours will do

PRINT A SPREADSHEET OF YOUR CUSTOMERS’ ORDERS!! don’t just rely on the digital copy, it’ll help you a lot while packing, trust me!!

customers love freebies!!! they’ve helped you reached this far, show them a bit of your love for them! at least put in a thank you card or something!!

PROMOTE THAT SHIT!! go crazy with your shop promotion. nobody cares if you’re over-promoting. EARN THAT DOLLAR, FAM

last, but not least, don’t push yourself too hard!!! if you need a break from drawing/socializing/packing, take a goddamn break. your health is way more important. just make sure to be transparent to your customers; tell them that their orders will be a bit delayed. they’ll understand. if they don’t, the worst thing that could happen is the demand for refunds, but that’s so much more preferable than having a fucked up back or extreme fatigue from overworking yourself. these two things have happened to me so TAKE THE ADVICE JUST TAKE IT

PHEW that got so much longer than i’d expected woops. but hey there u go!! i left a lot of the details out but i hope that answered your question! 

thank you SO MUCH for checking out my merch pics!! it means a lot that people like you appreciate the hard work i poured into my art :”)) HAVE A GREAT DAY ANON