#rendering is getting more fun in csp

[dbg-wow]

🗣️🗣️🗣️WARP TROTTERS AS PETS NOW!!!!

[hpdmguy]

ways they show each other love !

loads of rambles + clutter-less version below the cut

the yellow lines highlighting things is actually marking (almost) everywhere they touch since the primary theme of this piece is physical affection! the stars were just for fun

top left (kissing): pretty self explanatory! fun fact, it was the first thing i drew for this piece :)

top middle (hand on back): i was trying to sleep the other night and my brain suddenly went. drarry physical affection and that was the first thing i pictured! i kind of imagined this one as like... dracos stressed or something and harry just puts a nice comforting hand on his back

top right: the good ol pinkie hand hold,, link, ,think. yeah. no real thoughts behind this one. it fit the box and its cute

middle left (speech bubbles): one thing i see a lot (im pretty sure this is ((implied in)) canon as well, but dracos a big yapper! so its kinda showing here that harrys just listening to all hes got to say. probably my favourite one of the lot, i had fun rendering it. (looking at this post i too am a yapper)

middle (orange slices): theres this thing where you peel an orange for the people you love. you can look at it either way; draco providing food for harry, knowing his childhood food insecurity and always wanting to make sure he has something, or harry (whose love language is acts of service) giving something to draco, maybe after a long day

watermarked middle (draco constellation): just some fun symbolism i thought i might try to fit in

middle right (legs): in this theyre just chilling. dracos reading (the book didnt come across well ((i cant draw hands very well)).

right edge (flowers): these are narcissus flowers, also known as daffodils. a reference to narcissa malfoy, and also a reference i suppose to how she saved harry in the forest, because draco was alive, because harry saved him in the room of requirement

bottom left edge (flowers): these are lilies. partly to complete the circle of mothers saving sons saving the world, and partly because i wanted to fill space. (theyre fucking terrible to draw tho i do not recommend)

bottom left (hand in hair): well harrys hair is very luxurious as you can see and i imagine during cuddles draco cards his hand through it and teases out snarls and such. (i know hair pulling is something that can be seen as sexual, this isnt that and it isnt meant to be that and please dont see it as that :(

bottom watermark (stag): harrys patronus because why not

bottom middle: so this is a bit obscure but theres this post by @/iamnmbr3 that talks about a headcanon that they can share wands and its kind of special and intimate. so thats what ive depicted here. also for funsies harry has the draco constellation on his arm. not the big dipper. also i cant draw the dark mark for shit

bottom right (shoes): just a subtle way they can touch, not always big. just under the table or sitting on the sofa together, just to feel the other person there.

i knew i wanted a warm scheme and i knew i wanted orange and blue to play a big part in this. i was going to have warm colours on blue and cool colours on orange as a sort of contrast but that didnt end up working out.. the wand scene is an attempt at it except i mixed it up and made it cool on cool, its so washed out and i didnt bother to fix it

[northstarscowboyhat]

Can't help but imagine that in the Lucky Clover AU, if Frisk were to manage to sneak away and end up befriending Undyne and the skelebros whilst everyone in the Dunes is probably having a panic attack (maybe Flowey caused a distraction or something, like some scaffolding collapsing causing everyone to focus on figuring out how that happened, giving Frisk the ability to sneak away), by the time Martlet finds them they've already managed to make the Underground a bit safer for at least themself.

Doesn't stop them from being grounded though-

That's exactly the plot set up I had in mind for this AU!

Even though Frisk is under very strict rules by Clover to not leave the Dunes without them, Frisk is constantly wandering off (perhaps influenced by a certain someone...) and exploring the other parts of the Underground. This is how Frisk eventually meets Papyrus, Sans, Undyne, Alphys, and others! And yes, Frisk is always grounded by Clover once they're eventually found and brought home. Doesn't stop them from sneaking out again, though. Clover is getting a taste of their own medicine trying to control this kid LOL.

[ethosiab]

Hey hey, I have a question for anyone who paints/draws using CSP, what brushes do you recommend?

I've been using the program for like 3 years but I have 1 non-default tool that i use, and i think it's time for me to switch it up a little 😅

[mealbits]

i think what i love the most abt ur art is that ur always drawing things you clearly enjoy and u can tell bc of the way ur works all look like they were made with love and i guess what im trying to say is how do i do that lol

I GET HOW U FEEL SO MUCH. truth is back in liiike 2020 i was exclusively creating art for this blog in a 'What Does My Audience Want?' mindset, and if you do want to get into fields that center around Art/Design for An Audience theres no harm in doing that in moderation(but back in 2020 it felt like all i did was make art for other people lmao). one major thing that helped me make this blog more about My Art for Me and less My Art for Someone Else was rethinking how and why i made art. my art was 'the thing i have to put on my blog today' but nowadays its more 'this project im doing to learn XYZ while also drawing what i want to draw' (i also have more projects and ideas overall because of it!!!! thats also something i noticed just now lol) that shadow gijinka i just posted used 2 be a ditched sketch from. last week? i forgot abt until i lined, colored, and rendered it just for fun (and to do some more paint-adjacent rendering cuz thats my jam) since i do plan to get into commission work this year i am aware i gotta prioritize more Art Studies and 'Learning how to draw for other people, figure out what they want, etc.' or whatever. uhhh tldr i wanted to get better at art without hating art so i do studies with shadow the hedgehog and anime girls.

[ika-archieves]

how i make color palettes of my ocs before i pick one, an art tutorial?

hello, whenever i made a new design for myself i found a way to make lots of color palettes and pick one! i see this method more in paintings and rendering but not much on character designs? here are some examples i used that on.

it helps me so much when i feel experimental with colors. here are what you need

a wip character design. sketchy or pixel art works better since the colors can have some anti aliasing issues

a program with gradient maps. i'm using clip studio paint but ik photoshop also has it. like i said this is used more on photos or paintings

and here's what you do!

draw your character. i'm making a new fursona for myself but anything should work.

2. decide on their markings/color placement in grayscale. i recommend doing grayscale so you can easily see the values. split your grays into however colors you want. i like doing 5-6 the most. i reccomend duplicating the color layer if you wanna try multiple palettes.

3. this part is program dependent but in csp's case go to edit > tonal correction > gradient map.

4. i made a few default 5 color gradient maps but if don't use gradients like me i reccomend making the graph like this so they become solid color. split the map into however many colors you used. i'll add a color to the red-orange one bc my character has 6 grays.

5. replace the colors by clicking below specified color. it all depends on your creativity and what you want. experiment til you like it.

6. fuck around, try stuff, put them together to see if you like any of em. i made 9 to see if i can focus on one of them and i actually ended up loving the bottom right. it really makes them shiny

7. (optional) if you like a palette you can further and play with colors while keeping the palette. you can use color balance (in the same menu as gradient map in csp) or layers to mess around, have fun!

also a color tip because people seem to compliment that a lot in my art: digital art has millions of colors! don't be afraid of using wacky tones unless you're going pantone. if you want to get something physical i recommend being open to alternative colors as they tend to be more limited. i know whoever is doing it will try their best to keep the colors close.

color theory is something i don't...care much about mostly because this is something i'm doing for fun. i'll consider it in professional work.

[blueskittlesart]

What advice would you give beginner artists?

it's fine to want to do more stylized art, but nothing will help you improve quickly like studying from life. even if you want to draw very stylized figures, life drawing is still going to help you understand how the human body works and then you can build your stylization off of that understanding. I also recommend studying specifically things you're looking to improve--if you feel like your poses aren't dynamic, ask your model to do some quick (1-2 min) dynamic poses and work on getting the gesture down. if you're looking for anatomy, ask for longer, more static poses and really study the contours of the body. this also applies for portraiture and character art--my expressions and facial structure improved like CRAZY when i started doing portrait studies from life! (note: i know live model sessions aren't accessible for everyone. i'm a huge advocate for nude models, if you can find a studio nearby that's affordable to you that offers sessions, that's the best you're gonna get. however, there are sites that will give you photos of nude models to draw from, too, or you can even just ask friends or family to pose for you when they aren't busy, that's what i did before i started getting model sessions from my school!)

materials are not everything but sometimes a good material can make a difference. it's important to know what's worth it and what isn't for your skill level. invest in some decent-quality supplies or a good art program, but understand that you're still going to need to work to understand your materials and use them to their fullest potential. (if you're a digital artist buy csp. trust me on this. get it on sale. it will change your life. also do not fucking use photoshop)

tracing is ok. listen to me. TRACING. IS. OK. tracing is how you learn. don't trace other people's art and pass it off as your own, obviously, but there is literally no problem with tracing real-life reference photos. I routinely trace references for backgrounds and the like. there is no reason for you to kill yourself trying to make complex perspective and shit up from your head when you can very easily just overlay a photo and get what you need.

in that same vein, USE REFERENCE PHOTOS. find pics online or take pics of yourself and USE THEM to see how your poses work. it makes it SO SO SO much easier. the understanding that you need to create a pose out of nowhere will come with time but you're not going to get that skill unless you have a foundation of understanding how the real human body works, and the easiest way to get that understanding is by copying photos of real people.

last but not least, there's generally a sort of 'rulebook' that new artists are expected to go by, especially online, when it comes to digital art. when i was first learning, it was all about lineart and cell shading, two things that I didn't really like. Nowadays it seems to be all about rendering. the single most important thing i can tell you is if it sucks you don't have to do it. if you hate lineart just color your sketches. if you hate shading don't shade, or find a different way to shade that you enjoy more. if rendering is annoying or difficult for you DON'T BOTHER!! art is supposed to be fun. if part of your process is annoying or upsetting to you, cut it the fuck out. don't torture yourself just to do art the "right" way. i guarantee your art will look better when you're having fun making it anyway!

[goron-king-darunia]

Eggtober 6th 2023

"Splat" or "Fun with Colors": Raw Egg.

(Clip Studio Paint, Gouache Brush, Pencil brush for details and highlights. 12 colors, I think? 1 Hour.) I actually really liked the rough version I made, so you're gonna get that one at the end as well, for anyone who also likes the rough one better than the smooth one.

But first... I finally discovered a feature of CSP, so now I am unstoppable and I will NEVER AGAIN have to ask myself "How the fuck did I do that?"

Because now I have EVIDENCE. Now curious friends, followers, and my forgetful ass, can watch the full process of how I made a thing. Including what references I used so it's clear how much is iterative and how much I am drawing directly from the visual reference. Today I had to do a lot from imagination because I couldn't find an exaggerated splashy egg, but sometimes I really am just making a study and trying to do a one-to-one recreation of a reference. So now y'all get to know all my filthy little secrets. I was intending to grab footage starting with Eggtober 1, 2023 but OBS needs a version of an NVIDIA driver that will absolutely wreck my computer with BSODs because I own a junker apparently. But it turns out CSP (or at least V2, IDK if it was in V1) has a way to capture a speedpaint natively when you create the file.

Now I am unstoppable, powerful. No more taking a break from art when life gets busy and coming back to pieces I drew 10 years ago and wondering "How the hell did I manage that?" I can just check. It's over for all of you. Once I practice anatomy again and start being able to draw shapes and volumes perfectly from imagination, I will become all-powerful. I will ascend. Hell, maybe someone might even pay me if I learn to draw anything that isn't an egg or a meme. XD Radical self-confidence, baby. I can art now, and I have evidence. My horizons are infinite!

And now, hopefully, any baby artists that are just starting out can get an idea of how I do it from this and future pieces so I can pull you all up with me in a bid of apotheosis. For the EGGsthetic! (Aesthetic.)

I wonder which version of this egg @lady-quen's breadbugs will snap up?

And I wonder which one @quezify will like best? My money's on the sketchy one.

I can't tell which I like better honestly. The smooth one us much more "My aesthetic" because it matches how I render eggs but... The rough pencil-y gouache lines you get with light pressure really remind me of how the classic modern quezify eggs look, and I of course only started doing eggs because of the first Eggtober so, like. On the one hand, smooth and painterly look that goes with all but one of my previous eggs (Eggtober 1, 2023 was a study from memory of quezify's style, after all). But on the other hand... dramatic color changes! Textrure, shine! Colors that aren't in the actual references! EXPRESSIVENESS. Two different moods on the same egg art and I really dig both of them honestly.

[bluecolty]

Oh boy, my model and rig for Xeon are finally done! I've got a lot of info in this post, because dang it's been a journey haha.

Over the past month and a half I've built this lad, rigged him, put him into VRChat, made a 2D background to showcase him, and shot him out of a rocket in spite. Well, not really, but oh man sometimes I wish I could have. *wheeze*

The Xeon rig and model features a new rigging system, a better model, better organization, and a whole host of improvements over my last model of Medea. And dang, I'm excited to dive into em!

First up is the lil fun showcase. Using the new rigging system, I did lots of fun poses! And I'm super happy with how the toon shader looks too. For his model, I focused on refining the topology and making the weight painting better. Noodle arms also helps a ton too! These improvements really helped get it looking as not 3D as possible hahaha.

Keep reading for more of the behind the scenes stuff!

Yes, this is a 2D background! Way back in the day I used to make backgrounds to showcase my finished models... but I kind of strayed away from that. With Xeon though, I decided to get back into making backgrounds, and instead of doing it in Blender- I drew it!

This is the first ever one I've publicly published, and only one of 3 I've ever done. I first laid out the perspective in Blender and the lined/colored it in Clip Studio Paint. The model of Xeon was rendered in Blender on a separate layer, then I dropped him in the CSP background.

There's defintiely some wrong things with my 2D background, but for the first colored one I've done, I'm pretty happy with it. Its all about practice, and as I gain more experience I hope to better refine the Blender perspective to 2D pipeline.

This time for Xeon, I wanted to massively push my rigging skills. So with the help of Rigify, I've done just that. The rig for Xeon features a very advanced and customizable rigging system that allows me to pose him in so many different ways.

Oh and also, noodle arms and legs! That was a thing I've been meaning to add to my characters for so long, I just haven't known how to. But now with the new rig I can do just that!

As you can see below, the rig is also very user friendly. It's definitely complex, but it should be a lot more standard and a lot more user friendly.

I can't wait to add this rig to all my future models as well!

That's all I have for ya'lls today, I hope you all enjoy him!

[namakooo]

What art program and brushes do you use? tips on lighting? your illustrations radiate warmth 🌻💛

Thank you!! 🌻💛

This post got a little long, but I've answered each question so if you're curious, it's under here!

Art program?

I use Clip Studio Paint EX and Procreate! I mostly use CSP for my animations and Procreate for my illustrations lately, but I've used CSP for a lot of my illustrations too.

Brushes?

For CSP: I mostly use variations of the default "Design Pencil", each tweaked to fit different needs. Sometimes I use brushes I made myself, but these three are my main ones.

For Procreate: I use the HB Pencil for my lines and Tinderbox for my colors (both are default brushes).

Lighting tips?

This is a pretty big question! I could spend hours talking about this, but I tried to put together some very basic tips.

Figuring out where shadows go:

Light generally comes in a straight line from the light source, and everything it hits or touches is the illuminated area.

Everything it doesn't touch, either because it's an area at an angle it can't reach, or because something is in the way, is the shadows!

Thinking about where the light source is, and where it can't reach or what obstacles are in its way are helpful things to think about when figuring out shadows.

Reflected light:

This is a little more specific, but once you figured out basic lights and shadows, reflected light is another element that's useful to know.

Every object reflects a bit of the light it receives, which affects the colors of the other surrounding objects. The reflected light is of the color of the object it's reflected from.

Rendering details in light and shadow:

You'd be surprised at how much you can get away with not rendering the details that are in the shadow, as long as you render the ones that are in the light.

In this Trigun fanart piece I've skipped most of the details that are hidden in the harsh shadows, but kept a lot of the details on Vash's boots for example.

Unless the focus of the piece is on something in the shadows specifically, you can simplify a lot of the stuff that's not in the light!

🌻

If all of this confuses you, that's alright! Learning takes time, and small steps are still steps forward!

Rules are also there to be broken depending on your goal for your art, so you don't even have to follow them if you don't need them. I break these all the time too.

I hope these tips can be helpful in any way! Happy fun lighting!

[spacey-xannabelle]

Fateful Encounter...

Last month, at around April 10th, I decided to revisit an old project I started months prior which was to polish up a test sketch of a comic page about Lucy encountering Lumi in the dreamspace. And after slowly making progress on this, I'm finally finished with this!

I'm gonna leave some artist notes under the read more, but overall I'm super proud of how this turned out!! This is pretty much my first serious attempt at making comics in general so this has been a very interesting learning experience!

Artist notes: So this is what the original sketch for this whole thing was. It was just me scribbling out a scene I had in my head for Startrails that I wanted to put on paper:

This I'd say was made around 2020-2021 ish. At the time, I didn't really do much with it. Until several months ago, I thought of trying to redraw this page and expand upon it.

But my first attempt at doing this didn't quite lead anywhere. I barely got through the thumbnailing process and just gave up bc I lost motivation (and life/work stuff was Happening so yea I had to put this aside as I figured stuff out). Here's the first draft of the thumbnails:

It was just two pages at the time and was pretty simple. I left this project sitting in my files for a while until I one day just, started binging videos from Thestarfishface on YouTube, primarily her webcomic guide videos. And I decided I'd give this project another go.

It was here where I began making a second draft of the thumbnails and this was what I had to work with:

I wanted to experiment with the panels and get funky with the compositions this time around. The 2 page draft expanded to a 3 page thing. But I thought it would've been better if I added one more page at the end with Lucy waking up as a conclusion to wrap this whole thing together.

And in the middle of working on page 3, my friend had suggested to do a an impact frame page, which I hadn't considered during the thumbnailing, so 4 pages became 5. And this was the result!

I posted the pages as I finished them onto my deviantart so that's where a lot of my thoughts were journaled as I went along dfjsdh. To summarize my ramblings there, this project was a very fun (and a bit frustrating) learning experience! I'm hoping to keep practicing and improving my workflow, and hopefully one day make Startrails a full fledged webcomic :')

Additional ramblings:

The structure that Lucy finds Lumi in is inspired by an orrery.

For page 5, I initially didn't plan for much dialogue but as I drew it, it felt just a liiiitle bit empty, so I kinda just threw in some dialogue for Mira. But bc I was already in the inking process (and I just wanted to have this project completed), I didn't redo the page to even include Mira in it. So Mira's just out of frame sdfjskdh. If I had more time and energy to keep this up, I'd have made a revision of the page so I could include her.

This experience has taught me that I could seriously work on my rendering process a bit more, and that my layer management is just atrocious sdkfjksdfh

This has also taught me that while Medibang has the tools needed for me to draw these pages just fine, it also lacks some stuff that I personally need if I were to do a longer project like this. So I'll be experimenting with CSP next!

The dialogue throughout this whole thing wasn't all that planned out- I really just stuck close to what the initial doodle had which probably wasn't the best idea bc I just have like, 2 pages of Lucy's awkward sounding dialogue aaaa. I might do something a bit more dialogue heavy to help improve this skill next time.

Anyway, thank you for reading through my 1 am ramblings on this little project of mine shdkjhks

[artists-who-rarely-draws]

Oh wow! I wasn't expecting you all to like the mcd sona so much!!! But I'm so happy you do!! Thank you to everyone for the compliments and have a garroth in return!

(I just got my laptop back so I'm relearning how to render on csp bare with me lmfao)

Also!! Some of you showed interest in me making a minecraft roleplay of my own!!!!! I'm posting about it day to day on tik tok but!! If yall want to hear about it here I'll make posts!!

So under the cut has some info on that in the mean time! To see if anyone has any intrest ^^

I do not know what to call it rn so it has the temporary name of 'Villiage Tributes' which I hate but I suck at titles lmfaoo

Character design stuff and their info is at the bottom for now I'll talk about what I know I want video formatting and general universe lore wise ^^.

Video Format:

-whole the main focus will be on the storytelling there will be some just general playing minecraft aspects! Like the getting materials and building, because I liked a small amount of those ya know! And no one includes them at all anymore. :(

-audience feedback will be a HUGE part! Mainly in things like end pairings and junk so long as it doesn't compromise the writing ^^

-while the main medium will be well-minecraft lolol, I would want to have some scenes/ Intros be done with art/animatics!!! To make up for some parts where minecraft may lack the proper ommf lmfao (like when a important character in introduced the first scene will be drawn to better show off character designs and junk!

Universe Lore:

-it will be kind of a skyrim kingdom build- where there is a major central city and leader, and a bunch of regional lords as well, maybe like a council thing? Oh?

-there are currently 3 major love interests! (For the mc) they will get individual posts but here are just the uh, biggest tropes? With them?

-Guard x Noble (come on i- how can I not?? Mcd or not it's necessary for medival fantasy come ON)

-Flirt Hopeless romantic x oblivious (it's cute trust me)

-Villian x hero (i- come on come ON)

Also!!! There's a possibly poly options!!!! (Not with the villian so sorry lads)

-this is taking place directly after a giant Civil War for the rights of Animal and Magic Folk! So the world we enter in is currently recovering and rebuilding and has gone through MASSIVE social and legal changes!

-we won't be originally starting off in a village! We will be starting in something more of a camp/ settlement? And ontop of everything we will be going through the process of getting it legally recognized as a village!!

Character designs and some info!

Mc

Yeah, I know, I never promised I wouldn't be cringe. Most of

Name: Mello

Pronouns: Any/ all

Powers: under construction

Most of the backstory is top secret for now lol.

Fun fact:

-Stims when upset by frantically tapping a finger against her palm

Love intrest 1:

(He is getting a ref remake because I did this on my phone and on a day where I just could- NOT draw for the life of me!)

So! This is getting way to long- so I will make follow up posts if yall want so!! Let me know! I'd LOVE to chat about it! There is so much work I'm doing all the time and I have so much lore

[alciedoodles]

Hey Neyla! I hope it’s ok that I ask but is there a brush setting you prefer on procreate? I’ve been inspired by your art for eons but I can’t comprehend photoshop. You can totally disregard this if you don’t use procreate though!

Hello! I don't know how long this message's been sitting in my inbox because i didnt check in for a while 🥺 I hope you get to see this either way!

I don't use procreate unfortunately, but I can explain the settings I use for my brushes on CSP in general, and if it works like any other art software then you should have similar settings on procreate

for sketches/linework, I will very often use an opaque & slightly textured round brush. the most important for me is for the brush to have that fuzzy sort of texture that gives the impression of using a pen/marker on paper.

note that i am actually terrible when it comes to line weight, it's definitely not something i work on a lot other than in backgrounds, so I don't actually bother too much with pen pressure settings.

the only rule I abide to is to always set the minimum value above 0 (anywhere between 20-30 is what I use). this is because when I started drawing, I used to be very heavy-handed and would wear out my pens too quickly-- so setting a minimum can help you become more aware of how hard you're pressing on your pen and make gentler strokes.

another fun little setting i use is opacity: like I said, I use opaque brushes for lines, but I like to reduce a tiny bit of opacity when brushing very lightly to give that impression of pen on paper.

There's a couple more brushes I use for coloring or rendering; the major sticking point being that I don't use pen pressure to control brush size that much. If I want to make thinner/smaller strokes, I'll simply reduce the brush size because it's easier for me to control!

(also, opacity is something I'll use a lot more when I'm working on colors)

just know that this is my way of handling it, and it may not suit your style. pen pressure may be another artist's best friend, so please make sure you try out what works best for you :)

finally, some art softwares come with stabilization. I don't use it personally, unless i'm actually trying to do really smooth curves (which is practically never). stabilization can also make CSP lag a lot with higher values and large brushes. the use of stabilization doesn't make you a bad artist or a lazy one, and not using it can make your lines look a tiny bit wobbly if you're not used to doing quick strokes. use stabilization at your own leisure!

on a different note, i know this wasn't part of the question but I'm bringing this up since it's something I tend to hear from people who say they were inspired by my art (thank you by the way🥺💕!!) : don't be misled by artstyles that "make it look easy"! my sketches may look very simple and natural because i'm more adept at bringing out the essential and discarding details in a design. this is not necessarily what you want for your art style; maybe you like drawing details a lot, maybe you prefer the lazy way out going straight to the point. neither are good or bad, only what you like to do matters.

also, if you're frustrated by your work, don't be afraid to draw over it as many times as you want, adjusting things with the lasso tool or deform if something feels off then drawing over again. sometimes you'll be satisfied with your first take, and sometimes you'll need 3 bases before its acceptable (examples below)-- it all depends on your mood, energy, motivation, desired outcome, format, or even just randomness

oh and, sometimes the best way to enjoy drawing..is to find something to obsessively draw (,:

take care!

[kimeoshi]

‘Twas both 👁👁, but yeah honestly I’m very interested cause damn- (sorry if I seem awkward I’m not good with online interaction 😭😭 LMAO)

NAH no worries you're doing fine!!

It's a pretty wide array of topics but touching the surface of it, I'll go into my art process.

Here's a short thread where I went into this similarly!

I pretty much follow the steps of what I mentioned there, but it varies a little bit based on the style I go for too: painting whole illustrations or design or more simple fun things.

I could describe what I did in each frame of my process gifs which I've posted before but I would need some time. With big pieces, the steps I go by (read slowly, it's a pretty dense text):

thumbnailing -> sketching with bigger shapes to get the line of action/feel (that is, I'm just blocking out the composition) -> refine that a bit -> hide BG, draw the characters (lineart) and add the base colors of them. (then merge & rasterize a copy of it for later) -> put them back in the environment (unhide BG), make them grey -> add shading in greyscale style (multiply layers, glow dodge layers, you name it) -> get that previous rasterized layer back and put it on color mode -> those characteristic shiny parts get a new layer with overly saturated + high brightness colors -> color BG with a new color layer -> then rendering/refining for concerning amounts of time -> add effects and change color/brightness/contrast curves + gradient map -> profit???

For software, I generally use Paint Tool SAI (I adore blending/painting here), I use Clip Studio Paint for the 3D posing library/sketching/lineart, and Photoshop for final effects. (Update: I mostly do all things in CSP now)

(if you have CSP, try out this brush... it saved my life)

As for improvement:

I experiment, watch a lot of youtube videos (I personally like the ones which analyse an artist). I suggest thoroughly understanding how something moves and works (for anatomy I can recommend the book 'Anatomy for Sculptors'), I also study and jot down important pieces of advice or insights to a collective document, rather than saving them to my device where it is highly likely to be forgotten.

I believe if you put great importance on colors and composition, that can cause the most noticeable, 'fastest' improvement, at least if you view it from the lens of social media. (While online environments provide significant reassurance, it must be engaged with in moderation, as it is easy to fall into a lot of negative mindsets, taking the enjoyment out by perfectionism, comparison, or seeking validation, etc.)

Another improvement technique you can try is to slow down a speedpaint video of your choice and follow along with the artist. Extremely useful, I recommend, put your artist under a microscope.

Of course I don't do all of these things every single waking hour, it's just a side hobby to my unrelated studies in real life. Even if you don't actively draw your visual library and knowledge can improve passively, I find that so fascinating. I don't touch a paper for months and there's a sudden jump, like damn what. (Not saying you should do this, active learning is still better ofc) Either way my point with that is, that improving does and did take a lot of time for me as well.

Apologies if this goes all over the place, I tried to touch upon every subject that came to mind at the moment, in not too much in detail, overall I hope it makes sense

If you have any specific questions related, feel free to ask! Or if there's any specific problem you'd like to tackle but find yourself lost, same applies!

[sakarrie-creates]

It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.

As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)

What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!

What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 

That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.

What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.

Did you try anything new this year?

Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.

How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style

The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month

I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.

Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics

These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.

As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.

The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.

Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.

2024 Goals:

-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!

[liimonadas]

I’ve been peeking in your art for a bit and it’s absolutely lovely ! Specially your hades fanart? It’s so so good, I wanted to ask what brush you use for your lineart? It gives such a nice touch to your art I’m curious haha, so sorry if you’ve answered this already

thanks a lot! and i don't think i've said what brushes i use before so i might as well give a full rundown. i use CSP with a mix of default and downloaded brushes

i'm assuming you're talking about my chaos drawing? for the lineart here i used the default milli pen with anti-aliasing set to minimum. this is basically just a round pixelated brush with no pressure sensitivity so i think you should be able to get a similar effect on other software pretty easily. (this specific illustration also used the technique of copying the lineart layer, setting it to a strong saturated color (eg bright pink or purple), blurring it a little and setting the layer to reduced opacity. this adds to the crunchyness and might be the effect youre looking for!)

this pixelated effect is one i find really fun personally. the optimal brush size in my experience has been 5-9 with this brush, with occasionally 3-4 for detail lines

as for other art, sometimes when i'm not feeling the pixel effect i used the same milly pen brush but with the second anti-aliasing setting. it keeps the lines crisp but not pixelated (example)

although recently i found the wiggly brush on the asset store that can work as an inbetween alternative. still in progress with the drawing im testing it on and while i think i'll stick to the milli pen it adds an interesting texture

you didn't ask about rendering brushes but i'll say anyways. my other three main brushes come from the arubrush set i saw someone mention on tumblr i believe? theyre by knight zhang the link is in the faq section. i downloaded a the motherboard set and experimented until i found a few i liked, though there's a lot of stuff worth checking out in there!

i used the painterly and alector brush for any painting and rendering. the chaos piece was done using a mix of both (mostly the alector brush) for the shading.

this oc painting was done almost exclusively with the alector brush, while this melinoe piece was done with the painterly brush, if you want to compare the textural differences.

and i use the last one for sketches occasionally! its more textured than i prefer for finished works but its really nice to draw with

that's about it! hopefully this helps