Hey! I've seen your art around and just scrolled through a ton of your art and as an artist myself I must ask. How do you do those scales you did on your mermaids, they're absolutely gorgeous and I always struggle with making scales look right, especially when painting/not lining every single scale. If you already have a tutorial, sorry, I didn't see it, but man I love your work!!
In order to draw a material, it really helps to understand it. First, a little science.
Fish scales are not matte surfaces, neither are they smooth and reflective. Fish scales are actually covered in ridges and detail that bounce and polarize the light within each scale, which gives it a shimmery effect.
Fish SEEM super smooth because a healthy fish is coated in mucus that protects their scales and keeps them hydrated. Add that slime to give fish their shine. It goes over the scales like thin covering of glass and has its own smooth, reflective surface.
This is probably wrong but for me as an artist, it works. Light interacts differently with the scale texture vs the slime layer. That's why I start to think of fish scales as cut gemstones, because there are multiple surfaces reflecting the light at different levels.
You do NOT need to draw out the ridges. I only did that to show the science. Now that you understand HOW a scale is shiny, you can just draw the end effect.
I use Sai, primarily, but spent the morning recreating my brush in photoshop so I could give it out.
Photoshop recreation of my main SAI brush. Extremely useful for scales, hair, fins, super super shiny stuff, northern lights, etc. Aura Brus
Get your tail, put in shadow and vague color/markings, and play with a brush that is more opaque on one edge than the other.
My mermaids have HUGE scales, because I like how it looks. I get a new layer, set it to Luminosity/Add, and just sweep in the scales, one at a time.
Put in the rest, smaller scales near the tip. Don't draw every scale, just the ones that catch the light. Some of my mermaids only have scales on 10% of their tail, with un-detailed shadows.
Next, add yet another luminosity/add layer, and do a big swoosh along the top for catch light, and a bit on the bottom for reflected light. This is the light reflecting on the slime layer.
Add a few more layers of shine, pop out the edges a few scales, and there you go.
This entire process took me one minute and thirty seconds.
You'll be slower at first when you're figuring out how to arrange your scales, but you'll get faster the more mermaids you make.
