[1] Color Zones of the Face [Tried to find source, I think it’s here ]
[2] Navate’s Skin Chart Supplement – the actual tutorials are: Section I: Skin Basics & Section II: Skin tones
Two brilliant skin tutorials. Do not use flat colors for skin! Underpainting is important for realistic, vivid skin. Remember, underneath your skin is fat, muscles, red blood, blue veins, bones.
Consider reblogging this to support the original artist. I recommend following them as well!
More Helpful links: Ask a Question/Request a Tut | Submit a Tutorial | Promote Your Art Commissions to +18.3 K Dashes | Stay Updated on DeviantArt! | Visit me @astrikos
...called thus because they use upholstery-weight leather for the bag body, that in my case was in fact skinned off a couch. 🤣 Turns out they are relatively quick and easy to make, so I tidied up the pattern for printing and took pictures to document the process when I made another five of them.
First off, print your pattern, 100% scale:
The bag shape was a modified version of the pattern I used for the Morpheus sandbag, but sized to fit in the roughly 11" squares that my couch skin came in. It makes a bag that sits very well on a tabletop, thanks to the flat base.
Though it turned out to not be the most efficient use of material, because that plus-shaped pattern tessellates well, if you're cutting them out of a full hide, but makes a lot of waste when you're cutting them out of squares of material. A more efficient design would have a half-rounded front and back, and a gusset between them, like so:
Ah well. It's not like I have any shortage of couch skin, though for the next round I'm going to experiment with a more efficient pattern.
First step, trace and cut out the bag body from your chrome-tan leather:
Like I said, this was upholstery leather, but anything that's flexible and ~1.5 mm thick will do.
The flap and front need to be a stiffer leather though -- I used 7 oz latigo, but veg-tan would work equally well. (And then you could ✨tool it!✨)
Cut them out, and then use the pattern to mark where your holes are going to be. Mark the holes on your bag body too:
The latigo pieces get hand-stitched to the bag body, so I used a stitching groover to carve out little channels for the thread -- it's not strictly necessary, but it makes your stitches lay a lot more neatly:
Punch the holes shown below:
I used a ~5 mm hole punch for those, and a 1.5" slot punch for the belt loops. Some of the holes on the front piece you're not punching yet, because they need to go through both layers.
I put a dab of contact cement on the pieces (circled in white) to help hold them in place when I go to punch the stitching holes:
(Make sure you're not putting glue between the belt loops)
Wait fifteen minutes for the contact cement to dry until tacky, and then line up the holes and the edges and press the pieces together:
Punch stitching holes:
Saddle-stitch both pieces in place (takes 28" of thread per):
Now you can punch these holes:
(I used a slightly smaller hole punch than for the others, but it doesn't really matter.)
Now press the right sides of the leather together and sew up the seams from the inside:
A regular sewing machine should be able to handle this, though you will need thicker thread, a heavy-duty leather-sewing needle, and a walking foot attachment. (If you don't have a walking foot attachment, it is SO WORTH getting one, even if you don't expect to sew much leather. Seriously, I use it for everything -- once you go walking foot, you don't go back. 💀) Because you can't pin leather without leaving permanent holes in it, tiny binder clips can be helpful for keeping your material lined up.
What they look like when you're finished sewing:
Cut 19" of lacing for the drawstring, and 11" of lacing for the toggle:
I use the 1/8" EcoSoft lace from Tandy, I think it's stronger than real leather would be at that thickness. The only important factor here is that you need something with a bit of texture and friction -- a silk cord isn't going to stay closed, it's going to slip open.
MANY BAGS.
For these I used a wooden toggle -- cut another 8" of lacing, looped it through the toggle twice, and then made a tight square knot on the back:
But another option is putting a concho or a large button on the flap. The bag I copied this design from, in fact, uses a concho toggle:
Thread some beads on the laces to keep the ends from getting lost, and you are DONE! 😁
Woke up at 2am and couldn’t fall back asleep so I made a tutorial on the Photoshop techniques I use most frequently. Starting with the sketch:
adjustment layers: specifically the hue/saturation slider in this case, allows you to color correct quickly
lasso tool: for sharp edges!
alpha lock: useful for painting within a pre-defined area (especially useful when painting characters)
x (hotkey) : toggle between foreground + background colors- let’s you easily blend between 2 colors
ctrl/cmd click : quickly change current active layer. Especially useful if you’re burdened with too many layers (or just very disorganized)
clipping mask: similar to alpha lock, but can add details without changing/ painting directly on the previous layer. I often use them to test out + apply gradients.
layer styles: I didn’t use any in this image, but the possibilities for layer styles endless, from simply adding a quick outline (useful for die cut demarcations when making stickers!) to creating more seemingly complex appearances. Here’s a gif of Nick Carver using layer styles (a combo of drop shadows + inner shadows) to quickly make the illusion of snow but with simple strokes.
I’ve translated the ones that aren’t in English! (at least the ones in the main photoset, my Chinese isn’t good and I’m too tired from doing those translations to sit and decipher some of the characters that are blurry haha sorry)
do you have any tutorial on how to paint gold? your gold motifs are so beautiful and it's something i struggle with. Any advice would be appreciated
Thanks! Uhh it generally shifts based on the texture & shape I’m going for, but here’s my general process / rule of thumb:
Or if you lock layer transparency — or however its called in Photoshop — you can use a textured brush to quickly pepper in some highlights & shadow to add a gold-ish effect:
I forgot one more thing! Adding extra details can help make gold pop even more in your paintings. Putting on some well-place highlights, a little blur, and a lil overlay layer makes a world of difference:
I saw a few folks asking about my Virelle piece so here’s a tip:
You can make shiny & glittery gold pretty easily when you use a dappled airbrush. It’s the same process as above, but with a spray of large-to-fine dots. It takes a little more time, but the result is cool.
The standard version of ClipStudo comes packaged with the saturated line tool, which generates sunburst effects. And so we wind up with something like this:
I dont know how this translates into Photoshop, but for CSP users I’ve updated my airbrush pack with the customized brush. Good luck. 😭
In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.
Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.
I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.
tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.
WAIT INDIA INK JS WATERPROOF ONCE IT DRIES????? THE ENTIRE REASON IVE AVOIDED MARKERS MY ENTIRE LIFE IS BECAUSE JNK BLEEDS AND YOURE TELLING ME INDIA INK IS
-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).
-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.
-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.
-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.
-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.
-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.
-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.
-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.
-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.
-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.
-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.
-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.
-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.
-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.
-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially
-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.
-use NATURAL bristles on your brushes with oil paint and SYNTHETIC bristles on your brushes for acrylic and watercolor. synthetic bristles literally break off into oil paint and stick into your painting, and natural bristles can’t handle the weight of acrylic paint and rip into 15 directions. Use hard boar bristle for the underdrawing/underpainting of an oil painting as it will force the paint into the canvas pours more effectively cause it’s stronger, use softer bristles for outer layers of oil painting and blending, boar will pierce outer layers and is to hard for anything but the first layer. can’t tell what u have? clean it up and brush it on your face, softer it is the better it is as doing outer layers of color.
-if you have a decent painters’ tape, you can prewet your watercolor paper, tape it to a surface & weight it down with some books to press it flat while it’s wet and help keep it from buckling later once dry, this is especially useful because for some reason, watercolor block is half again as expensive or more than a comparable sized pad or large sheets to cut down, even by the same brand
-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.
-chinese calligraphy brush sets are fantastic for large work and washes and way, way cheaper most times than standard brushes, and it doesn’t seem to matter how cheap they are, either. they may shed a little, but they do a really good job holding and distributing water.
A trick i learned in art school, if your paper still warps/curls and your piece is finished/mostly finished: dampen the BACK and then press it flat again til dry. This works well with thicker papers! I have not had much success with thinner material. Test it out to get the hang of it before trying on your art!
FireAlpaca is now COMPLETELY a Paint Tool SAI alternative!
BITMAP WATERCOLOR BRUSHES, Y’ALL!!! Want to make some SAI brushes in FireAlpaca? Check out THIS handy Guide!
Want to make this brush? Just make a perfect circle and save it (I call mine “round”) and use it as the bitmap, and copy the settings above. It works pretty nicely :D
aHHHH HOLY SHIT WHEN DID THIS POST START TRENDING?!
UM, WHILE I’M HERE:
Here is where you can download FireAlpaca (it is completely free software)
*If English is not your native language, you can download it in other languages.
Please download from the official FireAlpaca websites, because a friend of mine simply googled FireAlpaca and downloaded from some random site, and she got malware! So PLEASE be careful.
FireAlpaca has a suggestion/bug reporting box on their site so you can request features, or let them know if you’re having any issues! Also FireAlpaca works fantastically on Mac computers! (though I will say the only time FA has crashed on me is when I used a Mac, so PLEASE save your work often)
Also, please visit these tumblrs if you do get into using FireAlpaca:
For anyone plugging FireAlpaca, remember that Medibang Paint Pro is a more robust program.
It’s basically FireAlpaca with a more detailed brush creator(using mostly the same features), on top of a pile of community resources, meaning there’s almost ALWAYS someone who can help you do what you’re trying to do (it is also capable to making the most accurate pencil brush I’ve ever used)
I know a ton of you have been waiting for this one. Teaching you to make your own plastic keychains!
To start off, I think the biggest question everyone has is what I use to make them. I work with shrink film. You might be familiar with Shinky Dink brand shrink film as a kid. I use Grafix brand white inkjet shrink film. The inkjet kind is relatively pricey compared to the regular kind. If you’re using regular, I don’t recommend you stick it in your printer. Sharpie markers would be good for that.
Alright, now open up the file with the images that you’re working with. Make sure your images are a lot bigger than you want your finished product to be since they shrink significantly.
You’ll also want to lighten the opacity to about half. I go somewhere between 50-60%.
Now print your image out! I’ve found that it works best for me when I have it at the plain paper setting, and standard print quality.
Holepunch with a ¼" holepuncher BEFORE you shrink them. It’s so much more work to have to punch holes when your plastic is thick!
Cut out your design, leaving the amount of border you want.
Set them on a tray for convenience. An aluminum foil sheet works too, but I recommend cookie trays because they are easier and quicker to get out of the oven.
Preset heat. Your shrink film package will tell you what temperature to set it at, but I find that it isn’t always accurate for me. I generally set temperature to 350 degrees or so.
Put them in the oven. Remember to keep track of time! I leave them in for about a minute and a half.
After time is up they should be super small! Magic!
If your charms are not flat, put something heavy on it right out of the oven when they are still hot and malleable.
If you’d like to, you can seal them now. In my last two batches, I used clear topcoat nail polish. The problem with that is that I need between 3-5 coats of it, and it takes a while to dry. I’ve been experimenting with modpodge.
For lariats, you can use jump rings or lobster clasps.
Here is one that I made that wasn’t sealed. The finished texture after shrinking is a little bit rough. There’s nothing wrong with leaving them unsealed, but because they are inkjet printed, the colors wash right of without protection.
This is one that was sealed with modpodge. The colors become a little more vibrant and smooth and water resistant. Things often get stuck on when applying or drying so be careful.
These ones down here were sealed with clear nail polish. They come out shiny if you put enough coats, but the grainy texture will still be there.
Well, there ya go! Have fun making your own keychains!
I do this!! You can also glaze them with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic! It gives it a nice, shiny surface. Resin would work too, and it would be more durable.
i seriously cannot believe foldable phones are about to make a comeback. foldable smartphones are being made right now. you can finally end a call with a clat again.
