UN-GATEKEEPING MY DIGITAL ART PROCESS (because I have a free will)
(feat. Commander Shepard from this post, Captain & Quartermaster, Helen, Shae, Lara, and @atanertheartist's Žanetka)
In faith this might inspire somebody to create in these frustrating, AI polluted media times, I decided to spill the tea and gladly show you my process and explain steps along the way.
Long yapper post under the cut! let's go!
Making art is a process of constant learning something new with every line you put on your canvas and every piece you finished.
I do art as a hobby for 16 years of my life. 10 years of traditional courses and 6 years of self-taught digital. Still FAR from professional, though.
My to go brushes are ones of the Photoshop's default -- a soft round brush with a flow setting and a hard round brush with flow setting for coloring and shading. For clouds, mist, and special textures, I use Peter Mohrbacher's "Angel Clouds" brushes bundle or "Size Flow Gang" bundle.
For any beginners reading this, fancy brushes don't make you automatically competent in art, but can spice up your process. I think, speaking from experience, it's better to learn to use just a few brushes and get comfortable with them before jumping onto those fancier ones.
I. "VIBES"
A gesture is a general idea of a rythm for the pose you are aiming for. After a while of training to see gestures in poses and understanding of how body moves, my artwork felt more natural and flowing.
For starts, I'd suggest referencing pictures of real people (btw animals have, naturally, gestures too!), and learn body proportions, foreshortening, and rules of composition.
Gesture is not about detail, it's literally just vibes, yet the whole artwork (pose) develops from it. I don't spend on my gestures more than 2 minutes.
This can be also a great warm up exercise ! Can be done both traditionally and digitally.
While learning, watching Steven Michael Hampton's gestures/sculpting tutorials boosted my understanding of body's flow significantly.
II. "SCULPTURE"
Hell yeah, anatomy knowledge ! The more you are familiar with your character's build and general human body shapes, the better.
This stage is still very quick, also very gesture like, yet a bit of a more detail. It breaks down whole body into simpler shapes while still respecting the proportions of our subject.
To get better at understanding, I drew quite a lot of studies over the years, redrawn multiple pages from my anatomy book (Human Anatomy For Artists by Andrász Szunyoghy & György Fehér), muscle by muscle, bone by bone, until I was 100% certain I understand what I'm actually seeing and drawing.
III. "SKETCH SKETCH SKETCH"
If my subject is clothed, armored or accessorized, I place down in rough sketchy manner as an "envelope" for their sculpted body everything they need to slay✨ (the Reapers??).
This also applies to their face and major "landmark details". Use references, if possible. It makes the job much more easier.
IV. "LINES"
This is the most tedious part of the whole artwork for me. When I'm comfortable with detail level of the sketch, I run over it with a lineart.
In the past, I used to hyperfixate on little details, zoomed in, to make sure every line connects properly, which lowkey killed my flow. Nowadays, I treat lineart still as a sketch but with more precision in details.
V. "THE PICTURE OF DORIAN.... GRAY?"
This is where fun coloring stage begins. From this point it takes me only a couple of hours to finish the whole piece (for instance this shep took me one afternoon to color and render).
Firstly, I color in my lineart with flat gray color to evaluate the silhouette. If I'm content with the shape, on top of it, I block out values in monochrome.
VI. "GOTTA LOVE 'EM COLORS"
Once im done with the values, I optionally overlay gradient map (either one from Peter Mohrbacher's "Angel Gradients", or a custom made) set to "soft light" to see, if I can get some fun color base.
Then, flat, local colors of my character which are placed down on "hard light" layer.
I used to color by picking from "hue cube" but that resulted in muddy, not very saturated colors. Now I use "triangle" color wheel for everything.
Sam Does Art explains coloring and shading at some point in this video, showing his process.
VII. "THE SHADOW PLAY"
Light and shadow actually set the mood of your drawing. Dramatic? Soft? One light source? Two? Tons of options. It's up to you! Use references for your own sake !
I use "multiply" layer, and depending on the mood of my art, I either go with neutral gray or some fun colors, mostly on the blues and purples spectrum.
For light, I usually choose complementary colors to the shade. However it all depends on color palette you'd prefer. I like my characters to be a little sunkissed so oranges and yellows do the job most of the times. I use "overlay" layer.
VIII. "THE SPICE"
Bounced light is a bonus, reflected ghost of colors of the environment or objects your character's surrounded by. It's a SPICE to your GIRLS.
However, not every material or finish is reflective or diffusing light towards its surroundings. This also applies to highlights. Not everything is always shiny or matte. Better to look at more references !
I use "overlay" and "hard light" layers for this portion.
IX. "BACKGROUND/FOREGROUND"
Background (foreground) and setting are also revealing about your artwork. I personally prefer plain backgrounds, so my characters are the main focal point, however sometimes the character themselves ask for a background on their own.
For that, the process is as the same with the character part: rough sketch, more neater sketch, lineart or sometimes painting in very simple way so it's not distracting to the viewer. Keeping in mind your main focal point.
Yeah, hating to break it to you, my fellow entities, but perspective foreshortening and vanishing points are a real thing, I'm afraid... yeah... you'd need more references....
X. "another gradient map (optional)"
When feeling extra silly goofy with my art, I add one more gradient map on "soft light" mode for more juicy fun colors! this step is not always necessary. Sometimes I cook so hard than no further tweaking is needed.
WOW ! We made it till the end ! Congrats !
Just a friendly reminder, this is how art process works for me and it took years to perfect to this stage. So whatever works for you !
Art can be taught and perfected over time and so does your "artstyle". I believe in you !
It's important to have fun, my friends. Keeping the real art alive by forming thoughts, birthing ideas, reflecting them, sharing them with community.
You think, therefore you are.
