I've been told that there's some pretty... heated discussion about my creative process online recently? I've talked about how I do it a few times before, but last night I made a new pic to demonstrate!
I made a short video of the process from start to finish! (idk how to edit videos so I couldn't speed up or slow down parts. Also idk why the last 5 seconds are cut off)! I've included some notes/explanations and screenshots below the cut.
Please note I don't do it the exact same way every time, but it's mostly similar (same for pixel art)!
Speedpaint!
(Not that speedy, it took 4.5 hours or so)
Total time spent was about 4.5 hours. This one was a quick one! Usually it takes about double that time! I used a photo that I took myself for the background and didn't bother splicing in any other bits, it's just for demonstration and cause I like this photo. The character is small in this as well, which makes things quicker. Idk why size correlates to speed, it just does for me (idk if that's true for other artists)
Most of my backgrounds are made via photobashing and paint-over, I've been using this technique for many years. Probably to some degree since like 2015 when I was still pretty new to digital art (you can see it on my deviantart, a place I shall not be re-visiting lol)! Watching concept art speed paints and things like that were some of my main inspiration. A lot of the time on characters, I'll use a similar technique and grab textures off of photos to give the drawing a bit more depth as well!
Sometimes making collages out of photos quickly leads to oddities/inconsistencies, but I try not to agonize over little bits of the background since, well, it's the background. I'm definitely the sort who would rather power through and finish a piece than spend too long trying to make everything perfect, otherwise I totally lose motivation and don't end up finishing things.
This is the photo I took myself, with my own phone (S22 Ultra) and my own two hands, on earth, where I was in person. The phone camera might have some "AI Image Sharpening" or something, but I promise the photo and location are very real lmao.
As you can see in the video, I certainly don't shy away from using filters and effects lol. I didn't use it here, but I've talked about using Snapseed for pre and post processing as well. It has a lot of built in options for filters and various effects that I use sometimes! This time, I just used the built in ones on Infinite Painter, which are pretty rudimentary and not very good, but it's a bit of a pain to export it, edit it elsewhere, then re-import it. I also occasionally use Medibang, which has nice 8-bit layer effects as well. I use it primarily for pixel art, but the halftone in Medibang is far better and easier to use than anything else I've found.
Here are some pics of the line art, and how I play with it.
This is how I get that sorta blended look on the lines, that I kinda like. It's just the "Paintbrush" filter, set to half opacity or whatever, merged, then I will color on top of the lines to match them to the painting. I also merge the paint layers and play with those. As you can see, I'll give it an effect and play with contrast, color, and curves to make it suit the background (or whatever I want). Below is the finished pic before editing.
Finally, when I'm done drawing, I export the pic and edit it on Snapseed! There, I just play with color balance and stuff (I usually either increase or decrease the "Ambience" setting to give it better color contrast, or reduce BG focus). Gamma and RGB curves (I will usually give the gamma an "S" curve to give more contrast, then play with the R, G, and B separately till it looks right), some more filters sometimes, the value sliders, etc. Strongly recommend the app, it's been incredible. Sometimes editing it at the end is the most fun part, but it's always the shortest. Usually just like 5 or 10 minutes per edit. Hard to tell how it actually looks because I don't have a color calibrated screen, but that's another thing I can't let myself agonize over too much.
This is what it looks like when it's edited! I'll often do a couple and just choose the one I like most. For commissions I'll send multiple.
I may record another process in the future, but it does make the tablet very laggy and hot, plus takes a ton of storage space, so it's not something that I like to do :P
Artist's remark
I just want to remind everyone! If an artist's work isn't to your liking, you don't have to feel obliged to follow them anyway! No hard feelings if you don't want to follow me. There are zillions of incredible artists of all stripes out there, there are bound to be many that suit your taste. Don't spend your precious life looking at things you don't like (or spreading unkind words about harmless art. Being cruel and mean nets you nothing, it'll only make you worse off).
Artists are human, no art is going to be "perfect", no matter what techniques we use. We'll all make some mistakes here and there, and I assure you, we are Extremely aware of them lol. Artists are already our own harshest critics, piling on more criticism isn't going to push us closer to your idea of perfection!
Go out there and find what you do like! Go, be nice, give people the benefit of the doubt, make friends that are kind to you, and don't do things you don't like when you don't have to!!
And hey, you can create art that you like for yourself too! You don't need formal training! Don't hold yourself back for fear of others not liking it. And there's no "right" or "wrong" way to create art, especially for yourself. If the internet were a better place, people wouldn't bash you just cause they don't like you. But don't pay them any mind! Just go, indulge yourself, explore, experiment, have fun!
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theartofmadeline
yousharknotpass
