Hello! I love your art! Would you be open to sharing your process, especially around how you start your paintings? Or at least, going off of the time between the L4D2 stream and when you posted that painting, you seem like you can paint really fast... do you have any tips? (My art tends to take a while, but that's also probably mostly because I'm inexperienced.)
Thanks! Hope you have a good day/night/whatever <3
Aww thank you and absolutely!
Lol this isn't the first time I am hearing that heh, so I suppose I might be on the faster side when it comes to drawing. But yes, I can give some tips! Also, if you see my streams, I'd encourage you to hop on. I'm always happy to explain what I'm doing, it's also maybe easier to see the process in real time, vs me trying to explain it lol.
Otherwise, here are some basic, high level tips that should (ideally) help you out, because I know it's what has helped me gain speed:
(In no particular order- these are ALL equally important)
1.) work small (zoomed out) for 80-90% of the time that you're working on a particular piece. ONLY the last 10-20% of your time will be spent zoomed in, polishing and adding details - think, 'how large would this drawing be on my screen if I were drawing it on a sheet of printer paper irl instead?'. Totally easier said than done, i know, I personally struggle with this terribly. However, the times when I am able to successfully stay zoomed out of my drawing for the majority of the time is when my work comes out looking its best and taking the shortest amount of time.
2.) Use clipping masks. I use these religiously, basically i block in the character/foreground/etc with (usually) a neutral gray first. Then I create layers over top (clipping masks) and color inside of those. You can create a clipping mask in photoshop by right clicking the layer icon and selecting clipping mask. OR you can use the shortcut which is alt+left click on the boarder between the layers you want to clip between (say the boarder between layer 74 and 70 [see below]). Using a clipping mask is much easier as you're not having to worry about staying inside the lines. Below is an example, grey base layers are highlighted in yellow (there's two because I wanted to split up bubble and caine) and the clipping masks where I will do my coloring are marked with blue arrows.
3.) Lay down your base colors, basic shadows and highlights using a LARGE brush. DON'T get bogged down in staying within your lineart, first get everything to roughly the correct color and general lighting you want, before starting to refine the color boundaries.
4.) Learn the shortcuts!!! And better yet, create your own! This is advice I almost never see artists give other artists, but I feel is probably the MOST important piece of advice I can give. I get a lot of flak from friends for changing my reload button from R to E and crouch from ctrl to caps lock for my fps games LOL, but default DOES NOT MEAN BETTER. My photoshop settings are comprised largely of shortcuts I've created, and it makes swapping between tools I use regularly so much faster.
A couple of examples would be ctrl+T for the transform tool. V for move tool, crtl+f to flip canvas horizontally, alt for eye dropper tool. Ctrl + X to toggle layer view on/off, ctrl+z to go back and ctrl+alt+z to keep undoing. One of my favorite shortcuts in photoshop is alt+right click (hold) and drag to change brush size quickly. Have fun, make your own, do whatever feels easier for you. But understand it will take you a little bit of time to learn all of your new shortcuts, don't give up during this phase it is SO WORTH IT. But yes, be aware there will be some discomfort the first few times you sit down to draw, but make a point of using the new shortcuts till they stick. (Edit: forgot to mention these can be changed inside of the 'preferences' menu in photoshop).
5.) Practice in a sketchbook with a pen or marker. Do studies and learn to draw using something you can't erase. You'll see how it makes your lines and mark making more confident, your art/sketching faster and you less likely to overwork your lines/second guess yourself.
Hope some of these help! Good luck!! <3
