YEET @rutabagel - Tumblr Blog

POV: you're at a Deviculum, and you realize Demon King Iruma and his right and left hand demons are gossiping about you

#m!ik #mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #mairuma #wtdsik #iruma suzuki #iruma sullivan #asmodeus alice #clara valac #bagel draws #i wanted to make some older design sketches for them but it turned into this oops #i put a lot of thought into the designs i hope all my ideas come across good

factual-fantasy

danidarkarts

@factual-fantasy

fynori

i'd like to add that the shadow color isnt necessarily dictated entirely by the primary light source, but the bounce light! so for the example of a sunny environment, the reason the shadows are blue are because of the light from the blue sky reflects across the environment; but, if the character were to be under tree cover, the bounce light would be coming from the leaves and thus the shadow would look greener.

danidarkarts

Yee yee!!! You got it right on the nose!

Bounce light is something I didn't cover but I adore it!

Gotta work on my bounce light 💪

labrador-entity

My good friends this is called using a

Gamut Mask

(image via )

James Gurney is an absolute master and gives really good clarity on colour techniques. Yes, it is traditional paint focused, but the principles are the same. Yes it is informed by the environmental colour but as a painting technique it is achieved this way!

I would also suggest that in digital processing, rather than apply a regular colour layer at a mid opacity, try out the different types of layers, Eg. Screen or Multiply. This can give you at least a starting point to help direct your colour palette.

technecat-scratchings

Layer Blend Modes are so so so important to working in digital art. There's a ton of math that goes into figuring out how the layers should blend together, which is why some of the modes you can pick are literally called Multiply, Add, Divide, and Difference (that's subtraction). The graphics software takes the color values of your base and blend layers and runs a calculation to get your resulting layer appearance. The ones that don't have specifically mathematical sounding names are still doing calculations, but they're more complicated (think linear Algebra and higher). Some of them, like dodge and burn, are named for actual photo editing techniques.

While it's not super important to know about the mathematical side of blend modes, I think it's worth knowing at least enough about how each of the categories of blend modes works and why they do what they do; if for no other reason than having a starting point when you start experimenting with them in your work.

An overview of the basic blend modes and how they work from Genevieve's Design Studio: Accessible with minimal color knowledge; practical and illustration focused. https://youtu.be/kMc87hQrJd0?si=TWCB365pKSfWS8p0. (16 minutes) This creator also has a ton of free resources you can download, including a Blend Modes cheatsheet, but fair warning: you have to create an account to get them!

Want to learn even more about the math-y stuff? It has great film visuals! A video from FilmmakerIQ: You need some basic knowledge of RGB color models, understanding of values/luma, and at least a tenuous understanding of Algebraic formulas. (26 minutes) https://youtu.be/F7_kaTP7_W4?si=x0urqXZ8f51nQVKl

#art ref

chubs-deuce

Do you have any tips on shading/rendering hair? Your hair always looks so fluffy and beautiful and I’m so jealous because I struggle with it a lot! To add on, any tips for rendering dyed hair, like Felix’s? Where there’s a color gradient!

Hiii~

I felt like this was best answered with visual examples, so I kind of set up a whole tutorial for this? :'DD

I'm sorry this post turned out so long LMAO I went a bit overboard ------------------------------

Firstly, something you need to know about the way I color is that I abuse the SHIT out of certain hotkeys and layer settings.

To make following along the process of the gifs I recorded for this easier to understand, I set up my recording in such a way that you can (hopefully) see more clearly when I use them.

Namely:

Then I'd also like to elaborate a bit on the two brushes I primarily use:

(1) The "turnip pen" - I use this one for the base colors and overall hair texture (I use this also for blushing on skin a lot)

it layers over itself without smudging and both opacity and size are pen pressure controlled.

(2) The "guache brush" - this is what I use for almost all of my shading.

the amount of paint applied, the density and how much it blends whatever other colors it's applied over (on the same layer) is controlled by pen pressure. Its rotation is also stylus angle sensitive, which is VERY handy for texture control!

(3) your very average, basic airbrush tool :'D this one I use very sparingly, usually to soften gradients and apply atmospheric lighting.

NOW-

STEP 1: THE BASE COLOR

as you've probably noticed, I included two/three different shades on the setup page there! I start by applying the darker one first.

(note: the gifs are all set to 2x speed)

I cut the footage a bit to the "highlights" but what you should be able to see here is how I toggle "use brush as eraser" on and off repeatedly during the process. It helps with keeping the edges of the coloring looking a bit "fluffy"! I also occasionally use the ALT GR + drag hotkey to quickly resize my brush, which helps with the tighter curls of the curly hair variant especially.

With multi-toned hair like Felix's I go about it *slightly* different because I block out the parts that won't get dye on them on one layer (i.e. sideburns + hairline in this case) and then create another layer above that to do the dyed hair on top of. It's technically not *necessary* but it lets me feel more in control with less of a hassle over where the gradient goes in the next step.

Speaking of which:

STEP 2: TEXTURING/DEFINITION

I make an extra layer and clip it to the one with the darker base color on it, then start blocking in individual strands to give the whole thing some texture - this step also carries a lot of weight in making the shading look more defined later!

Along the way with the curly hair variant you can also see me using the lasso tool to apply a bit of airbrush to the ponytail - this gives the fringe, the bound back hair around the head and the tail itself some extra definition! I also airbrushed the tips of the hair with the lighter color a bit to give it more of a wispy vibe.

Felix' hair gradient goes in on two layers instead of one - one layer for the mid-tone and one for the blond!

resulting in this:

This is the state I'd keep it at for a "flat" colored artwork.

STEP 3: SHADING (stage 1)

For the shading I start by throwing the flat colors into the same group/folder, then make a multiply layer that I clip on top of the group/folder.

Then I paint-bucket on the layer using a medium grey-ish purple (the actual color used depends on what tone of you're going for with the lighting), and add white to the other of my little color switch squares.

Using the guache brush, I can then "paint" the light on with the white and blend/correct with the purple by toggling between the two using my X hotkey.

While shading I try to keep in mind what direction the light is coming from as well as the shape it's falling onto. With the straight hair variant here you can also see that I'm using the textured shape of the guache brush to create quick highlights - I paint on a stroke of white, then use the purple with medium to high pressure to smudge it out only a tiny bit. This gives it a more hair-like texture!

The highlights usually form towards the "edges" of the surface area that's facing the light, so keeping curvature in mind helps a lot with placing them.

Lighter pressure = more blending, less color application.

Once again, Felix' hair makes for kind of an exception, since the dark and light tones in his hair make it kinda tricky to see what I'm doing, so I turn the layer back from the "multiply" setting to "normal" and temporarily reduce the opacity a tad before I continue - the rest of the process stays mostly the same though.

This completes Shading stage 1:

I like to kinda think of this stage as me chiseling out the 3D shape of what I'm shading - and with the multiply layer on the "normal" setting, it kind of almost looks like a marble statue too :'D

STEP 3: SHADING (stage 2):

Once again I make a new layer and clip it to the coloring group, above the multiply layer we just made, set it to "add" and then bucket-fill the entire layer with black - black doesn't show up on "add" and simultaneously makes it easier to blend! Think of it as "priming" the canvas in a sense?

I was unfortunately an idiot who forgot she was recording and to be mindful of how I position the canvas/keeping to a neater order for editing purposes later, so the next gif clip is kinda awkardly framed for the straight hair and slightly out of order.

I also want to note that somewhere near the start I decided to hit CTRL+U to open the hue/saturation/luminosity sliders and shifted the hue around a little, so it starts out blue but ends up more turquoise. I often do small adjustments like this along the way throughout my process. No shame in changing your mind!

This is what I like thinking of as "ambient occlusion" or "bounce light" - though in my mind I tend to just apply it to the darker areas that could use more definition or to add more shine to the highlights.

This results in the following output:

STEP 4: COLOR CORRECTION

Idk if you've noticed, but by now the base colors started looking a little bit muddy. Let's fix that!

First I copy the base color layer group in its entirety and paste it above the shading layers. I then select all layers inside that group, right click on it, and then click on "merge selected layers".

The merged result I then make a copy of and turn the merged original invisible (this is more just in case I need to copy it again than actually necessary).

I then turn the layer mode setting to "soft light", hit the CTRL+U hotkey to bring up the hue/saturation/luminosity sliders again and pull the saturation to about two thirds to the right and then pull up the luminosity to taste before clicking OK to apply the effect. I then mess with the opacity of the layer until it looks right. In this example I happened to land on circa 79% opacity.

I then decided it needs more of the original color back, so I copied that safety copy of the merged layer from earlier again, turn its mode setting to "color" and turn the opacity down until I have what feels like a good contrast. It doesn't look like much changed when you compare it to it with just the "soft light" layer, but it makes a difference to *me* okay? :'D

STEP 5: FINE TUNING

Normally Step 4 is where I finish, but if I really want to amp up the fancy rendering, I go into Step 5 next.

This one is a lot less technical than the previous ones, as I basically just make a new layer that I place above everything (including the lineart), and then just... copy colors from the image and then draw in details such as stray hairs and extra shines and adding definition. The brush I use in this case is a flat marker tool, it does essentially the same as the turnip brush, except it's flat and slightly angled :'D