Hey rhi how do you get the nice blendy feel of ceph patterns? Ive never been able to figure it out n its like. The most satisfying part of the patterns?
Layers. My goodness, so many layers. Usually I end up with 4-10 layers over the skin layer. The first is the darkest freckle- these are usually only right by the eye mask, and the very edges of shoulders and knees and such. Then, from there, I use different layers at different opacities to make the patterns get ‘lighter’ as they reach the soft bits- the belly, inner arm, neck, inner thigh, etc. Sometimes, i add lighter freckles on the softest bits. Here’s the best example I could find of that:
The rest of the layers are then dedicated to blending. Adding a dark- usually pink or darker version of the skin tone- sort of ‘blush’ to the areas with the darker freckles, and then lightening the soft bits. Here’s a good example of that!
See how forb’s shoulders and cheeks are darker and his chest is lighter? Blending! A lil’ bit of blush can go a long way. You can see it on the Callie up there too. A good tip is not to just use darker or lighter version of their skin tone- while Forba’s skin tone is somewhere in the dark orange range, I used a dark red for the blush, and a dark yellow for the ‘light’ parts on their chest. Same with Callie- her skin is more yellow, so I used a pink/red for the blush, and just plain ol white for the lighter bits. You’d be surprised how much a bit of color alteration can change a piece.
Also, kinda fudged it up on Forba here, but try not to let the freckles touch each other too much. Real life chromatophores don’t blend with each other, they’re separate cells.
And then, last, i just kinda play around with blending layers. Sometimes I add a blush layer- blue or ink colored usually, and play around with effects until it looks nice. It’s mostly just a lot of eyeballin’ and playing around till it looks nice!
