gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today
rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!
in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:
more granular rambling beneath the cut!
u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.
example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.
anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:
i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.
since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.
also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
both drawn to life books are free to read on archive.org?? and downloadable as pdf???? what!! YO HOLY SHIT
a coworker yesterday was asking me about these behind my chair, and gun to my head, if you asked me what was the single best drawing book of all time -- it'd be these. there's a reason i keep them in irl arm's length.
not to toot my horn but i get a lot of comments about "believable life"/body language in my drawings, and i owe that to this book. Walt Stanchfield -the author- was one of the main mentors to a ton of the rennaisance era disney animators (Glen Keane, Musker, Deja, etc). this guy understands both the kinectic sense of how bodies move and squish/stretch, and how people "act", and composition/silhouette, and is honestly just a thoroughly decent dude.
Donāt forget ColourLovers, either! Itās a social media-esque site where you can browse tons of palettes and share your own.
You can browse the most popular ones or search for certain colors, themes, and even specific hex codes!
When you find one you like, you can download a wallpaper swatch of it and also select the specific colors it uses to look at more palettes that use those same ones.
ColourLovers is my go-to for when Iām having trouble coming up with a color scheme! Itās also been around for over a decade, so thereās plenty to browse through.
Reblogging to spread the good word of Adobe Color (aka Kuler). And best of all, itās completely free. Which is surprising to most people because itās Adobe.
Itās here! For those artists who spend loads of time trying to figure out why their art is not coming out the way they want it to be, making thumbnails (or making studies) is the thing for you! Itās also great of getting rid of the habit of zooming in.
________
MindsetsĀ |Ā Reference and Style | Color Harmony | Contrast
Heres a MEGA folder filled with art book pdfs, if anyone has some others that you'd like me to add to it thats missing, please let me know and send me the link
126 files
EDIT 1: If you're a bit new to art and you're super overwhelmed by the options and you don't know where to start, I highly recommend the morpho series of books
Edit 2:No more Google Drive, just the MEGA folder now, so don't panic if the stuff on Google ain't there no more, its still up, just in a different location
Heres a google drive folder filled with art book pdfs, if anyone has some others that you'd like me to add to it thats missing, please let me know and send me the link
The tutorial of how I achieve watercolor effect in Sai! :) I highly recommend using real watercolor paintings (your own or ones found on the internet) as reference.
And here you can find a few useful links:Ā
You can download the Sai file of this picture here:Ā linkĀ
Video process of painting another picture: link
The old watercolor tutorial: link
Sai brushes (none of them is made by me) linkĀ + file you need to open them in Sai: link
Awesome watercolor brushes made by Kyle T Webster: link
do you have any tutorial on how to paint gold? your gold motifs are so beautiful and it's something i struggle with. Any advice would be appreciated
Thanks! Uhh it generally shifts based on the texture & shape Iām going for, but hereās my general process / rule of thumb:
Or if you lock layer transparency ā or however its called in Photoshop ā you can use a textured brush to quickly pepper in some highlights & shadow to add a gold-ish effect:
I forgot one more thing! Adding extra details can help make gold pop even more in your paintings. Putting on some well-place highlights, a little blur, and a lil overlay layer makes a world of difference:
I saw a few folks asking about my Virelle piece so hereās a tip:
You can make shiny & glittery gold pretty easily when you use a dappled airbrush. Itās the same process as above, but with a spray of large-to-fine dots. It takes a little more time, but the result is cool.
The standard version of ClipStudo comes packaged with the saturated line tool, which generates sunburst effects. And so we wind up with something like this:
I dont know how this translates into Photoshop, but for CSP users Iāve updated my airbrush pack with the customized brush.Ā Good luck. š
