Sketch blog | Experimental | Aotearoa New Zealand based artist - art prints on inprnt (xephia). On twitter @xephia & Instagram @xephia_art || fandoms: RoTE, Ghibli, OFMD, Stranger Things, Genshin
Hi, i hope this question doesn't bothers you, do you have any videos of your process?, im currently starting to learn how to do digital art and have trouble knowing where to start and what to do (im always like, should i start drawing this part first?, is it better to do clean lineart or just paint over the sketch?, do i work on the lights first or the shadows?, etc)
I can probs make you a video on this at some point based on something I'm currently working on, although I have a few on my tiktok already (@ xephia) if that helps!
My process is a bit messier than many other artists - I alternate between stages of sketch and colour before I even think about āfinal colourā. Iāll start with a sketch like the ones below, then slap some rough colour on. This is because IMO colour is an important part of the composition so I want to see what works before I line. Theyāre not meant to be pretty or social media ready. This stage can look super messy or tidy depending on how I feel or how complicated it is. And they can look wildly different; hereās some examples:
That stage also helps me decide if I want to finish the piece or if I should abandon it (I abandon a lot). Sometimes this stage takes 15min, sometimes 2 hours, it really depends on the piece. But for me personally, itās crucial because otherwise I find it very hard to envision how it will look later, or forget what I was planning.
Then, I do at least one more layer of āsketch line artā, which is basically a first layer of line art to see what works and what needs changing. I colour the important bits relatively cleanly (usually character/s) and add might some subtle shadows/gradients and/or lighting to get a feel of what it will look like finished. Sometimes I repeat this process a couple of times if Iām not happy with how the first iteration looked. This stage usually looks a little like this character sheet Iām working on, and this slice from a Kiki delivery service sketch:
Itās usually not until Iāve done all that, that I go over and do the final lineart, making it thicker, colouring the lines, redoing the flat colours, tidying it up, and adjusting where needed. Essentially I donāt start āfinishingā a piece until Iām happy with where everything sits and what colours Iāve picked. Itās only at this point I feel like the sketch is ready to line, and lining and final colouring can actually take less time for me than all those layers of planning somehow haha.
At this point I keep tidying, cleaning, lining, colouring, until the piece feels complete. Sometimes complete for one piece is tidier than complete for another, it really depends.
Iāll also use Procreateās push tool to adjust things as I go in all steps - it saves a lot of time and isnāt cheating.
Although as you can probably tell from my examples, I do change this procress up a lot depending on the piece! Sometimes Iāll even paint over parts of my final piece like I did in this magical girl street. I think find whatever works for you, everyone will work differently and things like mood, energy levels, how patient you feel, how stressed you are, if you have any hand pain or shaking, and how much free time you have that day to draw can all affect your process day to day, week to week.
Some days it will be easier and more comfortable to sketch messily, other days tidier. Some days you will draw well, other days not well at all. At least for me, I find consistency almost impossible.
So I think there's no right or wrong order to do things and it's great to switch it up and keep things interesting for yourself, and different processes work for different people. Hope this helps!
someone posted a link to my art in the comments on another artist's Tumblr post - please don't do this, I'm sure you mean well but it's very disrespectful to the original artist. If you want to support me you can like or reblog my posts
hi! I really love your art, and I just want to let you know in case you've missed it that tumblr's making it so that you have to opt out of having your art used for AI training, which you can do under blog settings -> visibility
sorry to bother if you were already aware!
This is so important, thank you for letting me know! I tried to find the setting on my iPad but I think I need to access from PC? How frustrating š
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