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sartorialadventure

Lisa Farrall hairstyling (British Hair Awards 2016, Afro Finalists Collection)

thebroccoligoblin

POW ER FUL

tcbunny

I always wanted to make this story into a comic. *Please understand my bad English.. T_T It’s my second language.* I had a rough time during my 20s. I always had a low self-esteem since high school. But in my 20s, it went even lower. My expectation was too high for my actual skills. But instead of try harder to get better, I lost all my motivations and gave up pursuing art. One day while I was mindlessly surfing the net, I stumbled upon this amazing Korean artist’s blog. In his blog, he also wrote his life stories like a diary. And it shocked me how much he hated himself for being bad at art. And what he wrote was life changing experience for me. (* I can’t find exact quote since I forgot who he was… T_T.) He said “I gave up comparing myself with others. I just want to be better than myself yesterday. Now I feel much happier when I draw.”

Why was I torturing myself by comparing with other people? I became an artist because I enjoyed drawing and being creative. I want to have fun again. I want to love what I used to love. From that day, I stop thinking how well others doing. I just thought about what kind of fun things I should draw. And here I am now. I can still say drawing is my favorite hobby. (and also my job. lol) I hope my experience can also help someone who’s feeling the same way I used to feel. Thank you for reading! -TCBunny

rtilrtil

Late last year I wanted to start a series of short tutorials called Tip Jar, as a way of saying thanks to my fans and giving back to my patrons. This is the first of the series I have made, showing my technique on quickly filling in lineart so you can get to painting without coloring outside the lines faster.

Someday I hope to turn these into video tutorials when I have the income and the time, but for now I hope that I will be able to share useful tips in this infographic format.

Full tutorial image

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americanninjax-deactivated20191

This is exactly how I do my flats.

chillyfeetsteak

This is how I do my flats! Really quick and easy!

shoomlah

Worth sharing because this is exaaaaactly how I do my flats! I get this question all the time when I post my process videos, and this explains it far more succinctly than I ever could. :)

blindsprings

This is also how I do my flats but unfortunately with lines that are see through (or sketchier) you get a lot of jaggies all over the place. So I play with channels!

So alternatively step 1.5 is to click on the channels tab, and create a new layer. Fill the areas that you magic wand(ed) with black (leaving the characters/whatever you want to fill white). Click out of the marquee and use gaussian blur (i use 3.0 on a huge image, sometimes you need to go down for a smaller image)

Then you go to image/adjustments/levels and put in–and this is where I sound like a mad scientist–88 1.42 and 122. Which cleans up the edges so they’re pretty clean!

Then all you do is click on the circle at the bottom of the channels area (”load channel as selected) and then go back in to layers and click on a layer to load your original view again! and then do the rest of the steps. It will cause you to clean up corners a lot but it saves me a whole heck of time since i have a rougher inking style. This step takes all of 3 minutes at most but otherwise I’d have to base everything by hand :I Or spend a good 40 minutes cleaning up jaggies.

TL;DR alternative step if you have rougher/sketchier lines.

Oh! Since my lines often don’t join correctly, I create a layer underneath and fill any holes before i do selection (with “select all layers” ticked off) which is admittedly tedious but again. Way quicker than doing it by hand! So yeah if you see this and are like oh gee whiz this doesn’t work with how I do stuff, try this added step?

(this is also how to do a stroke around an image that is cleaner than what you get from the layer styles box– I adapted these steps originally from a DA tutorial on how to get clean strokes!)

saltmalkin

Was getting some of my images ready to be made into prints today so I thought I’d make a guide for anyone else interested in making prints of their work :D

lazysmirk

Just in case you forget this exists.

It exists.

dragonofdarknesschaos

With those “when you want to design a character but you don’t know color theory” posts flying around I thought this would be relevant again.

secretsivekept

SLAMs THE REBLOG BUTTON

niyarest

there’s also Coolors website that gives you randomized palettes!

tf2humbug

Don’t forget ColourLovers, either! It’s 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 I’m having trouble coming up with a color scheme! It’s also been around for over a decade, so there’s plenty to browse through.

artmagine

Top 12 alternatives to Photoshop for digital painters and illustrators

Hello there!

Yes, we haven’t done this in a while… but our inbox and chat are swamped with questions on the subject, so this article was very much needed.

it’s a simple list of art apps, but we know you love those :D

Enough with the intro, here it is, a list of twelve art apps you may want to check out.

ArtRage is an art program for beginners and professionals. With its minimal interface, it’s easy to keep the essential tools at hand without stealing space from the canvas. Panels can be moved around and tools can be customised. We all know how important it is for digital artists to be able to modify brushes!

Pros: easy to use; friendly interface; essential tools from professional apps available; available for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac

Cons: it may get sluggish with big files and when using big brushes, but performances also depend on the running machine; limited selection of editing tools if compared to Photoshop - ArtRage is more of a painting program rather than an editing one.

Paid

ArtRage Lite is a different version at a cheaper price, mostly for beginners, but also for professionals if they need the essential.

Now free, Sketchbook is the famous app created by Autodesk for various platforms.

Pros: clean, friendly interface; easy to use; professional features

Cons: lack of official tutorials; doesn’t offer as many tools as other apps (it’s down to the essential); paid subscription in Adobe style for the pro version

Free and paid

Black Ink is a powerful little program few actually know, but there’s a reason: this isn’t your classing drawing app. What’s cool about it is the vast selection of special brushes, completely non-realistic, and definitely able to boost your creativity.

Pros: vast selection of customisable brushes; excellent performance

Cons: not very easy to use; non-intuitive interface

Paid

This is probably the most complete software for painting, drawing and animation. It was originally known as Manga Studio, but with its updates and addition of features, it became Clip Studio Paint.

This doesn’t say much about the quality of the features themselves considering the affordable price (if you haven’t used the app yet, that is), but among graphic apps, this one is the top seller.

Pros: professional features for illustrators; layout tools for comic/manga artists; 3D reference models; customisable tools; various sales with special prices

Cons: the interface may not appear intuitive at first; the program may lag (again, performance also depends on the running machine)

Paid

GIMP is the famous open source image editor originally created for GNU/Linux and available for OS X and Windows.

Best known as Photoshop’s main competition, this is a manipulation program for both beginners and professionals who love design.

It offers many professional features, making the program a powerful tool.

Pros: professional editing tools; supports different formats; supported by different platforms; active community

Cons: in spite of the simple design, many options are hidden and it takes time to discover all the features; slow startup

Free

Krita is an open source painting app created by artists for artists.

Pros: easy to use; intuitive interface; great brush workflow; brush stabilizer; customisable brushes; general good performance; very enthusiastic, although small, community

Cons: it may be slow or even crash depending on the running computer and the app’s version; very few editing tools compared to Photoshop

Free

MediBang Paint is a free and light app for drawing and painting, perfect for manga and comic creation.

Pros: vast selection of brushes; cloud sharing; friendly, minimal interface (non-desktop app); also available for iPad, iPhone and Android

Cons: requires an account to use all features; non-intuitive interface (desktop version)

Free

Mischief is a sketching app with essential tools, useful for brainstorming and ideation.

Pros: infinite drawing canvas; friendly interface; easy to use; cheap pro version

Cons: few updates; offers only the essential (but that’s the point); no editing/adjustment tools

Free and paid

Corel’s jewel, Painter is the most famous software that offers digital tools able to give a traditional feel to brushes and canvas.

Pros: different selection of media; many professional features; PS-friendly

Cons: certain brushes may work slow; not easy to use at first; the software may crash (this is the most common report); pricey

Paid

Paintstorm Studio is a professional software for digital painting. It’s focused on the use of brushes and blending, which makes the software a little gem in the digital painting field.

Pros: good brush workflow; brush stabilizer; “close gap” feature; customisable interface and tools; professional features; affordable price

Cons: non-intuitive interface (desktop version)

Paid

Procreate is the powerful drawing app for iOS.

With the very sensitive Apple Pencil, Procreate is so easy to use that many artists chose the iPad over the most famous graphic tablets.

Pros: friendly interface; makes it easy to organise files; excellent brush workflow; customisable brushes; video recording; affordable price

Cons: hidden features; only available for iPad

Paid

SAI is a simple app for artists who want to focus on painting and drawing.

It’s well known for its good pressure support and its essential tools for manga artists, but SAI can be used by any kind of artist who wants to paint.

Pros: easy to use; friendly interface; light software; customisable brushes; tons of (non-official) tutorials

Cons: limited selection of tools, even basic ones; limited canvas sizes and uses; it might crash from intensive work, especially with big canvases and brushes; supports only RGB colour mode; lack of support

Paid

We hope you’ll find this list useful.

If you think there are other apps that should have made this list, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Thank you and peace out,

G&M

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