Ai Amai Art

My current process for drawing Undine’s water in Sleepless Domain, from the third panel of today’s page.

I use Multiply setting for the lineart! I picked the color that surround it with some variation. Slightly lighter if the color is dark (ex. the blue suit), darker if the color is light (ex. the skin). but most of the time I just stumble around until it looks good aksdfjk

sometimes there are more than one variation if I want to add more depth into it. Like this one there are two colors for the skin, lighter color on the inside (nose, ear) and darker on the outside (the edge of the character's face) to make his face feels more separated from the neck. The same goes with the coat, lighter color on the inside and darker where it's separated from other objects.

And this is what the lineart looks like compared to the fully colored one, you can see that there's a variations of color in the lines.

Hope this helps! :>

Hi, love!  Thanks for your question and your patience :)  I love writing unique character voices, both in dialogue and narration, just because it can make a story completely different just through the way it’s told.  There are a lot of different aspects to a character voice, though, so I’ll just go through the basics I run in my mind when I develop voices.

Aspects of Character Voice

Education – To be as realistic for your character as possible, you need to consider the level of education they received growing up.  There are too many characters in modern fiction who speak eloquently, confidently, and grammatically correct, yet don’t have the educational backstory to support this.  This is especially important if the character has to speak publicly, which many overlook as a skill that must be developed.

Influences – People learn how to speak, how to joke, and how to appeal to others from their family, friends, and idols.  For example: my aunt is much more reserved than my father and uncle.  She’s a quiet, thoughtful psychologist – but every once in a while, she shows her roots over her education by engaging in some of the awful puns that run in my dad’s side of the family.  Puns seem uncharacteristic of her at first glance, but it adds depth to who she is by reaching back into her childhood.

Communication Style – I touched on this in my post on character traits, and it probably applies even more here.  Your characters aren’t all going to speak up at the same times, about the same things, in the same ways.  Some people avoid confrontation; some people can’t ignore irritants.  Some people are open about their personal affairs; some don’t feel comfortable sharing their middle name with friends.  Some people think out loud, and occupy the room subconsciously.  Some people use humor to mask their feelings, and rarely speak without a hint of irony in their voice.  Some people are horribly self-aware, and some people talk without really hearing or filtering themselves.  It’s all important.

Demeanor – Mood, countenance, disposition – basically, what is the character’s general attitude?  If someone were to describe them in a couple of words, what would they be?  Some people are generally positive, and some are generally negative, or irritable, or uncomfortable, or emotional, or just really strong in whatever direction.  I had a friend in theatre describe me as “anxious at rest”, and I think that pretty much covers my demeanor.  Now, no one behaves one way all the time – this is just more of a “default emotion” that colors how they approach certain situations.

Example: Because I’m “anxious at rest”, I feel happiness like butterflies in my limbs, and sadness like it’s raining bullets in my stomach.  Because my brother is naturally chill as hell (my words), he feels happiness like a warm, gooey piece of pie, and sadness like a thin, wet sheet clinging to his skin.

Social Skills – This can tie into education and influences, but also has a lot to do with personality.  A character can be raised to know and value social convention, or they can pick it up themselves; or they can disregard social “rules” despite any kind of education.  How does your character handle awkward situations?  Are they blunt with strangers?  Are they respectful to authority?  Do they keep their opinions to themselves, or speak up no matter what?  Do they at all change themselves or their behavior to adapt to new situations?  There’s a spectrum there, between 100%-Integrity and Chameleon status, and your character’s somewhere on it.

Sense of Humor – I’ve talked about this before, too, but for posterity, I’ll add it here.  When writing a character’s voice, you have to think about what amuses them – and it’s not necessarily what amuses you.  I think of the show The Office, which is basically a playground of different senses of humor.  There’s Michael Scott, who works with things like “that’s what she said” and celebrity impressions; there’s Jim Halpert, who’s both sarcastic and a diehard prankster; there’s Pam Beesly, who can only offer puns along the line of, “I’ll put out an A.P.B. – an Ask Pam Beesly.”  These small details make characters sound distinct from each other.

Introversion/Extroversion – Lastly, a lot of how a character communicates depends on how they experience social interactions.  Are they energized by conversations and social events, or do these things drain them?  Do they seek out others, or do they wait to be addressed?  Are their thoughts focused outwardly – on what’s going on around them, what others are saying or thinking, on how they appear to others – or inwardly – on their internal thoughts and interests, on what they’re thinking and feeling?  This will affect how they speak and how they narrate the story, even if you’re not writing in first-person.

Anyway, that’s basically what came to mind when I saw your question.  If this doesn’t help you, be sure to send us another ask with more information :)  Good luck!

– Mod Joanna ♥️

OK SO I PREPARED A QUICK DOODLE FOR THIS TUTORIAL SO I APOLOGIZE FOR ANY ANATOMICAL MISTAKES

I’m gonna show you how to turn your art from this, to this

The one on the right is much softer, right? Here’s how you do it.

For this I’m using MediBang, but you can use this technique on any art platform that allows layers, layer settings (especially overlay), gaussian blur (or just a general blur), and layer clipping.

Here we go. 

We’re gonna start with good ol’ Pidge here. After you’ve finished all of your coloring and shading and linework and such, you’re going to want to 

1) make sure all of your linework is on the same layer.

2) turn off the lineart layer so that you can only see the coloring you did. It can be pretty messy and horrifying, I know, but you won’t have to look at it for that long. once you’ve done that, make sure there is no background layer. Sometimes it’s just white and you forget it’s there but make sure you turn it off or this won’t work right.

3) export a transparent png of just the color part. It should look like this:

See, gross right? it looks so nakey without the lines.

3) now you need to import the nakey.png back into the original document, right under where the lineart layer is (which should still be turned off). The purpose of this is to get all the color layers together in an easy way so that it’s easy to modify.

4) This is where it starts to get fun. you’re gonna Gaussian blur the heckie out of the color layer that you just imported. the amount you blur it should be kinda proportionate to the thickness of your lineart. Don’t blur it at max if your lineart is 2 pixels thick, and don’t blur it so little that you can barely tell if you have 20 pixel thick lineart. You can always go back and blur it more if it doesn’t look right.

This is kinda what it should look like now.

5) ok so now, turn the lineart layer back on, and duplicate it. Then move one line layer below the color layer, so theres one on the bottom and one on top, like a lineart sandwich. like this:

6) now, clip the color layer to the lineart layer below.

7) This is the part where it actually starts to look COOL. Set the top lineart layer to overlay, in the layer settings. once that’s done, it should look like… this!

We’re getting somewhere! Doesn’t it mesh with the colors a lot better now? It’s not perfect yet tho. See how her mouth kinda disappeared? Well we’re gonna fix that up and any other parts that look a bit wonky.

8) Before you touch it up, make sure you play with the layer opacity of the top lineart and color layers. Some pieces may look better if you tone down the lineart layer, some look better if you bring the color layer down a bit. Play around until you find what works. For me here, it looked best to put the top lineart layer at 73%. Again, whatever looks best.

9) Now, to touch it up, you’re going to draw on the color layer in the center of the lineart sandwich. I suggest picking the color of the shaded part in whatever area you’re fixing (for the mouth I think I picked the color from her cheek, but for the top of the shirt I used the color from the shaded part. Whatever looks good). Just airbrush it around that general area until you’re satisfies with how it looks (remember, the color layer is clipped so it wont look like a mess when you’re coloring all over the place).

Once you’re done, it should look a little more clean. like this!

(oh yeah also I gave her glasses after, since I didn’t want them so be softened at all)

Nice! now if you’d like to complete the Soft™ look, give it a pastel background that matches your shading, (remember that background layer I yelled at you to get rid of earlier? He can come back now), slap on a filter, (here I just filled a layer with purple, put it on top, and put the layer setting at “screen”), add your watermark and voila!

Look at this Soft™ kid.

Artists who completed all ONE HUNDRED days of the event!!

The Brothers’ Personality Types

So, I tried to determine the brothers’ personality types by taking the 16Personalities Test from their point of view!

Mammon - Entrepreneur (ESTP-T)

“Entrepreneurs always have an impact on their immediate surroundings – the best way to spot them at a party is to look for the whirling eddy of people flitting about them as they move from group to group. Laughing and entertaining with a blunt and earthy humor, Entrepreneur personalities love to be the center of attention. If an audience member is asked to come on stage, Entrepreneurs volunteer – or volunteer a shy friend.

Theory, abstract concepts and plodding discussions about global issues and their implications don’t keep Entrepreneurs interested for long. Entrepreneurs keep their conversation energetic, with a good dose of intelligence, but they like to talk about what is – or better yet, to just go out and do it. Entrepreneurs leap before they look, fixing their mistakes as they go, rather than sitting idle, preparing contingencies and escape clauses.”

Class: Explorers

self-reliant, flexible, and quick-thinking

tend to not be obsessed with precise details

find impulsiveness thrilling

dislike monotony

Strategy: Social Engagement

tend to do what comes naturally first and think about it later

enjoy being the center of attention and enjoy social status

bold but often self-doubting

sensitive but risk-tolerant

Greed Analyzed

↣ Entrepreneurs are the likeliest personality type to make a lifestyle of risky behavior. They live in the moment and dive into the action – they are the eye of the storm. Do I even need to explain the risky behavior Mammon partakes in? Between attempting to pull scams on unsuspecting demons, being a kleptomaniac, and always disobeying orders, Mammon causes a lot of problems that Lucifer usually has to bail him out of. 

↣ Also challenging is that to Entrepreneurs, it makes more sense to use their own moral compass than someone else’s. Rules were made to be broken. I can practically hear Mammon saying “rules were made to be broken.” When’s the last time Mammon stopped doing something because he was violating a rule? Never.

↣ If Entrepreneurs aren’t careful though, they may get too caught in the moment, take things too far, and run roughshod over more sensitive people, or forget to take care of their own health and safety. Mammon lives in the moment constantly, always thinking of the next thing to do, and consistently walks all over Levi who one could argue is the most sensitive brother of them all.

Strengths:

Bold

Original

Direct

Sociable

Weaknesses:

Impatient

Risk-prone

Unstructured

Defiant

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