How to recreate this style, step by step
Transparent Paper Texture:
1. Grab a picture of a paper with the desired texture (either look online or take one with your camera) and import it into your drawing or photo editing program (if you take one of the edited ones I left on the bottom of this post you can skip ahead to step 5)
2. Turn the saturation of the picture all the way down (greyscale)
3. Play with contrast/black point/brightness/whatever or simply adjust the gamma with curves until the texture becomes more visible (that usually makes the image darker and that’s fine! we just don’t want any pure white or black)
4. Optional: If your picture doesn’t already have one side that is a tiny bit darker than the other you can very lightly airbrush a hint of low opacity black across one side as a subtle shadow for added realism (use a huge soft edged airbrush for this)
5. Invert the colors of the picture/layer
6. Make a new layer in the drawing program, fill it entirely with black and set it to layer mode “mask”
7. Copy your edited version of the paper image, paste it into the mask and combine the two mask layers together (it is now one transparent paper texture)
Making the Lino Print Effect:
1. Duplicate the transparent paper texture and invert the colors again so you have a white and a black version on top of each other (this way it will show up on both the white and black parts of your drawing too)
2. Lower the opacity of the textures to your liking (I recommend white = 24-30% and black = 35-49%)
3. Add a “subtract” layer underneath the transparent ones, fill it with very pale/pastel yellow and set it on 4% opacity (makes the paper look more real)
4. To draw you need a textured brush (I use “mercury” found in the classic procreate library under “inking” but anything with a bit of grit along the edges should do)
5. Make a new layer underneath all the others and now it’s up to you: personally I fill the entire thing in black and then “carve out” my designs in white color on the same layer caus it’s most similar to the real life experience and naturally gives it a more authentic look. I don’t use any eraser, just paint stuff with black and white
