Cosmic Carp

Switching to Mysticshade ;)

We are starting with this (ignore the background)

2 - Basic Texturing + Deeper Shadow

Following the shadows laid out by my gradients in step one, I take some simple texture brushes and apply the same dark/light values in the same places. Generally, I use these specific brushes below. These are free on Medibang Paint (watching an ad will unlock them for a few hours), but I am positive you can find a similar texture brush on whatever program you are using.

Once I have these values down, I will take the layer and turn them into overlay layers, the same as before. If the character is either super saturated or super light, I may choose to make the dark layer a multiply layer instead. In this instance, I used dark blue for the shadows and a bright, slightly desaturated pink for the lighting.

First image is what this generally looks like without a base color so you guys can see what I am aiming for.

3 - Full Shading

This next step varies depending on what I want to do. I literally have, like, seven different shading styles that I use based on what I am feeling in the moment. I will show you what I did for this piece specifically.

My strategy here was to select my character and put down a dark shade (the same blue I had been using previously). This resulted in my character being completely covered in blue. From there, I used the lasso tool to select and then erase certain sections that would be catch the light. I think a lot of people do the opposite (where they color in the shadows), but I like this strategy because it puts down more values overall.

It is hard to explain how to do this without having experience in shading, but my tips are to take the parts that naturally stick out (like the cheeks) and erase the shading on those, and leave the parts that don't untouched. This comes with time, and, if shading is uncomfortable to you, looking at a lot of references!

If you want to make the shading softer (which looks very nice imo), then you can individually select each of the sections you erase and pull a transparent gradient from the corner using the same color you are shading with. This works really well on fur.

Most of the time, I duplicate this layer once I am satisfied with it. The bottom layer I turn to "multiply" and bring the opacity down to a low number (15-25%), and the top layer I turn to "overlay" and keep at a higher opacity (50% or higher). The effect looks something like what you see below (although in this case I hid the layers showing the color corrections of the previous steps, so it's not confusing). In this example, I used another layer to add a couple shadows myself, and you can use as many or as few layers as you want here.

looks pretty good!

4 - Painting

This step is going to be far more complicated than a lot of you want to go. Realistically, at this point, your art looks beautiful and perfect and you don't need to touch it! If you want a bit of a challenge though, painting it fully can be SUPER fun and super inspiring and so I will show you what I do for that.

First thing is that you are gonna need some nice, watercolor brushes. The ones that I use most are listed below. You can find your own as well, anything that works for you!

I had a beautiful gif prepared showcasing how I do this, but it is too large. I will do my best to explain how I go about painting my pieces, but it may be confusing.

Create a new layer on top of everything you've done so far. Using your watercolor brush of choice (in my case, my Flat Brush), blend the edges of distinct colors by using the eyedropper tool. Basically, take the surrounding colors and reapply them with this new brush. Because you are using a watercolor brush, it should create a nice blended effect at every point where two colors meet.

My end goal is to make it so that most colors meld into each other and there aren't super hard borders.

Because I am using a brush that is meant to mimic fur, I will try to follow those lines. For my dragon drawer, I often use this brush on scaly beasts too. I actually like how it looks on everything. In those cases, I just make it more subtle to look less like fur and more like paint.

first picture is before, second picture is after. I decided I didn't like her pupil anymore, that's not a part of the process LMAO

you can see here, I use the brush on dragons too.

Once I am at a good spot with that, I will go in with the other two brushes on that sheet and add little texturing in the places I think need it. I think my art of Fox (above) is super helpful for displaying how I use the last one. It is way bolder, less watercolor, and works really well to put noticeable detail. It's there a ton in the background. If you can find a cool brush that you really like to add extra texture at the end, it can add a lot of personality! I would definitely recommend it.

5- Final Touches

once I'm done with all of that, I just go in with a normal brush and touch up the lineart in the places where it disappeared, add a bit of contrast in the areas where parts blend into each other too much, add a shit ton of extra overlay gradients until everything looks perfect, etc. If you've got a kitty, add some whiskers, If you've got a dragon, maybe draw in some little circles to look like scales. On this piece, I took a standard brush, made it super small, and then added in some pink and purple highlights / scribbles to make certain areas (like the head) stand out. I gave her some of the kitty snout speckles (I don't know what that's called). Obviously, this is the point where you just do anything you think needs doing, it's unique for every piece.

Final Thoughts

I can only imagine how impossible this "guide" is to follow so I am sorry about that haha. It's hard to explain something that you do without thinking! At the least, I hope this was interesting or enlightening into what I do personally to get the results I do for my pieces. If you want to try any of these things yourself, good luck! Send me your results or tag me in pieces where you used this strategy! I'd love to see what you guys make of it.

I am always open to answering questions, clarifying anything I said, or helping you guys in the DMs! If you want help trying to find features on your program OR if you are using Medibang Paint and need some assistance finding my brushes (or likewise), definitely shoot me a DM. I will do what I can.

Overall, my final tip is to go all out! It's digital art, if you don't like the way the shading looks, you can always delete those layers and try something else. Might as well do it all! Don't get too frustrated, I am still learning things all the time and you WILL get better at it the more you do it.