Gaëlle Aliaga 🍋

Quick little video tutorial! This is a method I use to block in shapes when I’m fighting the urge to polish my lineart at an early stage, especially in rough concept art that doesn’t actually need polished lineart.

I group two layers in photoshop—a rough sketch, and a flat color—and then carve out the negative space by painting into a mask on the group, instead of filling in the positive shapes. From there I can start painting and adding shading into that group, knowing that I’ve already locked down a good initial silhouette for the object/character:

It feels like oil painting, and I end up finding silhouettes/shapes in a way I wouldn’t if I was obsessively cleaning up the linework first. Digital art has a tendency to veer towards cleanliness/polish, so I love finding little opportunities for happy accidents and a bit of mess!

I used it on my unicorn piece last month, for instance, which I think would have lost a lot of its dynamism and charm if I had worried too much about doing a full ink pass: