ivre

HII your wish is my command (this is gonna be a long detailed post since i've had a couple questions about this)

MY BRUSHES:

clip studio paint:

G-pen for shapes, solid shadows, and lineart

fresh salmon for softer rendering (usually hair)

airbrush eraser (extremely soft shadows) or hard pen eraser

ibispaint:

hard pen = G-pen

render = fresh salmon brush

airbrush = airbrush LOL

emo/scene brush (if i feel like having a rougher lineart)

TEXTURE BRUSHES

(optional, but i've been using more of these to look more appealing)

CLIP STUDIO PAINT

7line: i put this in areas of interest

13- flat brush: i use this on hair/fur ON TOP of a solid no texture shape (looks like this when i use it)

for alternatives in other softwares, these are relatively easy to find, i think ibispaint has a really popular 7line alternative if you search on tiktok

ACTUAL PROCESS

*this focuses on how i use drawing principles and less on my personal style

set up a reference board

usually i go into a piece with a general idea of what I want to draw; just knowing the subject and point of your piece is all you need

2. thumbnail

most of the time, i flesh out my ideas on a sketchbook in a small-scale drawing

it doesn't need to be good at all, just something i can personally understand with shapes

i try to be lenient with my ideas of one concept - if i have a different pose i draw it out, if i have a different perspective i also draw that out

if i'm doing it digitally, i start out with a big canvas size, and create very small greyscale sketches of ways i can position characters

composition-wise i think in a way that's like "how can i direct the viewer's eyes to the focal point"

there's a lot of different ways to achieve this but the main idea is that people's eyes are drawn to contrast

this is what i personally use a lot:

comparison of detail (detailed characters, less detailed background or vice versa) even just a difference in texture can guide a person's eyes

shapes that flow to or around the focal point (ex: here, i used the ripple of the water that increases near the boat with the lily pads surrounding them)

color differences (ex: the boat is what stands out because it's a warm color against the cooler tones of the teal)

if im particularly lazy, i observe pieces i really like and see what colors they use, and memorize certain color palettes or common color pairings

3. blocking out shapes and large shadows + refining

once i'm satisfied with a certain thumbnail i get the general shapes down

i spend my most time on the piece when im at this stage because if smth looks wonky here then it will stay wonky at the rendering stage

(using a different reference for rendering bc i think the boat piece had a lazy render)

RENDERING:

using multiply layer i either: fill in the entire layer with multiply (basic pen) and erase where the light hits or shape out the shadows

basic shapes with multiply (G-pen): i set a point of where the light source is (in this case it's to the upper left of parrot)

if i don't know how the shadows will look under a certain light source, i look up a photo that has a similar lighting situation and use that

erase with basic hard eraser OR airbrush eraser: rule of thumb i use is that the shadow gets softer as it's further away (or is softer depending on the texture)

i place shadows where there's areas of tension or if it's below something

alpha lock the multiply shadow layer and color depending on the base color

i use a darker, saturated color of each base color

usually when im choosing the color of my shadows, i move the slider to the right and go more saturated (right) and downwards

then, i go on overlay and tamper with any other colors for lighting and bounce light

if im on overlay, it's for the color of the lighting

if im doing bounce light, then the color is based on the surroundings, and this is usually in darker parts of the shadow

if i think the shadow isn't dramatic enough then i go UNDER the multiply layer and create an add layer for actual lighting

from this point on, i add a normal layer on top of everything and color pick to refine the shapes and darken shadows or lighten the highlights

i also airbrush the color of the face on top (normal layer)

i never do this for wifies though, i only do this effect for characters that i want to look softer

this is also where i add hair highlights with a white soft pen to make the head look less flat

i mimick lineart with a very dark, more saturated color of the shadow, but i never put this where the light is hitting the most

final touches

i use my texture brushes here

used 13- brush on parrot's hair, feathers, and boot fur

used 7-line legit anywhere i wanted LOL

if i think the piece still looks bland i add gradient curves and play with effects

this really depends on whatever looks nice to me personally so i just do random bullshit go

...andd that's it! i use this process for everything i draw :p

additional notes

my process comes from a lot of experimenting and trial and error

one of the reasons why i draw like this is because i hated lineart so much that i created an entire process to avoid it LOL

a lot of my process also depends either on intuition/habit or previous art studies

i try not to zoom in too much, if at all

this is something i need to work on, but it's to prevent focusing on one detail

if i'm refining something for a really long time, i end up restarting completely on whatever im trying to fix

ex: i kept trying to refix wifies' pose in that odyssey piece, and ended up starting from scratch to save time. it usually works out better this way

idkk fighting like that is kinda intimate guys...

ink by @comyet !

back in the old days when all they did was laugh