♛

Pure Starlight 💎 ✨

White Pearl Close Up:  

hank you, im really glad you like it! I usually use SAI to draw and Adobe Photoshop Elements 2.0 (yes its absolutely ancient i knooow) to add certain effects i cant quite recreate in SAI

to get that fuzzy effect, i have the entire image on one layer and duplicate it, changing the opacity of the copy to around 30-40%

then i hide the copy for a bit, and select the background. there, i apply the “diffuse” filter found right here:

the “lighten only” mode, creates a base to get that “scanned pencil lines” look which helps to make it look more like a screencap of an older anime. 

(i found that this works best with clear lines and cell shading)

then, still on the background layer, i get a gaussian blur filter going, found over here:

a radius of 1-2 pixels blurs the whole deal out a little to make it look like its a good ol low quality screencap

then i go back to the other layer and, using the same gaussian blur filter but a radius of 15-20 pixels, get that foggy feel going!

this step is the most important as it creates that dreamy, foggy feeling which helps to make it look like ye olde animes

lastly, i clean up some highlights that might’ve gotten washed away by all the blurring, and we’re done!

of course you can always do more things like add a texture to make it a little grainy, or resize the canvas to fit the average dimensions for most old animes, or do something difficult and technical with the colors which i know nothing about, but i feel like this process is a pretty alright method to satisfy those ~ a e s t h e t i c ~ cravings!

(quick before/after)

NOTE: one type of fold will rarely appear on its own - they interact with each other quite a bit! for example, spiral folds might define the outline of a pant leg, while the interior folds might be zig-zag folds.