Solavellan Hell Slumber Party!

March 25: Teaching Myself to Draw

IT’S DONE!!!!

Ok, so I could totally keep working on this for another month. As soon as I posted it with the screenshot I thought, “ oh I can do more on this, and this, and that.” But it’s time to finish this baby up. So I’m putting a bow on it and calling it finished.

Thanks to @hawkefels for letting my use your screenshot gif (the original post can be found here - be sure to check it out)!

I’ll probably not have much time to draw this weekend, with the holiday and all. I will try to post a process gif tomorrow. I learned so much from this piece and need to process it a bit.

Here’s @heysales‘ handsome OC Mahanon Lavellan! (I think if all your ocs were romance options I’d totally romance them!) 

thank you so much!! I…okay!! i’m not particularly good at armour or teaching or well anything really so if anyone wants to point out mistakes or add to this feel free to do so, i’m not sure what part you struggle with so i included shading too? I hope this helps! I’d suggest looking at different medieval armour suits to have a better idea of the parts and shapes but here goes nothing

HERE is a much better explanation with all the layers and a much more realistic approach by perplexingly that your should definitely check out, also their art is fantastic!!

HERE you can find armor parts and if you click around you will see tons of armor reference

March 22: Teaching Myself to Draw

Did some work with the back wall in the eluvian piece. I darkened it a bit behind the big eluvian and added some texture. And I started redoing the crumbling part of the wall on the left (I was never going to leave it like it was before, but I decided to just start from scratch). Let me just say that I hate that wall. The bricks, highlights, and shadows are so difficult to get down and getting the right colors is nearly impossible. Work on this piece is probably going to slow down, because it takes so much concentration and observation to get this part right.

I also did a few more practice eyes, after watching some videos that @theindomitable-ladymal and @kadustuniverse suggested. I’m now working on the one for Lavellan in the Looking Glass piece.

Eternal trash for these two. @feynites so looking forward to the next chapter!

Recently I’ve had a few people ask me about why I say I listen to fanfic while I sew. The answer is that I literally LISTEN to it. I have a text to speech app for Google Chrome called SpeakIt! that reads fic to me while I work. I made a quick and dirty illustrated guide to getting the settings right (so that it doesn’t sound like you have a robot reading to you) and actually using the app (since it basically comes with zero instructions). It’s not perfect but it’s by far the best reader that I’ve ever found.

There is a phone version too which DOES work, but it’s a little more finicky and I avoid using it when I can use the computer instead.

Okay so i got a few notes on how i go about Environments/Landscapes…so i’ll share a method thats easy to work with….bare with me its been a little while since ive drawn them Lol

First thing you want to start of with in your gradient background…use what ever is your preference. Depends on the setting, ima do some type of desert/dusty place.

You’ll learn that the Lasso tool is gonna be your bae when it comes to environments…that and its pretty useful. Now your going to be working in three tones, 1.Dark 2.Mid 3.Light and it will always be the darkest at the front fading to light towards the back…make sense? So you will have three layers for each one to make your life easier and Lock those layers so you will only color within that area. Make sure the dark layer is on top. 

Here is where the fun kicks in…we add our dets, try to stay with each tone and dont end up making it all muddy so you cant distinguish each one. Now you can go about this any way you please, you can paint it all in with one brush ( for some reason people get anal about shit like that, thinking there great for using one brush…i think if you got tools use em if you know how to do it right.) Or you can use custom brushes…since this is a tut ill mostly use custom brushes to slap stuff around. Its up to you really, also use the lasso tool like i said its your bae.

The lasso can help define things better for you, so i wanted to add a structure type on the third layer. If you want to give an effect that the selection ive made is in front of the background right click your selection and invert it, add some lighting around the edges…only a little though you dont want to over do it.

Also if you’ve done something on a layer you dont want to mess up or paint on what you can do is create a clipping mask on that layer. Its kinda like locking the layer to that one so you dont go outside of the layer or ruin what you worked on. Make a new layer above the one you wish to attach it to and right click the newlayer, a menu will pop up, your looking for clipping mask. Once you clicked it the layer should look like what ive circled. 

Once your done working on each layer we are gonna put in some mist effect, this is something that helps separate each section. So make a new layer between each of your three as shown in the image. Like i said you can use what ever method you like, i just use a soft brush or cloud/mist brush to get what i want. 

Now we are going to add some definition to the image a good one to use is Curves. You can find this where your layer menu is, at the bottom you’ll find it, ive circled what your looking for. On the third image is what will appear when you click curves, all you need to do is drag the little square and you’ll see some magic happen. So adjust it to your preference. If you want you can also mess with brightness/contrast too. ALSO i would recommend adding a person in the image, it gives you an idea of the scale your environment is.

I was going to end it there but hey, ill show one last thing…its pretty simple. and that is some water reflection, we are going to turn the middle into water instead cause its a little boring right now. I merged all layers but the first one, you then want to make a selection and copy/paste. Free transform in the shortcut is ctrl T and do a vertical flip on it then adjust so its mirroring the top. 

Now make a clipping mask like i explained earlier on the reflected surface and use the radiant tool…i think its called that lol it gives it more of a water surface like you see. For the image below it i used a custom brush which creates a water effect, aaaaaaaaaand bam you got you water now covering the area…easy huh.