#design tips

⠀Oi, gatinhos! Tudo bem com vocês? Já tem um tempinho que venho pensando em trazer alguns tutoriais, mas sempre acabava empacando e/ou descobrindo coisas novas. No entanto, de uns meses para cá, tenho mantido certos hábitos na finalização de capas, então, aproveitando o ensejo e puxando também pedidos (lembro que haviam me enviado ask sobre isso, peço perdão pela demora!), cá estou com um passo a passo de cada etapa!

Vambora!

ꤠ! — PASSO A PASSO

A primeira coisa a ser feita é abrirmos o Photopea, que é onde iremos fazer a finalização da capa. No meu caso, eu faço todas as minhas edições no Ibis Paint X, partindo desde o início por lá. No entanto, somente no Photopea conseguiremos usar psd/colorings e encontrar efeitos bastante úteis nesse processo.

Sendo assim, tendo o salvo o arquivo da sua capa ainda sem finalização nenhuma, abra-o no Photopea.

— capinha a ser usada:

adicionar psd: arquivo > abrir > (escolha o psd)

A parte mais importante para uma boa finalização é, sem dúvidas, a escolha de um bom psd. É ele quem vai corrigir as cores da sua capa e dar um tchan especial. Eu costumo usar os psds da @colour-source, que estão disponíveis para serem baixados lá no DeviantArt, mas fique a vontade para decidir qual se encaixa melhor!

Com o psd já selecionado, mova-o até a capa e ajuste o que for necessário. Nesse caso, minha única mudança foi diminuir a opacidade de 100% para 80%. Gosto de sempre fazer esses pequenos ajustes, porque quase nunca o psd encaixará perfeitamente de primeira. Assim, ajustar a opacidade ou fazer pequenas alterações na configuração é uma forma de aprimoramento nesse quesito.

Tendo então feito esse passo, clique em camada na guia de cima e depois em achatar imagem. Dessa forma:

Com isso, o psd estará mesclado à imagem através de uma única camada.

2. Ajustes: imagem > ajustes.

Puxando ainda o ponto de fazer modificações para melhorar o aspecto da capa, entramos no passo de ajustar os efeitos nela por cima do psd.

É comum que certos detalhes fiquem omissos, ou que o que tenhamos depois da entrada do coloring ainda não seja o que queremos como resultado final, então é aqui que temos que resolver isso. Geralmente o que mais costumo fazer é mudar a Saturação/Vibração, o Brilho/Contraste, a Exposição e (em situações específicas) adicionar o Posterizar. Tudo isso com o intuito de, por exemplo, deixar a capa mais visível e menos escura, mudar e/ou acentuar certos tons.

Aqui, vá descobrindo efeitos e brincando com as cores. Criatividade é essencial para um bom resultado.

3. Ajustar dimensões: imagem > tamanho imagem

Em todas as minhas capas, enquanto ainda estou no Ibis Paint, trabalho nela nas dimensões de 1200x800. É uma forma de aumentar a qualidade para pequenos detalhes (já que a tela não ficará tão pixelada) e também de ter mais controle dentro do próprio Ibis. Em outros casos, é possível fazer direto no tamanho de 600x400, mas em capas com muito detalhes e efeitos, como a que estamos usando de exemplo, nem sempre é uma boa escolha.

Por isso, fazemos então o seguinte:

Com a capa no formato maior, precisamos, então, diminuir. Para isso, clique em "imagem" e depois na opção "tamanho da imagem". Coloque a dimensão correta, como mostra acima, e salve.

4. Efeitos finais: glitch > sharpen > ruído.

Aqui chegamos na nossa etapa final, que é onde daremos vida ao nosso design. E para isso eu uso apenas três passos!

4.1. Glitch

O efeito glitch é indispensável nas minhas capas. Sou obcecada pelo resultado que traz, e funciona tanto nas dark quanto em outros estilos.

Você pode conseguir o efeito duplicando a imagem da sua capa, entrando nas configurações da camada acima e ajustando o RGB seguindo a sua preferência. Dessa forma:

Nessa capa em específico, desativei o G (green) e deixei os outros ativos, o que cria uma cor específica no efeito — mas tome liberdade para testar as combinações.

Após essa etapa, mescle também as duas camadas.

4.2. Ruído e sharpen

Aqui é o ponto onde a ordem que você põe os dois importa. Eu costumo usar ambas opções, mas elas tem efeitos diferentes! Se você quer um ruído mais leve, adcione primeiro o sharpen e depois venha com o ruído por cima. Se prefere um ruído mais forte, pôr o sharpen depois dele vai intensificá-lo. Tudo depende do resultado que você quer, então ir testando o que funciona melhor é sempre importante!

Para o ruído, costumo usar entre 3% a 9%, então não há um número exato. Na maioria das vezes, deixo no modo monocromático, assim:

Quanto ao efeito sharpen, eu sempre uso a opção de "Nitidez inteligente", que você encontra clicando em "Filtro" e então nessa opção.

Aqui, você precisa ir ajustando conforme a necessidade da sua capa, então fique livre. Mas recomendo sempre diminuir o raio (às vezes deixo no 0 px), para não pesar tanto e somente afiar o destalhes sem deixar feio.

Feito tudo isso, chegamos ao fim!

— resultado:

Lembrem-se que nunca há regras restritas para a finalização de uma capa. Dependendo do estilo, cada ajuste aqui pode mudar. Então, explore e vá testando o que funciona com o tipo de design que você faz. <3

The Timeless Palette of Art Nouveau 🎨

Hey there! We are Decor Society and we're passionate about bringing historical design to modern spaces, and we're kicking things off with Art Nouveau colors. Beyond those flowing, nature-inspired lines we all recognize, there's this gorgeous color world that defined the movement from 1890-1910.

Look at these incredible earthy tones, those muted greens, warm terracottas, and soft blues that somehow feel both vintage and completely fresh today (It is personally one of the favorite style at our office). The artists who pioneered this style (think Mucha and his posters!) pulled these colors straight from the natural world (autumn leaves, forest moss, and twilight skies.) 🌿

I've been playing with these color combinations in my own space lately, and they're surprisingly versatile (even for a beginner like me in the art nouveau space)! They bring in warmth without being overwhelming so they are perfect if you're going for something sophisticated but still livable (and it is good because you also won't get bored of it). 🏡

How do you come up with your designs? They are so pretty, especially Eddie and James ♡♡

I'm asking this because I'm having trouble creating designs for both Gordon and James for my AU, Hope.

Thank you for seeing this, I wish you a splendid day/night! :3

Why hello!!!

Oh gee I would ramble alot in this

Before I make a design, I like to list things that I like about them, their hcs, their ethnicity, and their primary colors

For example, Edward's primary color is blue, but he as a character is a kind and soft soul, in my hc his patience thins faster in adults, so a combination of white and red is a great indicator of this, The red being on his Tie and hair tie so it doesn't overpower the other colors.

My James is the one that's a little complicated, mainly because he's more based on his ethnicity, but him being a vainy, self-centered and show-offy means he likes to stand out, he likes being in the center of attention, so gold is the next best option, but for my James because he have aspects of him that is more cozy (he likes cooking, making clothes and learning languages), earthy Brown is used to support the bright red, that also helps with tuning down his personality a bit.

And next, are Shapes!

Again, their personality plays a big part, in Designing it's a factor that you would want to show your character's personality through their design, The three pillars of Round, Square, and Triangle Aspects plays a huge role.

If you see here, My Edward has a more fluffy, friendly look to it, with a hint of an old soul, and a fire that had died out, his design is rounded.

The same with my James, he has more edge, a sharper touch than Edward!

Appearance is also important, wether you go hand to hand by giving them buffers like a literal anthropomorphic trains, mecha, or more human etc, appearance is an indicator.

You might make them all have the same uniforms because they're a worker, but giving (for example) Gordon square glasses, then combining it with his basely square body type, can indicate he's a strict person, so on.

My James has alot in his design

Golden details in his clothing, Brown as a secondary color, darker red on his coat so that it doesn't clash with the main red in his outer, earrings and lip piercing indicating he loves accessories to support/show off his appearance, the moles I give him for that beauty marks, the Batik on his coat to represent his proudness of his home country, the coat that he make himself, he wears make up to touch up his appearance.

Alot can go on in a design, Mine is not God-Tier level designing, and I'm not an extremely experienced character designer, but these are the indicators I usually do whenever I make my designs.

In simple terms, list what you want to have in your engine design, and build it off from there, this is to prevent overcrowdedness.

And that's all! Thank you for the ask!

You don't have to follow it step by step, be as comfortable as you like, these are just factors and tips to help in designing🩵

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See more free tutorials!

You can see my process unfold in real time by joining any tier of my patreon discord. Which doesn't even have to go through patreon! If you want, you can just pay me $20 and let you in for a year (and then lose track and probably keep you anyway)

Here's a preview using comet! (nevermind the preview thing I wrote you a whole lecture lol)

initial sketches in 2021:

Revisited in 2022 and 2023

I was constantly asking which design was the weakest, why, and how to fix it. Whenever I tested without the magical comet behind it, people could only guess who comet was by process of elimination.

I didn't want to rely on throwing icons into the design. I wanted each one to communicate through shape and silhouette alone. It would be like drawing a little cherub with a bow and arrow floating along with cupid. If you have to include a nametag to communicate, your design can be improved.

So I tried a few different strategies to say "comet" before I realized I could twist the antlers into any shape I wanted. I was worried I would have to discard the drawing and restart from scratch! Which is what I did for rudolph about 6 times before I had a breakthrough.

Then I gave my patrons a brief lesson in antlers to explain where and why I was placing the tines. When I stray from the caribou structure, I do so knowingly in order to achieve something that cannot be achieved within the caribou shape, like dancer's tutu. Know the rules before you break them. My goal is to make animal nerds (myself chief among them) happy when they see species-specific anatomy instead of cop outs.

I tried a few things before figuring out antlers could become comet

Another thing that often caribou have is an unsymmetrical "spork" that comes forward off only one antler. I figured this out by looking at hundreds of reindeer pictures and saving them to my reference folder. A few of my designs have this, that's what the little spiral is in the final comet antler design.

When I put comet in my lineup, I realized that the antlers I drew were way more stylized, chunky, and "tribal" than the others. I had already changed the proportions on one of my designs to match, so then I had to hack away at the basic comet rack to make it look natural.

I already knew that comet's colors would be easy because a basic reindeer already Has the big comet on the shoulder. But here's a peak at all the reindeer images I posted for my patrons to look at.

As you can see below, I chose reindeer markings for all my designs instead of other deer or animals. Even vixen is tied to actually possible reindeer patterns rather than copy-pasting a fox. Almost all of my designs have light-colored anklets on dark colored legs, which is very common with caribou of any color. This is the sort of thing no one tells you; you have to observe it yourself.

Ft cupid's early design! I was continually testing out my reindeer silhouettes and colors on new people, taking their feedback, and fixing what wasn't clicking.

I know I could have made vixen sexy and curvy to play into a recognizable trope, but I really wanted them to be scary and fox-like. Sometimes you gotta do what you want and not what you think will appeal to audiences. Reindeer Days is a purposeful exercise in audience resonance. Most of my art is 100% me and what I feel like doing with no regards to anyone else. So it was a fun challenge!

My patrons also got to see me making fun of corporate designs for recognizably/cliches at the expense of literally anything good

One of these is going to get a lot more "that must be vixen!" results from people who aren't constantly thinking about animal colors, markings, hunting strategies, and teeth.

And one rocks.

Vixen changed the least from the initial 2021 concept!

A Vixen is a female fox. In english slang, it means a cunning, fierce human woman, and sometimes sexually attractive or promiscuous. Quite often an insult to someone because she won't date you!

But to me, a vixen is an animal. A predator.

When designing to reference something, I like to hit it at multiple angles, referencing obscure trivia about something to delight and educate. This is done by researching a topic deeply, far below surface level and beyond what you think you need to make your design. Or in my case its just knowing a bunch of animal trivia already.

After researching/dredging your knowledge, sit there and Think. Don't draw anything. Come up with several ideas and then throw them all in at once for the ultimate trivia design.

Trivia about red foxes:

They have Long bushy tails

They have teeth that include large sharp canines, flat incisors, triangular premolars, and chunky molars with points on them that slide scissor-like with the molars above to cut meat via chewing

They hunt rodents in burrows under the snow by jumping into the air, arcing, and slamming down with their face through the snow

They are orange

They have a dark vertical stripe on their snout

They have black legs, with the backs and bottoms being orange

Translated into the design:

Pose based on a fox jumping, about to land in the snow

Antlers twisted to resemble teeth

Long (for a reindeer) bushy tail

black mark on snout

Some adjustment to the pose to be at the top of the arc and flow better.

Tinkering with the design to make it recognizable but not 100% copypasta fox

I was finally happy with a design that absolutely showed "fox" while still being creative and plausibly caribou shaped. This would absolutely communicate who it is! I thought!

The most obvious one of the bunch! After all, everyone knows what a vixen is!

Nope! No they do not

Want to be part of the design process, help me with WIPs months before everyone else, see exclusive doodles every day, and join a funky little community?

(you also get to see photos of my dog)

Connect your discord to your patreon and join any tier to automatically get added to the server. Not a fan of patreon or monthly subscriptions? message me here, on ko-fi, or via email (shirecorn.art@ gmail.com) and ask if you can pay $20 to get put in the server for at least a year and longer if we work it out later!

This was supposed to be a preview to get you to pay me but instead I wrote an entire lecture for free because I can't help myself.

Want to thank me for the free info? Tag me when you use what you learned! Comment and give feedback! If I could pay rent with attention I would never need anything else in life.

You can also thank me by tipping my ko-fi! I use it to buy pens since I die if I have caffeine. But could you imagine??