hi :33
do you mayhaps.. have some tips for rendering :333 ?? i really love the texture of your art, it scritches my brain nicely :]
Hello illu!! And YES I’m actually going to walk you through my process!!
Okay so step one. Sketch and base colors. I hate DOING lineart so I don’t bother, I just try to sketch somewhat neatly and then clean it up until I’m satisfied then bam that’s my lineart. I like the messy look.
You can do the base colors all on one layer don’t be afraid. If you’re also rendering a background, you’ll render the background preferably at the same time you do your subject to avoid having to adjust several things later to make them cohesive and look natural. However, keep your subject separate from the background in case you DO need or want adjustments.
Step two. Color your sketch if you’re a messy sketcher like me (the most noticeable example here is ruin’s hat—on the next slide you’ll see that I recolored the inner part, but left the outside part black. That’s just a personal preference.) I don’t have a picture because you tend to color your lineart anyways!
Step 3, shading and lighting. Use a textured brush for this (I use a marker brush)—the trick is to do it all on one layer in one color, copy your base layer and clip that on top of your shading and lighting. This helps so you don’t really have to think about what color to use for lighting or shading—just adjust the hue towards the left or right depending on if you want your colors warmer or cooler, or is you want your lighting a specific color, adjust the opacity of the clipped layer to “mix” the colors. It’ll look something like this.
Also! Always change your background to grey IF you’re not also rendering a background at the same time (that will provide a colored backdrop.) Grey is easier on the eyes and helps you distinguish values easily against a 50/50 light and dark backdrop.
Step 4 is cleanup. You’ll notice that I tend to over render fabric. Now is usually when I fix that. Also, merge your lineart and color layers—make a backup if you’re afraid you’ll need to backtrack—but you need to have them merged for the texture to really do its thing.
Okay now’s the fun part that gives it the most texture. You’re gonna find some kind of dry paint brush and cover the entirety of your piece with this. Then, using the same trick we used for lighting and shading (by copying layers and clipping them onto the base layer) we’re gonna color shift the clipped layer to be more saturated, and then make it lighter or darker depending on what makes sense or what looks good. For this one, I went with lighter.
You may have to fiddle with this to get the texture to be noticeable by shifting your base colors darker or lighter. What I ended up doing is adjusting the curve levels on the clipped layer on the texture so the light lights were lighter (results below.)
I’d give a brush name but this brush is not part of the base procreate library, but I haven’t explored the new ones for a texture yet. Ideally, you’d have a brush that is ONLY texture and doesn’t have the weird transparency bit that mine does, which lightens or darkens the whole piece which is annoying. I’m still trying to find a replacement lol
Next, you’re going to make an overlay layer and apply noise until you’re satisfied with how it looks. This gives it an extra layer of texture!
I know he looks weird, but if he had a background, he’d look less out-of-place (thanks transparency bit on my texture brush.) If you have a background, it’s up to you how you adjust things to make your subject stand out against it, if you do at all. My go-to is taking the main background color, finding the complimentary color for it, and then make an overlay layer with that color and clip that onto the subject THEN adjust opacity. I’ve done this for 99% of my simple background pieces like the maid eclipse and ruin one.
But yeah that’s my rendering process! I’ll use additional texture brushes like rakes or manga halftones and whatnot as needed if I think it looks good. Sorry if this is hard to follow, I don’t usually typically instructions :’)
So, TLDR: lineart and base color, render, texture overlay, noise overlay.
I only know this because I studied kouwelm’s art for like a week and dug through their twitter for brushes they use and what their process is (it’s literally that^ list in order), and I’ve also watched a few speed paints that they have up on their YouTube, all because I LOVE how they use texture so I was like hmm how would I go about replicating this. And here we are. I’ll update this when I find a texture brush without that transparency lol
EDIT: found a texture brush without the transparency!! Same applies, you can saturate or desaturate the colors over the texture to make it pop or make it subtle. For this one, I desaturated and made the colors juuust lightly darker than the base. Again, you can do whatever you want if you decide it looks good! I don’t do the same exact thing for every piece.
For an additional example of texture rakes and texture, I like to use a color jitter brush (there are tutorials on how to make these!) to add visual interest to small details or plain spaces. Here’s a sample from a piece that I’m waiting for permission to post bcs it’s fanart of someone else’s design.
