#sharks asks

basic first steps ... just a little note about me making my lines sharp by erasing their edges (I use the ibispaint "digital brush" because it looks... cleaner?? to me. it's more pixelated where others get fuzzy) and a note about how I pick colors.

flat shading + line color + line blurring

OKAY SO I shade manually. like, I choose the colors myself. this is where I make myself look silly, because I don't use any sort of fancy color theory, I just choose a color, darken it, and shift it into a slightly deeper / bluer color. so for zarkar's stripes, I shifted the light blue to a deeper, darker blue. for his outfit, I shifted the cream color to a slightly deeper orange color since it's such a light color. I shifted the gold detail into a deep red for shadows.

the flat lighting is done the exact same way, just in the opposite direction. my lighting is just me selecting the color, lightening it, and shifting it into a warmer tone.

the extra lines I do for my lighting are ALLLLLL bullshit. I don't know what I'm doing. it makes my lighting stand out more by emphasizing where it's the brightest, and it also makes hair / fur stand out more. it's mainly to fill up blank space, but it looks pretty neat sometimes!

I also duplicate my line art layer and blur one of them. I make sure to lower the opacity a bit... sometimes it softens the lines and makes the character look fluffier, sometimes it gives it a sort of shaded look, sometimes it looks Silly and I remove it entirely. it just depends on how I feel about it.

I don't have an explanation for how I do flat shading, I just don't like seeing empty space, so I try to make it feel more whole by making a hole in the flat shadow.

my airbrush shading ... yes I only use two brushes to draw....... and yes I abuse layer settings.... and yes the layer settings include Multiply .... ANYWAYS yes I only use an airbrush for it. usually I only pick a dark blue or a reddish color, just because I like how it looks more

lighting!!! same this as shading, just in reverse. I still use airbrush, I still do it on an Add layer, and I still usually stick to purples/oranges for the light.

finishing touches!! I added a green glow to his eyes, a red glow over his teeth to make them shine, extra light over his stripes so they glow and stand out more, just little things.

I'm not a fan of drawing real backgrounds (I promise I'm going to work on it ... soon) so I usually just give characters a near black background (this one's a very dark purple/blue), an outline, blur and light that, and then call it a day. ....

I ALREADY SHOWED YOU THIS RAINE but I'll add it here so other people can see. if any of my steps didn't really make sense or I didn't explain it right, I made a little chart thingy that shows my process to simplify it... I don't think I do anything fancy, I just don't really know what I'm doing so I make it fun for myself HAHAHA I hope this helps!!!! im open to answer any questions and go into more detail about anything if anyone wants that :P

⚠️FLASH WARNING FOR THE SPEEDPAINT‼️

and also here's the speedpaint so you can kind of watch it happen, I guess??? I can slow it down or grab a specific part if anyone needs it.