#sometimesnosepass

Now firstly you’ll want to grab refs for whatever it is you want to draw. This may include modern sugi art (if you’re drawing a modern pokemon), and I definitely recommend selecting old Sugimori art refs based on the colours, shapes, pose and body style of what you want to draw. I know @sometimesnosepass by memory so I just pick some old Sugi refs for this tutorial.

The first proper step is, of course, to sketch something!

When sketching, do keep in mind the stylizations that gen 1 art has. For example, instead of using Nosepass’ normal eyes (which are black ovals) I opted for Clefairy’s style of eyes here.

For something like my Fennekin, I also kept in mind things like how the fur is styled in old gens. Things are a bit smoother nowadays in Pokemon, but in old art Sugimori wasn’t afraid to get fluffy at times. Animalistic Pokemon are also less skinny and take on rounder shapes (Pikachu is a famous example). Use those refs!!

Now of course, you’ll need some good brushes for the linework and colouring. I recommend a rough pencil-ish brush for the lines, and a textured watercolour brush for the colouring. Below are the SAI2 and SAI1 brushes I use, but definitely experiment until you get something you are comfortable with. (Also, if you want my textures, here is a download link. Google how to add them to your SAI if you need to!)

Anyway, lines! As all the gen 1 artwork was hand-drawn they are full of small imperfections, but that’s what gives the art character and makes us all love it in my opinion. As such, take it easy and don’t be afraid to be a little wobbly.

The next step is to loosely select the outside of the linework…

…and invert it! On a lower layer, fill your selection with white.

A common thing with uploads of RBY Sugimori art is that they are a bit rough around the edges, since it is quite tough to cut out hand-drawn art for transparency. As such, if you want to be accurate to this kind of thing, the loose selection gives us some little white edges around the artwork.

So, what’s next? Either lock your white layer OR duplicate and set it to clipping group. This is so you can blend the colouring without it extending past the boundaries of the white base. And… start colouring!

The brushes I use make things darker as you layer them, so my strategy is to blend some light parts and then colour in some dark spots with hard edges. Remember, the old Sugimori style uses a lot of white in its colouring, so you have to preserve that kind of thing in your own piece and let yourself have some highlights. The colouring also tends to be quite muted and pale due to the scanning process, so use pale and muted colours in return. Pay attention to your references!

Sloooowly work at it. Sugimori was pretty dang good and didn’t let differently-coloured parts overlap, but as you know traditional watercolours are still prone to small mistakes and on some of his art pieces you can see it. Thus, be careful, but don’t worry too much about things like the blue on Nosepass’ nose.

Colouring differently-coloured parts works pretty much the same, but we won’t be stopping there.

With your rough/lineart brush set to a slightly lower opacity, just go around the colouring and give them some harder or rougher edges where they seem to need it. As you can see on the examples of Sugi art on the right, there are definitely places in the edges where they have a textured finish or a harder edge. This was my first time doing this style on SAI2, so I feel I did make my watercolour brush a little too soft!

So it’s looking pretty good! But there’s still more..!

On your colouring layer, set your layer texture to some kind of papery thing. Or for other programs, perhaps some kind of slight noise overlay. It’s noticeable, I promise!

Duplicate your linework layer and blur it (for SAI1 you will have to do this by hand sadly, but that may actually give it a better result).

And finally, set the opacity of the blurred linework to around 40% (or whatever you prefer) and Clipping Group it to the colouring layer.

Another optional thing (which I did here) is to colour the main linework off-black to give it a bit of a washed-out look. It can help sometimes!

And… you’re done…!?

Go and stun everyone with your newfound Sugimori skills!! I believe in you!