Emma

Since I decided to work with limited color palettes for this project, I look at the card, character and then pick a color palette that I think suits the vibe the most from my color palette sheet. Color in the card frame and then start a messy sketch of how I want the pose to look like.

I used a 3D model to get the perspective of the pose right to use as reference. You can find the poses under Material -> 3D -> Body type and then click and drag the body you want from material into your canvas

You can change the body shape and height by going to the wrench tool in the tool bar and then "3D drawing figure" - play around with it and see what works the best for you!

I place the model and play with the camera around until I have the pose I want

I trace over the pose and add the character details and adjust some things until I'm happy with the second sketch.

Then I lock the opacity of the sketch layer, and use a darker color from the palette to change the lineart colors. Change the sketch layer mode to "Multiply" and set the opacity to 80%. When you set a layer to multipy + lower opacity, the lineart color will turn darker depending on the color layer put under the multiply layer.

Here is how it looks like in Normal layer mode + 80% opacity

and here is the sketch layer in Multiply mode + 80% opacity

4. I start laying down rough colors and shading colors to get an idea of how I want it to look later. To get various shades, I either color pick shades from the multiply lineart shade or lower my brush opacity and blend in two colors to get the result I want.

here for example, I use the bright red as my base color, and then lowered the opacity of my brush and lightly paint over the base red with the darker shade of red to get in total 3 different shades of rade. If you want to check the color value of the three shades, you can create a New layer -> correction layer -> hue/saturation/luminosity -> and set the saturation to the far left

I'm happy with the shades of gray and will keep using them. If I want to add another darker shade of red, I will pick the color created by the dark red + multiply layer

and I keep working like this, playing around with different layer modes until I have a rough colored sketch. I ONLY use colors from the color palette

I make a rough background but tbh my background drawing skills is non-existing so they usually exist on a simpler side LOL

I clean up the background, then clean up the sketch to a more clean sketch layer. I used to lineart everything but stopped doing it since I usually end up painting over the lineart and render it anyway so might as well save myself the extra step. I try to keep the sketch clean, but also not super clean, and change the color once again and set it to multiply + 80% opacity. don't shy away from using many layers for this clean sketch part, whatever works the best for you!

I tend to keep most of the lineart in one layer, EXCEPT for the eyes, which I will explain later why.

I use different layers to put down the colors, that way if I change my mind and want to change the colors entires for a certain part, I can just lock the opacity on my layer and change it there without getting in the way of the other colors. I group the clean sketch + colors into one folder: They usually look like this

I roughly put down the colors to get an idea how I want the folds and shading to look like. The only part where I do spend time properly coloring things is the face. After I'm done with it, I copy the entire folder and rename it to backup, lock it and untoggle the eye icon so it is not visible anymore, and then drag it down to the very bottom of the layers so I will not be touching it anymore. This is a back up in case something goes wrong and you want to be able to access separate layers again.

You can also save the file as a new file and keep the old ones with the layers intact as a back up. I don't like doing it bc I don't like having 3402 files lying around

and then I merge the sketch and color layers together EXCEPT for the eye lineart, I still keep that separate. This the part where I will be abusing my color picker (alt) a lot. I like to render with all the background toggled off, that way I can color pick directly from the transparent background and use that to erase colors as opposed to switching to the eraser tool:

the reason I do this is because I like to use a textured brush for rendering, and i don't know how to create a new eraser with the same texture, so I just use the transparency to erase things. The top right corner is me using the same brush to erase the color

when I render on one layer, I start with the things that are in the "back" and where I know it might get painted over a bit later. I think if you have done gouache/oil/acrylic paintings before, this step won't be too hard to understand :) for example:

I would start with the back of the hair and sleeve (everything marked as 1), and then move to the hand, because the hand is "on top" of the inner sleeve, and then move to the whole sleeve, since the sleeve is covering the inner sleeve area + hand

Sometimes, I will also select certain parts and copy paste it into a separate layer to work with because I know that during the rendering process this part will get painted over a lot and having it on a separate layer makes it easier for me to keep the shape of things and then render it later:

for example, the rubbon on her belt I selected and copy pasted it into a new layer, because when I render the sleeve it will get painted over a lot. Make sure your selection tool is set to "add to selection". This way, when you are selecting a new area, it will add to your existing selection, as oppossed to remove the old selection and start a new one

This is why I keep the eye lineart as a separate lineart, because I I don't want to have to draw the eyes again when I'm painting over it, so instead I will clean up the face, add eye colors and details AND THEM marge it with the rest to clean up the lineart

this is how she looks like after rendering, and now it is time to add the details such as dramatic lightning and the lightning ball. I create a new layer above the rendered image, fill it with dark color and then toggle the "Clip to alayer below"

This means that the colors will only fill up according to what is in the layer below. Then i set the clipped layer with the solid color to multiply, and lower the opacity. Play around and see what feels the best for you. For this one, I'm keeping it at 40%

Then I draw the electric ball on a new layer

in order to get a glow effect, I duplicate the layer of the electro ball, and then we will apply Gaussian blur to the layer underneath the "normal" layer.

Go to filter -> blur -> gaussian blur and play around with the slidr and see what works for you

once that is done, I go back to my darker shade multiply layer and use the soft eraser opacity to 50-60% to erase parts for the dramatic lightning. I don't really know how light works so I usually just eyeball and gauge what looks right 🫠🫠🫠

I'm happy with this, but I want to add more glow, so I will create a new layer above the character, but below the electro ball and set it to "overlay mode", and then use the soft airbrush tool to lightl add some more lights to the parts I have erased

Then I make another copy of the folder, lock it and put it away, and merge all the layers into one again. I keep the background and electro ball as a separate layers, and start using the blur tool to add some depth into my art:

I blur out the entire background, and then some bits of the art that are more in the back or in the front - play around and see what looks the best for you

After aaaall of this is done, as the few last steps, I create a new Level correction layer that goes on top of everyyythiing to correct the colors a bit, make the dark bits pop out a bit more and the lighter bit pop out more too.

As the final last step, I like to add a noise filter to give my art some texture.

Create a new layer, and put it above the Level correction layer, and set it to Overlay. Make sure that both level correction and Noise overlay layer are NOT in a folder, otherwise it will only affect the images within said folder

to create noise, go to filter -> render -> Perlin noise. Set Scale to 1.0 and then play around with Amplitude and Attenuation to see what looks good to you

You can see the differences here, left is without any level correction and noise filter, and right is the final product :)