Smol Tutorial + Art Process?

Instructions

Hello? Is- is this thing on- ...Oh. Er. *Ahem* Hi! \(^^)/ Stella here. So recently, @Sweetie-Cow asked for critique on this little drawing she did. ...I don't know how to critique so I redrew it. (Of course I did.) Uh- I'll try and explain things the best I can hhh- ((Use the space and right arrow keys or tap to move forward, and the left arrow key to go back.)) 1. This is the original doodle! Pretty cute, and not at all bad work for a beginner, but some things do seem a little odd, especially the anatomy. Don't worry about that too much right now, though! For now, I'd suggest you learn the basics, which is what I'll try and go over in this project. 2. I've started sketching here, but before we get into that, you might want to try signing up for either Magma or Kleki. They're both good sites for drawing and support layers + filters and more, and layers are very useful when you're doing art. These days I use Magma for the most part, but I used Kleki when I was starting out. Alternatively, you can try a drawing app! These all have layers and most of them have far more advanced tools compared to web tools. Anyway, what I've done here is I've sketched out a rough draft of what I want the final piece to look like. Tip: Break down things into chunks instead of drawing it all at once, e.g. the head as a circle, torso as a rectangle, etc. It doesn't matter if it's messy as long as you understand what's going on, because... 3. ...We're going to refine the sketch from here! I usually use a darker colour on the opposite side of the colour wheel (deep navy here) and a thin brush just to clean things up a little. This is pretty easy as you already have a general idea of what you're doing and it's still okay to be a little messy. ((Note: Add a new layer and reduce the opacity of the sketch layer for better visibility!)) 4. Lineart time. This (for me at least) is one of the hardest parts of the process, but you become better with time ^^ You can use black and use a Clipping Mask, the Bucket tool, or Alpha Lock later to colour it a different colour when you're done. Try to use varying line weight, thicker where something overlaps with another object and on the outside, and thinner in places that aren't as important. Using line weight guides the viewer's eye, so try and use that to your advantage. ((Note: Make sure you use a new layer for every step of this tutorial. You'll thank me later.)) 5. Base colours let's goooo :D what you're doing here is basically just filling in simple colours in on a new layer. Try filling out a main shape in grey or something, then use an alpha lock to stop you from going out of that main shape (wherever pixels are). Pretty easy, isn't it? 6. Shading! This one's fun: Use a new layer clipped to your colours and set it to "Multiply", then either fill it with a colour of your choice (I used a darkish blue here) and mess around with the opacity then use the eraser tool to carve out where your light hits, OR paint the shadows using that colour. Blend it after that if you're feeling ✨extra✨, but don't overdo it or it'll look murky ;-; 7. Lighting. This also uses layer blending modes. Look for one written "colour dodge" and experiment! Think about where the light would hit in real life. Yes, we did this in the previous step but LIGHTS ARE FUN AND ALSO THESE ONES ARE KINDA GLOWY. 8. Extra FX and Finishing touches! This is the last step and probably the most interesting, in my opinion, because you get to do almost anything you want. Add a lens flare, highlights, halftone shadows, it doesn't matter. So what I did here is make a new layer for the backlight (you don't have to do this if you don't want to, I'm just explaining what I did to get this), set it on colour dodge again, and brushed white behind her. Then I did the background (Magma has built-in stamps and textures like this :0) and messed around with more highlights. I think I overdid it again. Oops. ANYWAY :DD THAT'S MY ART PROCESS I GUESS ACTUALLY USUALLY I JUST CLEAN UP MY REFINED SKETCH AND CALL IT LINEART BUT YEAH UHM I'M BAD AT EXPLAINING STUFF BUT IF YOU ASK ME SOMETHING I'LL DO MY BEST TO ANSWER HAPPY ARTING *SOB* ((I PROCRASTINATED WAY TOO LONG LOL))