Detailed Art Process

Instructions

Been a while since I've done a tutorial, so here's my step by step process with detailed ramblings :) 1. I usually start with basic lineart for my big pieces. For this one, I'm going to draw Amber- but I'm testing out thinner lineart than I usually use so I can practice rendering. 2. I pull up some refs and always start with the face. For me, it orients the rest of the body. The refs are important because as I do the lineart, I need to be aware of the cat's body type, fur length/curvature, and ensure their key features are shown. When I was a younger scratcher, drawing fur was really hard for me, but one thing that helped me if that fur is made of curved lines, and almost almost follows gravity, unless you have a really floofy cat with enough volume to get it to stand up. (or wind) 3. I added some more details to the face and added some guidelines to the rest of the body 4. I finished the rest of the lineart and flipped the image to spot issues, such as the neck, which I'll fix in the next step. 5. I finalized the lineart and finished adding some small details to the face. Next up is coloring! 6. I added the base color. For all the coloring after this, I'll protect alpha so that I don't have to worry about staying in the lineart. The only exception to this is the eyes, which I'll use a clipping mask for, since that'll make the other face markings easier. 7. I started adding the markings. Usually, it's important to study the ref before beginning this step. For example, for Amber, her muzzle and tail white patches cover areas where there would normally be patterns. I need to use the yellow color before the brown color, and end with the cream, as that is the order they are presented on her pelt. 8. I'm partially using this piece as a ref, so this is the final for that. For Amber, I had a lot I had to take into consideration about her design, considering I didn't want her to just be another ginger cat with green eyes. The reason I'm making a new ref is because the old one is a little messy, and I need something more professional going forward(cough cough artfight cough cough). 9. Just like with the lineart, I do a quick sketch for the background. Shading amber is going to come last, as to ensure it matches the background. Here, I'm going pretty simple with the background, but the focus is supposed to be shading, so that's okay 10. I added a sky by generally putting colors where I wanted them using the normal pen and then using the blur tool to make it more cohesive. I also made sure to make the area where the sun will be the lightest point. 11. Using my fluffy watercolor brush, I made the horizon lighter than the rest of the sky, and the area behind the sun even more lighter. As for the sun, I put a dot where it was and used the smudge tool to make the rays. Then I used another layer and used a luminosity brush to get the bright white look, then lowered the opacity. 12. I added the shapes of there I wanted the clouds. An important thing to keep in mind is the weather, especially how windy it is. since I want the grass to blow a little, there's usually more clouds with a slight breeze. Also, while clouds can be hat-shaped, they usually tend to be more of a diagonal shape, which was the motion i made with the fluffy watercolor brush while i made these. 13. This is the final step for the sky, which I used to give it some depth. The main goal here was to establish the lighting and to make it so that the background felt less 2D and more 3D. I also experimented with FireAlpaca's blending options. For example, to make the cloud seem yellow by the sun, I put dark blue there and used the darken option, which did the opposite. 13.5. I included an image of the sky without Amber to demonstrate how although it's good to draw the background with the focus of the image already there, it needs to work on its own too. That way, if I needed to move Amber, the background only need minimal adjutment. 14. I added the grass and decided to pivot on my idea slightly. Originally, I was going to add more wind, but I realized that the way I usually draw grass in the wind needs thick lines, while I was planning on using mostly thin ones for this exercise. Now, I'm going to do some blue and yellow flowers. 15. I added the foreground grass and the background flowers. 16. Finished with the flowers. I still need to shade it, but I tend to do that after the shading on the character, so I guess it's time for that! (continued below)