Anime_something_something

^^ I named original file like that and well...

When I'm exporting step-by-step pics I have that tendency of calling them with the first letters of whatever words I've used in the original name.

For example exports for Cell_shaded_01 would sound something like "CS_export_01.png", "CS_export_02.png" and so on and on... 

That name may cause some confusion...

Any ways - I kind of pushed myself once again a bit further than I was...

I've never rendered clothes (wasn't event drawing them that much - really :D), wet surfaces.

Never made full illustration. Never drawn properly looking hands... 

Basically 70% of what you see here I did for the first time and I failed. 

I mean not tremendously, but failed. 

Every time my friend was pointing out a defect in my piece, I was like "eh... artistic liberties", "too hard" or "I'll fix it later" but I didn't.

It's not that I don't want to fix these mistakes. I rather draw something from scratch than fix something that I was working on for last 6 hours...

I can scrap things I know I can redraw in no time but stuff I don't know how to draw... that's another story.

Now I at least know on what I should focus more.

But let's talk about something that happened rather than something that didn't - shall we?

I knew I wanted to do something that resembles images of people like Marc Brunet, WLOP, Evan Lee or Saejin Oh.

Especially Saejin Oh. 

^^made her butt a bit too big (I mean that's what my friend said :D) so I toned it down.

I know that I know nothing about drawing torso(all these diagonal torso muscles), so even if I knew that none of these muscles will be visible later on, I decided to sketch them just for the sake of practice. 

I do that from time to time.

^^That's the typical for me manifestation of frustration

I started with B&W values and blocked out composition.

Then I started the refinement process and of course forgot about making all that step by step mambo-jambo.

^^If you're not sure what to do try making some notes about what you want to achieve or at least what you don't want.

You can always change your mind half way through as I did.

And yup - my writing is that terrible.

So long.

Wolverin!

Since the beginning of #InkTober I wanted to ink something. 

I've never done inking (or rather digital inking) before and I suck at profiles, so once again I pushed my visual library to the limits.

Here is the end result:

And here is the process:

It's rather short list of things to do:

-start with a strong shape;

-refine sketch to the point, where you can see where the light goes;

-put some flats;

-then go for the gradients;

-create some light and shadow cells;

-then do the inking;

-some colour balance and here you go.

I wanted to start with a strong shape to make him pop-out from the background immediately.

The viewer should, in a short glance, get what he's looking at. 

Putting that dark triangular shape on light background helps with the read a lot.

Gradients are good way of bringing some visual interest and they're simple to do.

When it comes to lights and shadows I went for cell-shading 'cause:

a). it's much faster for me to cell-shade a face. 

b). it goes along with inking pretty well.

I have to apologise you for not having any process pictures of inking.

That's because I got in "the zone" when I was doing that and I simply forgot about saving my process.

It's nothing super interesting 'tho. I mean it would be if I was recording that, but process pictures... I don't think so.

You may, as well, ask "Hey, but why you didn't start with the inking from the beginning?".

The answer is: that's the first time ever I inked something on that level of detail, so I allowed myself to cheat a little bit.

Tracing over the sketch is much harder, than tracing over coloured, almost finished illustration, when sketch gives you just extra level of noise.

You can forge that noise into something better really easily.  

Tis' all,

So long

Quick followup to Cell-shaded 01

That's just a .gif with painting process. 

Thought it'd be cool to do that and post it here.

You can see entire process with "commentary" HERE.

That's it,

So long.

Cell-shaded 01 (not the most original title - but it's quite an accurate one)

After painting Geralt I wanted to paint something quickly. 

To make a speedpainting. To force all the knowledge I acquired during painting him out of my head. 

Basically I wanted to put my skill to the test - not to hard, but still a test.

I'm not the fastest man alive when it comes to rendering, so I limited myself to 3 hours. 

Technically it's not a real speedpainting (real one goes on for like 30 to 120 minutes), but it's fast enough for me.

Of course it wouldn't be challenging enough, so I decided to make it in a way I've never tried before. 

Cell-shading or Cel-shading it is.

I'm no quite sure which name is proper, 'cause both has some kind of logic behind them...

Cell - because shadow and lights are formed in some kind of cells;

Cel - because that kind of colouring is frequently used in animation, and cel itself is a semi-transparent sheet of paper used by animators (not exclusively), for redrawing frames in traditional animation (at least from what I know).

Any ways here's the end result:

And here you got entire process:

Entire process is like: 

-sketch, 

-flat colours, 

-shadows, 

-main light, 

-skylight, 

-speculars, 

-some smearing and soft round brush edge work,

-blur on the edges of the paining (to keep the focus just on her/his (didn't decide yet) face).

Things I like:

-shininess of her (already decided) jacket,

-colours,

-composition (simple shapes),

-process (relatively fast and simple).

Things I don't like:

-bottom part of her face,

-hair (too much noise, to low amount of actual details),

-sketchiness (for a given time it could be better),

I ended up roughly after 3,5 hours so I cheated a bit, and even 'tho the effect is not that good.

Speed is not my thing. Yet.

I mean most of the time I spent walking circles in my room and thinking what I want to eat for a dinner :D

Hope it helped (somewhat, I'm not sure how it possibly could :D),

So long

The Witcher - Wild Brush

^^ that's a pun *da-bum-tss!*

I told 'ya you'll see him in the future.

I have lots and lots of steps saved, but there is no point in putting them here. 

There's simply too many of them.

Instead of that I'll give you the most crucial ones (is that sentence even correct? lol) and I'll write the follow-up post, focusing on what I learned from that and how, later.

^^ You may believe me or not, but it all started from that potato.

At the beginning he wasn't even suppose to be the witcher. 

I just wanted to paint some guy and my brother told he kinda resembles him so I went for it.

^^Some refinement later I decided to change the background
although now I know that this colour scheme doesn't suit Geralt. 

The biggest problem (as always in my case) I had with eyes. 

I will have to spend some time on drawing and painting them in the near future.

Probably everything is off but a month ago I wouldn't be able to do even that much.

All painted on one layer. 

Pretty much no references to avoid similarities and push my brain to the limit.
Also I was trying to pick colours I needed from colour wheel and used slight saturation/hue filter layer just before I decided it's finished.

Follow-up post is coming so brace yourselves!

So long.