My Digital Art Process!

I've been drawing digitally for about a year now, and for my sister's birthday (which happened earlier this month), I wanted to draw her a piece! I spent hours working on it, and she loved it. It's one of my favorite pieces. So I figured, what better piece to use to illustrate my art process?

This is the piece we will be going through:

To begin with, first I need an idea of what I'm going to draw! I decided to draw my sister's favorite character from a video game I play:

(His name is Diluc, not Red Dead of Night)

I like to use Pinterest to find good references, and I found the perfect one for the perspective I wanted! Then I import it into my Clip Studio Paint file, and draw the character I want next to it. Then I resize the image and put my sketch over it to check my proportions.

It checks out! Now I resize the character to make sure it fits where I want in the canvas.

It's a good rule of thumb to start out with just the body as a base, that way you know where to put the clothes when you add them. Otherwise, the proportions will start to look funny. Since I've done that, now I can add the clothes! I always keep my base sketch and clothing layer separate, in case I need to make changes to one without affecting the other. I have to keep in mind the angle the clothes should be at, since I picked a difficult perspective.

Next is cleaning up my sketch. I don't like to do much lineart, since I prefer a more sketchy feel to my drawings. So I make sure to add detail and clarity in this step to replace the lineart.

Next is my flat colors! I make sure to have a reference of the character on hand, that way I can check my colors. This step seems the most simple, but, besides the rendering step, it actually takes the longest! Well, maybe it wouldn't take so long if I did clean lineart. . .I also like to change the colors of some of my lines, to add some vibrancy!

After that, we begin rendering! This is my favorite step, because even the most subtle shadows can add so much depth to a drawing. Before rendering, though, I merge my sketch layer and my flats layer. I didn't used to do this, but I like the look of the sketch having some lighting, too! I began the rendering process on this piece by outlining where I wanted the lights to hit the character. I wasn't entirely sure what colors I wanted the lights to be, however, so I picked some bright neon colors so that I could clearly see the lighting. Throughout this step, I always keep in mind where I want the light sources to be, so it looks realistic! But there was one piece of advice I heard a few months back: your lighting doesn't have to be completely accurate, it just has to sell the illusion of depth. I also keep that in mind, so I don't stress over every detail.

Then it's time to go all out! After I figure out the lighting, I duplicate my base layer (the one that has the merged color and sketch layer) and set it to multiply. This is an easy way to create dramatic lighting quickly. And it looks cool! I change the color of my multiply layer by going to the change layer color, which is above the layers on my layout, and then picking the color I want. After this, I add some color notes (spots of color used to add some visual interest to the piece. They do have to be of the same [or very similar] value as the color where you're placing them, so it doesn't accidentally look like lighting!)

Then I like to add a gradient map (a layer mode which assigns set colors to different values) to unify the piece! Sometimes I also use tone curves (which allows you to change values or hues for specific colors. It's a much nicer way to change the colors for me personally, because hue and saturation adjustments change the whole layer. If I just want to change a certain shade, say, a pink, a tone curve will only change that pink!).

After that, I start work on the background! Now, I don't usually start with it (but maybe I should. . .), but I do have in mind what I want for it when I start the piece. For example, the color I changed the multiply layer to, to add some dramatic lighting, was a color I wanted for the background. And the gradient map I picked also matched what I planned. I generally don't like doing complex backgrounds, so I kept it simple here, with just a black floor, with some of the lighting on it. I also picked a dark blueish purple sky, because I figured perhaps my blue-ish white lighting could be from the moon.

The next step I take is merging the background with the character (after making a copy of those layers, just in case). Then I like to add halftones to my drawing, because they make the lighting and shadows pop. It also doesn't seem to be a common thing that digital artists do, so it stands out!

Then its basically done! I add a little blur effect arond the edges to give it depth, put any final gradient maps or tone curves, and sign it!