#this was mostly lighting practice

[blackmesa-researcher]

"This is all instinct, Mr. Freeman! I'm scared!"

And this is probably the only Tommy Coolatta I'll draw.

#tommy coolatta #hlvrai #just giving him a 1000 yard stare as a treat #I mostly wanted to practice lighting tbh #I think it's before he gets his hat so....

[canarydraws]

Portrait 7/7 ~2.2hrs

Final portrait study is my favorite girl Karlach!

#art #digital art #Karlach #bg3 fanart #bg3 #teifling #portrait study #I kept forgetting to post this but I did this last week with my other studies #wanted to end on something fun but I would not recommend trying to study someone made out of game graphics #the hair skin and eyes are all a bit off #def not good for textures and lighting is kinda flat #I mostly did this for design and practice fast and cheap rendering #and for the funzies of course #love Karlach

[foster-the-moths]

background practice. just a weird hallway

#mostly inspired by minecraft liminal space art lol #foster's art tag #its also lighting and color practice bc. i really need to work on those

[solemnvowz]

chapter six but arthur just takes a nap on the floor

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #red dead redemption fanart #dutch van der linde #my art #micah bell #arthur morgan #digital illustration #eh it doesnt look that good but it was mostly environment n lighting practice

[sunatsubu]

waiter connor

#detroit become human #dbh connor #rk800 #myartdbh #some practice with lighting #bg is mostly a blurred photo cuz lazy

[non-un-topo]

More clothing studies, this time from my fic Axis. I was aiming for authenticity while also trying to have each of their personalities show a little bit in their clothing choices. Two for Nicky, to show his layers.

#tog #the old guard #for reference the fic takes place in 1625 in iceland. i still don't think they're bundled enough though lol. #nicolo di genova #yusuf al kaysani #andromache of scythia #no quynh :( #these were a n i g t m a r e to crop correctly. tumblr why are you like this. #hence the cropping might look a little weird #siggy draws #i think these sketches took a month and a half lol. now i will be quiet about this fic and focus on writing something else. #what do we think about this style? the differently coloured lineart and the slight lighting? and the rough colours? #also i forgot my siggynature on ALL of these but that's ok. you know who i am sdfghf #my new obsession is clothing details i guess!! could always make it more detailed though! with lots of practice i can try. #no real director's commentary on these drawings like i usually write for my sketches asdsfgfd #just that this is mostly what they wear in the fic. add a coat for andy maybe and some mitts for joe. #and more weapons and bags and stuff #can't really see nicky's braids but he's got one big french braid and a few tiny ones on the sides of his head connecting to it. #his hair is like shoulder-blade length. it's about the symbolism!! of not making a change for a long time!! until he does cut it!! #and andy is wearing quynh's necklace under her shirt of course </3 #joe rolls his pantaloons above the knee for maximum movement (horseriding) and fashion (gay) #i have a crush on the first nicky sketch like he's so cunty for no reason #well. he's possibly supposed to be having a serious conversation/argument with andy #kudos to the ref picture i used of luca just standing Like That

[extratrrestrial]

TOME!

she went dowsing for meteorites or something idk I've never been dowsing in my life

#this was mostly just lighting practice #and fucking around with new brushes #I enjoyed it though #mp100 #mp100 fanart #mob psycho 100 #kurata tome #tome kurata #mine

[irraetional]

Beloved final girl <3

#this is mostly just lighting practice #and also a hello to the tcm fandom <3 #vanita brock #texas chainsaw 2 #stretch tcm2 #tcm 2 #tcm fanart #my art #artists on tumblr #texas chainsaw massacre #texas chainsaw fanart #texas chainsaw 2 fanart #tcm2 fanart #vanita stretch brock #forgive all the tags. i crave attention #as always click for better quality

[lillipupz]

Have you ever drawn China? o.o

yes!!!!

#i use him mostly for practice that never sees the light of day #aph china #hws china #hetalia #hetalia fanart

[2dieavirgin]

another warmup i hate his face here but part of making art is hating it and that's ok

#my art #metal #i do these mostly to practice lighting and shit. shapes. so faces i can let slide tbh

[neuroticreno]

the talk at tenpenny tower

#heehoo screenshot redraw #mostly practicing with trying to do lighting and colors!!! and like #rendering or something #idk just practice in general!!! #my art #fallout #fallout 3 #fo3 #lone wanderer #charon

[sorry-octopus]

boat ride (please click for better quality!)

#mostly just lighting practice #also reflections #fanart #qsmp #digital art #mcytblr #my art #qsmpblr #qsmp fanart #mcyt #twistedwingz art #philza minecraft #qsmp philza #qsmp eggs #qsmp tallulah #qsmp chayanne #ibispaintx

[oxygen-stealer]

Omg pretty boy!! *smashes him with a hammer*

#i need him in a state of extreme psychological distress STAT #ideally covered in his own blood #not jonathan crane 😱 #riddler #the riddler #edward nygma #edward nigma #dc #gotham rogues #batman #art tag #mostly lighting practice

[calamitys-child]

I've started watching lock picking lawyer videos when the Horrors get too much because a major anxiety thing for me is always needing to know where my exits are and I find it unbelievably reassuring to see someone very calmly explain how locks work and how to bypass them in under 5 minutes. The downside to this is I don't know where my lock picks are and it's really stressing me out because now I desperately want to practice

#i have a mini set in my wallet and i just straight up carry keys for the most common locks i need to access or get stressed about #namely for accessible toilets + fish lights + storage cabinets + police handcuffs + this one brand of toilet roll dispenser #which always really fucks me off because it doesnt WORK without the ability to open and unjam it but theyre really common and i hate them #but. i want my full set. i wanna practice this is making me feel better and id feel even better if i was better at it #OH also i carry a multipurpose hex key for things like gas meters and fuse boxes and fixing a skateboard #which is good and mostly very reassuring to own but i would like to be even more self sufficient with it yk

[quirinah]

how do you get your colors to look so nice and your lineart so red and vibrant? i love it

omg anon thank you!! 😭 im going 2 be honest I am Not Great with color theory... but i like having my sketch pages look cohesive to me...

BUCKLE UP this is going to need a readmore bc i like talking.

I always sketch in neon colors it's a habit i picked up from an old teacher but I'll think of a color usually on a whim and draw with that. and then if i want to draw something else ill pick another color that i think goes well with the page. usually most of my color schemes r analogous (colors right next to each other on the wheel)

yanked this from recent dunmesh post; i kept most of my colors within the pink/red/orange range.

i wouldn't recommend doing everything in monochrome or analogous palettes though because it's sort of a guilty crutch of mine XD.

sometimes when im coloring ill change the layer mode of the sketch. color burn gets you either very very bright or very very deep colors depending on the color of the flats underneath. multiply and linear burn do the same thing but they're a lot tamer and generally always return darker colors. im sure there's some technical bits behind this though. ill either color my lineart afterward to compliment the color of the flats, leave it as is, or mess with layer modes if i feel like it. my favorite trick is color burn + linear burn + some combination of two lineart layers and just fiddling until i get a nice burn effect.

mithrun was done with crimson red on color burn.

coloring... like 999% of this is relative color which is like. kind of the idea that colors look different when placed next to each other. if you eyeball it a bit it's pretty noticeable.

what i used to do a bit ago was i would fill in the area i wanted to color with one big mask of color, make a new layer that has a clipping mask down to the flat layer of color, and then draw my actual flat colors. the color of the mask helped me pick my flat colors bc if I picked a color i think stood out too much next to the mask i could kind of just adjust it until it looked a little more cohesive.

old ish drawing next 2 a canon reference. i ignore local color a lot...mea culpa....but my overall color palette here was a light pink, so the shirt here is actually a desaturated pink? or violet i believe. if you shift sort of that purple color far enough into the gray area of your color wheel it can take on a blueish or even greenish hue. it being next to a lot of warm pinks/fuschias helps.

a neat thing that kind of helps is that if you desaturate or saturate certain colors they can kind of take on a certain hue? not sure if this makes sense. sort of how orange here turns tealish blue the grayer it gets. so if im drawing something that's predominantly orange and i have a blue color i can just take an orange color and desaturate it until i get a color that sort of looks like blue. and that way it kind of looks more harmonious? at least to me XD

shading. i don't apply serious lighting to a lot of my drawings, but a helpful bit is that the shadows tend to be the opposite of whatever color the lighting is? i try to think first about the "mood" or the main color i want to go for in the drawing and then i pick a shadow color opposite of that. so for here, i wanted the lighting to be a coolish magenta so the shadows r lime green. if there's anything off i fiddle around until i get something i like. the shadows on the skin here were too green initially so i shifted them a little more orange.

there's a "band" of color going on between the transition of the shadows to the light. generally this could be for a lot of reasons and i tend to use it differently (core shadow? overexposure? etc etc). but this is a color post so ill try not to go too off track.

but generally digital doesn't "mix" colors the same way traditional colors do if you use RGB (cmyk is a bit better with this but is kind of a pain to get used to), so to make blending a little less muddy, i sometimes add an intermediate color to smooth things out a little. for example, mixing digitally blue n yellow tends to get you gray, but generally, blue + yellow makes green, so if im making a blue->yellow transition ill slap some green color in the middle so it flows a little better.

I do a lot more cel shading nowadays. if you've been on here for a while earlier this year i have another style of coloring but it's not really accurate to how shadows really work so i wouldn't recommend looking at it. it's mostly to add zest and texture to the underlying flat colors.

coloring your lineart does a TON to helping your colors look vibrant, though its like the garnish on a dish to me (same with shadows). i think it's good to try and play with your flat colors and try to make sure those look in order first before adding flourishes. usually ill leave it a dark, saturated color that again matches my overall palette but sometimes i go in and color them by alpha locking my lineart layer and picking a color that matches the flat colors underneath? not sure how to explain it properly.

i used a darkish purple for shuro's ponytail to match the dull red of the flat colors (more relative color! trying to simulate a black/brown while keeping the pink palette there) but a lighter crimson for laios's blond. the light was this super intense like blush pink so i thought it might be cool to add this neon salmon red in the areas of that light to really give off that vibe of a very bright intense rim light.

sometimes you could also tweak with gradient maps or color balance, which adjusts hue based on how light or dark a color is. these r fun to mess with as a final touch but i need to watch using them because they can become crutches real fast XD but those are also just tools to help you. in the end just developing a good sense of how color works and how you want to use it is the best place to start.

LONGASS ramble but yeah. tldr just kind of train ur eye for color and look at what you like best. which is unhelpful and a little sucky but it really is just observation and practice and maybe some personal zest.

happy drawing!

#SORRY THIS IS THE SIZE OF CANADA I YAP A LOT #i like being thorough when explaining myself a lot XD but i think the easiest way to get good with this is just repeat practice n observing #and figuring out how stuff behaves in certain situations and what you like to do and blahblahblah #if you have artists u like that do this well looking at how they use color might be cool #...i feel this entire post is just putting my entire thought process on blast LOLLL. #“eyeball it out” -> study some actual fundamental stuff and or intake new info or art -> apply it back to just eyeballing it out #i dont think i have a natural sense for some basics #but i dont think im naturally one of those people who grind out studies all the time and breakdowns either #i guess i just kind of like knowing the mechanations behind why to do a certain thing or how stuff works and then figuring out #how that translates into what i know nerd emoji #james gurney has a good book on color and light #if you like reading. but its very informative! #quirinahscreams #ask #anon #this is mostly just me talking about how i draw i dont think this is meant to be educational or informative XD um

[bahoreal]

THE INDEPENDENT

#trent crimm #ted lasso #yes this is a screenshot of my drawing app cos i was too lazy to export #well see if i finish this it was mostly a practice #and as with most of my first middle aged men drawings it is done in monochrome cause colour intimidates me #especially every single fuckin shot of him which has newsroom lighting or LOCKER ROOM LIGHTING