My Drawing Process - Step by Step (+ tips)

Instructions

╰┈➤ I feel like a lot of people are curious about my drawing process and I hope it helps if you need it :) Suck at coding and honestly didn’t want to type all the instructions in the project so they’re below. Tap through the pictures for each step, sry in advance for the horrible quality. FULLSCREEN AND FULL BRIGHTNESS REC. ✎ 1) Basic Sketch I always do this to map out my pose and very rough proportions. After I have an idea, I search for references, more specifically: muscle references. Sooga is flexing and I wanted it to look as accurate as possible. ✎ 2) Body Sketch After I found my references I reflected it onto my drawing. I copy pasted the arms but slight adjustments make them different enough. It’s good to look at your references for a while and start with basic shapes. ✎ 3) Clothes and Face Sketch I explained how I draw faces in earlier projects but you can also ask if you want. But the clothes, I looked at references ofc again but mostly at their outlines and silhouettes. It’s better not add a lot of details until further on, get the bigger picture and a basic idea. ✎ 4) Hair Sketch My favorite part :p. I love drawing the curves and bangs but remember, BASIC SHAPES. Drawing every strand will over complicate the hair and you can add details during rendering. ✎ 5) Black & White Flat Colors Pretty self explanatory, it helps me map values so I get an idea of how the colors will look later on. ✎ 6) Black and White Render This step is very brief and done with an airbrush in minutes. It helps me visualize more details like shading in case I need to change anything before I start coloring. ✎ 7) Lineart Personally, I hate lineart but I have to power through….even if it takes three hours. But this is when I add all the details and refine shapes. Line weight is optional but I recommend. (I didn’t use it bc my stylus isn’t an apple one) ✎ 8) Flat Colors Values are not set but it’s a pretty close to what I want. Stick to a cohesive color palette that’s unified. ✎ 8 1/2) Face Rendering See other project. But I started with light shadows, darker ones, highlights, then a light blush. ✎ 9) Skin Rendering It is SO important to use your references when rendering something you’re not sure about. Yes I can do faces with my eyes closed, but the torso not so much. I have a general idea but real models or other artist’s examples are key. ✎ 10) Refining Shadows Going back over the darkest parts with a richer color to add depth. ✎ 11) Clothes Rendering Again, used refs for the fold of the outfit and such. I included a close up of one of the sleeves. ✎ 12) Hair Details Used a lighter and more saturated color to create the illusion of highlights following the movement of the hair. Airbrushed the skin color around the hair near the face but very lightly. ✎ 13) Additional Clothes Details I added other details that weren’t included in the lineart like the pattern on the sleeves. ✎ 14) Gold Rendering I used a combination of intensities to make the shine and kinda just did whatever. The lines of different color make the reflection random but idc. Again there is a closeup but basically I put a bunch of streaks and blended very subtly. ✎ 15) Background and Lineart I set the lineart layer to alpha lock and airbrushed some colors to change it so it’s not just black. I added a dark magenta as the base background color beneath all the layers. ✎ 16 & 17) Background Continued I airbrushed a glow around the orange circle and duplicated the silhouette to create a shadow by lowering its opacity. I normally don’t draw backgrounds so it’s basic and sloppy. ✎ 18) Final This is the end result where I added the last few details like a shine to the gold and played around with filters to adjust the colors. Overall I love it and it was fun to draw.