Q&A | part one (Patreon)

♡  I'm very curious about your set up as well as what a day in your life typically looks like. [...] In doing so, I've started to look into setups that could help out some of my regular difficulties and it's gotten me curious about how others go about it.

Wish i had one of these fancy looking setups, however i get distracted easily so i tend to keep the essential and remove anything that's not necessary for the job!  I keep my desktop, my tablet (Cintiq 22), my keyboard and mouse and an abat-jour for when it gets dark.  I rarely use the roof light as it reflects directly on my tablet and hurts my eyes a lot; my room has a big window so i use natural light and just switch the lamp on the side at night.

My schedule's?? very messy right now?? Few months ago i got a puppy and since she's been here my routine got completely messed up: most of my day is dedicated to her and that's why i haven't been drawing much lately, but it really helped me take breaks and not hunch my back at the desk for ten hours straight. 

I usually wake up at eight, have breakfast while watching youtube or listening to music, then dress up and get her out of her room at nine; we play for twenty-ish mins, do the morning walk, 10 minutes of training then i give her breakfast and get to draw around 10:30 until 13:00/13:30 (1PM).

I have lunch, take a little nap (hehe) and then dress up and take my dog to the dog park usually from 15:00(3PM) to 16:30. Get back home, clean her if she got messy, have a snack and get back to work until dinner time. Play with doggo, get her to bed around 22:00 (10PM), watch couple vids and then go to sleep.

Before i would literally wake up, have breakfast and then go to draw until 7/8PM, skipping lunch sometimes because i'm a fucking dumbass. So i thank my dog because right now this routine it's actually healthy and get me moving, drinking and eating more. Mental health has def going better because i'm going out more, but worse because my routine got fucked up. it's 50/50 rn.

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♡  Hello ~ sorry for my bad english. My biggest problem is making backgrounds, but I don't want to always leave my drawings blank or with the typical color box. What advice do you give to those of us who don't know how to make funds? Before sketching, do you take into account the surrounding objects according to the character's pose? Thank you for this space and I wish you well!

I absolutely do have some tips! And don't worry: most of my experience in "cheating" backgrounds comes from the fact that i don't know how to draw them either.

The first advice i want to give you is: try to reference poses from pictures where the background's already there: you don't have to reference it pixel per pixel, but having some ground and elements may help you with perspective and understanding where you can place your own objects, props or other characters.

Similar advice is something i found SUPER useful recently: photobashing!

Photobashing is an editing technique where you copy and paste different parts of a bunch of phots and merge them together to create something new -- think of a collage. I recently used this technique for an illustration of mine that's still in sketch phase: i loved the background photo and wanted to recreate a similar setting and perpsective, but i swapped some elements that were already there (wall frames, lamp, table props) with some other i found that had a similar vibe to what i was looking to draw. Of course these are just placeholders, but photobashing is a quick visual aid to understand what you want to do with your picture.

If you're not into complex backgrounds and would rather draw some props or graphics, you can do a similar thing but with objects: i often use pills, scissors, plushies and ribbons, so looking for references online is the best thing you can do to learn how to draw these things. Inspiration for the props and scenarios comes from the character for me usually: is it a character that's supposed to be creepy? think of all the things that make you feel that way or that are tied to that feeling in particular (might be a cemetery, a church at night, a dark room, an empty hallway or street). Want something soft and comfy? try bedrooms, cozy bedplaces, a warm cafe table, a sunny flower field. Think about placing a character in a situation and then go retrieve some helping photos!

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♡  In your painting process, do you have a checklist of things you think to do? I know there are flats, shadows, highlights, etc... but are there more subsections you think to do? Or is it instinctual for you to paint things until you feel it looks complete?

I (more or less) do!

There definitely is a percentage of my process which is instinctual, but there's also some steps i always do -- mostly because i need them to not lose motivation.

The sketch goes out purely by vibe: if it's there it's there, if it isn't then i'm literally not drawing that day because i get frustrated. Lineart is almost obligatory for me because i need a clean base for colors, but then from colors on it really depends on my mood and on what i'm drawing: eyes and skin are often shaded along with flats, but for clothing i tend to do shading later. Hair is shaded alltogether, and highlights are included in the shading process.

I often paint my stuff which makes it difficult to break the process into steps, but i used to do a lot of cell shading which required a multiply layer, so i used to set the flats first and then go over with layers and layers of shading.

A lot of details are also done when overpainting!

It's hard to set a general process, but if i had to resume it it would be sketch > lineart > skin + eyes in full color > clothes flats > hair in full color > background flats > clothing and background shading > overpaint.

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♡  How do you do your colors? Im sorry this is so general but do you have any techniques for the editing aspect of when you color like if you use gradient maps, or any other layer modes etc?

It's a bit old/outdated but i have a general drawing process on my youtube channel!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6olAHgYjIw&t=622s

I plan on doing more in-depth tutorials for patrons (the eye coloring one is coming out today!) but for now i only have this T__T)b videos require A TON of work and time that i don't have at the moment, but i have the scripts planned so hopefully they'll be out this year!

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♡  How are you able to draw so many details? Whenever I try the line art looks off and it doesn’t look right whenever I zoom out.

There's a lot of ways to make art look more detailed, and sometimes it's not even about the quantity of details but how you use your tools.

The first advice i can give you is: if you're drawing on a canvas smaller than 1500x1500px, try a bigger one: your brushes have a minimum size of 0.5/1px, so the smaller the canvas the bigger that 1px is going to look, and that 1px detail is going to look giant. My go-to size for canvases is 2800x3500 or similar sizes, but never below 2500px. If you care about printing, remember to set the DPI at atleast 300.

This is already a good way to add details and smaller parts to your drawing.

However, art doesn't only look detailed when there's a lot of things going on, but when you use a different variety of shapes and lines: by alternating big areas with the same color or by using a larger, thicker brush, you can limit yourself to couple smaller lines or details to make that area look detailed, without adding a lot of strokes.

Taking one of my last illusts as an example, i used big folds very close to couple smaller ones to make it look like the sweater had lot of detail, when in reality it's just couple strokes. You can also use color contrast to your advantage: the less alike two colors are, the more they'll pop!

Choose where you want the focus of your illustration to be (mostly face + eyes in most of my art) and use smaller strokes here (you don't always have to use lineart! sometimes freehanding them is way better), and use larger color blocks on the rest of the pic.

Also, think critically when you add said details: if a specific area doesn't need them, leave it be: there's a lot of strands in hair, but you don't really need A LOT of folds on your clothes - place them strategically where the clothes tend to wrinkle more (elbow, wrist, ankles, knees, armpits) and focus on these areas for smaller details.