Fyra and Skye – 02 Art Journal (Patreon)

A post to complement the previous video post (and master file) here

IMAGE 01 (Final layering)

First image is a gif. Shows how groups of layers stack in this master file to show the final composite image.

My master files at first glance seem to have a lot of layers, but in reality aren't that complex technically: I always organize them in 4 main layer groupings which are shown here (01 Shape masks; 02 Rough shading; 03 Lineart; 04 Refinements).

I put the final post processing step in the gif as well to show how much it changes in this step, but that work is done in a new different (or multiple) master file.

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IMAGE 02 (Workflow)

The second image shows the step–process from beginning to end.

01 Line–art: In multiply or Shade/Shine modes.

02 Color shapes base: I use the shapes for masking some layers above.

03 Rough shading: In this work I painted light over a dark base, given the painting mood I wanted to make (kinda more traditional and oily).

04 Refinements: I paint fixes and smooth the edges on a new group because I don't like to go back and fiddle with past layers when I need to drastically change something, so earlier layers are used as more like a base at this point.

05 Postprocessing: I export the painting as .png to open it in Photoshop. Apply liquify to correct shapes, color/value fixes, texture and blur effects and some others things, it varies from one work to another. This produces a lot of artifacts that need to be corrected in a new SAI file again, so I paint in SAI and check how the updated version looks in Photoshop.

In the YouTube process video I only show until step 04 which is the main shading work (steps 05 are refinements and cleaning mostly). In a future work I'll try to show how that last step is done too, though I've done posts before where it shows parts of it.