DEV WORK AND STUFF | 'Long Boi' Reindeer Edition (Patreon)

COMMISSION DETAILS

Draw a Long Boi Dragon with a Reindeer flare. This is a pretty open end commission which I do enjoy doing. 

NOTES FROM COMMISSIONER

'the horn/nose colour should resemble that base brown-tinted grey, rather than the double-saturation it has in those..'

ART DETAILS

• Single character
• Coloured
• Coloured line art
• Shaded
• Simple Background

REFERENCES

Christmassy mood board.

I'm not going to lie, I don't what to do with this one. The dragon OC is quite long and the commissioner is a good friend and a very talented artist - the pressure it on.

FIRST VERSION ON THE SKETCH

It is very rare that my initial sketch that does not look like this scribble up above.

 I've heard many artist complain about how messy their sketching is. My response to that is - who f*cking cares? It's a sketch, they are meant to be building blocks, something for you to work up from. The wonderful thing about art, especially digital you can just undo, erase or  draw over. Having something on the canvas  to work with is so much easier on your brain than staring a blank canvas.

At this point of the draws I switched over to Clip Studio Paint. Photoshop is boring me and some of the brushes are smooth to draw with.

This was some effort to get to this point. The tail area on the previous sketch didn't make sense as well as some of the twists in the body. The back legs are still a little awkward but nothing I can not rework.

Ok, so I'm gonna be upfront. I hate this face and the mane fluff. 

This originally going to be the line art but not a chance - this looks horrid and I will be redrawing after I fix everything.

Time to fix everything!

MIRRORING YOUR ART

Mirroring or flipping your art gives you an instant perspective change and can easily show areas where you could adjust or fix things.

It is such an undervalued trick that you can use to help you with your art. I rarely see younger or newer artist do this, which is a shame. I will even admit I don't use this process as much as I should. I will also add that when I started doing this more often I noticed areas far more easily. Even when I flipped the canvas to check out the art I would hardly have to adjust anything.

I am much happier with this updated version. I know I will have to fix the hair fluffs, but this looks so much better with the extra attention to detail.

CHRISTMAS DETAILS

I like to plan, a lot in my sketches. Mostly because I like to sketch :V

Adding a new layer above I drew in the Christmas/Reindeer elements as per the request of the commissioner.

I am so glad that I decided to redraw most of it - it looks so much better.

This line art is my more sketchy pass. Personally I really like the look of this line art, it has a nice texture inky-ness to it. 

I feel it adds a slight traditional element to the line work - there is something nice about having a 'human' touch. Or maybe it's just my traditional background.

HOW TO MASK YOUR ART STUPID QUICK

Have line art layer selected.

Use the Magic Wand or Auto Selection tool and select the outside of the line art. You may need to deselect and ensure that your line work has no gaps. Some art software has gap detection and you do not need to worry about this.

Holding the shift key will allow you to add more to the selection.

Invert the selection.

The inside of the dragon is now selected.

Add a new layer below the line art or above - you do you. Use the Fill tool and colour that bad boy in.

See easy.

The overflow is an annoying thing to deal with but it doesn't take too long to fix.

WAIT... HOLD ON

I missed some details.

Ok fixed.

Now that crisis is averted and the colour mask has been cleaned up, lock that layer and colour!

PAINTING IN TEXTURES

Just like adding a gradient to your flat colours, adding some painted texture can break up the 'flat-ness'.

I use this method sparingly on my characters drawn in my toon style. It can look like a cluster of colour and detail mess. 

Locking the pixels of the line art layer I go ahead and colour. What colours you pick is all down to your personal preference. I personally follow a more 'Disney' approach to what colours I pick. Keeping colours minimal and the sme hue range.

Coloured line art. This can take a little time to do but the outcome is worth it.

SHADING

Depending on what the theme and tone of the picture is will impact what colour I chose to shade with - because YOU NEVER SHADE WITH BLACK.

Because this is a cute Christmas picture i picked a warmer cool colour colour. Now what does that even mean??? I wanted to keep the shadows cool, but keep the warmth. 

Keeping the shadows a deep red more to the purple side does this. I also set the layer blending mode to multiply and lowered opacity to 40%.

LIGHTING

New layer above the shadow layer and with the same brush as the line art I draw in all the rim lighting. Sticking to the sides that are facing the light.

Setting layer blending mode to overlay and lowering opacity to 40%

EASY SOFT LIGHTING

Using the above image as a guide to how to draw in the brush strokes (Obviously not with the neon pink - unless you want to? You do you.) Use a soft colour closer to white, but 100% white.

Set blending mode to overlay and turn the opacity down to what suits. This is set at 40% but 30% looked fine too, I just wanted more of a light punch.

I missed some shadows on the belly, harness and cloth details, specular lighting on the eyes and added some pretty background details.

Done.

This took me far too long to complete. I will admit I was distracting myself with some company while I was working on this however that is a poor excuse for the time taken.

I need to work on that.

I think the hair looks boring. I have yet to find a method of shading/lighting to give my toon hair depth.