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1. In Clip Studio, I draw rough thumbnail to get the basic concept down.

2. Rough sketch. I make a more formal sketch to work out he layout, pose, and proportions. I start getting some of the details roughed out.

3. Final sketch. I  sketch the fine detail for the characters. I use separate layers in multiple folders for the various characters which makes it easier to plan, especially when so many of the characters overlap. If you look closely, you can see that I draw some parts of characters that I know will be completely hidden behind others, particularly the basic body shape, to make sure it will all make sense together. Keeping them on separate layers also makes it easier to shift the positions of individual characters when final details on foreground characters might change the layout needs.

4. Inking. I scale the canvas up to four times the size and use a variable-width inking brush for the character and a constant-width brush for hard things on vector layers. I use lots of different layers for different parts, which makes it easier to overdraw and erase as needed. Planning for the line coloring later, I try to use a different vector layer for each part that would be differently colored as linework such as one each for each character's skin, one for everything that will have black linework, etc.

5. Color blocking. I set the folder containing all the different inked vector layers as the reference layer. Then I made new raster layers underneath and started filling in the flat colors. Sometimes I used a round pen, sometimes the collor fill bucket, usually with the fill set to follow only the reference layer, stopping at the middle of a vector. I also added some gradients and streaks of color to the backdrop.

6. Form shading. Because this picture is so colorful, I added a new temporary layer of solid grey to make it easier to see the shading as I work on it. Then I create a dark blue solid color layer (linear burn) and start painting in the basic form shading with a soft airbrush. I always start with shading at full and then use the airbush to paint away the shading, painting with light. For the hair, I used color burn for richer shading and start with a general, soft airbrush for the overall shape, then used a variable-width soft airbrush to smudge detail into the shadows, picking up the shape of the hairs.

7. Cast shadows. I make a new blue layer set to multiply and start painting in the cast shadows with soft brush, using a smaller brush in places where the object casting the shadow is closer to the thing the shadow is on.

8. Backlight. On a new fill layer set to screen, I used a desaturate solid color painted with a soft airbrush in the mask. When I combine it with the form shading, backlighting really makes the characters pop. I don't use any backlight on non-reflective objects. For some objects, I only use a backlight on shadowed side. For the most reflective objects, I add a forelight on the primary light side as well. On the hair, I used the fingertip tool to streak in the shape of the hairs.

9. Shiny. I used fill layers of white (set to screen) and paint spots and streaks using a hard variable-width brush. For the latex, I also added a layer set to overlay and airbrush in white to add colorful glistening highlights. For hair shine, I used another raster layer set to overlay and painted thin strokes with a variable-width brush, then use an airbrush to add a soft glow to groups of streaks, then use a clear airbrush to fade the tops and bottoms of streak groups, and finally use a soft round brush to erase a few streaks in the middle of each group. After painting all the shine, I use the cast shadow layer to make a selection and delete the shine from anywhere covered by shadow.

10. For the natural blush, I add in a raster layer and airbrush red just on the skin for the cheeks and places where bone is near the surface of the skin. I use the same method to paint in the make-up. Finally, I added some sparkle with a scattered brush of white dots in varying size and transparency.

11. Colored linework. Since the linework is still all vectors in Clip Studio, I simply selected the vectors and changed their color to whatever colored linework I needed, sampling from each section and then shifting the color to be more saturate and dark, more or less depending on how hard or soft I want each thing to feel. The hardest things I keep black. Then I collapsed all of the linework into a single raster layer, locked the pixel transparency, and used a round pen to fix up any places where different color linework crossed over each other.  I also need the linework to be darker in shadow or else it will be too bright and look weird. I make a copy of the linework layer and use a pen to paint all of it with multiply in the color of the cast shadows. Then I add a mask to the shaded linework layer and paint in the mask to match the places where the linework falls into shadow.

12. Eyelashes are done with a simple raster layer painted with a black variable-width pen. Then I lock the pixel transparency for that layer and use a soft pen to paint in grey streaks for texture and then soften the look with a few strokes of a black soft airbrush.

13. For the tiara, I wanted it to look like glowsticks or LED so I made a simple copy of the shape of the tiara, filled it with bright pink, applied a gaussian blur, then set it to screen.

14. Finally, for some rave light effect, I added a few more bright light streaks on either side, in front of everything. Then I added two adjustment layers, in blue and pink, both set to vivid light, and roughly masked them in with an airbrush onto opposite sides of the characters.

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