PROCESS VIDEO // Neon girl

Time for a process video! This one is for my Neon Girl drawing from last month. This video is in real time, but you can slow it down or speed it up using the gear button! I used photoshop for the majority of the process but finished it off in procreate (mainly out of convenience, since I finished it the next morning at home and the iPad was the easiest tool to use at that moment). So at the end you’ll see some of the exported procreate timelapse.

Here’s the final drawing:

The process is pretty much what I use for all my character art, which is basically:

1. Rough sketch : I make a quick sketch using the Macalabs HB brush (more info here). I’m just working out the basic idea and trying to figure out how to make it work, experimenting with the pose and just kind of messing around. I’m using basic shapes and thinking about gesture more than details.
2. Basic color: Underneath the sketch, I’ll block in the basic colors. First I block in the silhouette and then I lock the transparency and add the colors of each element (hair, clothing etc).
3. Changing the line color: Most important part of my color process! By setting the line layer to multiply and changing the color of the lines, it completely changes the feel and dimension of the color scheme. It’s a simple but essential step for my art!
4. Basic shading: For my more cartoony work, I will block in some shading on a multiply layer. Basically I’ll grab a warm grey color and draw in some shadows. It’s a really easy way to quickly add some dimension to the character! Afterwards I’ll tweak the shadow color a bit with hue/saturation to make sure it blends in nicely with the rest of the drawing.
5. Merge & color editing: I group all the layers together, duplicate that group, and then merge it all together. I just want everything on one layer, it’s much more convenient for me! Then I edit the colors using selective color. This is one of the main ways that I try to ‘bring the colors together’.
6. Paint & render: So basically all the previous steps happened in the first 15 minutes of the process. The rest of it is just painting! I try to pick colors already on the canvas and gradually add shadows, highlights and details. I like to call it ‘sculpting with color.’ This goes on for quite a while, and the drawing morphs and changes throughout this process. But the workflow is pretty much the same throughout: painting with the brush, or with the lasso tool & gradient, until I like what I see!

Hope you enjoy it! And if you have any questions, ask away!!