PROCESS VIDEO // ruffle - part 1

Here's part 1 of the process for Ruffle! The painting took me about 11 hours in total to make, and this video covers the first half of that process. This video is sped up by 6 times (a bit slower than part 2, so you can get a clearer look at how I set up this painting). In general, for my painting process, I put most of my creative energy into the first hour or so. During this time, I try to build up the composition and colors so that the rest of the process is mostly just finalizing and detailing. I want to limit the creative decisions to the early part of the process, so that the rest of the process can be as relaxing and straightfoward as possible. 

Some things to keep in mind while watching this video: 

FIRST SKETCH

I like to keep the first sketch very simple. I don’t work out too many of the details, because I can always do that at a later point. I want my first sketch to be as dynamic as possible and have lots of movement so that’s what I focus on instead. You can see that my sketch has simple shapes for the hands and feet, and just dots / lines for the facial features. The brush I use for my first sketch is the Macalabs HB pencil brush which I reference in this post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/step-by-step-i-34615265

USING NON-BRUSH TOOLS TO PAINT

Even though it’s a digital painting, I use tools other than the brush to ‘paint.’ These tools are great for creating a soft effect, which can be harder to achieve with brush strokes. 

• Gradient tool: I use the radial gradient tool (just select the gradient tool and click on the circular shape in the menu at the top) and set the colors to ‘foreground to transparent’ in that same menu. I also have a lower opacity - around 50%. This way, I can easily add soft, circular gradients to layer colors onto the image. I start doing this at 1:45 minutes, when I start layering skin tones on top of the darker background color.
• Feathered lasso: This is basically the lasso tool, but then feathered so that it makes a softer selection. In the case of this image, the feather value is set anywhere from 100 to 200 pixels - the amount of feather depends entirely on how large your image is and how soft you want the selection to be. It’s a question of trial and error to find the right amount. I use it to select specific areas and then modify the colors in that area - for example to make the reds ‘pop’ a bit more with color balance. You can see me doing this at 2:25 minutes. 
• Lasso + gradient: Another technique I used to paint was to make selections with the lasso tool (this time without feather, so just a hard selection) and then use the radial gradient tool in that specific area only. This is a great way to add soft highlights and shadows. The best example of this starts around 18:40 minutes, where I use this technique for a while as I gradually add detail to the ribbons. It’s basically: first you make a selection, then use the gradient. It works well for drop shadows, bright edges, and highlights. I alternate between this technique and the brush tool to bring more definition to the painting. 

KEEPING AN EYE ON THE EARLY VERSION

As I add more detail, I sometimes stray further away from the rough version. Sometimes this is ok, but sometimes the painting seems to get worse - I lose the dynamic feel or the softness of the original. So for this painting, I added more detail on separate layers so that I could turn the visibility on/off to compare it with the earlier version. This is basically a way of checking whether the image is still on the right track. You can see me doing this at 28 minutes in. 15 seconds later, I also have an older version of the painting open to keep as reference, so I can compare the paintings side by side. This is just to make sure that I don’t lose the aspects of the painting that I like the most. 

Hope you enjoy this video! Part 2 is coming up this week!