Molagblep - Hhhhhhhhhhhh

painting/watercolor/trad art effect with the default photoshop brushes

a quick tutorial for @attributions-share, who was curious about how i did the “trad art” thingy on this piece!

Note : My photoshop is in french. So you’ll have well, french screenshots oui oui

Brushes

We’re using three photoshop default brushes, one for lines and two for painting.

Steps

Brush number one is the one I line with. This is a quick example that showcases my barbaric default linery but i do strongly recommend you go a bit lighter on your hand and make use of pen pressure to make good lines that vary in size!

Then with brush number two I fill the shape with a flat color  on a new layer (do this for every flat color, i recomment one layer per flat) which I alpha-lock when finished.

Then with brush number three I apply my color variations : I paint on the same color layer, brush at lowered opacity. Since the layer is alpha locked no need to worry about coloring outside the borders.

[optional] When that’s done, alpha-lock the line layer and give it slight color variations with the same brush. I like using dark and very saturated colors there

Then download your best high res paper texture and paste it on another layer so is covers all your art, and put the layer on Multiply mode. What that does is make your layer be more or less transparent depending on how much white is in one place. On a white paper image, it will make it transparent but keep the nooks and crannies of the texture.

And that’s it!

Final result :

the morality of this story is that photoshop layer options are your friends

30-Day Character Design Challenge

This might be helpful if you’re stuck in a rut with your designs! You can do them in any order you want, as long as you do #30 last.

Put your iTunes library, favorite Spotify playlist, etc. on shuffle and design a character inspired by the first song that comes up. Bonus: do this with a playlist of music you’ve never listened to before. Extra bonus: use an instrumental-only song.

Design a character in a genre you don’t normally draw (example: if you normally high fantasy characters, you could do sci-fi, steampunk, etc.)

Draw five mouths, each of which reveal a unique character. Bonus: all are making the same expression.

Grab your oldest sketchbook that you can find and pick an old character to re-design. Bonus: pick the character by opening to a random page instead of hand-choosing.

Design ten unique hairstyles. Bonus: do a turnaround of each one.

Go to this random aesthetic generator and draw a character inspired by the result. Bonus: make the design 100% serious, even if you get “dad wave” or “soap flapper.” 

Design seven pairs of shoes. Bonus: for some of the pairs, make the left and right shoes different, but still recognizable as a pair.

Draw a non-human character— the less human-looking, the better (so avoid things like elves, vampires, etc.). Bonus: Make up their species instead of using existing mythological creatures.

Design a character inspired by this poem. 

Create a color palette based on the colors in your bedroom, then design a character from this palette. Bonus: don’t use the colors of your walls or floor in your palette.

Pick your favorite mythological figure and create two designs for them: one that’s as historically accurate to their time period and culture as possible, and another that takes as many artistic liberties as you want (this could a modern AU, something in your typical style, etc.).

Design a high fantasy character whose outfit is based on whatever you’re wearing right now. 

Pick an order of angels and design a character based on/inspired by their description. The resulting character doesn’t necessarily have to be an angel. Bonus: pick Thrones, the giant wheels covered in eyes. 

Go to this random name generator and design a character for whatever name you get. Tip: you can click each name to learn its origin and meaning.

Design ten weapons. Bonus: Base each one off a real weapon from various historical periods, but with your own twist on it.

Create as many rough thumbnail designs as you can in half an hour. Then pick your favorite and flesh them out into a more detailed character. Bonus: don’t erase anything during the timed portion.

Pick an animal and draw a human character based on it. The final design shouldn’t have the animal’s ears, tail, markings, etc.— convey it entirely though the character’s build, clothing, hair, etc. Bonus: pick the animal from the ones featured in this video series.  

Design a character based on the weather wherever you are right now.

Create an outfit breakdown for a character from their underclothes to their outermost layers/armor/etc. This can be done either for one of your existing OCs or a new one.  Bonus: do a turnaround for this breakdown.

Design ten unique sets of eyes. Bonus: include makeup and/or eyebrows as well.

Make up a god/goddess/deity for a nonexistent religion, then design them. Bonus: describe the symbolism of each aspect of their design.

Design a normal, modern-day character, then three genre AUs for them (e.g. cyberpunk, fantasy, Renaissance-era, etc.). They should be clearly recognizable as the same character in all four versions.

Create a character whose design combines the aesthetics of the last three movies/TV shows you watched. 

Design five pieces of jewelry. Pick your favorite and create a full character design based around it. Bonus: incorporate a couple of the other pieces of jewelry into the design as well.

Pick a vehicle and design a character inspired by it. A human character, not a transformer. Bonus: use something other than a car or truck, like a plane, boat, tank, etc.

Create a character inspired by your favorite childhood stuffed animal.

Design four sets of hands. They don’t necessarily have to be human hands.

Design a historically accurate character for a decade between 1900 and 1990.

Design a haute couture-style dress based on one of your existing OC’s designs. Bonus: draw them in this dress.

Wildcard! Use everything you’ve practiced thus far to create any character design you want. The only requirement: fully flesh out their design, from sketching to line art to colors.

Go forth, have fun, and create some awesome characters! If you post what you create, feel free to tag them ‘characterdesigninspiration’

Do you have any tips on digitally shading?

u gotta be very specific anon a lot of things happen when I’m shading ;u;

but here’s a very basic walkthrough of my general process (NOT a tutorial because this doesn’t go in depth at all and I guess it’s not really useful if you’re not sure what to look for?)

Hey japh, i've been totally uninspired for a while now and every time i force myself to draw i fuck up the anatomy and make myself feel even worse, what do you do when you feel unmotivated or uninspired?

take a step back and leave the thing alone for a bit (maybe watch a show etc) then come back to look at the composition with fresh eyes. If you feel bad about how it is atm look at what it can potentially be rather than what it is at the moment!

and if you mess up the anatomy you can try taking pictures of yourself doing the pose or looking up references to use, then drawing the gestures until you get used to them. You can also try making small thumbnails and mix and match compositions until you find something you’d want to work with!