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Click Jin's bloodthirsty eyes to see the full image. |
Jin is the first male I've drawn in a very long time that didn't turn out looking like a chick. Sure, I rushed this contest entry (as always) and the airbrushing sucked. But the important thing is: he looks like a dude.
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The rough pencil sketch. |
This was done before my Wacom Cintiq 21UX. Sketching was faster on paper than on computer, and also much less stressful on my carpel tunnel.
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Line-art and base colours. |
I admit I got lazy, but I was also short on time. I had less than half a day to complete this, so I cheated on the line-art. I used the pen [
P] tool
*cries* and didn't even do any dynamic lines. That's right, it was all 1pixel throughout. And I am
not proud of it.
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Primary shading: brown and black. |
I started doing some quick shading using my Wacom Graphire4 4"x5". I went against the rules and started with the darkest colours first, which helped me determine the contrast of the entire image from the get-go. Typically, if I have the time, I wouldn't do it this way because it destroys the chances of me setting a good tone and atmosphere. But I had already decided on the background before I started the sketch, so this was A-O-K lol.
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Roughly shade in the rest of him, then start highlights. |
I typically set the paintbrush [
B] to 16% opacity (and set the dynamics too of course) then put it on a layer set on Multiply. I would lay the base colour on top of itself, which when multiplied, looks great. Then I would sample [
alt on
B, or
I] that result and brush it over again for darker areas~ and repeat. Eraser [
E] is also usually set to 16% with brush dynamics set to my liking.
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The skin and the blades are shaded. |
I was super cheap here on the blades. In the base colours layers' blending properties, I played around with gradient and pattern overlays. Then I did the quick shading on a Multiply layer. Remember, clipping masks are your best friend~ [right click layer, select option] And a neutral background makes it easier to see your shading or if your base colours were spilling over your line-art.
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Resized and added a comic background. |
I used the paintbrush [
B] on 100% hardness and 100% opacity to spatter dots of random sizes all over the background layer. This sat over a layer with rendered static. Then I merged the dots and static layers, and played around with different distortion effects (such as Motion Blur and Pinch) until I got the above effect~ Use the circle crop [
M] tool with a feather to clear out the middle. Values will vary depending on the size of the image, therefore it's useless for me to list what my numbers were.
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Speech explosion and the back of the Dark Lord's hat head. |
Using the wand [
W] I clicked the centre of the background layer and selected all the white area. I had to play with different tolerance levels to achieve the right balance of black and white. Create a new layer after making the selection. Right click on the selected area and fill it with a colour on the new layer. After I did this, I also went into the layer's blending properties to set a radial gradient.
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On fire! |
I played around with different colours in the gradients to decide on what kind of tone I wanted the image to be. The orange reminds me of Naruto.
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Cartoonish cool blue! |
The blue looked almost TMNT-like o_O I'm not sure how I feel about that.
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The final result. |
In the end, I lowered the saturation for the background colour. Overall, I suppose this is the best I could have done in the few hours I had. In addition, I think the Dual Blade class is stupid, which does not help when it's the subject I am drawing. The link to the full size piece is the very first image of this post: click his eyes!!!
Now go eat some markers.