Here is how I do a thing!
The last time I posted Hetalia portraits to the comm, I got a bunch of people asking me how I draw, so this time I figured I'd, like...have something that could actually answer that?
So here's how I draw! I'm sure it's not the best way, but it works okay for me. Prussia will serve as my lovely assistant.
Time: ~1 hour.
Why shirtless? Why a cigarette? Do I really need a reason? Don't be a killjoy. Shirtless Prussia is its own reward.
I always make sure I can trust my line art. I use references--and if I can find any of them online, I get art friends to double-check it for me. If I end up having to improv halfway through the picture, it slows everything down SO MUCH. This lineart didn't turn out to be 100% trustworthy; I ended up needing to reshape his chin and jaw as I went along. Oh well.
Time: ~30 minutes-ish?
This is only 200 pixels off full size for now--I haven't blown it up to start any detailing yet. The only thing I'm using right now is a big angled rectangular brush, size dynamics off and pen pressure set to opacity. The idea is not to get bogged down in minutiae until I've got a solid form I can work from. He's already starting to look like a blurry person!
Time: ~2 hours.
Image size is up to 2000 pixels across, now. Switched from the rectangular brush to a round brush, 70%-90% hardness, still pen pressure set to opacity. (Can I stop saying that? My pen pressure is always set to opacity unless I'm doing wicked fine detail work.) I still haven't started on his hair or features, but I've established the values for his head and face well enough that by the time I DO start those things, they'll be well-integrated into the rest of the picture. Doing things this way helps prevent lavishing attention on the eyes and lips and pretty curly locks, and then leaving everything else flat. That makes your features look glued-on.
I've realized that I always make my values too dark. That's not really a problem, though, so long as they're consistently too dark over the entire image, because I can just correct it when I'm done.
Time: ~2 hours.
And now his eyes, lips, and hair are caught up with the rest of the picture! Everything still needs smoothing, detailing, and "pop," but the image as a whole won't change a tremendous amount from here on out.
(I've got details for how I do hair and eyes at the end.)
Time: ~2.5 hours, almost entirely spent on detailing hair.
Here I've smoothed out his skin and contours, done about 3/4ths of the detailing for his hair (the last quarter is finnicky stuff involving individual strands, and that happens last), and brightened up the whole thing using a Levels adjustment. Smoothing is easy; I just take a soft, round brush, use the color picker liberally, and whisk it over anywhere I see unattractive ragged edges. Be careful not to make things look too smooth; you want to keep some nice texture.
I'll just add my voice to everybody else's who's said that you shouldn't use the blur tool or the smudge tool to smooth things out. Learning how to do it with the paintbrush makes everything so much prettier.
Oh, I also added the cigarette, which I'd completely forgotten about until now. Ahaha.
Time: ~1 hour.
AND THEN IT'S DONE. *cops out* Okay, I seriously was going to show how I color, but really, the way I color is the most unintuitive bullshit ever. Use anybody's coloring method other than mine. It's like, a terrifying hodgepodge of different techniques that probably takes three times as long as it should. It just turns out I suck at doing it any of the 'proper' ways.
(You can see a bigger version of the final image on DevArt!)
SO HAIR, AMIRITE?
The first thing I do is just block in the basic shape in a very rough way. Again, I don't use any fancy brushes or anything; for hair, I just use a round brush with softness set to max. Right now, I'm just trying to find layers to his hair. You can kind of see that there's a top, middle, and bottom layer already.
Next, I use a slightly lighter color, with a smaller brush, and throw down some basic locks. Right now I really don't care where my light source is--I'm just trying to figure out how the hair is going to fall, flip, and fold in and out of itself.
This is the "Heads Are Round" step. Now I care where my light source is. I use a big (like, wicked big) brush and just paint right over my locks, to make his hair look like it's actually on a round surface.
I usually take a few minutes to neaten up the edges of the hairstyle at this point. There is absolutely nothing advanced about how this works; I just take a small brush and pull out ending strands and fiddly bits, and use the eraser (also soft, also with pen pressure set to opacity) to make them fade out at the tips. I'll also erase any extra hair bits that are left over from previous steps that I've decided won't be in the final hairstyle. This part takes all of about five minutes.
OH MY GOD IT LOOKS LIKE HAIR ALL OF A SUDDEN. But if you look, all I've really done is define and bring out shapes that were already suggested in the last step. As an aside, it's really amazing how much of your hair you DON'T have to detail to make the whole thing look good. Seriously, check out how blurry most of this is.
This still isn't 100% finished, but the last sharpening, defining, and adding individual strands I do right at the end of the picture, using the dodge and burn tools, and about a zillion layers with itty bitty hard brushes. I'm sure you get the general idea, though, yeah?
Eyes!
'S really nothin' special. First, I just copy a bit of my lineart with a nice dark color--so I have an outline to work with. Next, I start to blend it into the surrounding picture, and shaping the eye and iris so that they have okay basic values. Then, work in some crisp highlights and shadows--and then just polish the whole thing up so it's shiny and looks three dimensional. I usually tend to err more on the side of 'pretty' than 'realistic.' >_>
I hope this was interesting to some of you! =D
So here's how I draw! I'm sure it's not the best way, but it works okay for me. Prussia will serve as my lovely assistant.
Time: ~1 hour.
Why shirtless? Why a cigarette? Do I really need a reason? Don't be a killjoy. Shirtless Prussia is its own reward.
I always make sure I can trust my line art. I use references--and if I can find any of them online, I get art friends to double-check it for me. If I end up having to improv halfway through the picture, it slows everything down SO MUCH. This lineart didn't turn out to be 100% trustworthy; I ended up needing to reshape his chin and jaw as I went along. Oh well.
Time: ~30 minutes-ish?
This is only 200 pixels off full size for now--I haven't blown it up to start any detailing yet. The only thing I'm using right now is a big angled rectangular brush, size dynamics off and pen pressure set to opacity. The idea is not to get bogged down in minutiae until I've got a solid form I can work from. He's already starting to look like a blurry person!
Time: ~2 hours.
Image size is up to 2000 pixels across, now. Switched from the rectangular brush to a round brush, 70%-90% hardness, still pen pressure set to opacity. (Can I stop saying that? My pen pressure is always set to opacity unless I'm doing wicked fine detail work.) I still haven't started on his hair or features, but I've established the values for his head and face well enough that by the time I DO start those things, they'll be well-integrated into the rest of the picture. Doing things this way helps prevent lavishing attention on the eyes and lips and pretty curly locks, and then leaving everything else flat. That makes your features look glued-on.
I've realized that I always make my values too dark. That's not really a problem, though, so long as they're consistently too dark over the entire image, because I can just correct it when I'm done.
Time: ~2 hours.
And now his eyes, lips, and hair are caught up with the rest of the picture! Everything still needs smoothing, detailing, and "pop," but the image as a whole won't change a tremendous amount from here on out.
(I've got details for how I do hair and eyes at the end.)
Time: ~2.5 hours, almost entirely spent on detailing hair.
Here I've smoothed out his skin and contours, done about 3/4ths of the detailing for his hair (the last quarter is finnicky stuff involving individual strands, and that happens last), and brightened up the whole thing using a Levels adjustment. Smoothing is easy; I just take a soft, round brush, use the color picker liberally, and whisk it over anywhere I see unattractive ragged edges. Be careful not to make things look too smooth; you want to keep some nice texture.
I'll just add my voice to everybody else's who's said that you shouldn't use the blur tool or the smudge tool to smooth things out. Learning how to do it with the paintbrush makes everything so much prettier.
Oh, I also added the cigarette, which I'd completely forgotten about until now. Ahaha.
Time: ~1 hour.
AND THEN IT'S DONE. *cops out* Okay, I seriously was going to show how I color, but really, the way I color is the most unintuitive bullshit ever. Use anybody's coloring method other than mine. It's like, a terrifying hodgepodge of different techniques that probably takes three times as long as it should. It just turns out I suck at doing it any of the 'proper' ways.
(You can see a bigger version of the final image on DevArt!)
SO HAIR, AMIRITE?
The first thing I do is just block in the basic shape in a very rough way. Again, I don't use any fancy brushes or anything; for hair, I just use a round brush with softness set to max. Right now, I'm just trying to find layers to his hair. You can kind of see that there's a top, middle, and bottom layer already.
Next, I use a slightly lighter color, with a smaller brush, and throw down some basic locks. Right now I really don't care where my light source is--I'm just trying to figure out how the hair is going to fall, flip, and fold in and out of itself.
This is the "Heads Are Round" step. Now I care where my light source is. I use a big (like, wicked big) brush and just paint right over my locks, to make his hair look like it's actually on a round surface.
I usually take a few minutes to neaten up the edges of the hairstyle at this point. There is absolutely nothing advanced about how this works; I just take a small brush and pull out ending strands and fiddly bits, and use the eraser (also soft, also with pen pressure set to opacity) to make them fade out at the tips. I'll also erase any extra hair bits that are left over from previous steps that I've decided won't be in the final hairstyle. This part takes all of about five minutes.
OH MY GOD IT LOOKS LIKE HAIR ALL OF A SUDDEN. But if you look, all I've really done is define and bring out shapes that were already suggested in the last step. As an aside, it's really amazing how much of your hair you DON'T have to detail to make the whole thing look good. Seriously, check out how blurry most of this is.
This still isn't 100% finished, but the last sharpening, defining, and adding individual strands I do right at the end of the picture, using the dodge and burn tools, and about a zillion layers with itty bitty hard brushes. I'm sure you get the general idea, though, yeah?
Eyes!
'S really nothin' special. First, I just copy a bit of my lineart with a nice dark color--so I have an outline to work with. Next, I start to blend it into the surrounding picture, and shaping the eye and iris so that they have okay basic values. Then, work in some crisp highlights and shadows--and then just polish the whole thing up so it's shiny and looks three dimensional. I usually tend to err more on the side of 'pretty' than 'realistic.' >_>
I hope this was interesting to some of you! =D