Niklas Jansson
patreon
Duck Woman Drawing Process
🕑 Added 2022-09-13 13:40:51 +0000 UTCI managed to make a video, though it almost broke my old machine (4GB RAM and only a few gigs of drive space left).
It's an hour long screen recording without commentary. Had to record a crop to keep final size down (1.3GB). Not all tool selections are in view but my tool presets are. I'm using Photoshop CS5.
It also shows how I use liquify to nudge the sketch into shape.
The subject matter is Mutant / Drakar och Demoner ducks. These are fairly Disneyesque but I like to give mine beady eyes to differentiate and increase realism a bit. And it's cute.
I change clothing details as I go, and often start with a nude/barren figure. I like to include a human for scale. This is what I ended up with but I'll probably touch it up later if I continue to add figures (for coherence).
Comments
Niklas Jansson
Interesting question. Usually the line art shading weight works poorly when the colour comes, as the colour tends to put emphasis on the silhouette. I often have to go back to the line art and add some oomph to the shadow, which the flat colours have drowned out. At the same time, some lines, usually the top-facing ones (shoulders, head, etc), don't need lines and will seem too subtractive. The colour is enough to complete the silhouette. Same is true for colour fields – sometimes lines are no longer needed to separate fields, and can be erased/faded. Colouring the lines a bit helps too. Things can look really muddy with just gray lines multiplying onto colour. I generally use top-left lighting and no fill/rim light. Now, how to maintain the "charm" of the thumbnail when polishing... that is a different issue. I struggled a lot with it over the years. Nowadays I try to make sure I retain elements of the thumbnail looseness where the eye isn't critical... faces will draw attention and can't be loose unless it's background people.
MoonYeah!!
I have a question, how do you know how "well" the sketchy drawing will translate to proper shadow/light when moving on to coloring? I've been trying for a while to maintain my sketch all the way to the finish line (rendering) but it just looks like poop... Is it because you try to keep your shading rather simple? Like a simple top down lighting, or do you have any particular thoughts about it? I guess this must have been a lot of trial and error, and after years you may not think about it anymore, but if there is any chance you got some wisdom on this topic, i'm super interested. cheers!
ML
I think this is exactly what I wanted to learn from you: the design and drawing process - the technical approach. Thanks a lot!!! I love all your content!
