HOME | DD

Description
A pretty face noes? I've had some asking for some help and so Loulabelle kindly offered her services to help. Firstly for those asking how she's done, this is the place for you as Claud removes the veil and reveals the secrets behind how this wonderful kitty is actually constructed. Sorry about the size of this description for my regular watchers... it's purely to help some of you who are having some troubles with some parts or maybe all... we will see.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Basics:- Okay intro out the way let's start out with the first steps shall we? Got to walk before we run after alls hehehe.

1 Sketch. Now some of you have thought, isn't that obvious Claud? Well not really. Some are so good they draw it directly, not needing the sketch but for those needing a guide line: here's the place to start. Sketches don't need to be neat (hell you should see the sketch for Loula here...) it's just what I call my: ideas stage.

2 Inking. Inking is a pain as this is where you start getting the sketch we made from a nifty but random collection of lines into the piece we really will be painting. All kinds of random stuff happens and anyone making ink art knows what I mean hehe. For it you'll need a nice pen with a thin tip for fine details, slightly large to pencil nib thickness for the larger lines. I leave it dry overnight, irregardless of the ink for the eraser-bombing it'll get to remove all other lines. Some artists who draw in blue do so as blue doesn't scan well if at all: it's up to you guys.

3 Line Art. Now we have it all inked it's looking pretty righty? Pop it into the scanner, it doesn't matter if you color digitally or not: trust me I made this mistake once and now have to redraw the two pencil Felicia pieces you can see in the gallery. Have we scanned in? Yup? Ossum! Now we have our line art either digitally or physically.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Color:- This is where we all differ and what works for me may not for you. Freely experiment with what's below as that's what art is about: experimenting and learning righty?

Digital Color:-

1 First lets right-click on the Background layer we scanned in. Click: Create layer from background. I call mine 'Mainline' but that's a personal choice, choose your own name unless it helps you too. Now click: Duplicate Layer and I call mine 'Baseline'.

2 Set the Baseline layer to Multiply in the mode pull-down. Most programs use this format, I'm using Photoshop CS3 for the purposes of the guide but freely work with what you have there to hand. You'll notice that the black lines suddenly look darker and the image seems more crisp... that's meant to happen hehe. Multiply makes all colors paler, white vanishes completely but gives a sweet look to our line work. Please save the file...

3 Saved her? Fantastic! Now we'll be preparing the flats. Flats for those not used to to the term: are the block colors we use before any shading is done. When I do pieces for those asking, you get emailed these to make sure it's what you want and that the colors are in the right place etc. How do we make them? You may ask, very easily. First with Photoshop and I'm sure Painter: select the Magic Wand Tool.

4 Now on either of the main layers *I tend to turn the Baseline off when making the prep layers for reasons I'll go into as we go along*, select an area. Let's take Loula's lovely hair. Click the color box at the side and choose the color you want to color it. Now select: New Layer from the layer panel then go ahead and paint that selected area.

5 Repeat this until you have the whole image all in nice bright bold, flat colors. At this point, I tend to save my file then I select from the top-menu: Layer > Flatten Image. Then go to File > Save for Web and Devices. Choose your name and where to save, then back to Photoshop.

6 Where I went wrong here so don't you guys do it now hehe: look to the Navigation pane *beside your small version of the image you can see a few tabs, click the topmost one depending on how you set up.* It brings down a list of all we've done to this point. Click the step above 'Flatten Image' and then resave the file. Now we have our flat layers and a demo for the person we're doing this for.

7 Tidying up flats - my technique is to take the main color *might be an idea to make a palette at this stage. Make a new layer then add spots of each color as you go so you can easily grab them if needed later on or, as with Loula: making more of one character*, and then paint over the Mainline as it shows up *magic wand will ignore anything bar the color you selected so you will need to paint over them* as that will make the end line work look a lot crisper and it makes painting it: easier. This next step is where each of us varies as do I depending on what part I'm painting, let's do them separately to make it easier to understand.

7a Hair, Clothing and Metal - First make the default colors come up: mine are black and white. Switch them with the 'X' key and select Color Sampler or the Eyedropper tool. Left-click once on her hair and it'll make the white box that color. Loula's is a purple. Press X again. Now make sure each layer has it's Transparency locked. Basically there's a little icon in the Layer pane when you select one that locks varies parts of it: one prevents the layer moving, one prevents it being edited... we only want the first one to stop us painting anywhere bar the colored areas of our Layer. Take either a brush or the paint bucket and paint that entire layer: black. Don't panic darlings... now press X. It should switch to the purple.

With purple in tow: take the Brush you want to use and gently apply the purple in small bands *I use Soft Round 3px setting depending on size of hair area*. This goes where you wish the hair's natural shine to be. Once it's in place I take the Smudge tool and gently smudge the purple into the black, making sure there's a nice graduation of tone. Once all the sheen is done, click on the purple box and choose a highlight for it. I tend to go about four spaces upwards. Repeat but this time blend the highlight a lot smaller and try to make it look more random as light won't shine flatly on something. Clothing and Metal has the same procedure depending on what material I'm painting as harsher blends look more metallic, softer more satin. You can also use custom brushes specifically to add textures to the outfits themselves, [link] for example have a wide range of brushes for GIMP and Photoshop users. I use Obsidian Dawn's brushes myself in all my works.

7b Fur and Flesh - Take the base layer color again, and using the hair technique above: choose two variants of it: one lighter and one darker. The main technique is the same as above using the blending technique but it gives a more natural look as opposed to the more manufactured look of the clothing.

7c Eyes - Ahhh the beautiful eyes... some have said I make them almost like lifelike and of all the parts of a piece: it is the one place I spend most time trying to get right. First thing's first we need two layers. You'd have found thus far, with Multiply, her eyes will be all white with lines showing where they are so we need make a layer for the eyeball and iris separately. Don't be liberal darlings, paint the whole area for her eyes white. Even over the pupil and iris lines on the Mainline. Iris layer we paint just the irises, including the highlight we marked on the line art: one solid spot of color.

Next, pop our iris color into the selector and choose again: highlight and shadow versions. Make sure the shadow is selected for the moment. I tend to make an ( with the top of it at the top of the eye in the shadow using the blend technique above: it gives a nice glassy look to the iris and gently add some shadowing to round out the bottom of the irises. Switch to the highlight. Some prefer to have the pupil given more shape by painting in some highlight to the edge of the pupil to show the light as it enters the retina. It is your choice here but Loula is painted with a gentle blush of highlight at the bottom of the pupil. Using about a 1-2px Soft Round Brush, gently paint random dots of highlight into her iris. If you prefer to, you can gently add little spots of it under the shadow and blending in to give more shape and form to the eye: you choose darlings it is your work.

Next, the master highlight. I have of late being doing this under the Baseline layer, some prefer to do it on top: either way it's a separate layer. Taking the highlight in both boxes: set one to midway between it and white and one to almost white. I tend to set the brush to about a 2-3px size for this and gently put one at about the top corner of the highlight we drew in. Down to a 2px, maybe 1px size then and place one just at the bottom of the pupil: set it about a 45 Degree angle so it sits opposite side of the pupil from the highlight. She'll look odd otherwise. Now we gently blend it to about halfway through the marked highlight and round it to show it's glassy. Final highlight is the darker of the two, gently painted over the three eye laters, then gently blended out so that on close-up you can see a sort of peak like a mountain peak from the bottom of the pupil and gently smudged out to the edges of the iris one way, eye white the other.

8 Now we have all the work done, save our master file and Flatten Image, File > Save for Web and Devices and make the completed save to show your friends.

Pencil color:- I haven't done much pencil work of late but for the most part you can use similar techniques to the Digital without the whole layering thing obviously. I used to do the pencil color very lightly first, then slowly build the pressure up to get the toning I wanted. Smudging is a lot harder on smaller works obviously due to having less space to get really in there but to those who can: I salute you wholly. Pencils and to a larger extent: pastels are fuuuun as you can get your fingers filthy and covered in pencil lead or chalk dust hehe but for a cleaner and easier workspace: digital is the way to go *snickers*

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for the huge description it was just to give an insight into how I work for some who asked *smiles*.

Lineart is based on an original sketch for and © of: Dr. Comet
Loulabelle, design and appearance: image included © Claudija Tzandrapova 2013

You can find the actual image here: [link]

Description
A pretty face noes? I've had some asking for some help and so Loulabelle kindly offered her services to help. Firstly for those asking how she's done, this is the place for you as Claud removes the veil and reveals the secrets behind how this wonderful kitty is actually constructed. Sorry about the size of this description for my regular watchers... it's purely to help some of you who are having some troubles with some parts or maybe all... we will see.
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Basics:- Okay intro out the way let's start out with the first steps shall we? Got to walk before we run after alls hehehe.

1 Sketch. Now some of you have thought, isn't that obvious Claud? Well not really. Some are so good they draw it directly, not needing the sketch but for those needing a guide line: here's the place to start. Sketches don't need to be neat (hell you should see the sketch for Loula here...) it's just what I call my: ideas stage.

2 Inking. Inking is a pain as this is where you start getting the sketch we made from a nifty but random collection of lines into the piece we really will be painting. All kinds of random stuff happens and anyone making ink art knows what I mean hehe. For it you'll need a nice pen with a thin tip for fine details, slightly large to pencil nib thickness for the larger lines. I leave it dry overnight, irregardless of the ink for the eraser-bombing it'll get to remove all other lines. Some artists who draw in blue do so as blue doesn't scan well if at all: it's up to you guys.

3 Line Art. Now we have it all inked it's looking pretty righty? Pop it into the scanner, it doesn't matter if you color digitally or not: trust me I made this mistake once and now have to redraw the two pencil Felicia pieces you can see in the gallery. Have we scanned in? Yup? Ossum! Now we have our line art either digitally or physically.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Color:- This is where we all differ and what works for me may not for you. Freely experiment with what's below as that's what art is about: experimenting and learning righty?

Digital Color:-

1 First lets right-click on the Background layer we scanned in. Click: Create layer from background. I call mine 'Mainline' but that's a personal choice, choose your own name unless it helps you too. Now click: Duplicate Layer and I call mine 'Baseline'.

2 Set the Baseline layer to Multiply in the mode pull-down. Most programs use this format, I'm using Photoshop CS3 for the purposes of the guide but freely work with what you have there to hand. You'll notice that the black lines suddenly look darker and the image seems more crisp... that's meant to happen hehe. Multiply makes all colors paler, white vanishes completely but gives a sweet look to our line work. Please save the file...

3 Saved her? Fantastic! Now we'll be preparing the flats. Flats for those not used to to the term: are the block colors we use before any shading is done. When I do pieces for those asking, you get emailed these to make sure it's what you want and that the colors are in the right place etc. How do we make them? You may ask, very easily. First with Photoshop and I'm sure Painter: select the Magic Wand Tool.

4 Now on either of the main layers *I tend to turn the Baseline off when making the prep layers for reasons I'll go into as we go along*, select an area. Let's take Loula's lovely hair. Click the color box at the side and choose the color you want to color it. Now select: New Layer from the layer panel then go ahead and paint that selected area.

5 Repeat this until you have the whole image all in nice bright bold, flat colors. At this point, I tend to save my file then I select from the top-menu: Layer > Flatten Image. Then go to File > Save for Web and Devices. Choose your name and where to save, then back to Photoshop.

6 Where I went wrong here so don't you guys do it now hehe: look to the Navigation pane *beside your small version of the image you can see a few tabs, click the topmost one depending on how you set up.* It brings down a list of all we've done to this point. Click the step above 'Flatten Image' and then resave the file. Now we have our flat layers and a demo for the person we're doing this for.

7 Tidying up flats - my technique is to take the main color *might be an idea to make a palette at this stage. Make a new layer then add spots of each color as you go so you can easily grab them if needed later on or, as with Loula: making more of one character*, and then paint over the Mainline as it shows up *magic wand will ignore anything bar the color you selected so you will need to paint over them* as that will make the end line work look a lot crisper and it makes painting it: easier. This next step is where each of us varies as do I depending on what part I'm painting, let's do them separately to make it easier to understand.

7a Hair, Clothing and Metal - First make the default colors come up: mine are black and white. Switch them with the 'X' key and select Color Sampler or the Eyedropper tool. Left-click once on her hair and it'll make the white box that color. Loula's is a purple. Press X again. Now make sure each layer has it's Transparency locked. Basically there's a little icon in the Layer pane when you select one that locks varies parts of it: one prevents the layer moving, one prevents it being edited... we only want the first one to stop us painting anywhere bar the colored areas of our Layer. Take either a brush or the paint bucket and paint that entire layer: black. Don't panic darlings... now press X. It should switch to the purple.

With purple in tow: take the Brush you want to use and gently apply the purple in small bands *I use Soft Round 3px setting depending on size of hair area*. This goes where you wish the hair's natural shine to be. Once it's in place I take the Smudge tool and gently smudge the purple into the black, making sure there's a nice graduation of tone. Once all the sheen is done, click on the purple box and choose a highlight for it. I tend to go about four spaces upwards. Repeat but this time blend the highlight a lot smaller and try to make it look more random as light won't shine flatly on something. Clothing and Metal has the same procedure depending on what material I'm painting as harsher blends look more metallic, softer more satin. You can also use custom brushes specifically to add textures to the outfits themselves, [link] for example have a wide range of brushes for GIMP and Photoshop users. I use Obsidian Dawn's brushes myself in all my works.

7b Fur and Flesh - Take the base layer color again, and using the hair technique above: choose two variants of it: one lighter and one darker. The main technique is the same as above using the blending technique but it gives a more natural look as opposed to the more manufactured look of the clothing.

7c Eyes - Ahhh the beautiful eyes... some have said I make them almost like lifelike and of all the parts of a piece: it is the one place I spend most time trying to get right. First thing's first we need two layers. You'd have found thus far, with Multiply, her eyes will be all white with lines showing where they are so we need make a layer for the eyeball and iris separately. Don't be liberal darlings, paint the whole area for her eyes white. Even over the pupil and iris lines on the Mainline. Iris layer we paint just the irises, including the highlight we marked on the line art: one solid spot of color.

Next, pop our iris color into the selector and choose again: highlight and shadow versions. Make sure the shadow is selected for the moment. I tend to make an ( with the top of it at the top of the eye in the shadow using the blend technique above: it gives a nice glassy look to the iris and gently add some shadowing to round out the bottom of the irises. Switch to the highlight. Some prefer to have the pupil given more shape by painting in some highlight to the edge of the pupil to show the light as it enters the retina. It is your choice here but Loula is painted with a gentle blush of highlight at the bottom of the pupil. Using about a 1-2px Soft Round Brush, gently paint random dots of highlight into her iris. If you prefer to, you can gently add little spots of it under the shadow and blending in to give more shape and form to the eye: you choose darlings it is your work.

Next, the master highlight. I have of late being doing this under the Baseline layer, some prefer to do it on top: either way it's a separate layer. Taking the highlight in both boxes: set one to midway between it and white and one to almost white. I tend to set the brush to about a 2-3px size for this and gently put one at about the top corner of the highlight we drew in. Down to a 2px, maybe 1px size then and place one just at the bottom of the pupil: set it about a 45 Degree angle so it sits opposite side of the pupil from the highlight. She'll look odd otherwise. Now we gently blend it to about halfway through the marked highlight and round it to show it's glassy. Final highlight is the darker of the two, gently painted over the three eye laters, then gently blended out so that on close-up you can see a sort of peak like a mountain peak from the bottom of the pupil and gently smudged out to the edges of the iris one way, eye white the other.

8 Now we have all the work done, save our master file and Flatten Image, File > Save for Web and Devices and make the completed save to show your friends.

Pencil color:- I haven't done much pencil work of late but for the most part you can use similar techniques to the Digital without the whole layering thing obviously. I used to do the pencil color very lightly first, then slowly build the pressure up to get the toning I wanted. Smudging is a lot harder on smaller works obviously due to having less space to get really in there but to those who can: I salute you wholly. Pencils and to a larger extent: pastels are fuuuun as you can get your fingers filthy and covered in pencil lead or chalk dust hehe but for a cleaner and easier workspace: digital is the way to go *snickers*

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for the huge description it was just to give an insight into how I work for some who asked *smiles*.

Lineart is based on an original sketch for and © of: Dr. Comet
Loulabelle, design and appearance: image included © Claudija Tzandrapova 2013

You can find the actual image here: [link]