Throwback To When I Took Painkillers And Woke Up With Photoshop Open On My Computer To This Image I Had

Throwback to when I took painkillers and woke up with Photoshop open on my computer to this image I had made

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

first time posting here. I'll figure out my way way through this place eventually.

For now, I will be uploading the first of my fanart series (hopefully); where I upload fanarts and imagines/headcanons of my fav fictional characters from all sorts of media and their respective fandoms.

To start, my latest obsession: ✨James Cameron's Avatar✨

Character study of aged up! Ao'nung and Original Character Sa'eyral from the fanfic 'Sunset on your skin' by the amazing AelysC on AO3

bonus: mini comic draft of Ao'nung's face the first time he sees Sa'eyral

how he thinks he looks vs. how he actually looks

TMA COMMISSIONS FOR GAZA

What is TMA Commissions For Gaza?

You can get small TMA commissions (a little drawing or short fanfic) in exchange for donating to 1 of 10 Gofundme's of Palestinians in Gaza (starting May 17th)

There are about 60 artists signed up already who have volunteered to work for free for this to happen. Until May 16th, you can join too!

The project is fanmade and has no connection to Rusty Quill

Our carrd: https://magnusforgaza.carrd.co/ Everything else under the cut ↓

How can I commission?

Here's a detailed How To Commission guide.

In a nutshell: 1: Donate to one of the 10 gofundme's. (any amount) 2: Fill out the commission form and describe what art you want! 3: And now we wait. We don't know how many commissions each artist will take on so please be patient💚

Guidelines for artists:

Here's a post with guidelines for artists and authors.

Here's the post that explains the process from sign up to sending the commission to the person who requested it.

Where does the money go?

We, the organizers and artists of TMA commissions for Gaza, gain no money from this. We ask participants to donate to 1 of these 10 Gofundme's by Gazans who are trying to survive and evacuate Gaza. 5 of these Gofundmes are on the Operation Olive Branch list and the other 5 are friends and family of one of our organizers. The funds are needed for expenses such as medical care, food and first and foremost to pay for crossing the border to Egypt.

Why only 10 Gofundme's?

We hope to be more effective when focusing on just a small number of Gofundme's and not for example the whole Operation Olive Branch list. Providing a smaller number of places to donate to may also help donators to not get overwhelmed by the amount of people who need their help. If you have any questions, send us a message here on Tumblr!

CARRD: https://magnusforgaza.carrd.co/

#let it be known

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

gold info

Natural Black Hair Tutorial! Usually Black hair is excluded in the hair tutorials which I have seen so I have gone through it in depth because it’s really not enough to tell someone simply, “Black hair is really curly, draw it really curly.” 

The next part of Black Hair In Depth will feature styles and ideas for designing characters and I will release it around February. If you would like to see certain styles, please shoot me a message!