Vapin' N' Wraithin' - Tumblr Posts

Holy balls…

I read through all the nice tags y’all left and I’m blushing profusely right now.     

So, I guess I'm just gonna leave this comic WIP here, and pretend like I don’t draw at the rate of molasses. 

your art is so lovely holy moly??? I'm in love with the colours!!

D’awwwwwww, thanks a ton, man!! 

I have an unhealthy obsession with tertiary colors and VHS tapes. Realistically, someone should stage an intervention. 

your art is so awesome! *_* full of dynamics & beautiful colours, I really love it! keep it up ^^

Thanks! :D

Everything I know I’ve learned from manga, Kenneth Rocafort, and donut fueled all-nighters in sketchy print labs. 

Your colors are absolutely stunning. Everything about your art is pretty but I can't even talk about it coherently because the colors make me feel like I am sticking my tongue in a socket of neon electric happiness.

Haha, thanks, bro! I’m pretty sure I did that at least once back when I lived in the backwoods of Ohio. It makes me so glad to see so much neon appreciation on my blog since they’re such caustic colors. T-T

I'm so angry with myself right now!! HOW I MISSED YOUR BLOG? YOUR ART IS AMAZING AND I LOVE IT, SPECIALLY THAT DRAWING WITH THE RINGS. Bless you and keep with the hard work! your are and amazing artis!!! :3 (btw sorry for shouting but your art is truly wonderful and it trigered me that I didnt find you sooner xD)

Thank you, bro!

what music are you into/do you listen to while making art? (your blog is a treasure btw

Thank You! :)

I mostly listen to the noisier (edgier) electronic sub genres. Health’s Death Magic has been my go-to album for the last few months. It has a unique take on the darker, more painful emotions of love lost, which helps me when I'm trying to draw romance.

I also listen to a lot of Lorn, Death Grips, and You Love Her Coz She’s Dead.

I’m sorry that I’m so slow at responding to messages T-T

Anon: ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ I spend a lot of time obsessing over the elements you listed, so it’s great to hear this from you!

Birdystark: That’s so cool! I’m touched your friend liked my stuff enough to share it with you! I hope your art studies are going well! I miss art school. It was an adventure and then some for me, so I hope you have a good time too.

a-litter-of-kittens: kickass message/10 would read again

have you ever done (or thought of doing) a coloring tutorial? you're coloring is so vivid and beautiful!!!

Wow! It’s really cool of you to ask!

Thank you! 💖 (〃ω〃)

Unfortunately I don’t have a tutorial for my coloring process. I’m not really sure how to make one since it’s mostly just me experimenting with layer effects, gradients, and textures, haha. I usually have a pretty good idea of what colors I wanna use, and then I just mess around with stuff until everything looks cohesive. I always start out with a base color layer that's similar to the on model colors, and then I have 2 or 3 additional layers that I use to transform the colors into something more vibrant. I use CLIP Studio, so I’m not sure what the equivalent would be for PS or Sai, but I usually set my layers to “screen” or “overlay.” That makes the colors more saturated or gives them that washed out 80s look. I also tend to limit my palette to 3 or 4 colors. It makes everything way more manageable. The biggest thing is don't be afraid to use neon or super saturated colors! As long as the whole image has them, they won't look out of place. I hope this helps!

Just wanna say that like?? Not only is ur art so flowy and wow I SUPER LOVE how you draw Reaper/Gabe's guns appearing like idk it just looks so amazing

Thanks! (〃ω〃)

I’ve always assumed Gabe’s guns are made of the same nanomachine stuff as him. Given his flair for the dramatic, I also like to think he tries super hard to summon them in the most badass way possible.

I’ve been slackin’ on responses to all y’all’s really nice messages. Time to fix that!

@morganzephyr That would be really cool…I dunno if I can pull off a recording, but I’d totally be down to stream a drawing if people are interested!

Anon: Awww!! Thank you so much!😘

Anon: Yeah! You can totally message me! Y’all don’t have to ask. I’m always down to chat.

@witchyaudrey dude, like, I totally feel you! I just can’t stop drawing the salty old men. I find Gabe to be super relatable, so I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon haha. I’m glad you decided to stick around and I hope you have a good evening too! 💖💖

@iilines you don’t have to apologize! I’m glad to have you here! 😊😊

Anon: nope! The only other place I post my work is my twitter. The link to that is in my header.

Replies time! 

Anon: Thank you! My drawings are inspired by songs that remind me of the characters in one way or another, and I haven’t come across anything reminiscent of Junkrat yet. Maybe someday…

Anon:  I actually have a drawing coming up that features both Mcree and Genji (and Gabe too, ofc). No Hanzo tho.

@anustet :  Thanks! 80s neon will always be my go to for angst filled soldier bois

Anon:  Thank you! I’m all about explaining how I frame my comps, and I totally will, but it’s gonna take a hot minute longer cuz it requires visuals and some blurbs about composition.

Anon:  Aaaaaaa! Thank you!! I’m glad it makes you happy!💖

Anon: D'awww, thank you!!  Most of my color palettes are by-products of the music I listen to. The electronic genre is great inspo for that.

Where did you get ya inspirations from? :O

Health///USA Boys

Check out the lyrics on Genius (cuz google play gets them wrong), listen to the song, and then imagine Jack in the immediate aftermath the Zurich explosion as he stumbles on Gabe’s body

 This song gets me every time. 

I started listening to Health because you said you listened to them and they're so good!!!

Anon, you have no idea how happy this makes me! ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡Their music is just. so. good. Their stuff (with an emphasis on Death Magic) was a huge inspiration for most of the drawings I've done over the last few months. If you haven’t already, check out their songs ‘USA Boys,’ ‘Stonefist,’ 'In Violet,' and ‘L.A Looks.’ Those are my personal faves.

Ok a serious question. How did you managed to make a really neat lineart? And what kind of brush are you using to make it.....?

I use clip studio for all my stuff, and I’m really basic about it. Like, I use the standard g-pen brush for everything (including coloring). My lines are just a by-product of me refining and redrawing my original sketch until it looks presentable. I’m not super efficient when it comes to this stuff, lol. I’ll legit re-draw the same chunk of line 5 times over until it looks exactly right. That’s the main reason I’m hesitant to stream cuz I feel like peeps would get bored real fast haha. The neatness of my lines comes from being confident in my strokes, which is a fancy way of saying muscle memory. If you practice drawing swoopy lines enough, you eventually get to the point where you can nail the motion in one try. Having a tablet where you can draw directly on the screen helps too, but it’s not necessary. My main tip when it comes to line work is to vary your line weight. If everything’s the same thickness, then your eye gets drawn to nothing. But if you thicken some lines, then it improves the flow of the drawing and gives the figure/BG a sense of weight and volume. Personally, I prioritize varied line weight over neatness, but it all depends on your personal art goals. Hope this helps!! 💖

I reaaaaaally like the color pink, first and foremost, lol, but it’s also much easier for me to work with super saturated colors. They kinda soothe my mind for lack of a better word. I'm very picky on colors since certain ones (forest green, brick red for example) kinda give me a headache to look at. As far as advice, I included a layer breakdown of one of my more recent drawings to give you an idea of how I tweak the colors. I use CSP, so some of this stuff’ll be different in other programs. I also included a list of layer effects and how I use them. In terms of palettes, it can take me anywhere from 20 min to couple hours worth of experimenting to strike a balance. You basically just have to play with different layer types, shadows, and contrasts. I try to establish a mood and base palette before jumping into adding shadows and stuff. It makes stuff way easier to keep track of. Most of what I do is work with complimentary pairs, which is the fancy way of saying colors that are on the opposite side of the wheel from one another. An easy way to start is to establish your BG color first. Like, for this draw I based the whole palette around that yellow-green. So, Gabe’s mostly pink and purple since those are complimentary to yellow/yellow-green. And since his base colors are warm, I used cooler colors for shadows, which helps make the warm tones of his skin/coat pop. The biggest advice I can give for vaporwave/80s/super saturated palettes is to not be afraid of the colors. Magentas and teals can be kinda intimidating at first, but after you play with them for a little bit, they’re fairly easy to work with. You just have to remember that the important thing is balancing the palette instead of keeping things super accurate to real life. I hope this helps!