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tutorial from toril's drawing blog

http://starlock.tumblr.com/post/57763508441/an-anon-asked-me-if-i-would-ever-do-a-tutorial

An anon asked me if I would ever do a tutorial about how I draw, and at first I was all, “but I draw so simply! surely that would be useless!” and then I had the idea that, rather than any ~special technique~ I have, my thought process is  way more interesting because there are a lot of things I wish people told me were okay when I was a wee human. AND SO.

I will take you through how I drew this picture.

STEP 1! Choose your subject matter and Draw The Thing! Ideally it will be something you are excited about. For this example, I have chosen my dumb centaur Rook in his youth. He is bleeding. He is wearing a more-or-less historically accurate uniform. His hair is possibly historically inaccurate but I don’t care I love it.  While it is very important to break out of your comfort zone and learn how to draw a lot of things for the purpose of refining your draftsmanship, it is also important not to wear yourself down or tell yourself that what you are interested in is not worthwhile. That is counterproductive and will only make you sad! 

STEP 2! Ink The Thing, if you are into lines. I am. Don’t worry if your linework doesn’t look like someone’s you really admire. My lines will never look smooth or clean or “Industry Standard,” and that’s okay because that isn’t how I draw. I draw very quickly and I have shaky hands, so my lines turn out like this. I am growing to like them. Your Photoshop brush or Actual Physical Drawing Implement of choice DOESN’T REALLY MATTER. Use whatever gives you the effect you want! Sometimes I use fancy custom brush sets, and sometimes I use the default hard brush. Give Google a spin and see what you can find that works for you!

STEP 3! Delete that sketch layer and choose an arbitrary background colour. I lean towards dull browns or blinding neons, and sometimes white.

STEP 4! Colours! Rook is a Comic Character, so I have a set palette for him that I colourpick from because I am Lazy. However, I’m not sure these colours are what I want for this particular image. At this point, you may also be interested in Rendering, but I am so bored with Rendering and absolutely do not care so I don’t do it.  For me, the important thing is to communicate the image as economically as possible. Which here means, no painting.

STEP 5! Duplicate the colour layer and start messing with the levels and hue/saturation and blend modes until you get something a little more appealing. Here I also colourize the lineart so that it’s not just flat black. For some reason I decided a halo would be nice. I’m not sure why. Rook is not angelic. We’ll say it’s a Design Decision.

STEP 6! Final filters and adjustments! Everything I do ends up being pale lately. Maybe he is in a foggy place. Who knows?? I also went back and painted over the part where his coat vanishes into the colour field so that it looks a bit cooler, I hope.

That’s it, that’s how I draw! Maybe you learned something, or maybe you now think I’m a hack! Either way, I had fun~~~

How Colors Mix in Light versus Pigment

The Visible Spectrum of Light Bright white light comprises all the colors, as can be seen if a beam of light was shone through a prism. Red light has the longest wave length of the visible spectrum and can be perceived on an outer edge of the split light beam. Violet light has the shortest wave length of the visible spectrum and would be visible on an opposing edge. All the other colors we see will lie somewhere between, in the order of: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and magenta. All these colors are but a hair-thin slice of the electromagnetic radiation.The Primary Colors of Light Now let’s look at the behavior of colored light versus pigment. Firstly, the primary colors of pigment are magenta (not red, as red is a secondary color), yellow and cyan, as can be seen in printing ink. With these three colors, any color can be mixed. Mix all three together and black will result. But the primary colors of light are the secondary colors of pigment, which are red, green and violet. In other words, the secondary colors of pigment are the primary colors of light. Mixing Colored Light Take a pot of red light and a pot of green light; two primary colors of light, and let them overlap, and yellow will shine back. Take a pot of violet light and a pot of green light, again, two primary colors of light, and bright cyan will result. Mix all three primary colors together, and you will not get black, as would be the case of pigments, but white. Behavior of Light Waves Introducing more pigments into a paint mix will sully its appearance, and browns, greys and (ultimately) black will result. But doing the same with light will merely create a paler light, and (ultimately) white. Stare at a colored light, and its complementary color will imprint upon the retina. This will be seen when the eyes are closed. A red light will leave a green afterimage; a yellow light will leave a violet afterimage. It can be seen from this, that light and pigments have something in common: they have the same complementary colors. Complementary Colors of Light and Pigments Complementary colors are two opposing colors that can be found on the color wheel. We can see in both the ‘light wheel’ and the ‘pigment wheel,’ that the complementary color of green is magenta; the complementary color of violet is yellow, and the complementary color of blue is red. In both examples of light and pigments, placing complementary colors side by side will create a shimmering effect, often used in art. However, mix any two complimentary colors together, and in light, white will result; in pigment, black will result. Pigments versus Light in Color and Art When it comes to color behavior, light behaves in opposing ways to pigments. The primary colors of light are the secondary colors of pigments. Mixing a given color pair together will bring different results in light and pigment. Adding more colors to the mix will sully or darken the color in paint, but will appear paler and brighter in light. The only thing they have in common is their complementary colors. But mixing complementary colors together will result in black in pigment; but white for light.

Tutorial

Examples

http://www.gifart.org/