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How One Brush Replaced My Drawing Process - Coach Process Video + File!
🕑 Added 2023-09-06 16:09:49 +0000 UTCHey everyone,
Here are some insights you will find in today's process video and file!.
As you might notice, I'm picking references with small stories attached, often about animals. This one in particular was about a small frog on top of a snake, something that will make you question the logic behind the Darwinian natural selection theory, or take seriously the bravery of this particular frog. In all cases, I've found this picture unusual, so why not give it a try?
I've found starting the process with shapes made out of the 'Limberto - Hard Shapes' brush to be plenty efficient. The problem I used to have when starting with line art was how picky I am with facial expressions or detailed information, making me waste so much time on something that, although important, plays a secondary role after the big character shape in this type of format, character design presentation.
So while I build a distinctive shape for each animal inspired character, I also take the chance of picking a color that resembles the original picture. But not only that, I assign a level of value to that color that also fits the character compositions I've been using lately, which is a contrast between black and white. This means that I used green in a darker value for the snake character, and a tone of green with a lighter value for the frog character. Due to their different sizes, this was a great opportunity to create even more contrast in shape proportions that later down the line would be translated into anatomy and costume information by the line art. Last but not least, the simplicity of this process helped me to address the main gesture shape characteristic each character will have based on the reference; for the snake, an S like shape and for the little frog, a round-like shape with thin arms/legs and big rounded hands and feet.
If you'd like to try this shape approach, a few weeks ago I wrote an article about exercises you can do using big shape brushes; I called it the 'Rorschach Exercise,' anyway:https://www.patreon.com/posts/creating-from-85719922
This simple but efficient beginning has set the ground through shapes that helped me to grasp a different number of line art options. As you can see in the process video, I've played around with lines using the different character shapes and sometimes even the same. In this part of the process, I do tend to focus on facial expression first and then anatomy proportions that fit the shape in the background. If you're familiar with this process, in the past during this part there are no costume decisions since I've not done any previous research. But there are some small suggestions on what this concept in general will look like. In principle, I thought of a child and a bad influence teen, similar to Haruko and Naota from FLCL, but this wasn't enough.
During the drawing building phase, I thought it would be interesting to add a second layer that connected these two into a simple concept, and since I've been thinking of tackling the sport subject for a while, I thought baseball would be a good option. The little child being from a baseball team called 'frogs,' and the girl acting like a new team member; but besides the clear difference in size, which makes this situation bizarre, I wanted to push this evil and innocent idea even more, making her kind of like a dark creature, which makes the match absolutely unfair.
So I was struggling a bit with how the snake character and the frog characters will match in this situation. I did have the concept, which was 'baseball,' but what was this situation all about? In the past, two character illustrations, 'Father' was about a father teaching his daughter how to shoot, and 'Friend' a kid sharing his sandwich with an android like monster. But in this case, I just didn't want to make two separate characters existing side by side; there must be a connection.
So my first thought was, this is a child in the middle of a baseball game; he has to be screaming to his teammates. How about he is acknowledging how bizarre this situation is? Like, 'Hey Coach, who is this?!' So, I often don't like to add too much context in the description of my pieces, so I needed to make it as clear as I could through his body language: worried, confused eyes, hands pointing at her, big mouth wide open. I think the message was clear. Here's a funny story: I was walking from the kitchen back to my desk, and I saw my face for a second in one mirror I have in the dining room. During that small moment, I was trying to think about how this child's facial expression would look while reacting to this weird situation. In other words, that child's face is basically my face.
I did think about using a 'Medusa' theme by making the child stone, like he was about to complain about something maybe a cheat play but she turned him into stone. But in the end, I thought making him all grey would not be that interesting, visually speaking. Also, I'm trying to build a universe inspired by real world ideas but not exactly those ideas; this is to replicate reality under my own conditions. It's more original that way, I think.
About colors: I use a very desaturated and green palette. You will see in the video, but through a series of small adjustments, I end up bringing more saturation to green suggestions across both characters, using overlay, soft light, and darkened color, which is a bit unusual but I think fits perfectly with the occasion.
I don't want to spoil the fun, so have a quick look at the treatment in terms of shadows and details in the video, and check the file for more insights. If you have any questions, just hit me up in the comments, via DMs, or on Discord.
Conclusion
I gotta be hones with you, I'm having fun with this little stories that involve such an opposite characters, it does feel like there is a whole anime chapter behind those stories and I'm glad I can share this process so you can try out something similar
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