Digital Art Submission #1
"Oliver "
Hailey D.
This drawing was originally a birthday present for my dad because he wanted a drawing from me for a long time. This was a redraw of one of my first digital art pieces I ever drew. I wanted a piece to show my improvement after two years, as well. The subject in the painting is an old original character I created. His name was Oliver. I like drawing him, but I don’t know why I don’t do it more frequently. I used a program called Paint Tool SAI to draw this piece. I started out by doing a simple sketch of the guy before creating a new layer and adding a more detailed sketch over the basic outline sketch. I used a sketch brush I got from my friend, since you can create your own brushes. After that, I created another layer for the lineart. I put the stabilization tool on S-7, which slows how the brush follows your strokes on the tablet and produces smoother and straighter lines. I drew over the sketch to create the lineart. Once the lineart was finished, I added the base colors on the drawing. Each individual color had its own layer, like the skin, scarf, and jacket had their own layer each. To add more soft roundness to the skin, I created a new layer and selected the “Clipping Group” option which allows me to color over the base color without coloring anything else. I added light shading before blending with the blurring tool, and lowering the opacity so it was lighter. I did the same with darker shading. For his hair, I made another clipping group layer and set it to “Overlay” in order to create a more realistic hair effect. I shaded the entire piece, then moved on to the wings. I had to redraw the wings a couple of times before I got them how I wanted. I drew over the sketch on a separate layer, but this time, coloring instead of adding lineart. Then, I went in and made the feathers “fuzzy” instead of smooth. Each mark on the feather that represents the “fuzz” of it is one stroke, so this was a bit tedious. But, it really paid off. Countless amounts of marks and a lot of suffering, I finished both wings. I then started shading them, which was difficult due to the fact that there was no lineart. I had to approach shading a little more delicately for the wings, since it was easy to shade in the wrong place. After shading, I went in and added highlights on the subject. I wanted to go after a whole warm and bright look to the piece. To get this effect, I created a new layer and switched it from normal to “Luminosity.” This will brighten whatever you are drawing/coloring on that specific layer, and it literally looks like you are drawing with sunlight if you choose the right color. I even had to lower the opacity of that layer a little because it was too bright. After finishing the subject, I moved on to the background. I colored the sky a nice light blue, nothing too bright. Then, I added the sun. I used the “Luminosity” layer option, since it literally looked like sunlight with the right color. For the clouds, I had to go search for brush options to get a cloud brush. It took a while, which is strange since clouds are drawn a lot in the program I use. I finally found one that was perfect, and I added in white, fluffy clouds around the sun, and all over the sky. I went on a new layer with a gray color and shaded the clouds with the same brush. After sitting back and thinking over what it was missing, I used the cloud brush to add a light orange color to the clouds. It balanced the colors of the background beautifully, and gave the warm and bright atmosphere I hoped for. I also blended orange with the blue sky, as well. But, only in certain areas. To finish the whole piece, I added my signature in the top right corner of the piece, and lowered the opacity so it wouldn’t distract from the piece, but I would still get credit. This piece means a lot to me because it represents the growth that has taken place in a span of 2 years, and it may sound cheesy or weird saying this, but it feels like this is a part of me. My dad really liked his birthday present.
"Oliver "
Hailey D.
This drawing was originally a birthday present for my dad because he wanted a drawing from me for a long time. This was a redraw of one of my first digital art pieces I ever drew. I wanted a piece to show my improvement after two years, as well. The subject in the painting is an old original character I created. His name was Oliver. I like drawing him, but I don’t know why I don’t do it more frequently. I used a program called Paint Tool SAI to draw this piece. I started out by doing a simple sketch of the guy before creating a new layer and adding a more detailed sketch over the basic outline sketch. I used a sketch brush I got from my friend, since you can create your own brushes. After that, I created another layer for the lineart. I put the stabilization tool on S-7, which slows how the brush follows your strokes on the tablet and produces smoother and straighter lines. I drew over the sketch to create the lineart. Once the lineart was finished, I added the base colors on the drawing. Each individual color had its own layer, like the skin, scarf, and jacket had their own layer each. To add more soft roundness to the skin, I created a new layer and selected the “Clipping Group” option which allows me to color over the base color without coloring anything else. I added light shading before blending with the blurring tool, and lowering the opacity so it was lighter. I did the same with darker shading. For his hair, I made another clipping group layer and set it to “Overlay” in order to create a more realistic hair effect. I shaded the entire piece, then moved on to the wings. I had to redraw the wings a couple of times before I got them how I wanted. I drew over the sketch on a separate layer, but this time, coloring instead of adding lineart. Then, I went in and made the feathers “fuzzy” instead of smooth. Each mark on the feather that represents the “fuzz” of it is one stroke, so this was a bit tedious. But, it really paid off. Countless amounts of marks and a lot of suffering, I finished both wings. I then started shading them, which was difficult due to the fact that there was no lineart. I had to approach shading a little more delicately for the wings, since it was easy to shade in the wrong place. After shading, I went in and added highlights on the subject. I wanted to go after a whole warm and bright look to the piece. To get this effect, I created a new layer and switched it from normal to “Luminosity.” This will brighten whatever you are drawing/coloring on that specific layer, and it literally looks like you are drawing with sunlight if you choose the right color. I even had to lower the opacity of that layer a little because it was too bright. After finishing the subject, I moved on to the background. I colored the sky a nice light blue, nothing too bright. Then, I added the sun. I used the “Luminosity” layer option, since it literally looked like sunlight with the right color. For the clouds, I had to go search for brush options to get a cloud brush. It took a while, which is strange since clouds are drawn a lot in the program I use. I finally found one that was perfect, and I added in white, fluffy clouds around the sun, and all over the sky. I went on a new layer with a gray color and shaded the clouds with the same brush. After sitting back and thinking over what it was missing, I used the cloud brush to add a light orange color to the clouds. It balanced the colors of the background beautifully, and gave the warm and bright atmosphere I hoped for. I also blended orange with the blue sky, as well. But, only in certain areas. To finish the whole piece, I added my signature in the top right corner of the piece, and lowered the opacity so it wouldn’t distract from the piece, but I would still get credit. This piece means a lot to me because it represents the growth that has taken place in a span of 2 years, and it may sound cheesy or weird saying this, but it feels like this is a part of me. My dad really liked his birthday present.
Digital Art Submission #2
"The Relentless"
Kristen B.
As I pursue my own passion for art I have found it to take me into a much more diverse and complicated world than I had imagined; I began to draw with a fantasy style often. This piece was made for a friend of mine, she wanted something to represent one’s inner determination. With that in mind I began, opening a blank document in Pixlemator I used my Wacom Intuos drawing tablet and got to working drawing the lineart. Pixlemator, does not have any assist with the curvature of a line; meaning each line was drawn by my own hand. As my friend had stated she desired a metaphor for determination I designed a wolf standing tall in a blizzard to represent as much. After getting the lineart to my own standard I added another layer. With this new layer, I had given the name fur color, I chose a shade of gray and started to color in the wolf. As I do my lineart by hand there are spaces in between lines, because of this I have to shade in everything myself. Once I had finished I added multiple new layers once again, they were titled: mouth, whites, claws, paw pads, eye color, irises, eyes glow, eye glow streak, nose color, breath, and spots. As I did with the last layer I began coloring them. With the subject of my image at a suitable stopping point I began working on the background.
The first layer was titled rocks, as the name suggests, this layer consisted of the rocks my wolf rested on. I chose several shades of gray and shaded the rock uses the darker shades to cast a shadow effect over the rock, I then smudged the colors together to make them blend together. The next layer was the snow that resides in the background, I simply picked shades of a light blue and other off white colors, then enlarged my brush and shaded accordingly to where I had my light source place (to the right). After smuggling them I had my background completed. I then added the falling snow, to do so I selected the color white and resize my brush and drew odd shaped circles, I then proceeded to smudge them so they blurred and gave the illusion of movement. The final step was shading the image as a whole; this process took an additional six layers. Each layer was a solid black and I drew over all my other layers and erased in order to highlight certain feature to give my drawing depth, once I turned the opacity down you could see the image behind the black. I had to repeat this multiple times, each time it gave the image more depth and as I began to add more detail the light source became visible. Once the shading was finished my picture was complete with a total of 25 layers.
"The Relentless"
Kristen B.
As I pursue my own passion for art I have found it to take me into a much more diverse and complicated world than I had imagined; I began to draw with a fantasy style often. This piece was made for a friend of mine, she wanted something to represent one’s inner determination. With that in mind I began, opening a blank document in Pixlemator I used my Wacom Intuos drawing tablet and got to working drawing the lineart. Pixlemator, does not have any assist with the curvature of a line; meaning each line was drawn by my own hand. As my friend had stated she desired a metaphor for determination I designed a wolf standing tall in a blizzard to represent as much. After getting the lineart to my own standard I added another layer. With this new layer, I had given the name fur color, I chose a shade of gray and started to color in the wolf. As I do my lineart by hand there are spaces in between lines, because of this I have to shade in everything myself. Once I had finished I added multiple new layers once again, they were titled: mouth, whites, claws, paw pads, eye color, irises, eyes glow, eye glow streak, nose color, breath, and spots. As I did with the last layer I began coloring them. With the subject of my image at a suitable stopping point I began working on the background.
The first layer was titled rocks, as the name suggests, this layer consisted of the rocks my wolf rested on. I chose several shades of gray and shaded the rock uses the darker shades to cast a shadow effect over the rock, I then smudged the colors together to make them blend together. The next layer was the snow that resides in the background, I simply picked shades of a light blue and other off white colors, then enlarged my brush and shaded accordingly to where I had my light source place (to the right). After smuggling them I had my background completed. I then added the falling snow, to do so I selected the color white and resize my brush and drew odd shaped circles, I then proceeded to smudge them so they blurred and gave the illusion of movement. The final step was shading the image as a whole; this process took an additional six layers. Each layer was a solid black and I drew over all my other layers and erased in order to highlight certain feature to give my drawing depth, once I turned the opacity down you could see the image behind the black. I had to repeat this multiple times, each time it gave the image more depth and as I began to add more detail the light source became visible. Once the shading was finished my picture was complete with a total of 25 layers.