Things to note when drawing virtual avatars

There are many interesting ideas when designing, but if you put all your favorite elements on the same character, it will appear messy or difficult to understand. When designing, you need to pay attention to the balance between different features and decorations.

addition and subtraction

When designing a character, the character's personality will resonate with the appearance. Try to keep the number of features and decorations on the character's head and chest to less than 5, because too many elements will dilute the character's personality and steal attention from the character itself. Sometimes the character is deliberately put on a lot of decorations (for example, the combination of metal jewelry and lace) because he wants the character to look gorgeous. At this time, the color matching and the attributes of the jewelry will require more thought. balance.

The benefits of using vector layers to draw line drawings

1. No matter you zoom in or out, there will be no distortion or aliasing, which is helpful for future editing and production of different types of products.

2. The pinch tool in line correction makes it easy to adjust line drawings.

3.When using vector erase, you can choose the type of vector to delete.

4.The bucket tool can quickly remove garbage and debris in line drawings.

Below, I will give examples or provide corresponding teaching:

Take this picture as an example. The AVATAR designed this time is based on the concept of zebra, so I designed the personification of zebra. Because zebras have white stripes on a black background, I designed a character with dark skin and light hair. She has a totem like a zebra stripe on her body, and put her in black and white clothing with yellow and green accents.

1. No matter you zoom in or out, there will be no distortion or aliasing, which is helpful for future editing and production of different types of products.

If you use magnification to preview, whether it is a bitmap layer or a vector layer, there will be aliasing after the magnification exceeds 100%. (The top is the bitmap layer, the bottom is the vector layer)

If you need to change the size of the pattern for different purposes, please change the resolution.

At a resolution of 400%, we can see that the vector layers are not distorted (the top is the lattice layer, the bottom is the vector layer), but there are other problems, and the lines become thicker.

Don't worry, the thicker part of the line can be changed by correcting the line width.

If you use vector layers and still have the problem of aliasing after zooming in, you can refer to the official link below.

2. The knob tool in line correction makes it easy to adjust the line. 3. When using vector erase, you can choose the type of vector to delete.

The official instructions here are very detailed, please refer to them.

4. The bucket tool can quickly remove garbage and debris from the thread.

The less-noticed function - the bucket, is not very comfortable for me to use, but if you find that there are noise spots next to the line drawing after merging the vector layers, you can give it a try.

Recommended tools for symmetrical rulers

Symmetry Move Brush

Material ID: 1974271

You can use this tool when you are drawing facial features and can't get to the desired position.

It is recommended to draw the parts that need to be adjusted on other layers (for example: eyes), so as to avoid disturbing other lines when moving.

When we use a symmetrical ruler, we will find that an ordinary eraser will not be symmetrical when erasing line drawings.

So I used the Lasso Tool + Clear instead of the eraser.

You can also use a brush or airbrush to select transparency for erasing.

There are also special materials that can be erased using a symmetrical ruler. Because it is an eraser, there are more details to choose from.

Symmetry Eraser (대칭자 지우개)

Material ID: 1875732

Tips on rulers and compasses

1.If the ruler and ruler positions are different between different layers, how to move the ruler and ruler?

Please click the operation tool to move the ruler. You can directly click and move with the mouse, or you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to fine-tune. If you need the exact same ruler as in other layers, you can copy and paste it directly after clicking.

2.The symmetry ruler is very convenient, but when I don’t want symmetry, is there a way to temporarily turn off the symmetry function?

Yes, please hold down the shift key on the keyboard + the left mouse button and click on the ruler pattern on the layer to temporarily close it. When you want to open it, just click the left mouse button and click on the ruler marked with an X to open it. 100% complete symmetry will make the character look a bit unnatural. It is recommended that if you have time, please retain about 70-85% of the symmetry. Other parts such as hair, nose, mouth, limbs, and wrinkles of clothes are far away from the center line. , temporarily turning off the symmetry function for drawing will take longer but look more natural.

Painting and coloring techniques

1.When painting and coloring, you may encounter gaps between the paint and the line drawing.

The possible reasons are: 1. The zoom area is negative 2. The color error value is too low.

2. The line drawing is incomplete, causing the paint to be applied to other places. How to improve it?

 

 

As shown in the picture, the originally closed line drawing has holes because the lines were damaged, causing the paint to be applied to the outside of the line drawing.

This can be improved by adjusting the size of the closed gap.

Recommended tools for painting and coloring

Lasso fill that will not exceed the line drawing color: Used for tool reference layer, used for sealing and filling without gaps (无く囲ってpaintる＋出すツール Reference レイヤーUSE)

Material ID: 1759451

Lasso Clear

Only clears enclosed areas within the lasso: Tool to clear around no gaps (gap 无く囲って出すツール)

Material ID: 1759450

Recommended tools for coloring

If you want to color quickly, you need a completely closed line drawing. When there are gaps in the line drawing, you will not be able to accurately fill in color, which will slow down the coloring speed. At this time, you can use the lasso tool and the recommended material tools to continue the coloring work.

You can paint directly with the lasso without clicking the paint bucket: Quick Lasso Fill

Material ID: 1978471

A brush that doesn't go over the line: A pen that doesn't go over the line and an eraser that only rubs over the line

Material ID: 1801748

When detailed areas need to be painted, or when the line drawing is too complex to use paint tools, you can use this material to help with painting. As long as the center point of the brush does not exceed the line, the color will not be painted out.

When the center of the brush exceeds the line drawing, it will still be painted beyond the line drawing.

Recommended tools for erasers

The following two eraser tools have their own usefulness. The common point is that as long as the eraser does not cross the line, it will not rub outside:

 

 

Eraser that does not erase colors outside line drawing: Erase Along Edge

This material has the [Clear All Coatings] option in the toolbar, which is very useful when you have a lot of layers but cannot find the layer you want to erase. It can be erased directly. All layers.

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A pencil that doesn't stick to the edges and an eraser that only rubs off the edges (a pen that doesn't stick out and an eraser that only erases the edges)

Material ID: 1801748

No matter how careful you are, there will still be times when you overdo the line drawing. It's like trying to color your face but getting it on your hair.

This material can be used at this time.

As long as the center of the eraser doesn't cross the line, it won't scratch your face.

In addition to being used on normal layers, it can also be used on vector layers. If you are too lazy to switch between different erasers for vector and normal layers, this one can be used both ways.

Finalization

I hope this tutorial is helpful to everyone, thank you :)