Finished product

Introduction

Hello. I'm a 5th grader who just draws for fun.

I'm going to introduce my own way of drawing illustrations.

Step 1: Rough Sketch

Rough sketches are quite important when doing thick painting.

Make sure to clearly decide on the structure here.

I also do the under-painting simultaneously with the rough sketch.

I use gradation maps effectively when I want to achieve a pale color scheme.

Therefore, I paint the illustration itself in grayscale (black and white).

The point is that choosing colors becomes easy.

And at the under-painting stage, let's decide where the light is coming from.

It'll make things easier later on.

Step 2: Thick Painting

From here, I merge the rough layer and the under-painting layer to start the thick painting process.

Basically, I paint in the order of hair → skin → eyes → clothes → background → effects.

Simply put, thick painting is a method where you keep layering colors to complete the piece little by little. I paint the hair using about 6 colors.

For the thick painting itself, I use the Design Pencil, and for the lines, I set the opacity of the Kosakunin pen to 50. For this illustration, I've set the thickness to 18.0.

By the way, the paper size is B4.

Step 2-1: Hair

Next, I'll paint the hair.

To be honest, the order doesn't matter. Please do it in whatever order is easiest for you.

I've just started painting the hair of the character on the bottom (Lucien Bruges).

I start with the light shadows.

I've also started painting the hair of the character on top (Liebeauss Vill).

Liebeauss has a darker hair color.

It has progressed quite a bit.

Now it's almost finished.

While painting part by part is fine, I recommend layering starting from light shadows.

If you feel like you can't draw hair like this, I think you'll be able to draw better if you try to add contrast with black at the end, apply light boldly, or be conscious of drawing each strand of hair individually. Since it's grayscale, it looks a bit boring if the same color spreads out next to itself. Try to use various shades.

Step 2-2: Skin

Next, I'll paint the skin.

I'm not very confident with skin, so this might not be very helpful...

You might think, "What changed?", but the skin that was flat until now has been painted. If you look closely, you'll see I added a finger and changed the position of the collarbone. I paint the skin using mainly four colors: White for light; light gray for the base; dark gray for shadows; and a middle gray to blend the base and shadow. These four.

I paint the shadows here while also being conscious of the light. Be especially careful with the drop shadow of the hair, as it's easy to get wrong. By the way, in this illustration, light is coming from the top right, so the shadows fall on the left side. (That should be the case... hopefully.)

Step 2-3: Clothes and Decorations

These two parts are quite short, so I've grouped them together.

This is where texture becomes important.

I've painted the clothes, the halo, and the apple. I realized I hadn't painted the leaf part of the apple until near the end, so I painted it then.

The clothes are painted using the exact same colors as the skin, and since they are white clothes, the light acts as the base.

For wrinkles, I think it's easier to understand if you research them yourself or take photos rather than me explaining verbally, so I'll skip the explanation.

I deliberately made the halo darker so it wouldn't blend in with the surrounding colors.

I drew the apple fruit while being conscious of light and texture.

I wonder if it looks smooth...

By the way, the reason the halo for the girl on top (her name is Liberias) disappeared is because I got lazy.

I painted the wings. Texture is important here too. Since the base of the wings is white, the overall color scheme is pale. I draw them with the image of drawing lots of clouds.

At the end, I use a little bit of black to add contrast. (Probably)

Step 3: Background

Step 3-1: Curtains

I painted the curtains in the back. Actually, the curtains are painted using the exact same colors as the skin, wings, and clothes. If you keep texture in mind and add lots of soft light to the curtains, they look more realistic.

Step 3-2: Walls

It depends on the setting, but this time I wanted to create a cool atmosphere, so I made the background black and the floor dark gray. Well, there aren't many tips for these, but if I had to say one, paint carefully so as not to go over the lines. By the way, this is on a separate layer from the character layers.

Step 4: Effects and Final Check

From here on, it's the finishing touches.

Let's keep making it better and better.

I drew the cage and light in the back. I drew the cage using a ruler as normal, and the light with a Design Pencil. Please keep these layers separate.

This is where I apply the gradation maps.

By the way, you can add a gradation map by going to the "Layer" menu on the top bar, selecting "New Correction Layer," then "Gradation Map," and choosing from the "Gradation Set." For this illustration, I used "Tragedy" from "Iwaiku Tsuki Gradation Map II" at 13% opacity, and "Dreamy Table" at 20% opacity. But at this point, the colors are still dark.

I drew a frame-like line on the edges. And then I added light using a brush called nsDapple dLight M.

This changes things quite a bit.

This is after I finally adjusted the strength of the gradation maps.

This completes the illustration.

To be honest, any gradation map is fine.

Please choose one that is close to what you are looking for.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this far.

I hope this article can be of use to everyone.