Dragonkin Tutorial Video - Process + Features & Brushes

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Noxcii

Intro

This step-by-step tutorial will going through a process of the Painting Dragon's keep featuring my dragonkin character and talking about some of my favourite Clip Studio tools, features, and techniques I through each part of the process.

Canvas Size

So I usually set my canvas to at least 300 DPI so it will still be in good condition for printing,

Posing the 3D Model

I started by sketching the character out in pencil, just to have an idea of his costume, pose and and the design of his horns.

I use the 3D model feature to mostly establish my composition and the pose, it saves a lot of time since I won't have to do a rough sketch again. I love using this tool to save time even when I'm working on a comic. So it's just a matter of dragging the model on, sizing it to my needs and posing it.

Sketching, Inking and Pens

For sketching and inking as well, I highly recommend using the vector layers. It's so easy to adjust the lines and erase them as well. The vector eraser work wonders, I usually set it to "Erase up to intersection" which will era se the lines up until it intersects or meets up with another line. For cleaning up inking, this is the best for me.

I use a felt pen mostly blue sometimes pink for the sketching part. I don't even why, it's just a preference. When it comes to inking, my weapon of choice is the G-Pen, I have pen pressure on for most of the pens and brushes that I use.

Base Colours + Layer Use

Moving onto base colours, being a layer person, I have different layers for most things, The hard part is deciding colours and the easy part is just using the "Fill" tool. The settings I prefer are definitely having "Area Scaling" and "Multiple Referring" on, it just makes it easier because all I have do is click without having having to worry much about weird gaps between the lines and colour.

Shading Methods and Brushes

After laying down bases, it's moving onto shadow parts.

A tool that I use a lot is the "Clipping Mask" or "Clip at Layer Below"

This is a beautiful feature if you have your base layers all sorted out. You can colour as rough as you need to while going outside the lines and then just click "Clip at layer below" and it will clip everything to your base layer.

It's possible to clip multiple layers to one base layer as long as they're on top of the base layer

The dragon scales I used are a custom made brush which I made, I then used the watercolour "Border Effect" and then the soft eraser to make the skin to scale transformation look gradual.

My method of shading is a combination of the "Soft Airbrush" the "Smooth Watercolour" and the "Watercolour" brushes

I used some of the default textured brushes to add different textures to the clothes like the Hatching brush "Gauze Cloud". Another method I like is using the "Tone Scraping" airbrush to add a rougher texture.

Extra Layer Tip (Selecting layers)

For people who use lots of layers or if you want to select a certain layer without having to go through all of them, it's best to use the "Operation" selection tool. The keyboard shortcut is the letter O and by using the "Select Layer tool" I simply click on a part of the drawing and it will takes me to that layer.

Patterns on armour

One technique I really want to share is how I do engraved looking patterns especially for things like armour or anything metallic.

For this drawing I used the default "Ivy" design from the "Pattern" brushes and laid it as base. I do my shading as normal on another layer.

Then I duplicate the base two times, these will go underneath your base.

One layer will act as sort of a rim light layer so I move it so that it's slightly visible underneath the base.

The other layer will act as a hard drop shadow, so turn it into a darker version of the base by using the "Layer Colour" tool and moving the layer so that it's also slightly visible underneath the base layer. In this case, I moved the rim light layer left and the shadow right but it will depend on the drawing.

The face and hair sparkle!

I like focusing on the face and hair on their own so I start adding lighter layers from the face onwards. For any layers that need light, I use the "Add Glow" mode, of course it's all up to artist which blending mode to use to achieve what effect but I love the pop this mode give me. The glitter brushes and short hair/beard brush used in the painting are all custom made brushes except for the "Spray" airbrush

Adding that background

Before adding more lights, I develop a background. I worked with greyscale values and added colour by using the "Gradient" tool and adjusting the blending mode of the layer.

To get more choice over the colours, add a "Correction layer" and play around with the "Hue/Saturation/Luminosity" settings until you achieve the colour you want. The background for this painting was simple due to the fact that I wanted to focus on the character.

Lights and glam to finish up!

One of my favourite parts is adding lighting to a drawing. As mention mentioned before I use the "Add Glow" blending mode and in this case I used a gradient with the "Soft Light" mode just to colour correct the tone of my character and give him a slightly warmer tone to match the background. So my light sources are a magical fire in his hand and a magic circle undeneath (that we can't see) hence the lighting from below.

After all this I do final touches and a few more corrections, so adding more glitter and effects such as the glowy dragon and that's it for my magical dragonkin.

Thank you for reading or watching!