START to FINISH - Creative Process

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chicharlotta

chicharlotta

START to FINISH - breaking down my art creating process

Hi I'm Cha and I am gonna share my creative process by breaking down my steps when creating and some tips on how I utilize CSP tools for efficient art making.

WIP: Share your Creative Process!

This will be a 3-part tip of my process, a breakdown on what is going on with me during art creating.

 

i. Art/Creative Process = start to finish

ii. Social Media = post and make yourself visible

iii. Timelapse = setting timelapse 

 

I. CREATIVE PROCESS = START TO FINISH

If you are a Clip Studio Paint user PRO or EX, utilize most of their feature as this will totally help your art making process, even with their Assets since people uploading there are artists too and they know what would be helpful to another artist like yourself!

 

By utilizing, not only you are making use of the most of Clip Studio’s feature but also making your work process efficiently which could save time and or save you from wrist and back pains! (hahaha)

 

CANVAS PREP

 

Every artist struggle is to start something new. To some point, gets intimidated with a white blank canvas. To break through it, I usually change the canvas color to grey not only I have knock down the intimidation of the white canvas but also helps reduce eye strain! (Note: But this could vary artist to artist and applies which time of the day you are working.)

Now your canvas is ready, let’s begin!

SKETCHING YOUR DRAFT

 

I start every art piece I do with a sketch, a draft of what I am planning to create. Its pose, angle, and other aspects of what I want in the piece. Not only sketching is my first step but also gathering inspirations and references. (Note: References are a HUGE help!)

 

What I majorly struggle when sketching is finding the right pose. Since it usually is my base to line everything. Aside from scrolling hours and hours on the internet finding the right pose or shoot the pose myself. Clip Studio Paint have a feature 3D Models with 3D characters where you can modify their poses or use another feature called Pose Scanner and have the model mimic what was image scanned. (Pretty neat right?)

 

What's good with using a 3D model is because you can manipulate its joints and form to your desired pose!

 

With the 3D pose as my guide, I refine my sketch to something close to what I imagine its final outcome. One could either trace over the model or have it as a base guide.

LINEART YOUR WAY

 

Now with the 3D model being your guide, do your lineart. A clean or messy line, lineart your way!

Linearting for me is therapeutic and at the same time stressful (hahaha). But with the right brush that one is comfortable, lineart could be a fun activity to learn pen pressure and control. (Note: Do rest the wrists and do wrist exercises artists!)

 

I have two brushes that I use when I do linearts. One is from the default set of brushes from Clip Studio Paint which is the G-Pen and one I got from the CSP Assets which is Soi-Pen (Clip Studio Paint Assets is a haven!)

 

Important Note: use the "Stabilization" option and set it on a higher value. The larger the value it is the smoother the outcome of the lines will be hence we can avoid having shaky and or uneven lines when doing the line art.

COLORING OR FILL IN BASE COLORS

 

Filling base colors will be easy peasy with the lineart. Especially with no gaps but even with gaps filling it is still possible. I use some brush assets to work efficiently. Aside from that, play around the blending modes. Each mode has their own unique effect on your piece, but I mostly use multiply, overlay, and glow dodge. Some would do greyscaling when coloring especially if it is when dealing with shades and light and greyscale can make you work fast.

The tool asset I have linked is a very good tool that I use every time if I want to fill color fast and neatly. It closes and fills the area selected and with no gaps even the cornered gaps and also if the lineart layer is hidden all is visible is the solid block of color means that the gaps were filled in nicely.

Once I have set my flat base colors I paint all necessary dark areas or the shadows in the piece. Aside from doing cell shaded painting, I do a slight rendered painting on parts where I can't apply cell shading. (Hence, the areas where the line does not meet, base on the GIF Process)

 

I really make use of Assets since it makes it faster to piece everything altogether. Aside from being useful and the swift use on time, it is free! (and you can even purchase some too!)

Other TIPs I can share that I may have not elaborated:

• Flipping canvas time to time – this is to see if the piece you are working is looking ‘weird’ or ‘wonky’ (or have two windows of the same canvas you are working side to side!)

 

Window > Canvas > New Window,

click the New Window > Window > Canvas > Tiled,

and then flip.

• Vector Layer – for lineart step where you can adjust points and change its weigh

• Alpha lock or Lock transparent pixels – this is a layer option to make your lineart colored rather than having it on color black

II. Social Media = GO OUT THERE AND POST

There are various ways to promote your art on social media. Either from posting more or making a viral piece.

Since everybody like to share everything they do on the internet, artists can share their art not just the illustration itself but also video processes or moving images.

 

WIP

WIP which stands for work in progress or sometimes I mistook it as work in process. Posting WIPs can give an overview to your followers on what you are working on and have them look forward on the final piece. Basically, a WIP is a tease to give engagement to the audience waiting. So, sharing WIPs is an exciting way of lowkey promoting incoming works thus interactions may commence.

I usually just screen capture the art piece I'm working in any stages of my process, either the sketch, colored base, a part of the whole artwork and or the almost finished illustration.

HASHTAGS

I’d like to highlight the importance of hashtags. The use of hashtags is necessary and at the same time not. To use it effectively, target an audience, one perhaps is targeting a fandom. With the fanbase’s power surely your post would do good engagement more than your usual posts or be a hit. Speaking of making a hit, to be viral one could use viral or trending tags or even do viral art memes that is surely a hit too. But often use of tags can hinder your art posts rather than boosting it, so use it wisely. Other use of tags is creating a unique one for your own works that way there’s another way of viewing your works aside visiting the profile of the artist.

 

Sample below, the image is a Tweet Analytics of one of my art post. It was a fanart meme, I targeted a fandom and used a meme hence it was a hit tweet (for a small artist like me this is a hit since it is doing beyond my normal number on my usual posts). So it was effective to me to use hashtags, the right ones and on the right time (like peak of the fandom craze).

There's this saying about "there is always two sides of a coin" so having the effective use of hashtags there is also the ineffective use of it.

 

Below are Tweet Analytics of art posts I have made. Posted with a target audience in mind, posted at the same time different day, and posted with same and similar tags. (1) did me good engagement while (2) did not. This is my understanding and own observation but the algorithm and use of tags works differently on any platforms and changes time to time. Initially, I did not mind how my artworks are doing on the internet but since we are on the topic of promoting one's artwork, I suggest to observe your own activity and see to it which works best for you either by using tags, trends, and the likes.

But regardless of making yourself known out there, what is important is you are enjoying what you are creating, and you are not a machine to continuously be putting out content daily, you are human, and you need time and rest to create another piece you can enjoy and truly be proud of.

III. Timelapse = RECORD

There’s this Clip Studio Paint feature that I really am thankful since its update, the Timelapse option. This powerful feature records your drawing process from start to finish, which is neat and hassle free! CSP users now have an easier way of recording and sharing their process.

RECORD

 

There are two ways to enable the timelapse feature.

 

To set it up. Go to your Menu bar, click “File”, under it find “Timelapse”, and press “Record”. (File > Timelapse > Record) Note: a checkmark beside "Record timelapse" must be visible this means that it has been enabled.

Another way to enable it is when you are about to create a canvas, a window would pop up and on the bottom left click "Record timelapse" to set the feature to record.

Important Note: If you are like me who can't finish an artwork in one sitting, the timelapse feature would still be saved, once you decided to work again on that piece continue drawing and the timelapse will also continue.

EXPORT

 

When you are done drawing or painting and you want to export the timelapse file.

 

To export, Go to your Menu bar, click “File”, under it find “Timelapse”, and press “Export timelapse”. (File > Timelapse > Export timelapse)

 

Another window would pop up showing the timelapse start to finish and some "Export Options".

 

On the "Export Options" you get to select the length, size, and aspect ratio for the timelapse video. Once done, click "OK" to export the timelapse and save it where you wanted it to be kept.

 

Important Note: Especially if you want to share and promote your artwork's timelapse, Uploading it in different social media platform you might want to be particular with its "Aspect Ratio".

 

Familiarize the time limits and ratio in different platforms.

For Twitter: 140 seconds limit, any ratio is alright max is 1:1

For Instagram: 1:1 square viewing or 9:16 vertical viewing (stories or reels)

For Tiktok: 60 seconds limit, 9:16 ratio because of its vertical interface

For Youtube:16:9 fits well on standard

 

 

Here's the timelapse artwork I used while explaining the Timelapse feature for anyone interested how it came to life! (I converted the video to GIF)

 

Thank you for reading all the way to the bottom of this post I made. I hope you got something about my tips from my process.

If you want to view my works reach me out in the following:

PEACE OUT!

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