In this tutorial I will go over the process of painting characters with shiny metal.

Ruler Selection Technique

I will paint the metal white, so it's useful for me to have a dark gray background to draw my sketch.

To make a background layer go to Layer > New Layer > Fill (M).

 

I used the dense watercolor for this sketch.

To create a selection then base layer for the robotic cat I first click (U), the shortcut for the ruler tool.

 

Then I select the curve ruler from the sub tool panel and cubic bezier from the tool property panel.

Now create a new layer and I draw my shape - the area I want to fill. This gives my layer a Ruler Icon next to it.

 

Tip!: When drawing your ruler you can undo ruler control points by right clicking,

 

⭐To create a selection based on my ruler, I CTRL click the Ruler Icon on my layer.⭐ This is incredibly useful for making precise ruler selections!

Finally I use the fill tool (M) to fill that selection with white. This will serve as our base layer.

Airbrush Tool For Creating Shine

To fill in the metal plates I create a new layer and use the ruler selection technique with cubic bezier I mentioned earlier. Then I fill it in using the default clip studio soft airbrush.

 

 

For shine I use the soft airbrush with transparent color, on the areas which hit the light. At the very bottom left of your color wheel you can select transparent color.

To develop the robotic cat I continue creating selections to fill in with the soft airbrush.

Gradient Maps

To change the color of robo cat I go to [Edit] menu > [Tonal Correction] > [Gradient map].

I am using gradients from Clip Studio Assets by:

 

Make sure to go to the [Layer] palette, and click [Clip at Layer Below] for your gradient map layer, to clip it on top of the soft airbrushed layer.

I have decided on a silver gradient, to make the painting look robotic.

On the below image I highlighted the color bar of the gradient dialog box. To achieve the gradient colors you want, edit the nodes on the color bar.

 

I clicked on the rightmost node and changed it's color to white, to make the robot shinier.

✨ Adding Shiny Metal Scratches ✨

I have created a brush to give your robot a metallic texture. Use it on a glow dodge layer and with a bright/white-ish color for a shiny scratched effect.

On another glow dodge layer, I paint some white with the Gpen for highlights. Then I use the Blend tool (J) to smear it.

I enhance the colors of the robot by experimenting with the nodes on the color bar. I also made a new layer with a strong blue, and glow dodge to brighten the eye.

I found a smooth gradient to be optimal. Note that you can decide notes which you don't want by clicking on the node, then on the trashcan.

Extra Effect: Futuristic Background

First use the gradient tool (G), with a color gradient. I chose blue sky.

Then go to the Filter menu > Distort > Wave.

After adjusting some parameters you will have an interesting effect. Feel free to experiment.

Here are the settings I used. To keep the pattern condensed, use small numbers for the wavelength. Big numbers will spread out the wave pattern.

Finally set the Background's layer blending mode from [Normal] to [Brightness]. Or you could go to the [Layer Property] palette and set the layer's expression color to Gray. To get this silvery gray background.

Consider using a tone curve correction to perfect your background too!

Thanks for reading my tutorial. I hope you find it useful. 🤖💙