Introduction

Sometimes making a living as an artist can be tough! If you have ever tried a platform like Fiverr than you know people are expecting quality work for less money.Due to the huge demand for art, tons of artist are making prices competitive pressuring you to drop your prices for the chance that you will get an order. But the problem is that if you spend too much time on one art piece than you are loosing out, after all time is money!

 

So today I am going to be showing you the tricks I use to speed up the process and still make quality art! You can watch along my Youtube video to see how I do it. Also with the window in the bottom right you can see what keys I press when drawing.

Confirm with you customer if they like your idea with a rough sketch.

If you send a rough sketch to your customer it will give them the chance to tell you if they want any changes. Once you are finished changes become more difficult such as a change of clothes or change of pose. So you will actually save time if you wip up a quick sketch for your customers to approve.

 

Organize your layers.

Organizing your layers is supper critical! I have had so many customers ask if I can change the color of the hair or the eyes or clothes. Some times I get asked to change the hair completely not just the colors. There are things you can do to save yourself time if you have accidentally drawn the hair in the same layer as the face such as: using the lasso tool to cut out the hair and then draw the areas that have been cut out like the face, but if you organize your self from the beginning that you can avoid wasting time on this.

How I organize my layers.

This is usually how I organize my layers with a simple composition. Example of simple layer organization.

 

-BODY-

Clothing on arm

Arm in front of body

Clothes

Hair in front of body(bamgs/Fringe)

Skin(head to toe)

Hair behind body

 

-EYES-

Eyelashes

-Eye glow and reflect

-(clip layer to layer below) Multiply Shadow on top of eye                                

-(clip layer to layer below) Iris detail including pupil

Eye white

 

-HAIR- Tip. If you need to change the color of hair you cant make it darker unless you have placed lighting effects on a separate layer. Or else your highlights will become dark and you will have to redraw them.

-(clip layer to layer below) Hair highlights from lighting

Hair base shape + shading and texture

 

 

Tools at your disposal.

The tools that I always use save my time drastically.

 

Lasso Tool

   -Use this to fill in the shapes of the character and put into different layers.

Blend

   -When working with more realistic skins use the blend tool to quickly blend the different shades together.

 

Shortcuts

When you are starting out short cuts take some time to get used to. But once you get the hang of them drawing will become more fluid and you will get your work done a lot faster.

 

These are some of the shortcuts I use.

[ make your brush size smaller

] make your brush size larger

E eraser

B brush

I eyedrop tool

/ zoom in and out with your pen (slide pen left zoom out, slide pen right zoom in)

H hand grab your canvas and move it around

R rotate canvas

R-Shift Center Canvas rotation straight

Ctrl-Z go back to previous action

Tricks!

These are some tricks I use all of the time and helps make my work a lot faster and easier.

 

Lasso tool is my friend and I will explain why.

 To Color: I use the lasso tool to quickly color in sections. for example if I use a brush to color in the base of the skin some times when using a brush there will be a section that is a bit transparent like the edge or a part I didn't color fully. I use the lasso tool to trace over my rough sketch and then use the Bucket fill tool to fill my shape. This helps when you use the lock the transparent pixels and you want to color inside the ares you have created but if there is any transparency inside it wont work well. So you need that area to be opaque. The lasso tool will make the shape you filled 100% full and opaque.

  To Correct: When I have made a mistake with lets say the face, as an example  I can you the lasso tool to make a selection around the aye and use the option make a layer over above and then move that eyes a little to the side or up then just erase the edges that over lap.

 

If you are having trouble understanding what I mean Watch carefully The video I have prepared Than you can see how I do it.