Comic Book Character Design Masterclass: Superheroines

1. Introduction: Hey, doing its Clayton here from had a draw. Comics dot net. If you've ever wanted to illustrate powerful comic book women but aren't sure where to begin, my new Super Heroines course might be just what you're looking for. It will show you the complete process for drawing, thinking and coloring female comic book characters from start to finish. The biggest challenge most of us running to Right of the Bat is establishing a strong foundation for our characters that will ensure their success. So will begin by constructing a proportionally accurate figure with correctly placed anatomy that exudes feminine appeal, power and personality. With a rock solid foundation established, YOU'LL Vineland how to develop a memorable design for your super heroines. I'll give you a practical approach to the design process that led you to emphasize who your character is, along with their back stories so that they easily understood and relatable. But most importantly, you learn what it takes to make them look cool, and after that we'll get stuck into the practical comic art techniques for 18 and coloring . As we were fined the designs for our super heroines into a full blown character concept, you'll learn how to use line, waits to make your line out. Pop cross hatching techniques for shading and describing form and how to introduce contrast to your characters designed by separating their values. They increased visual interest. Then, finally, I'll take you through my comic book coloring. Workflow will discuss color theory, psychology and lighting, and how they can be used in combination with one another to create an eye catching presentation for your super heroines will also highlight the distinct differences between material color, texture and reflectivity, so that you're able to incorporate an added level of visual interest within your designs Threat. These lessons will be demonstrating the development process for three unique super heroines from beginning to end. So wherever you're at in your journey as a comic book artist, you should see a significant improvement in your work after going through the lessons included within this course. When you get this course, you'll also receive the PS defiles and digital art brushes used throughout the demonstration so that you can go through each layer for yourself and see exactly how these super heroines were composed. Best of all, you'll be able to go back and watch each lesson as many times as you like. You can play, pause and rewind them to review any information. You might have missed the first time and go through the course content at your own pace. We've got a lot of ground to cover and I can't wait to show you what's in store. So buckle up, strap in and let's get started. 2. Welcome: Clayton from had a joke. Comics dot net and I want to give you a warm welcome to comic book character creator super heroines. I'm really glad you decided to join me for this course. What you're going to learn is my entire process for designing inking end coloring three complete female comic book super heroines, and I'm going to break down the entire process of every one of those components so that you know exactly how to go about refining your characters with slick, energetic into line work. Then how to color them up and ultimately bring them through to a professional looking presentation off the finished character concept. So I'm really looking forward to getting started. Let's jump straight into it. 3. Hardware Overview: Hey, Clayton here from Had a joke comics dot net. And in this video, what I'm going to be talking to you about is some of the hardware I use on a daily basis to create my coming full cod. Now I would digital and the tools I use on nothing fancy, I can tell you that I don't use this antique or anything. In fact, what I use is a 10 year old tablet that is very old, but very, very dependable. And here it is. Okay, right into us three. Welcome into his three tablet and I draw on it just like this in case a drawer look drawn to it like that. And whatever I drove onto that screen transfers up onto the monitor as I'm working now, as you can see, that tablet is actually you know, it's it's quite a small drawing space. Actually, you know, it's not very big at all, and I really don't need a big space to draw. And I find that if a tablet is too big that it's just it takes me longer to draw a line from one point to the next. So I actually prefer the space that have got available to work within, and it really doesn't matter, because ultimately, when you're working digital, you can zoom in as much as you need to in order to work on various areas of your art. Eso itt's quite customizable. You never confined Teoh. Either your hardware or the software you're using. Anything kind of balance out that, too, in order to calibrate your workflow as needed. Now you may use it into a six into us five. You may use a sin teak. You may use pencil and paper. It really does not matter. A lot of what you're going to learn in this course is applicable across the board because we're going to be covering fundamentals like form and proportion and figure drawing and that kind of stuff. Even as faras, the thinking goes, Yeah, I'll be showing you had it ink digitally within mega studio. But at the same time, if you do want to work traditionally as faras, the inks are concerned. You can also do that as well. You're still going to use line waits in traditional Leinart as opposed to digital Leinart. It's all the same. So really all that is different is the actual tools you used to execute each of these processes. But the processes themselves will be consistent regardless of the medium that you're working within. So just keep that in mind that you don't need to be using and into his three in order to do what it is you're seeing me do within this course or you need to do is calibrate the amount of pressure you're applying your brush size or your You know, the amount of, um, you know, the heaviness of the lead within your pencil the size of your depends that you're using if you're doing it traditionally, in order to get the line that you're looking for, Um and, you know, the rest of it actually comes from your urine technique. You know, the way that you throw a line down the gesture that you use the speed at which you work. This all kind of comes into play as far as getting the aesthetic solidified that you want your start to take on. So that kind of covers the hardware that I use as faras the drawing tools. But beyond that, I also have a do monitor display set up whatever he can't see it, but it's basically consists of two monitors. That's what I work on. One of those monitors has what I'm drawing on the screen present. You know, I'm looking at that and drawing onto the tablet as I work, and it's kind of coming together on the other monitor. What I have is my references. OK, now we're going to cover references in a little bit more detail in the next few videos, but well, in one of the next few videos. But essentially all that consists of those things like anatomy in the style that you want to go for and the actual references of the actual assets that your character designs consist off. But ultimately, this is going to be something that you want to have available to you at a glance so that you can kind of working and more optimal way. If you have to get up those references and they're scattered all over the place and you have to track them down, you know you over and over again every time you want to reference something that that's going to really put a spanner in the works and slow you down one of the most attractive things about the digital workflow, for me at least, is the optimized process that we're able to go through. I don't have to really worry about buying your pencils, you pens or inks or anything like that. All I do is I work digitally, and all the tools that I need are all there ready to go each and every single time. They don't need to be renewed or refilled in any way. And the really cool part of battle is that whether you work traditionally or digitally, it doesn't really matter these days because your work will ultimately be in printed form regardless. Okay, the end product. What your audience consumes is going to be on printed paper, so you don't really have to worry about that stuff too much. It's certainly something that I don't concern myself with at all. And you shouldn't either. You know, I know that it's very easy to kind of get caught up with this stuff, especially when you're just starting out. One of the things that I thought I needed to know first and foremost was the exact tools that the artists who I was looking at were using, and that can help most definitely. In this case, though, you know, I am telling you that you don't need the exact tools that I'm using. You can kind of use what you've got. And I would suggest that you do that. You know, you jump straight into this course headfirst with what you've got. If it's just a pencil and paper started anyway, if it's ah, if it's an earlier model tablet, go right ahead, just jump into it. It does not matter. And ultimately, if you know you're working on a sin, take a what or how Another tablet You know, that is the windows tablet these days as well. You can also use that. You know, there's no stopping you, um, photo shop, and we get into software as well. Photo shopped and mega studio Avery. Affordable Finish up off is a monthly subscription that, you know you could even just use for this particular course. And, uh, you know, you'd be you Bill set really the only areas you'll run into as faras. You know, not having the available software or tours is probably the coloring stages throughout the rest of this course, but you know we'll get onto that and we'll talk about how to deal with that a little bit later on. But for now, with you, no matter what tools you're using, you should be able to pencil up a character and then link them and create a polished looking finished Leinart illustration that present your idea with clarity. Other than that, um, I guess the other thing I should mention is my computer specs just so that you know how old and embarrassing my computer is. About 5 10 years old, has a 12 about 12 gigabytes of RAM. That's it. Very old graphics card that wouldn't play any of the modern day games. You know you don't need a gaming computer to do this stuff. If you find that your computer is lagging a little bit as you're working within these digital software applications, then my suggestion would be to just work at a lower resolution. And that should solve many of the memory problems that could potentially happen on a PC, which has lower specs. Okay, now, of course, the more processing power and the graphics accelerations are better. That's always going to be awesome for creating higher and higher resolution artwork. You don't need it for this course again. This is really just something that you can jump straight into with what you've got available to you. So don't wait. Get started. And on that note will jump onto the next video. Thanks for watching this one. Have you got some inside out of it? I'll see again soon. 4. Chapter 1: Concept Sketches: Okay, so we're here in Mingus Studio, and the first has begun to tackle is the preliminary design prototypes for our super heroines. To do this, I'm using the pencil tool said to the darker pencil variant and loosely begin knocking out some very rough. Many composes for the initial concepts off my characters. Many composers are a fitting term for these figures because will literally be dressing them with our heroine designs. He can use any digital drawing application toe with these air. And, of course, if you prefer to work traditionally, a good old fashioned pencil eraser on paper will work just as well. So don't feel like you confined to any one medium. These are just tools, and although will be showing you how I use mega studio to produce my drawings, the method you'll learn are transferrable to whichever way of working you prefer traditional or digital. These figures are drawn light, rough and fast for a few reasons. When you work with haste and you keep things loose, it helps click your line of thinking over from a logical headspace to a creative one. Because you know, giving yourself an opportunity to over analyze your approach. On top of that, you really don't wanna have to feel like you have to commit to anyone drawing in these early stages and by keeping it loose. It allows you the freedom to make mistakes a race and adjust as needed. Drawing is an organic process, after all, where ideas must have room to grow in order to fulfill their best potential. So try not to be too careful and have fun with it. What you will need to focus on with these figures are what I like to call the three p's pose, proportion and placement. These principles lay at the core of what makes the structure off any character sound. If nothing else rough is, they may be an absence of any kind of refinement. The figures in front of you are all built with the three p's and mind, and so should yours be with the base poses now, establish turned the thumbnail sketches layer toe a light blue, using the layout color, but in which you can find in the layers property panel to the right of the screen and created a Neilia above the thumbnail sketches, layer labeled design dropped, starting with the head of our first heroin and working my way down the body of the figure I'm going to sketch in a design draft over the top of the initial pose. Using layers to stack the drawing process in this way is the equivalent of laying a piece of tracing paper over the top of your drawing and creating a more refined version off it. Based on the underlying draft, you can see that although the overlaying sketch has more information to him toward the design of the character, it's still just a sketch. The line work remains extremely rough and unpolished. At this early stage. I have no idea what design direction I'm going to go in for any of these characters, and that could be both a good thing and a bad thing. Depending on how you like toe work here for me, I'm adding to the drawing as I go seeing what works and doesn't work. I can't really see beyond that point, and I kind of like it that way. On the other hand, some people like to have a plan going in, and often times if you're working in a studio where you have to draw a character based on a specific design brief. You'll have a little more guidance there to help you flesh out the idea. Make no mistake, working without boundaries, especially when it comes to character design, can be very tough. So it might even help you to write up a quick character buyer for your heroin to help you pre visualize how they might look. As I closed the character, I'm experimenting with different shapes that I might be able to integrate into her costume . I'm wrapping them around her anatomy, using her body as a base, then modifying the costume elements as needed toe. Add more interest to the design. You can see this in particular with the big egg shaped piece of armor I've placed in around her chest, leading it up into the shoulders, where I pulled the shoulder pads up and out to elevate them the architectural. These major shape should recur throughout the design and fit together to create consistency . As an example, you can see how the base of her headpiece almost looks as though it could click right into the top off her chest piece like a jigsaw puzzle. Both have a similar flow and shape to their aesthetic, smooth, streamlined contours. That arch and pinch was congruence built into the major shapes of the character's costume of the secondary elements that also pop up repeatedly throughout the design. For the most part, these include the rectangular shapes used for the knee pads and the reinforce connection points that link between the different sections of the characters outfit. Combined with the carefully placed cross contour divisions throughout the costume, these additions break up the larger forms, contributing further detail. End interest is a design again. The key to properly developing the concept in this way is repetition, so that we're able to pull it together with recognisable consistency. In the end, this results in your characters having a much more solid design moving down l lineup of super heroines are now drafting up the second character design once more and starting with the head. And the reason that I almost always begin here is because, for me, the head of the character is the most important part. Ah, well drawn face leaves a good first impression because that's where the eye of the viewer is going to be drawn to. First. It's the greatest indicator of how the character is feeling and what they're thinking. So in terms of creating an emotional connection between the audience and your characters, the face really is the most powerful way to do that. The guiding force behind your characters design should be based on who and what they are. The pose of this character is God like and majestic, suggesting an undercurrent off inconceivable power. So as I think about the times of attributes, her costuming might consist off. Overall, I want her to come across as a powerful goddess. If that's the case, then the certain visual cues only to implement into her design, which communicate that idea to the audience. In a way, this means we want to avoid creating a design which is so unique it becomes unrelated. Ble. The hairstyle, headpiece, armored corset and thigh high boots, along with her lengthy loincloth, certainly aren't original ideas. They were around long before I came up with them and have even being incorporated into the designs off already existing heroines. But that's why they work. These elements have become iconic to the archetype, and by playing into that, we make out character designs instantly relatable the audience understands what they're looking at immediately. This is important because if people are left scratching their heads trying to work out what it is you're showing them, there will be a disconnect. Your audience should never have toe work to figure out what it is you're presenting to them . The theme and subject matter should be clear. That's just good design. What makes the design different, but still relatable is the composition of those already existing elements by asking yourself how they can be combined and reconfigured in a new way that he that hasn't been done before or at least hasn't been done to death. Think of it is if you're walking into a super heroine themed costume shop, there's boxes of wigs and racks of jackets, dresses, skirts, cape stockings, tights, Linda ray and shoe wear within every star you can think of. Your job is to put together a striking costume based on those items, and if you're feeling really fancy, you might even re cut shape will build upon a few of them to suit the needs over your characters outfit for the next super heroine. I wanna navigate away from the super human aspects of the previous two and experiment with a more futuristic SciFi archetype. Her abilities will be based on specialized combat training and technological enhancements to give her increased strength and speed. As you sketch down the initial ideas for your super heroines, it's a good idea to think about the capabilities and the special perks that might come in the form of super or mystical powers. Their specialized skill sets gadgets or enhancements, whether they be biological in nature or artificial. Combined with a clear understanding of who your character actually is, this hopes to unify their visual look with their buyer. In other words, they look the way they are. The's design decisions filtered down into the poses you choose for a character as well, the way they move their body language. This character, for example, is a total punk. Bad us with attitude. She's not lady like or conventional. She goes against the grain and is not to be messed with. And her hair style costume design end pose. All say that about her making my way down the figure. I'm using some very rough anatomy to help convey the legs with accurate shape. Often times I'll use a character's muscle groups as a roadmap to construct a figure piece by piece. It's almost a ziff. Each muscle serves as a cue to help me remember how the human body fits together, and even though they won't be articulated in the final illustration, roughing out the key muscle groups helps form the blueprint often accurately constructed character. But that still doesn't stop me from running into trouble from time to time. I have attempted to draw this leg repeatedly, even though the structure was okay. It just didn't have the right amount of flow or energy. This is the beauty off, keeping your drawing so rough in the beginning. It leaves them open for change. If something needs to be adjusted, modified or completely erased, it's not a big deal. You just have another go. If it doesn't look right, and it doesn't matter how many attempts it takes, it's totally fine because this is just the draft, not the final image, and not yet, anyway. The important thing is to make changes now, especially the big ones. Well, you can if you notice the proportions are out of whack, erase the limb in question and change its length accordingly. If the entire body needs to be erased and re position because of an underwhelming pose that lacks a punch, so be it. Start again. It could mean the difference between losing five minutes of work now or hours of work later on because of a flawed foundation you took too far in this case of completely changed up the design of the characters lower legs. Her previous boots just weren't fitting in well with the rest of her silhouette. And these new state of the art cyber legs mesh perfectly with the techie SciFi themes surrounding the character. What's scary is that if I hadn't have been brave enough to replace what was previously there, the design of her legs might have ended up completely different. So now moving under super heroine number four, I love the Post for this particular figure. It's a bit more playful and sexy than the others. To push the variation we've got going on in the genres between each of the characters, I'm going to attempt to give this one more of an enemy Minga vibe. But still under the sci fi theme, you can see how the spherical helmet I've given her significantly changes the silhouette, setting her apart from the other characters by silhouette. What I'm talking about is essentially the outline of the characters overall shape, what it would look like if we were to take out all the interior details old the design and fills the character completely in black in the initial stages of a character design. Some concept artists will actually begin with the silhouette and developed the idea from there. The reason it's so important to consider is because the silhouette of a character allows people to instantly recognize what they're looking at before processing any of the other details. They should be able to tell immediately whether or not a character is a hero, sidekick, villain or minion based on their outline alone in group shots off fast paced action scenes , this becomes especially important. We who had those experiences where we've mistaken one character for another simply because their silhouettes weren't distinct enough shape Psychology also comes into play in a big way here, for example, the spherical form of this character's helmet causes her to come and crosses bubbly, fun and non threatening, for the most part in nature, round objects with soft edges of safe, if not sort after square or rectangular shapes. On the other hand, such as those found in the previous characters, jacket, particularly around the shoulders and collar area, come across as dangerous because of their sharp, hard edged associations. Of course, this is intentional and one of the reasons as to why there is such a stark difference between these two characters. So the silhouette of individual hairstyles, head and body shapes, as well as clothing items can all greatly impact the way in which a character comes across to the audience. If you think about the most well known, successful characters in comics, animation and movies, but they all have in common is a strong silhouette that looks appealing, unique and memorable. This character is looking fairly unique in comparison to the others, but her design isn't quite as strong for a few reasons. We see recurring shapes and patents throughout her costume, however, then not as balanced as they could be, with bare legs and an exposed midsection, but an upper body that is completely covered. Her heels would have worked better as boots with a similar design to the gloves and the cape and skirt really aren't mission well with the concept. Overall, her outfit is also overly complex in general, to the point where she's simply not as easily memorable as our previous heroines. Simplicity is always key when designing characters that stick in the mind of the viewer. Honestly, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what I'm going to come up with for the design off my last super heroine. So I'm really pushing myself to get creative here. That's the entire reason we're going to the trouble of sketching up these preliminary concepts in the first place, because oftentimes your first idea, it won't be the best idea. And when you really challenge yourself to generate a multitude of choices for your designs , it's surprising what you'll end up with. Since I'm finding it hard to figure out where to take this character, I'm just going to focus on outlining her body in preparation, fulfilling in the interior details. By doing this, I'm hoping to kick start my creativity. Sometimes that's all you need to do is to get into it, and what you'll tend to find is that the ideas begin pouring out onto the page as I get the pencil moving, the trajectories of the loose lines I'm throwing down and the roughly drawn details, I'm suggesting begin to form an organic alien like costume that hugs tightly against the body of the character. Rather than implementing already existing clothing items such as jackets and skirts, I'm looking for interesting patterns that I'm able to lay in around her anatomy. I'm approaching this in the same way I would any other type of armor, following the contours of the muscle groups and using them as a basis to build out the rest of the design. Her cause. She might no be an exact cut to her muscle structure, But by using as a guide, I'm able to ensure that her outfit allows for maximum maneuverability while at the same time improving the visual clarity of its design. The organic armor have used to form. Her costume is wrapping so tightly around the characters body that she's basically wearing it as a second skin. So as I articulate the specifics of its design, I'm doing the best I can to suggest the forms of her underlying anatomy like proportions. Form is another fundamental drawing principle that, when used correctly, can make your character pop right out of the page with dramatic depth and dimension. In fact, you can think of every detail you place into your characters design as an opportunity to describe them with form, especially cross contours created by boot, glove and underwear, hose and belts and pouches. These air fantastic when it comes to conveying a foreshortened view of your character because they could around the surface of each form and show a visual representation of its dimensions as they're affected by perspective. Despite the intricate patents throughout the characters design, it still feels like she's missing something. So I'm attempting toe add more interest by giving her a cape at the back, adding in some effects to indicate the otherworldly powers she might be ableto wield and customizing her mask. All of these elements are very iconic to the super heroine archetype. I'm still keeping at least making good use of the eraser tool as I experiment with the organic layering off her costume. As I reworked the various aspects of her design, though I'm realizing how little confidence I have in the direction of taken with it Now, I have zoomed out to get an overall look at how this heroin is coming together from a distance. The detailed patterns of her costume weren't quiet reading clearly enough, and by getting a pulled back view of her design, I'm able to better determine the areas that need to be made more distinct. Her outfit is also still being customized to make it appear more unique and interesting. But as with the previous heroin concept, I've had a tough time creating a character here that stands out in a memorable way. For the most part, these super heroines are looking pretty good, but I do still see some minor improvements that could be made. So I'm going to go back through the lineup of characters here and make a few final tweaks. The adjustments required become obvious, with a zoom down perspective and a little time away from each character. The hardest part is getting anything down onto the page. It'll but once you've got something there to review, it's much easier to modify and add to it. After the last minute changes have made to a preliminary heroin designs, it's time to fill them in with a wash of flat gray scale tone. To do that, I've created a new layer below the design draft layers named silhouettes segments. Since this layer is placed at the bottom of the layers stack, each section of the character can be filled in underneath the pencil graphs without painting over them. Starting with the first super heroine design, I'm coloring in each component of the character with varying tones of grey. Using the G pen tool, it's, ah, hard edged, completely opaque brush, which is exactly what we want. I'm not too concerned with staying perfectly inside the lines here. As with the sketch, I want to keep this rough and quick. These aren't the Polish concepts that Milia means to get our initial ideas onto the page so that we can explore our options and decide which ones we want to take. Further. By filling in the characters with gray scale tones, I'm able to visually separate their design into individual pieces, even though I haven't decided on a color scheme yet. This allows me to see if the different areas of their design is going to contrast well and whether or not the eternal values are properly balanced. So I'm looking at the light and dark regions throughout their costumes and asking myself if the space dedicated to each works aesthetically. It's not about segmenting the character into equal parts light and dark, but rather gauging the contrast created by the amount of space covered with each value. Usually you want to stick with either a majority light or a majority duck, having smaller areas of contrasting tones strategically placed throughout the design. This helps to break up the concept and allows the viewer to visually process that character in manageable chunks. As a result, the character is easier to interpret, understand and remember. But by far the most important reason for this step is that it clearly shows us not only the syllabus of the character in its and tarty, but also the individual elements that make up their design. Each of the areas agreed based on my intended color scheme, so the skin, hair and costume for each character will be filled in with separate values. Typically, a super heroines outfit will be split up into two or three tones, and the brightness and contrast of each should be balanced to ensure the design reads clearly. If it's not. That may mean you have to go back and reconsider the design off the costume a little bit, which is really the purpose of this step. To establish the characters values now and find out whether or not they contrast. Well, What you want to pay particular attention to is the shape of each component inside the characters design. Does the shape of their hairstyle come across in the right way? Does the outside contours of their mosque Cape Armagh brutes, belts or jacket described their shape accurately? And, most importantly, do these assets click together in harmony? Achieving a great looking design is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece needs to fit together in just the right order to reach the final vision. As we feel in the eternal values. Try to visualize the Carrington in motion, considering how the costuming would conform to their body and what that would look like when drawing heroic comic book characters. There's very few instances where they're going to be idly standing around. The functionality of motion should play into the final design and these tonal values of the greatest indicator of how well your character is going to read in action from panel. Dependable. So now we're up to filling in the values for the final character. As you can see, each heroin is much easier to read visually, thanks to the grayscale times, which deliver that extra bit of clarity to the design, We're now able to better predict the outcome of the final concepts. And that's what these preliminary design drops a rule, a bat. It's the testing ground where anything goes. This initial stage of the design process is all about experimentation. If your line work is cleaning your not pulling your racer out every few seconds to make an adjustment, you're not being daring enough. Leave the fine tuned alone working intricate details for later run. These are super heroine prototypes. They're supposed to be quick and nasty. So remember to loosen up and let your creativity flow out onto the page. Some characters will take you by surprise with how well they end up turning out. Others simply won't hit the mark. And in my case, it seems that the 1st 3 ideas I came up with were probably my strongest. Sometimes that's just the way it goes. Then, of course, there are other times where you might not find your groove until you tend to 20 character sketches in 5. Chapter 2: Foundations: So I've picked the 1st 3 preliminary concepts from the last lesson to base my finished superhero and designs on. Our first task here is to sketch there poses down onto the page. This step is similar to the foundational stage we went over previously, except on taking some extra care here to make sure they correctly structured and the proportions are accurate. I'm keeping the sketch Latin loose, trying to capture as much life in the pose as I can. Because the line work is rough, the many can model figure is inherently defined with added gesture and movement. We want to try to pump as much energy into the pose as we can here, so that we can preserve the liveliness of the character as we refined them in the later stages. For each figure, I'm drawing the head first, working my way down the body and out to the arms and legs. The head is a good place to start because it marks the beginning of the poses gesture and you can think about gesture is being the trajectory of movement that the post of your character will follow. It creates the flow between each body part with a good understanding of proportions. The head also helps predict how big the character will be based on the association off its size against the rest of the body. So we can tell very early on how much space the figure will take up on the canvas and where will be positioned. Getting a feel for the proportions off a character relative to the size of a single body part does take some time in practice to pull off accurately, so don't rush it and pay attention to the proportional. Anchor points throughout the body to make sure it's all in check. Dominican model way using to establish the foundations of the figure is built using very basic forms. The torso can be broken into three major parts. Rib cage pelvis in the midsection that connects the two to help me remember their shapes. I like to refer to the rib cage as the chest vest because it kind of looks like a vest. The pelvis as the pelvis panties because it looks just like a pair of underwear and the malleable cylinder of muscle linking them have dubbed as the muscle tube. As for the limbs at them, was basic form, their cylinders linked together by small spheres of the joints. At least that's how I like to think of them. But, as you can see of going a step further here and added some more shape to the arms and legs to better reflect the outside contours of their anatomy by using the medical model to simplify the anatomical structure of the human figure, it becomes easier to pose and interpret it from different angles were also able to exclusively focus on the proportional structure of the character first, before we begin drawing in the anatomy and costuming. In this sense, the many can model truly does serve its purpose as American that were later able to dress with the final rendition off our super heroine designs. The other major advantage to the manic and model is that it helps us to quickly see whether or not opposes going toe work. And if it's not, it's simplicity allows you to easily changeup that pose until you arrive at one you're happy with. For example, this characters pose was drawn out twice at the start and repositioned multiple times before I eventually settled on something. That's why it's important not to be too precious about your figure drawings in the beginning, because this step is all about trial. Testing different ideas Before you set things in stone, give yourself the freedom to mess up and experiment that will give you the best outcome now that the poses for my super heroines are loosely sketched in I've tended lay. It's a blue using the layer color function and created a Neilia above the pose draft layer called Anatomy Draft. This next stage is all about to finding the underlying anatomy for each character again. I started the top and work my way down the rest of the figure, outlining each major part of the body first before filling in the interior contours for each muscle group. As I begin defining the anatomy for the first character, you'll notice that the pencils are kept tighter to create cleaner, more distinct line work. To achieve this, my group is fastened and lowered toward the tip of the stylists. The amount of pressure applied as I draw is carefully calculated against the size of my brush. What I'm looking for here is just the right amount of density and thickness within my lines . This still isn't as polished as the final drawing will ultimately be, but it's more refined than the previous sketch. For that reason, it's important that we continue working quickly to preserve the energy off the original pose as much as possible, ensuring each Linus slick shop and streamlined. But why we going to the trouble of articulating the muscle groups over super heroines? To this degree of definition? Well, it's because every aspect of the design will conform to their underlying anatomy to some extent. So to get the characters costuming, toe Lucas. Though it's fitting around their body in a convincing way, we must have a good understanding of what's happening underneath the surface. That Dominican model serves as the foundation of the character holding within it the principles that make them work structurally. Their anatomy is the next layer of development beyond that, helping us to articulate the shape and forms of the body with an added level of clarity. This is where the sculpting process begins. We're taking the basic amateur over our character established by the Minnick in and building the muscle groups around it. I've also found that by defining the characters anatomy in this way. It allows me to solidify their pose and check whether or not it actually works functionally after role. The human body has its limitations, and although they can be pushed to an extent when it comes to drawing comics, they shouldn't look broken or twisted into impossible positions. So any issues with the characters pose usually become more apparent at this stage. And if I spot any, I'll change it up and tweak the outline of the body parts in question rather than copious amounts of detail and rendering what makes a powerful character illustration stand out. Among the rest is the strong shapes articulated by the outside contours old their anatomy. Pre comic book artists like Jim Lee knows this well, and if you look at various examples off his work, you can see the shop Lee defined shapes that encompass the final details. This builds on the idea of creating a vivid silhouette for your characters, and the muscle groups were laying in here are going to help us later to find each part of the body with accurate shape. Learning anatomy isn't just important for capturing an eye catching silhouette. It also helps us to present an accurate representation. Old the surface layers covering the characters body. He simply can't get away with cloaking them in clothes without understanding what's going on underneath the surface. If the material of the characters outfit is made of tight spandex, for example, it'll conform tightly against the figure. And rendering the underlying muscles might be required to properly reflect that even loose fitting attire such as coats and dresses all fold wrinkle increase according to the characters body. That's why having a basic knowledge and anatomy makes you much more dynamic. Artist. It's a fundamental learning curve that, once conquered, can be used to determine how everything laid on top of it fits together. Closing armor, rendering details and everything else that goes into the finished design. You gain more confidence knowing that no matter what position you're drawing the character in or what angle you're drawing them from, you know exactly how everything above their naked bodies should conform. He had few shy about nudity. Unfortunately, it's a necessity when it comes to drawing characters purely from your imagination. Having studied the human form in all its naked glory is the only reason I'm able to put together the muscle structure for these lovely heroines based on memory alone. Of course, you don't have to possess a perfect recollection off each muscle group throughout the human body to draw your comical characters effectively. But it helps to at least have a basic understanding of the major ones. When I began learning the anatomy of the female figure, I'd conduct numerous nude studies in my sketchbook each day. First, from tasteful photography references, muscle magazines, comic books, end anatomical diagrams. Then I take what I learned from observation and try to draw my subjects from memory. I do these studies over and over again, focusing on each part of the female body until I was able to recreate it accurately off by heart. Of course, when Mum burst into my studio with a basket full of washing one day and busted be drawing my studies, she was mortified to see these so called reference images plastered across my computer screen. But I gently justified my artistic intent and managed to come her down. See, unless you're an artist. Most people had taken back when confronted with the naked body of a human being and grossed out by anatomy charts that intricately illustrate its complex muscle structure Baloo the flesh. But our aim is to study upon this so much that we don't even batter an eyelid. In fact, we'll sit there and draw it out. So all that said, Learning Anatomy does require a little bit of maturity. Now, if you're following along, you don't need to rely just on memory toe lay in the anatomy of your super heroines. In fact, one of the reasons I've taken the time to clearly defined the muscle structure of these characters is to give you a reference for your own. But there's a difference between how they should be used rather than copying them. They should be understood and interpreted within the context of your already existing idea . The poses I've come up with for my super heroines are all drawn from my imagination, and you're noticed that the muscles I'm over laying on top of them fully Dominican model. I've used to establish those foundations, so even if you can't rely on memory, you can still use an anatomy reference to figure out the placement of the muscles based on your figures. Pose. Indeed, even after years of practice. I still have a few references that I regularly refer to for keeping things in check. And although I'm not creating a carbon copy of those references, they do help me to ensure the anatomy of my character is accurate. The human body is a complex machine, and no one is able to memorize an exact blueprint of it. What matters is that you're able to comprehend how it fits together. So as I draw in each muscle, no only am I thinking about the basic form its surrounding. But I'm also considering the surface geometry off the muscle itself. This clicks me into a thready mode of thinking, where I'm able to mentally visualize how these forms might move and distort when the body is poised in perspective. This is what helps you to understand and translate your chosen anatomy references into the context of your own ideas. The anatomy of a woman differs to that of a man's in subtle ways. Although they generally followed the same muscle structure, their bodies proportioned differently, this really comes down to the bare bone structure that the muscles surround, which we already know is defined within the foundational phase of the drawing for women. Some of these anatomical differences include a thin and neck surrounded by traps that, unless pumped up the shoulders an arrow a while. The hips are wider, both spanning an almost equal whip. The midsection of their waste curves inward between these two points, creating that iconic hourglass shape commonly associated with a woman's figure. The muscles in general Willis Beef, AEA and the breasts, of course, are unique asset to the anatomy of a woman. Because of these anatomical differences, a woman also carries herself differently. Toe a man. The poses that I have picked for these characters, a classically feminine nature from there stands a learn. You can tell that you're looking at a powerful woman, sir. I considered carefully how I could pose each of these characters in a way that was unique to their personality, bad us and sexy. The most effective way of doing that is to tap into the common associations to the characteristics of your super heroines and integrate them into the visual aspects of their design and body language. Regardless of gender, a character can take on both masculine and feminine visual traits, and as I developed the super heroines further all adjust those dials to give each a distinct look and feel. But overall, since we're striving to create a classic super heroine here, we need to take into account the attributes that will allow them to fit into that archetype . That means that proportions must be idealized to the heroic that their anatomy is of a built athletic body type. And that in general, the easy on the eyes as people, we aspire to be the ideal versions of ourselves, which is why the characters, often cast in superhero comics are so attractive to us. They're pushed to the extreme to create a larger than life version off who we will wish. We could be a few people a brave, bold and beautiful, like the characters in their comic book collection but fiction and fantasy a far more impactful than non fiction and reality, which is why we love escaping to the stories of characters like Wonder Woman and Superman. Because in that fantasy world we get to be the hero. So as you defined the anatomy over your super heroines, don't be afraid to idealize them beyond the status core of the average human. These are after roll ultra powerful beings possessing superhuman qualities of divine origin and likened to goddesses. In Greek mythology, you can see that I'm making a few adjustments to the leg of the last character here, of erased and re drawn up back in to pull her foot out further and give her stance more stability When posing a character, it's important to always make sure that their body is balanced with their center of gravity and mine. In order to stand on one foot without falling over, for example, you'd have to shift the weight of your body to remain upright. You might do that by leaning to the left of the right, depending on which leg you're standing on, using a Rahm's as a counterweight to account for your lack of support. Tight rope walkers are masters of doing this and the characters of the same. If you don't ensure that their posed looks balanced based on its center of gravity, they simply won't look grounded. It'll appear to your audience as if they're about to topple over, which is fine, if that's your intention, but not so great for the powerful grounded stances we want to give our super heroines. My other area of concern is the orientation off her outstretched leg. As I place in the muscle groups, I'm better able to clarify its rotation. Subtle considerations like this can be really easy to look over living. An artist feeling confused as to why they're drawing doesn't quite look right. That's why this stage is great for searching out and addressing potential issues that could come up later. It really forces you to scrutinize the anatomical structure of your character and whether or not it works. 6. Chapter 3: Design Draft: how super heroine figures and now ready to enter the design phase of comical character production, This stage is all about figuring out what our characters are actually going to look like. A zoomed in 25% here, toe work on the facial features off the first character as sketching the eyes and eyebrows , then moved down the face to the nose and mouth, keeping in mind the iconic feminine characteristics for each, her eyes should be framed by bold lashes that draw attention, her lips full and voluptuous, the nose has kept small and defined only at the tip and opening of the nostril. In general, the face will be kept absent of detail to give it a youthful appearance and, in turn, increase its femininity. After I've attended to the face as them back out to view the entire character as a defined the various aspects of her design, I want to see how it's coming together as a hall. This helps ensure its integrity that each element ties in seamlessly with the next. The last thing we want is a slapstick design that doesn't quite drive together as well as it could in the layers panel to the bottom right of the screen of turned off the pose draft layer to get a clearer look at the anatomy draft, which I've now changed to blue by pressing the layer color button above the anatomy draft layer of created a new one called Design Draft. As you might have guessed, every aspect of the design will be drawn in on this layer and, by keeping each step of the process separate, were able to build our character in a non destructive manner, meaning that if we mess up the design, we can always go back to the previous anatomy stage and rework it from that point rather than restarting the entire drawing from scratch. As in the previous lesson, I'm using the pencil tool to draft up the characters design to get a shop fine line of decreased the size of the brush, holding my stylist steady and carefully controlling the amount of pressure I'm applying. As I draw in Mingo Studio, the pencil tool works very much like a regular pencil. The hardy press, the Dhaka's A Line will be the language is an ultra published here, but it's still clean enough to show us a clear representation off the concept. At this stage, my focus is on defining the main contours of the characters design. You can see how I'm outlining each key sections, such as the shape of her chest, armour and shoulder pads and other leg, with some subtle indication of the major muscle groups that will be present in the final drawing. I'll continue defining each section until her entire design is completely outlined. Then, and only then will I begin thinking about the rendering and details. I like to view the overall production of a line drawing as having three main phases of development. The rough draft that defined outline. Then the final polish, consisting off all the crisp details and rendering building up the drawing in this way makes it more manageable and straightforward. You're able to make more progress on it as a whole, rather than completing bits and pieces of it haphazardly. Without that workflow, I tend to lose my way, and the final outcome becomes much less predictable. Besides the armored chess piece, a majority of her outfit is made of a robbery latex material that follows the forms of her body rather closely. This is where the muscle structure we over laid on top of her pose. Previously in the last lesson is going to help me capture the correct shapes we need to describe her figure accurately to help indicate the darker areas of the costume down the front of her torso, I'm placing in some shadows around her abdomen and pelvis, which I quickly decide to backtrack on realizing it's probably a bad idea to skip ahead. It's so tempting to jump forward before the main outline has done sometimes. But doing this Kenly Lee mess up your workflow and cause you to lose track of where you're at. With the drawing over role. The muscle groups have suggested around her legs, particularly the quads above the knee lend to the tide appearance of her costume but also shows that underneath it her body is built on tined. The tight fitting, one piece suit is a popular costume choice for many heroin starring in superhero comic books, which at first glance might be assumed only really serves the shallow purpose of accentuating their figure and those sexy curves. And to be fair, it obviously does and why No. When you got a rock and physique to show off. But for a super heroine, wearing a costume made of flexible, durable, tied fitting material also serves a very functional purpose. When you think about the capabilities of the typical super heroine, there's a good chance she might be able to fly and even possess super speed and strength as well. So she is going to require a costume that allows her to move freely with minimal drag, making the most of our enhanced agility and allowing her to use her superhuman abilities unhindered. Spend X type bodysuits made of robbery materials or even like Kevlar, that are able to hug tightly against the body. Cater for all of that by being ultra aerodynamic and the last ized enough to allow the character unconstrained movements, regardless of the complexity or speed at which they're executed. The look of the spandex clad superhero seems fairly stereotypical to comic books until you realize where its origins are derived from in the real world circus acrobats and strong men to allow for greater mobility when performing their stunts and grand feats. In fact, you can see this same correlation into sports way of high level athletes today, whom are probably about the closest riel left comparisons we've got to super heroes and heroines, high speed runners, competitive bodybuilders, combat sports like fighting and wrestling. Ice skaters, dancers and ballerinas all wear tight fitting clothing, sometimes only around the key areas that allow them to make the most of their physical capabilities without their outfits holding them back. As a competitive athlete, this might mean the difference between winning or losing against the competition. In the case of Are Super Heroines, it could be the difference between life or death in a high stakes battle. The choice of costume you decide on for your super heroine should ultimately reflect the special abilities they possess and who they are as a character. The heroin I'm working on here, for example, wears a tight fitting costume because her special quirks include the ability to fly and move with lightning far speed, which is indeed why I have decided to give it the name zing at this stage and focused on the secondary costume elements that had interest of the design and help pull it together. For the most part, they consist of the slightly elevated rectangular shapes have placed in along the joints of zings suit, which you can also see popping up again around the knee pads have put a thin line out from the end of each costume connector as have decided to fully refer to them as creating a Siris of divisions that'll help describe the surface forms of the character. He can see how the two seems running parallel to one another around the top of her up a leg and circle. It's cylindrical form, giving us a visual indication of its dimensions. The same could be said about the rings around her wrist. I'm doing this intentionally because I know that once this character is in motion, thes cross contours will help convey the four shorting off her body as its posed in perspective. You can see that I'm now revisiting the front midsection of zings body to outline the shadows around the bottom of the rib cage and abdomen. The reason I'm adding thick black shadows to this particular region of the design is because I want to introduce contrast to her costume by splitting it up into a lighter and darker sections. Going off my initial preliminary concept fizzing the front of him midsection, lower torso in a thighs, neck, mosque and biceps will be covered in black leather material. As a general rule of thumb. The dock of the material is the more shadow and rendering it will require to lower its value. On the flip side of that, when it comes to a lightly colored materials, keep all details extremely minimal and shadows even more so. Delay in the shadows accurately. You'll need to place them according to the light source. You've chosen to put your character, Rhonda, in my case, the light sources projecting down onto oozing from the top left. With that in mind, I interpret the area I'm about to shade as very basic geometry and place shadows around the planes of the form that are facing away from the line. Something I personally find helpful is outlining the shadow first before filling in the blacks. This allows me to define them with a nice shape to begin with, but also makes it easier for me to discern what areas of the anatomy are going to be casting shadow. How you go about cutting your character's costume up into contrast ing. Tynes is completely up to you, but try to have them lend to the readability of its design. The value scheme should either be a majority dark, minimal light or a majority light and minimal dark to create hot spots of contrast throughout the figure. Think about how you can lead the eye around the design by playing the various values off of one another. For instance, sings Face will ultimately be surrounded by the much darker tones of her hair, mask and neck, pulling in the attention of the viewer instantly like a white dot on a black canvas. As I mentioned before, Zinkhan fly super fast, as her name would imply. So to suggest that I'm going to add these robotic wings to her back. When everyone I imagined them being able to lift up from this rested position and spread to reveal high powered rocket boosters attached to a jetpack, they would act like the wings of a fighter jet that operates synergistically with her motor functions so she could make quick turns in the air and perform complex maneuvers when fighting the bad guys. I'm trying to make her look insect like like a dangerous one. That leaves a nasty sting, such as a wasp or Hornet in a way, you could say have taken the iconic idea of a cape commonly associated with super heroines and re contextualized it in the form of these separated bug wings. The shape, angle and length of the wings are adjusted until I'm happy with how they're sitting there, significantly modifying the silhouette of the characters. So I want to make sure that they're fanning out to frame her body in a pleasing way. That makes sense visually. If I can pull this off right, the wings, combined with the hoops and shoulder pads, should create a very recognisable silhouette, fizzing moving on to the hair. I've grouped into larger clumps that fully the general direction of its overall style. As a hair transitions from light to dark, it's divided into smaller and smaller sections that had given increasingly thicker shadows until they completely blacked out just as before. With her costume, the more shadow that's applied here, the darker her hair will appear. The texture. Grady int, blending the light and dark values together, should describe its layering end direction of float by having the shadows followed the same trajectory. This ensures that her hair style reads clearly and helps it to avoid becoming a tangled mess. Hasim backing to begin working on the face of an next character against starting with her rise, then moving down to the noise and lips, the features air, then framed by the outline of her face. As I defined the jewel line, making sure to keep the corners soft and the chin narrow right off the bat, you'll notice that her face looks very similar to zings, and the reason for that is because I'm using a stock standard head model. See, the more I stray away from the idealized representation of the head shape, proportions and facial features, the greater the chance she'll begin to lose her physical appeal and attractiveness. Because, of course, the opposite of ideal is flawed imperfection. This may result in a generic looking face for your character, but that's not actually a bad thing. As a protagonist, you want your super heroines to be as easy to relate with as possible, and the more uniquely specific you make their anatomical features. The heart of this becomes a character who doesn't look like anyone in particular can pass for anyone, including You are I know the ideal is not really existing only in the imagination. And while it resides in the fantasy realm on their minds as something desirable and perfect , were able to envision ourselves as the hero inside the story because it's just a fantasy. If you make them to really reflecting the rule version of a person in an ordinary world, that character simply becomes someone else. Another stranger we might see walking down the street or on the bus, say, how do we make one super heroine look distinctly different from the next? Well, their idealized anatomical features may share similar proportions, but there's a lot of room for variety when it comes to the style, color and composition off their costuming and hairdo. And that's really what makes a super heroine appear visually unique. Following the original preliminary designed for the character of decided to give her a Cape I to fund the sides with a light outlined, then think about how the material might bunch up around the base. The cape hangs freely off her back, forming a Siris of pipe folds down its length, similar to a curtain. But there is still some gesture to it, and in that way materialise similar to head. It has a certain amount of flu in direction of movement, and the vertical contours I'm laying in to define the Fords indicate that loose fitting materials and drapery abide to their own physics. But they are still dynamic in nature. The form cloth takes on can change dramatically, depending on the object it's covering, how tight, loose or think it is and the environmental conditions it's placed under so it. Sometimes you have to experiment to see what looks best. If you place in a fold or crease, and it doesn't quite look right, just erase it and adjust the flow of the material as needed. None drawing in an armored course it, which will sit directly underneath her breasts to accentuate the bust and extend down over the midsection off her body. Armor is typically made of Impenetrable, non malleable materials such as metal and iron, so it's design must be thought out carefully to make sure the character still has a full range of movement when wearing it. So this particular piece will be made of interlocking chrome plates that allow for free twisting and bending motion. You can see that As I make the divisions in the armor, I'm using her anatomy to help shape the plates. This ensures that as she moves, the army will conform to her body correctly. I've used the idea of a corset to associate a certain level of sexual confidence to this character, but it's very shape. Also enhances have feminine allure by accentuating the hourglass outline of her body. Combining that with the crime material of the Yama pushes the idea of her being a beautiful but divinely powerful goddess. As I faintly sketching her lengthy loincloth, I'm again thinking about the fabrics flow of movement, which is a significant consideration here due to its non conforming, free flowing structure. Rather than wrapping around the body, it hangs freely from the bottom of her Rama, so it's form will be greatly determined by the momentum and directional pool of the bodies movement, as well as environmental elements such as wind moving up to the chest. I'm covering her breasts in the same material, except this time it is conforming to her body. The direction of the fabric folds and where they radiate from a determined by two points of tension found at the top of the shoulder and around the bottom of the breasts, where the fabric tucks into the armor. As the material stretches between these two points, the folds increases smooth out over the surface of the breasts. This is why having a good understanding of female anatomy makes drawing the close of your super heroines much easier, because even if they're going to be completely covered from head to toe, the folds creases, endpoints of tension will be greatly determined by the naked body underneath. And as it moves, the way the material pools across its forms becomes an even more complex calculations that to get right means you got to know what's going on behind the curtains. Now I'm tackling her leg AAMA, which is essentially made of a skin tight crowing material similar to the armored course it we placed in around her waist because of how closely it's hugging her leg. I know most of the AMa's design will be confined to the silhouette established by the legs anatomy and won't change its shape a whole lot. I'm addressing the pieces of armor covering the joints first because I know they'll need to be designed in a way that enables the legs to move. So I'm overlapping a set of hinged chrome plates above the knees, which will extend over the joints when the leg is bent and are able to retract back as it straightens out. My major aim in doing this is to suggest that the leg gamma can indeed function correctly if I want to suspend disbelief than it has to make sense to an extent because he is the thing, you only have to allude to the idea that it could actually work in reality, because it's not how real you make your character appear. That leaves a lasting impact. It's how cool, bad us and awesome they look in the end, that really matters. Functionality and mind blowing visuals should work in harmony together rather than being swapped out for one or the other. And the general rule I elected Feli is that your design can be is out of this world as you like. It might be completely ridiculous, unrealistic and totally out there, but it must still be plausible enough to convince the audience that your character could exist. So with the functional aspects off Haram, mostly taking care of At this point, I'm getting a little more creative with the armored plating that's covering the rest of her leg. As with the previous character, I'm searching for a recognizable, recurring pattern here that implies a running theme throughout the costume design. This consistency off complementary shapes and patterns, former harmonious of visual language that makes the costume feel like it was crafted with purpose and careful thought. Rather than being a combination of random design decisions that make no sense. That doesn't mean that everything has to be identical to fit in, but rather that each element should contrast well in terms of size, shape and material. Usually, I try to stick to two or three recognizable components for the design as an example, This character primarily consists of the crime mama, loose fabric and exposed areas of skin. You could also add to that her long, golden locks of hair. But my point is that you want to try to keep the primary ingredients over your design limited because the more you add in, the more that looted, your idea will become so. In short, keep it simple and stick to the few design elements that are working best for your character. As I move on to the arms, I'm going to replicate the same curved contours in their armor that I used for the legs. These patents flow fluidly throughout. The armor is designed to create elegant shapes, both soft and clean cut. This makes her feel majestic and really pushes the fantasy theme I'm trying to go for here . It's the kind of armor Supreme Goddess might where, when battling beings far more powerful than we could ever comprehend it's material should seem otherworldly is if the armor is made of an Impenetrable intergalactic metal from another dimension. Nonetheless, the muscle structure of her arms still serve as a dependable guide for the composition off the crime plating, giving the impression that although they completely coated in metal from the upper arm down , they can still move freely. Even the most unique and inventive designs need to have some grounding in reality, and that's what makes them appealing. If you can achieve at never before seen design that seems unreal but still looks possible and feels familiar, then you've created an instant classic. You could say that the Yamarone designing here is rather removed from reality In fact, it would be easy to pick it apart and point out all the exposed areas of flesh that would certainly leave her open toe a fatal blow. And it would be true. Many aspects of this design have been decided upon based on my personal preference for aesthetics over practicality, at least in this instance, because that's what I personally like to see in a super heroine. And your personal preference is really something that should be put before anything else is a creator, at least in my opinion. Otherwise, you'll become a slave to the preferences off other people who will never be 100% satisfied with what you do. That will always be someone out there ready to tear the validity over your character to shreds, especially if they belonged to an inherently unrealistic genres. Such a superhero comic books. Why? Because you can't know or predict exactly what other people want to see where you'll have our own individual tastes, ideas, beliefs and opinions. And if all you do is designed characters based on what you believe others deem is worthy, you really creating their character, not your own. I'm making a few last minute tweaks to the character here who, after some sort of decided to call Gardena kind of trying to imply that she's the Almighty guardian off her home planet in a far away galaxy, mostly on fund cheating, the shapes of her anatomy and outfit are racing, moving and refining any areas that I think could do with a little more work following the general direction off her already established hairstyle, I mostly laying in some very fine lines to help break it up and to better describe its flow and texture. Finally, we're moving on to the last super heroine, and, as you probably guessed, I'm going to go straight to work on her facial features. This time, we're looking at a direct three court, a view of the character's head, so I'll use the center line off her face to maintain its symmetry as I drew in the eyes and mouth. The features themselves will be slightly foreshortened by the angled perspective, but they're proportional relationships to one another will still apply here on the far side of the head. I'm going to run an outline around the cheeks and drop it straight down to the chin where from there are followed up into the jawline, keeping the corners soft and chin narrow to scoped out a feminine shape for the face. Then I'm going to rough out the characters general half style. Basically, she's going to be a cybernetic, Lee enhanced law enforcer of some kind. So I want her hair to really add to the context of the cyberpunk theme. I'm trying to go for here, so I've made it short, sharp and messy, the kind of hair style you'd see a real badass rebel rockin. Once I finished attending to the face, I'm going to zoom back out to view her entire figure. Seeing that her proportions air slightly off, I used the last suit and transform tool to scale up the size of her head and never shy about making these adjustments, especially in the early stages. When you're talking about the proportions or the pose of a character, it's way better to make those fixes now than to ignore them and keep going. It's like working with clay. The further you take the drawing, the more cemented it becomes. Along with any foundational floors you might have missed moving on to the costume I've partially outlined her jacket, and I'm trying to determine how it's going to sit around her waist. The cut of the jacket is interesting because it does hugged the chance and showed is closely but loosens up around the base, causing the folding patterns of the material to change in different areas. So my main challenge is figuring out how to compose the folds increases between these transitions and how the tension points will direct the pull of the material across the characters body, the color of the jacket is folded up around the back of her neck to create the cool mysteriousness commonly associated with P eyes and detectives. Besides looking stylish, having the color up also significantly widens the otherwise slim silhouette of her neck, giving it a shop dominant feel. Instead, I'm shaping the color to try to show that it's actually wrapping around her neck as it fans out at the edges. From our point of view, it should appear symmetrical on either side of her body toe, avoided looking warped. And then after that, my attention is back on the jacket itself toe. Have another crack of those folds increases the underlying anatomy of her body is helping me to make some sense of how the jacket should stretch across it. But the shape of its cut material endpoints of tension leave me feeling a little confused. If too many folds a place around the wrong areas, they might not describe the fit of the jacket correctly. If they don't have the right thickness and density, then the jackets material won't translate properly either. So without knowing what's going to work for sure. Here, I explore my options through good old fashioned trial and error, lightly drawing in simple lines to indicate the composition, overlap in direction of the closing folds and quickly erasing them if they look off to me so that I can start again As a general rule, I know that the material is going to bunch up around the inner joints, and that will also see sharp creases around the points of tension from where the material will stretch out across the body. But it will become more smooth around the peaks of the larger, protruding forms that the materialist family pressed against, such as the shoulders and breasts. In these areas, the list folds, you have the better oftentimes a drawing is developed by figuring out what won't work so you can get closer to discovering what will so tread softly. Yes, but keep your pencil moving and give yourself permission to mess up as many times as you need to know. One gets a trophy for producing a drawing without having made any mistakes. The final presentation. YSL that matters. And if it takes you a few hiccups along the way to make it the best it can be, there's no shame in that. I really. In fact, I never have a clean run from start to finish on. An illustration reference helps a lot, especially when it comes to clothing, and I'm certainly using more than a few of them here to help me articulate her jacket. There is a number of considerations you'll want to take note off when it comes to drawing accurate closing, though what the material is made off, whether it's leather, denim, cotton or fabric, the thickness, weight and density of that material, it's cut and how tight a loose it fits against the body. These attributes all planes aware and how you place the folds over your characters closing and without putting some careful thought into it. You just won't know what to look for. Reference wise, much less drawer it in a convincing way next time, drawing in the outline for her legs. Even though most of the underlying muscle groups won't be defined in the final rendition, they are still providing an excellent guide for the outside contours to follow. What I'm really looking to capture here is a strong, vivid shape. You can see how the lines glide elegantly down the length of the lake as they delineate its anatomy, rhythmically curving in wooden out along the hips, thighs and carves. This keeps the legs from looking stiff and lifeless and, more importantly, pushes their visual appeal time to tackle some tech again. The muscle structure of the forearm is used to help direct the design off his cybernetic enhancements. But of course I'm still building off of it. That is how tiny my brushes. That's how I'm keeping the line work so fine to articulate those tiny details. There's not really any reference material being used for this part of the drawing, to be honest, because at this point I've already figured out my go to tech aesthetics. So I'm just riffing with the pencil, trying to drug down something that looks cool. However, the tech design still has some anatomical grounding. That's what's providing my real source material here. Essentially, I'm just creating a second skin over the top of her arm. In fact, the very term for what I'm doing here is actually cold skinning. So now I'm drawing in the outline of a gun. I'm not too sure about the details of its design just yet, But if I can at least establish the size and get a cool shape down for it to begin with, the ideas are going to start flowing. Sometimes you just have to draw anything down to coax out your creativity. And for me, the silhouette is often the easiest place to start. Now, on a basic level, what we're looking at is a handgun. But in the context of the theme we're going for, it's a huge sigh. If I Laser Blaster that looks more like a cross between a regular pistol and a sawn off shotgun. And although there's a certain amount of creative liberty weaken take here, it should still resemble and function like a real gun would, in other words, around the bare bones, barrel handle and trigger that makes up the basic components of any firearm, recruiting it with the design elements that lend to that side. Five theme. So I'm adding random details along the body of the gun grooves and extrusion. Is that form a technologically advanced looking shell around it? Of course, I've added them, mentioned by presenting it in perspective with form and depth. This gives the gun solidity and avoids the common pit full of drawing a flat diagram attic cut out instead. Design Feliz functions. So as long as you keep the main mechanics over your subject intact, you can craft something totally unreal that still looks like it could work. In reality. Almost everything is designed in this way. Even the character herself is built upon a skeleton that makes sense functionally, all the parts are still there, but they're heavily customized on the outside to create an interesting and unique design. The arms on the only cybernetic Lee enhanced the limbs on this character. She's also going to have robotic legs Justus with the armored leggings of our previous super heroine. I'm addressing the needs first the joints have got to be designed in a way which conveys that the legs are capable of movement. And when you're talking about hard, rigid materials like metal, the mechanics off their construction do matter, emoting the shape of the kneecap and segmenting the overlapping steel plates surrounding it to reflect the rial anatomical structure of the leg. So the suggestion of murder functionality is tied into the augmented limb replacements by design. Having the anatomy already mapped out not only makes this process easy, it makes it fun to, because now we've got a blueprint for how the robotic should be built. So I'm really just tracing over the top of those underlying muscle groups to define the metal plating. What you might notice is the layers of steel that the characters legs a piece together with comprise of shapes covering either large, medium or small surface areas around the form. Those that had largest mostly outlined the major muscle groups and occupied within them are the secondary shapes that add visual interest. For example, the cops and tibial region at the front of the leg are covered by large sheets of metal, while the smaller elements such as the rectangular bridge joins, ankle caps and screws complete the concept combined. These elements make up the shape language for the design off her robotic limbs, and it's important that they're distributed correctly to create a desirable composition. He is the rule of thumb when it comes to establishing the individual shapes that make up your characters design. Medium surfaces should roughly occupy 1/3 of the space taken up by the largest, and distribution of the smallest elements should be equal to 1/3 of those that a medium. So to put it simply, major design elements A given the most room while the sub shapes and minor details a placed sparingly. This gives the concept greater clarity and makes it easier to read. You can imagine how visually disorientated your design might look. If the opposite was true, it would be the equivalent, often over rented flat illustration. That lacks contrast in balance in saying that the scale used to define the size of these shapes can be adjusted as needed after roll, every design is different, so don't be too strict on yourself. The rule of thirds as it applies to shape language simply serves as a reliable guide that works well for most character concepts. Actually, for experienced artists, this comes intuitively anyway, even if they don't realize it. Now, If you're also creating a super heroine with cybernetic limbs or other technologically enhanced augmentations like this one, and you're stumped for ideas, I highly suggest jumping online and tracking down some references from your favorite sci fi comic books, movies and video games. Use the tech concepts created for those productions as inspiration for your own. In fact, if you're struggling to come up with an appealing shape language for your character, take the large, medium and small design elements inside those references and combined them to form your own . What you'll probably find is that you're naturally predisposed to certain types of machinery in tech. Maybe you like the clean cut look oven exo skeleton cloaked in an alloy shell or the grungy nous of a decommissioned to make whatever your specific tastes are. As you build upon them, you will develop a unique design aesthetic just done rid them all from the one source. You don't want to steal your entire concept purely from another artist. At this point, I formed a solid approach to designing tech that works for me the line structure of the overlapping elements, the way they're shaped and detailed. A rule based on the go to patents I have stored away inside my memory bank through repetition. Some of them was certainly extracted from references. Others were discovered simply through experimentation. Not everything you try will work in a design, but the things that do you'll tend to hang onto. Remember that to describe your characters with depth and dimension. Each costume asset must follow the surface geometry off the bodies, basic forms. That is how the straps of the gun holster aren't defined using straight lines. Instead, they curve around the cylindrical geometry off her upper thigh, helping to describe it shape. This is what causes your character the pump off of the page, and by transitioning into this three dimensional mindset, you condition your brain to interpret the female figure as being made of solid, interlinked shapes that contain mass and volume. This is the main reason for using Dominican model to establish the pose, placement and proportions obvious super heroines. To begin with, it helps you to avoid the flat cannot effect many amateur artists of burden with before they've properly grasped the fundamentals of form. Now I haven't fleshed out a full backstory for the character just yet, but I'm thinking maybe her robotic enhancements, other result of some horrific incident that left her so physically destroyed cybernetic augmentation was the only way to save her. Before that, maybe she was a highly trained operative who also happened to be the daughter off the CEO behind the world's most advanced, a law enforcement agency. Which is why, when her life was hanging in the balance, she was immediately nominated to become the agency's next robo super cop. But then the plot thickens. When we later find out that the hit on her was planned from the beginning by the agency, in fact, to turn one of their best Lauren forces into an unstoppable, superpowered crime fighter. Question is, was her father aware of it? Look, I grew up in the nineties, and I can guarantee that a good chunk of by imagination was shaped by movies like Robocop, Terminator and Blade Runner, not to mention all the cyborg superheroes, villains and creatures that were headlining the comics of the Image era. In fact, Marc Silvestri. Cyber forces Still my main go to Siri's when I'm looking for some inspiration at minimum, the four things you need to begin developing a compelling character design is a theme archetype, troop and spin. In this case, the theme would be cyberpunk archetype, super heroine trope Lauren Forsa and her spin cybernetic Lee enhanced augmentations. These are the primary components that make a character feel relatable and familiar, yet new and unique. And once you determine what they are, you'll have all you need to direct their design. The full biography can come later, however, and often times I find that the finished concepts somewhat inspires it. The trick is to give yourself broader boundaries in the beginning to get the ball rolling without confining yourself to the specifics of the design. Otherwise, the natural flow of your creativity will be stunted. So inevitably, the origin story, former super heroines will need a little more work, including this one. But what I've come up with so far for her design has already helped tow at least form the synopsis. Plus, I've also struck upon a cool name for her glitch. I think it fits well with the SciFi theme and somewhat lends toward those robotic enhancements. I'm going to start glitches, fishnet stockings out with a series of diagonal parallel lines that wrap around the length of her upper leg. This particular type of hosiery is strongly associated with goths and punks, styles of fashion as well as being rather sexy, making the government a welcome addition to her outfit. As I lay down the second layer of cross hatches noticed how once again the lines aren't rigidly ruled straight across the leg. Just like in real life, the skin tight grid of diamond shaped needing defines the form by curving around it and accentuates the definition of her anatomy. Each line is kept extremely thin and drawn steadily tow. Avoid any wobbliness. The spacing between them and the angler, which they're drawn at, can be whatever you like, but it must be consistent. So if you're working digitally, it's a good idea to keep the second set of cross hatches on a separate layer. That way, if he mess up, he can simply erase the lining question without affecting the underlying hatches. Traditional artists, on the other hand, will have to be more careful because if you make a mistake, you might find that you have to attend to both layers of stitching in order to fix the netting off your characters Stockings. Finally, I'm adding some texture to glitches, hair and clarifying the shape of its style with a more defined outline. And that's it for the drafting stage of a super heroine character designs. 7. Chapter 4: Inking Zing: with their drop designs now complete, we're ready to ink up our super heroines. Since this stage is all about polishing off the final. Leinart wanted to work in a little closer to capture the finer details here, so starting with zinc have zoomed in 25% to begin thinking over the top off her facial features. My go to tool for inking in mega studio is, of course, the ever trusty G pen, which is found just above the pencil button in the tuba to the left of the canvas. Alternatively, you can also hit the P shortcut on your keyboard to toggle between the two. And if you'd like to change the pen settings, you can do so by hitting the second set of double hours at the top of the neighbouring column to expand it. But Mega studios tools very intuitive and calibrated specifically to make the digital illustration experience. I feel as authentic as possible so personally, I don't even bother adjusting the default settings. The pencil can take some getting used to, since its output behave slightly differently to the pencil tool when applying the same amount of pressure. So first and foremost, you'll have to figure out how hard you need to press and what size your brush would need to be at in order to capture the right kind of line. Some modest naturally hold their stylist tight and pressed down hard against the tablet as they draw. I'm one of those people, so I know that I'm going to have to use a smaller brush size to account for the added pressure. I habitually apply when inking. Others have a lighter grip that glides across the tablet with a minimal amount of friction . If that's you, then you maybe want to scale up the size of your brush instead to get a heavier line. It all comes down to the final aesthetics. You want your end, align our toe, have decide on that first, then adjust the settings accordingly. That also might mean just doing a few practice runs on the page first, so that you can calibrate the way you work. OK, so that takes care of the tools and settings. But let's talk about the thinking process itself. I like to break it down into three specific stages and stage one, which is what you're seeing happen in front of you right now is the ink outline. This step is all about capturing the primary shapes and forms old, the drawing, defining them with carefully waited, slick shop and exceptionally clean, energetic line work. Face to is where we black in the shadows, which is what have prematurely started doing here with her hair. Usually I'd wait until the entire character was outlined first, but I got carried away and wanted to see how her brunette looks would look once they were filled in with ink. Still notice how the outline of her hair was defined in its entirety. First, if he can keep the process organized, its execution runs a whole lot smoother. And, hey, well, we're here. Let's talk for a moment about how the darker tone off her hair is immediately suggested by the increased amount of shadow were dropping in. Now, as the light cast down from the top left, a gradual Grady in begins to form as the highlights fall off into shadow, splitting the hair up into smaller clumps that are eventually dissolved by the solar blacks . This does achieve a darker shade for her head, but it'll say adds more lift and texture to the layering and gives it an added amount of overall depth and volume. But as I said before, we're really jumping the gun here. So let's get back to Stage three of the inking process, which is, of course, rendering and details. This is the final step, but it's also the most tempting to skip straight to because, let's face it, details a super fun. That's why there's a certain amount of discipline required here. The three step inking formula is the best method of come up with for producing an inked illustration with minimal hiccups. Along the way, it's straightforward and helps keep the process manageable. In fact, I like to treat eat stages a milestone. For example, I might think the outline of the character in the first half of the day, take a short break for lunch, then wrap up the shadows and details in the second half. So then, rather than guessing how much progress I'm able to make, I've got particular points I'm aiming to reach by a certain time, likely is up the ambiguity off my production pipeline and helps me stay on track because it's too easy to get lost in the process. And although that could be a good thing, sometimes it gets difficult to keep things in perspective. If you're not paying attention, toe where your rat. So remember the three shape categories we learned about last lesson. Well, when it comes to thinking, I tend to define the outline for the largest ones first, like the bust armor I'm working on here fizzing. Then I articulate the medium elements and surface details within them. This allows me to work on one section of the character at a time, completing their outline bit by bit. I use a slightly thicker outline for the major shapes. First, to ensure their visually distinct from the rest of the design. Each section must be come to it with a prominent edge that vividly describes its silhouette because besides encompassing the sub shapes and details within it, this bounding line holds the fundamental form of every component that makes up the character the secondary surface details such as the rectangular um Busman's around the base ridge of the chest plate and then defined inside it with a slightly finer outline. This produces a visual hierarchy, which shows us that the smaller elements a part of the Greater Hall rather than being separated out on their own, even going so far as to partially break the outline of the sub shapes in the areas of the major form that a most facing toward the light gives the impression that they built into the army's surface. Same do with Haram. We delineated its overall shape first, and now we're laying in the interior design elements. Notice help by keeping the contours shop and energetic were able to delineate thes shapes with a sense of solidarity. If I can, I try to draw at each line with a single continuous stroke by steadily sliding my hand across the tablet. Short contours that don't have far to travel or ended a corner to change trajectory can be dropped in with a swift dash. Longer lines tend to be a bit more troublesome, however, since there's a greater chance that run off track or get wobbly toward the end of their run . In that case, I'll hit the undo button and attempt the line again, something you can see me doing repeatedly throughout this demonstration, or if I think the line could be saved, a link back over the top and gently rerouted along the correct path. Some contours stretch on for such a long distance that you'll have no choice but to build up the line with multiple strokes until it's reached the desired length. This is also a great way to sculpt the outline for the shapes you're working with. The long sleep contours that define the outline of her legs are great example of this. What I like to call line Smith thing in action there, even occasions where I'll use the eraser tool to further shape the lines or chiseled out a bed apart for them to follow. If I'm really being a perfectionist, in fact, the selected shortcuts and retain Lee switching between on my keyboard at the peaky for the pencil E for the eraser and the bracket keys to resize either of them on the fly as I work . That limited tool set is all that's needed to craft each line. You're seeing the trace arounds ing here. What shall the contours glide down the length of her leg encompassing at shape? With this smooth fluidity as the ad occurs of the upper side, dip in at the knee, then out again around the cars of the lower leg, we can see a Riz MC wave like pattern begin to form. This makes the anatomy feel structurally seamless as one line feliz into the next, effortlessly describing the forms off him muscle structure along the way. That's streamlined elegance is a uniquely feminine characteristic and know where will it be more prominent than in the gorgeous gams of your comparable gals? Long, graceful legs have long been a staple of feminine beauty, often emphasized to catch the eye as the figure transitions from one post to the next. This is partly because they make up a least half of the characters overall gesture, which is likely why, when we see a ballerina, dancer or figure skater performing, for example, their legs are often accentuated with tight fitting material to complement the form every bump corner curve and edge you in. Qin presents an opportunity to clarify that particular part of the character you're molding and you want to seize it with every stroke. Because this is the final rendition off their Leinart. It's more important than ever to define the silhouette of each component with clean cut precision that will ultimately give the finish concept and the A perfect read. And of course, that takes time. So don't pressure yourself into becoming some kind of inking wizard that can lay down slick looking line out without ever lifting your pen up off the page. You can make mistakes, and if you're working digitally, they easily fixed. What matters is the end results, so let it take as long as it needs to. If you're worried about speed, you'll inevitably get faster as you take the time to practice your technique in the right way. Every skill requires a period of time to develop your approach, method and technique, and sometimes you don't even realize the kind of outcome you're striving for in the beginning. Even start takes time to fully mature, so don't rush it. Give yourself the time you need to integrate your learning. And soon enough, it'll become second nature, along with the rays rectangular on Bozeman's around her inner thighs and knee pads. I've also subtly suggested the underlying muscle groups within the interior of the legs silhouette. Although Zing is somewhat of a tone to character, her anatomy is really only hinted out here with one maybe two doubled up lines placed on the darkest side of the muscles. Facing further is from the light for female characters, the less detail you placing around lighter colored or exposed areas of the body, the better. Usually, the outline alone will be enough to define them adequately, with the exception of a minimal amount of rendering to suddenly describe the major forms of her anatomy if needed, such as in this case. But going too far will result in an increasingly aged, masculine looking figure that does take away from her feminine appeal. What you can see me doing now is, um, outlining the shadows along the front of zings body, where her costume divides off into a dark and material. I do this so that I can define a strong shape for them first before filling in the blacks. And you can see that a making an effort to add character to the contours to avoid any shapes that might appear boring or uninteresting toe Look at that doesn't just apply here, either. Every line of Indian describes the shape of the characters anatomy, hairstyle in costume assets in a way that almost seems to exaggerate the form their defining. And we want to do that as much as possible because shape leaves the greatest amount of visual impact out of everything else. In an illustration, we've all seen those underwhelming pieces of comic book card, where the characters arms and legs look like a string of sausages, or where the muscles look like they were drawn onto the body of the character with a felt tip pen. The proportions might check out, and maybe they're striking a powerful pose, but without a strong sense of form and shape to boot. The end result will be so uncompelling that the character just looks like that wearing a bad Halloween costume. It will take time to figure out how best to depict the various aspects over your super heroines as Leinart, because we'll translate our ideas differently. But if you want them to look convincing, keep each contour as descriptive of the formas possible. Consider how one line leads into the next, the way it angles where it kinks and curves and its length before breaking off into a new direction. Use those line attributes to generate a stylized interpretation over your character that best represents thumb zings, wings are probably one of the most difficult part of her, designed to ink, since the lines defining them run along a lengthy vertical curve that stretches out for quite a distance. This is where I need to work carefully, keeping my grip firm and hands steady as the line is drawn out along its path. I want to keep it as smooth as possible, avoiding anyway venous. It's also important that the direction the line is traveling in runs seamlessly along the length of the wing without any bumps or odd turns along the way. The same applies to her superpowered hula hoops. There's a conference is made of two inner and outer curved contours that create a complete loop where they're joined at the top and bottom of the hoop. If we were to break this circuit and straightened them out, these contours would be even longer than the length of her wings and the tricky to ink. Since the curve trajectory off the lines that form either side of the hoop must abide to the symmetry of its shape. If it doesn't, this could cause the interior and exterior rings toe appear warped. These instances require a masterful amount of physical control over your hand, which can take years of practice to truly harness. And as you can see, I'm making more than a few attempts to get these lines neatly drawn out, usually having to use multiple strokes to complete them. Of course, this tools and mega studio and pretty much every other digital drawing application out there that would automate this process for me with minimal era and even working. Traditionally, you could also use stencils or a compass to guide the panel quill. So why don't I? While there's a few reasons, but first and foremost, I feel like a finish that's too perfect, lacks the natural floors and blemishes, and artist would otherwise leave on their work, and thus it loses the genuine hallmarks of traditional craftsmanship. There is a point where the line work can be so clean cut that it comes across is inauthentic, as if it was created by a machine, and although it might have been created using a computer case in point, it shouldn't look like it waas. Even when it comes to traditional drafting tools and templates that study the line for you , the illustration tends to lose its organic feel if they're ever used. Personally, they I like to challenge myself. I might struggle along the way and take twice is onto Inc and image, but that which you practice most you'll get better at. And if I depended on drawing AIDS to do the work for me, those lessons wouldn't even show up on my radar. And I'd be even more handicapped when it came to working. Freehand. Okay, so now I'm going in and filling the shadows. A outlined before with black on a Neilia called Shadow fill and using a slightly larger breast size for the G pen. The proper term for this process, I believe, is spotting the blacks, and it's fairly straightforward or you've got to do is keep inside the lines. You can see how this particular portion of zings costume instantly starts to look dark in contrast to the rest, which is the exact effect we're looking for here. As a result, her design is much easier to take in the different sections of her costume, and more distinct we see it, and we get it without having to decipher what it is we're looking at. Notice how the blacked out areas of shadow. Reach your I first. We know this is because of the stark contrast in effect created against the lighter colored areas. But when the figure is in motion, this creates a Siris of dynamic focal points that will enhance the readability of any penalizing features. In combined with the way she's framed, it becomes much easier to direct the readers focus, which is handy, and comics, since we want the visual narrative to flu with as little friction as possible. The doctor values also give her added depth, weight and presence on the page. She draws attention to herself by design. This contrast, in effect, isn't exclusive to black and white values. It can also apply to opposing textures, materials, shapes and colors. So try to integrate at least some contrast into your super heroine, designed to help break it up a bit and make them more readable. Up until this point, I haven't been putting a whole lot of thought into the weighting of things outline, and that's what this stage is all about. To put it simply, line waiting refers to the variation of thickness and density within a line, and it can be used strategically toe, enhance the visual appeal of the finish, line out your attention, toe areas of importance within the illustration, create depth and imply lighting direction all within the contours of the drawing alone. Something cause will apply. Line waits habitually and even I've done that to some degree just through the gesture of my strikes. But I prefer to treat the line waiting process as a separate pass, even if it's not as time efficient as dropping them in on the fly. Once the entire character is contoured, it becomes much clearer to me where the line waits, air going toe have the most impact. I've dropped back down to the inks outlined layer below the shadow, fill their toe, apply the line waits, retracing over the contours I previously laid down and adjusting the pressure of applying in accordance with the increased thickness. I'd like to give each line the way I generally go about. It is any lines that contour the side of a form facing away from the light, such as the under side of her head piece shoulder pads and chest Thoma get thickened up to indicate the direction of the light source. This gives the character and implied sense of form and solidarity, despite the absence of rendering and details that what otherwise helped to describe it. In the lightest areas of the form, the defining come to is a get thin and in some cases, they even broken to intensify the suggested brightness of the light source. If done with consistency, the line weight variation creates what you can essentially think of as an optical illusion will be simply assumed. The character is being presented under some kind of lighting condition. When the only thing to indicate that is a simple shift in the thickness of the line work, we can also thinking up the outline for areas of the character that we want to emphasize will make pop off the page further, these air, usually going to be key points of focus that stand out against the rest of the image. This is especially useful for creating distance between any overlapping elements. Within the illustration. For example, I want Singh's body to stand out against her wings, so I've made the outside contours of her arms and body heavier. If you're using line waits for this reason, think of it as a layering process. Theories of the image that you want to have full back. We'll get the lightest outline, whereas those that are most prominent a brought forward with the darkest everything in between is scaled accordingly. The reason this works is heavy lines catch our eye before the lighter ones do, which is why they appear closer again. What were essentially creating here is another optical illusion that treats the depth perception of the I best of, although WAY variation just makes you line outlook less flat, more dynamic and visually appealing. So I try to make sure almost every contour that delineates using here has some different enshi ation and thickness. This process doesn't always mean adding more weight to the pre defined line work. Sometimes you want to trim it down with the eraser tool instead to create a finer contour. In this sense, he is sculpting the line to finance its shape, ironing out the bumps and grooves, dialing the thickness back and forth to reach an ideal density. Each contour should be smooth and clean, defining every aspect of the character with shops solidarity. This is the final line on that will represent our super heroine, so it's worth going the extra mile to give her the best presentation possible. I'm very meticulous when it comes to the line Smith thing, all of my characters, and it does show in the end. But there's no secret behind it. Just a little extra polished patients end Time spent. It's all about attention to detail, becoming more conscious and observant off the lines you're laying down onto the page, looking at the drawing in front of you on a deeper level and asking yourself, What more can I do to show the true intent over my vision? Then committing to that regardless of the tweaks or fixes you'll have to make to get it looking just right? That might mean spending an extra arrow to you at the drawing board. But nothing makes an artist feel more proud than knowing they went all the way. All right, now we've made it to the rendering stage, and I'm thinking in the first pass of hatches on a new layer above the inks outlined layer and shadow Phil Layer. These ultra fine render lines are some of the most intricate of ain't in thus far and a managing to do so with an extremely small brush size and a very steady hand. Each hatches pulled out of the shadow along the length of the form it's traveling across as they emerged. The lines transition from the heaviest weight at the base then gradually becomes thinner as they taper off in intensity toward the light. Each one runs parallel to its neighbor, the space between them and their heaviness determined by the density of the tone I'm trying to create and along the front of things torso. What I am attempting to create is a midterm that'll blend the pitch black shadows into the highlights, resulting in a smooth ingredient that also helps to describe the dimensions of her body with a greater amount of depth. To pull this off convincingly, I've got to make sure the trajectory of each render line follows the shape of her anatomy closely, so every hatch conforms to a slight curve as it travels around the form. None of these lines should be dead straight, unless the surface being rendered is completely flat. The length of the render lines control the fall of off their light to dark Grady, in which often depends on how rigid or around the forms geometry is. Zings belly, for example, is soft with no hard edges, so the hatch is drawn along at a longer to create a gradual blend between the light and dark values. The bottom ridge of her rib cage has a more prominent edge, however, resulting in a heart eternal transition. Grady ins can also be affected by the spacing between each render line. If we look at the hatch is running against the shadows off her inner thigh, for example, we can see how they very suddenly start to spread further apart, lifting the total value of the shading as it transitions into the brightest areas off the form. The lines also become less thick and intense and even begin breaking up as the dimmed times completely decay into the highlights. So the characteristics of these hatches, the sickness of the lines, their spacing and length are really the key to controlling the contrast tone and spread of the light to dark radiance rendered around each form, of course, Justus dark materials that typically given a greater amount of shadow. They also require additional rendering to reflect their lower values. So well, we'll see an abundance of intricate cross hatching around the darker colored portions of zing, suit and hairdo. Everything else will be left relatively untouched in comparison. Besides a few cars, shadows and takes to details. Speaking of cars, shadows, I'm dropping some in now around the top of her wings. Like any other shadow, their shape is outlined first with a thin contour. But it's not completely filled in with black this time around, since that would be too intense for the material there being cast over here. Instead, the interior of the shadow is rendered using a series of hatches to create a dock and shade , but no one that's pitch black. In this case, all of the hatches are evenly spaced and waited to level out the tone, although there are situations when you might want to gradually distance them to produce a light to dark radiant. But that all depends on the lighting set up. The way you determine the darkness of the time is to simply consider the brightness of the set. In a dimly lit environment. Every time will be darker than if they were under a more intense light source the size of each car shadow is decided upon based on the mass of the object, projecting them in the direction of the light beam. A big formal cast a larger shadows in a small one. But depending on how the light is positioned, the shadow could distort and stretch for a longer distance that would cover more area cash . It is a great for visually conveying depth end I mentioned in your character, because they imply that one form is projecting its shadow over another. This gives the figure an added sense of three dimensionality, because there's now another element at play, which shows us that her forms are solid, not only catching light but also blocking it next time, rendering in a lighter shade along the underside of her wings. This is a great example of how different tonal intensities can be controlled through the thickness of the render lines and their spacing. Nearly the entire underside of her wing will be over laid with hatches. But notice how the car shudder at the top of the wing is still distinctly more intense than the soft of value is shading. And now, in theory, the entire character could be crosshatched from head to toe toe, blanket them in varying degrees of turn. And if you look at master incurs such as burning rights and many of their illustrations are rendered to such a degree, I don't personally for stylistic reasons, not to mention time and physical exertion. But my point here is that there's an entire range of values that can be achieved by modifying the attributes over your end aligns. To get the balance right, you've got to have a solid understanding of how different materials and colors translate to grayscale value under the lighting conditions. All this set you staged your super heroine in because what all of this depends on is a clear visual hierarchy of time from doctor light, and conveying it through cross hatching is something he can really only familiarize yourself with. Three. Practice and experimentation. It's all relative to meaning that we're looking at the contrast of one tone against another . They could become brighter or darker, depending on the dynamics off the light source, but the distinction between them should still remain the same. That wraps up the first pass of rendering. Now we're ready to overly. The cross hatches have created a Neilia for them just to be safe, because the last thing we want to do is ruin the intricate hatching I've already done. This second layer over under loans will run in a 90 degree perpendicular direction to the previous ones, forming a mesh grid as they pass over the top there. Thickness, quantity and density still control how the character is shaded, except now we're able to create more contrast in the Grady, INTs produce a smoother blend between the values and intensify the darkness of the tones. This results in us being able to further emphasize the forms of her anatomy and really create a sense of volume. You can see now how these cross hatches are wrapping around the surface of zings body on a new axes. If the previous layer of rendering flows in a vertical direction, this one travels horizontally and vice versa. Remember, the purpose of rendering isn't just toe like the forms of a character. It's also there to help describe the dimensions of their surface, and the second layer of cross hatches cause them to pop off of the page even more, which is what every aspect of your illustration should be designed to do lift your character off of the page. That's what makes them instantly captivating. But that doesn't mean we want to go all gung ho without cross hatches here. We don't want to place them everywhere. I've learned to reserve the second layer of rendering only for the darkest materials throughout the character, since the double up of lines significantly drops their tone to a duck of value. Knowing where to place just the right amount of rendering is key to avoiding a character that's overpowered with too much detail, especially when it comes to super heroines. If anything, you want to hold yourself back. That's when you know you've got a really handle on the rendering process. When you're aware of how much it can enhance your work yet, use it sparingly. It's like seasoning a meal with salt and pepper. Just the right amount will enrich the flavors of the meal in your mass, but pop off the top of the shaker and pour it on, and it will become unbearable to eat. Now I'm rendering zings hair, ensuring each hatch follows the shape and flow of its style. Since she's a brunette, I'm going to treat her hair, as I would any other dark material, ramping up the number of render lines and laying them in nice and tight to keep the tone in those lower value ranges. Underlying layers of Hera pushed back into the dark recesses over intertwining locks and those atop a lifted out, in contrast, to generate more volume textures at it, as a larger clumps of hair that direct its movement are broken up into finer subdivisions. And I'm doing all of this in the context of the lighting scheme, ensuring that the parts of her hairdo that fall into shadow given the most amount of rendering all those that directly hit by the like, get very little. And, of course, that'll helps to describe the form of its style. Luscious, wavy hair is very gestural in nature, often depicted with a free flowing weightlessness that's dynamically affected by the momentum of the characters, movements and environment conditions such as wind and rain. It could be blowing, polled and positioned into almost any formation, which is why it's important that we try to preserve that liveliness as it's rendered by ensuring that each hatch conforms to the trajectory of the heads directional flow. A book of the rendering is done, the shadows have been filled in, and the main contours of the drawing have been sufficiently waited. What's left to attend to now is the final details and tweaks that a really polish of zings line work. This final phase includes dropping in additional car shadows to give her some extra pop, such as the one I've just rented in underneath her shoulder pad. I'm also adjusting the thickness of the line waits throughout her design to better describe the shape of the contours and the forms there. Delineating the brightness of the tones in certain areas might need to be re calibrated toe better, balance the value range off the character of a role as well. This could mean the addition of new cross hatches to increase the tonal density or getting rid of the hatching altogether in some areas to lighten them up. The underside of zings wings was reading a little too flat for May, so I'm repositioning the hatches and adjusting their length to more accurately described the rounded surface of the form that ability to convey the dimensions of a form through the spacing, thickness and length of these ultra fine lines is the biggest hurdle when it comes to rendering. If you haven't had a lot of experience using this cross hatching technique before, shade your super heroines the best you can for the assignment you've been given in this course. But then spend some time going back to the basics. Try rendering a cube sphere raw cylinder and see if he can get those primitive forms to read accurately. If you're struggling with rendering now, you should see a noticeable improvement after doing those simple exercises. Because they're not just teaching you how to rent a basic shapes, you're actually gaining a better understanding of how form works, and that translates over directly into the more complex forms of your characters. Anatomy. This is a great refresher, even form or experienced artists. Only a few weeks ago, I was drawing away in my sketchbook, shading the rippling muscles of the hot new character I was working on. When suddenly I realized the distribution of the cross hatches across their anatomy wasn't emphasizing the forms correctly, they seemed flat and uneven, and the level of detail was inconsistent in different areas. The core values didn't seem balanced, either. The arms were a completely different skin tone to the rest of the body, and the face was just a congested mass of overindulgent rendering. I don't know if I had had some kind of mental lapse that day, or it just wasn't paying attention. After all, it's easy to get lost in the details. Once you start hatching, it's hard to stop. But I was surprised that my usual level of discipline hadn't been there to keep everything in check that day. After a certain point, you like to think that you practice these things repetitive, Lee enough that you can trust your unconscious to take over and make the important decisions for you. But as I discovered, it's never a good idea to go complete order Pilot. That's when you get caught off guard. There's a lot to remember when it comes to comic book illustration, and every new skill you learned is another bull you've got to juggle first. It's the basic principles such a shape, form and value than perspective, proportions and anatomy. And after that, the Hyatt ear considerations, such as design, composition and storytelling, and every time a new one gets added to the rotation. It's tricky to cash the bulls and keep them spinning at least it first. But then you learned that new skill. You wield it, and it becomes part of what makes your are even better than it was before. But if he gets so confident that you no longer have your on the bulls you're juggling, there's a chance you'll eventually drop one or two. Along the way. You'll catch the others and keep the rotation going, And when you realize you've lost a few, they'll inevitably get thrown back into the loop. But then you'll have to pay attention again because more balls have been added to the cycle you've become accustomed to. They might have been there previously, and it may not be as hard as it once was to catch them. But you'll still need to carefully focus until you get used to juggling the extra bulls again. Comic art is the same way, from penciling to inking and coloring. The entire workflow requires you to be aware of the components that go into your illustrations, and every now and then there will be a weak link in the chain that requires reinforcement It's not like you learn everything once, and that's it. Every skill that goes into this is like a muscle you've got to exercise regularly. If you want to keep it strong, that's why you're best at what you practice most. If you draw pretty ladies all the time, you'll probably find men difficult to draw. If you practice heads and hands but never legs or feet, you can guess which ones will be your greatest weakness. And if you want to be well rounded, it everything. You've got to learn how to lean into those weaknesses, finding the floors in your work and conquering them as they arise. Treat every challenge you come up against as an opportunity to grow beyond it and get better. That's your compass. It's pointing you in the exact direction you need to go to take your out to the next level . Now I'm further refining zings face, adding in some subtle rendering around horizon, sickening up the mascara and finessing the shape of her brows and jawline. Too many additional details will blemish her clear, youthful complexion, so I'm staying away from defining her cheekbones and certainly any wrinkles. Instead, I'm emphasizing the facial features themselves, especially the eyes and lips, which exude the greatest amount of feminine allure. In fact, I thought it might be a cool idea to try on some black lipstick fizzing just to see how that would look. But then I decide that will probably be a little too much, plus it to take away my ability to experiment with different shades of color that I could potentially go with later. For me, the most important part of any character is their face. But this applies especially to super heroines. That's where they emanate their physical beauty at its most potent. And typically you want them to be attractive, since that visual desire ability is so closely tied to the uncle type. If you think about villains, which are on the opposite end of the spectrum, they usually look scarier, more eccentric and in some cases downright hideous, which makes their physical appearance somewhat uncomfortable. Toe Look at this is exactly what you want a villain to invoke uneasiness, uncertainty and fear. But a super heroine has a much more inviting appearance. She posing your attention and hold your gaze. She's an ideal the encompass mint of the divine beauty and power with your worship, if not dream of having ourselves. And although the physique off her body in the way she holds herself will play a vital role in conveying that, it's really her face that captures the eye of the beholder. First, it creates an instant connection as the features express the unseen emotions and feelings within the character. You might not even notice the average looking extras in the background of a superhero comic book and most villains of psychopaths. So even if you wanted to get an emotional read on them, you'd be out of luck. But an attractive super heroine who isn't just good looking but symbolizes divine beauty is going to entrance you instantly. That's really the key to opening up a reinforced emotional connection between you and that character, especially when you're talking about super heroines whose features are often emphasized with makeup to specifically draw attention to the most expressive parts of their face. Visuals always come first before the personality off your character, I'm saying, looks matter. And although that statement might be a little controversial, the reality is aesthetics basically determine whether or not you even take the time of day to get to know someone, because the way they look gives you a clue into who they are before they ever speak a word . Which is important. Because, of course, we want to gauge whether or not someone is friendly, kind, mean or dangerous before we approach them. And comics are a visual medium, so that applies to the way you convey your characters to an even greater extent. But then, I guess you could say Zing here is so beautiful, so powerful and so idealized that she's kind of intimidating. And I think that's definitely the effect you want your super heroines toe have. It's like if you were to meet your favorite movie star, it'll be totally surreal but so nerve wracking at the same time. Imagine what it would be like to actually meet Wonder Woman Zatanna or Captain Marvel. Better yet, what if they came to your rescue, you'd be frozen with Orrin rendered speechless. Now think about how you'd feel standing in the same room as the superhero when you've been creating throughout this course, hopefully there so overwhelmingly awesome that they'd leave you and everyone else in their present starstruck except for the evil doers. We want them trembling in their boots with a few final tweaks to the contours that defined the shape of her legs. That pretty much completes the thinking process for using what you've seen. In this lesson is an approach to inking a super hair When clad in Light Mama, which is fitted over a classic, tight fitting costume consisting of two distinct materials we learned about shape, form, line, weight, variation, shadow and cross hatching. In the following lessons will explore methods for inking drapery, chromatic armor and augmented robotics. 8. Chapter 5: Inking Guardina: So here we are about to link up the glorious Gardena. I'm starting with a rise, framing them with some thick, luscious lashes. The artists who really showed me how much impact bold eyelashes can have on your ladies was Michael Turner. He'd always draw girls with these gorgeous faces that seemed to emphasize their feminine beauty through the way he stylized their features. But he always walked a thin line between semi realistic and overly exaggerated preference wise. I wanted my characters toe look less cartoony than that, so I balanced out the look of my female faces with the influence of Marc Silvestri. He still drew bold and beautiful features on his women, but the proportions he used seemed more true to reality. The other thing was, these artists would draw their comic book beauties with extremely sharp jaw lines, which partially offset the feminine touch they were trying to achieve. So I tried to shape the faces of my female characters to be a little more narrow and softer . It's a difficult balance to strike sometimes because you want your super heroines features to be strong, yet you want to preserve their feminine appeal as much as possible. Just as before, we're laying in the characters outlined first or in inking terms, establishing the holding lines those that I'm laying in now, a defining the shape of Gardiner's tiara and her river, all hairstyle holding lines boldly framed. The core elements that compose the characters design, while the subtler interior contours described their form, surface materials and texture. So the outline of her hair will be thicker than the rendering will place within it later toe add depth, separation and volume. I'm really trying to capture a nice, elegant flow to the hair here as I land each line, and there's a particular gesture that I used to help me create that called the Line Off Beauty. The best way I can describe it is that it basically looks like a distorted version of the letter s. The shape can be stretched, flipped and rotated, depending on where and how you intend to use it. But it seems to create a smooth, rhythmic pathway for the line to follow that works well for dynamic, natural flowing assets such as hair and cloth. Now you can see me getting into some of the interior design work for Gardiner's tiara and bossing. It's circular emblem and surrounding pens into the metal through the use of line waits. Since the design of the TRS surfaces literally being carved into it, the top of the defining contours for each shape a thickened up. As I outlined the top of her cape, you'll notice that it shares some similarities to the formation off her hair, the trajectory of the holding lines, a smooth and streamlined absent of jagged edges that take away from the soft aesthetic of the fabric. I'm thinking about the underlying form of her shoulders and where the capes points of tension will occur as it drapes across them. This allows us to figure out the placement and direction of the foods within the material. The formation of drapery is primarily dependent on the form it's covering, but it also has its own physics that react to the characters motion or environmental influences such as wind and water. The physical properties of drapery also come into play. Different materials such as leather, cotton, silk wool or Denham, all very in density and thickness along the composition off their folds increases. So to figure out your approach, you've got to carefully consider the characteristics of your super heroines costuming. If I'm thinking about God, Deena's top, for example, I wanted to be made of a loose cotton that's comfortable toe, where it talks in around the top of her Rama and holds itself up by wrapping around the tops of her shoulders like your typical Brar a bikini. So now I've got an idea as to where the primary point of tension are going to be located, from which the folds increases will be pulled out across the underlying forms. And I'm considering all of this as I outlined the shape of her top, logically asking myself what it's made off and how it'll fit around the body. That's the key to creating convincing looking closing for your characters. Because from there you can easily track down reference images off outfits that are made of the same material and replicate their attributes as the folds. Increases pull away from the points of tension. The material stretches across her breasts and begins to even out against the peak of their elevated form. And this shows us a perfect example of how drapery usually gets filled out by whatever it's covering. So If you have a sheet of fabric neatly laid out on the floor, it'll essentially be a flat plane. Place a bowling ball underneath it, however, and it'll fit the shape of the object by conforming to its surface. From there, let's talk about AAMA. You can see that I've already outlined the chrome plated corset that wraps around Gardiner's midsection to protect her vital organs after roll. This is one part of the human body that the anatomical structure of our skeleton kind of leaves open and vulnerable to attack. Haram Er is divided up into three overlapping plates that slide across one another toe allow for maximum maneuverability as Gardiner's torso twists, turns and bends. But to actually show the ordering off that overlap, I've added some subtle line waiting to the sames that indicate the layering off the plates . And oh probably emphasized these divisions even more later on, just to make sure each segment is clearly defined. What you're going to notice is the design of Gardiner's armor will get most of its fancy. Nus, from the patterns are being king in within it later on. As for the shape of the armor itself, the outline essentially just follows the contours of her body, and as they continue down around her hips, thighs and carves, we want them to flow with a smooth, fluid ity. They should feel visually soothing toe look at effortlessly delineating her entire figure with ease and elegance. This makes the holding lines feel more feminine. They're not jagged, pointy or hard. Instead, they're soft, curved and streamlined. These qualities within the shape and flow of the defining contours will level up your super heroines. Feminine appeal, which can certainly get lost if it's not intentionally incorporated into the line on every archetype, has its own mind style. The body of a superhero like he men, for example, would likely be delineated with broad straight lines that vividly define his anatomy to give him a more masculine aesthetic. Villains, on the other hand, might be articulated with contours that a sharp, jagged and pointy making them appear more dangerous. This all goes back to the common associations we all have to these archetypes, so to properly present them, we've got to do our best to show these visual cues in the way we depict our characters. Taking a focus back to Gardiner's leg AAMA. I've attended to the joints first, inking in the outline for the knee guard and the ankle plate there mechanism has already been designed to allow the leg to move freely. So now it's just a matter of cleaning up the line, not and refining their shape. Yes, Gardena is wearing high heels along with the other super heroines in this lineup. No practical. It'll they make it hard to stay balanced. They're tiring toe walk in and can even cause long term damage if they won't often enough. So why do women wear them at all? Well, there's no question about it. High heels are sexy, lengthening the leg of a lady for a more appealing, feminine stance that gives the hips more swing as they walk. So if you want to ramp up the sex appeal over your super heroines, have them try on a set of stilettos. If you're not us who airs on the side of practicality, then by all means give the poor girl some combat boots to get around in. It's totally up to you, but just between you and I, if the visuals a striking sexy and cool enough people will tend to forget about the lack of realism in the design choices you've made with the holding lines and joints to find. I'm getting stuck into the interior patterns throughout Gardiner's leg. Armagh thes contours somewhat fully the underlying muscle structure off the leg but also kind of don't as they detour around the form on their own path. This design consists of no straight lines whatsoever. They all curve in one direction or the other, adding to the soothing visuals off her Reverol look. I try to pull each line out in a single stroke, giving it a smooth run along its trajectory. I might go back and refine it shape to either smooth over any wobbliness or adjust the thickness. But if I can keep my hands steady enough until they reach the end of the line, it'll flow much more seamlessly along its trajectory. This is hard to do because as well as controlling the direction of the line, you've also got to monitor the amount of pressure you're applying as you go. You can always build a thin line back up by going over it again. But if you lay it into sick using the A race it'll or wide out. If you're working traditionally to trim and reshape, it can be a time consuming task. As I said before, you really don't need to pull long lines out in a single stroke. But it's also not practical to sketch the men with tiny little dashes. Not only is that approach extremely tedious, it'll say tends to produce a rough, choppy looking contour. Depending on the digital drawing application you're using, there's probably an option in your bar settings that will allow you to increase the smoothness over your brush stroke, which will help you to steady the line. But let's say you want to learn how to do this. Freehand. To be honest, it's a matter of confidence, and the only way to build that up is to actively start minimizing the amount of times you lift your pen off the page as you ink. It's also useful to draw from your shoulder or elbow rather than your wrist. This gives your forearm more stability and you'll be able to pull your lines out further, thanks to the added range of movement, a case that we're back onto the drapery, inking in the outline for Gardiner's loincloth because of its cut in length. The vertical contours that defined the folds increases off the fabric is so long that I'm finding it extremely difficult to complete them in a single take. So instead, I'm building the lines up in broad strokes, taking them as far as I can, then filling in the gaps and needing them up with the eraser tool. This is another situation where I'm hitting. Undo multiple times as I attempt to land the perfect line. It requires an extreme amount of control over your pen. Otherwise, you'll find that the lines quickly slide off track. Something that's going to help you out here is knowing where you want to take the line. To think of it like a flight path, you want to do the best you can to draw out that line to the next pit stop without it veering off its designated route. Otherwise, it could lend in a completely different spot. What Gardiner's loincloth NKP have in common is that, unlike her top, they both hang freely off the body, so the direction of the folds in the material are instead defined by the force of gravity or the momentum of movement. As it pulls away from the point of tension. A similar pattern emerges in curtains. What's interesting is that when they pulled open or shut, the size and depth of their folding formation changes. If we apply the same physics to guardian, escape the width of his shoulders, where the point of tension occur in comparison to its span will determine the fabrics level of compression. And the cape is somewhat wider than her shoulders, which means we're going to see narrow a deeper folds within the material. If we look at the top half of her loincloth, however, we can see that these fold increases don't all fall straight from the top to the bottom. In fact, we can see the meeting in the middle to form a steep U shaped curve. This is no. One as a diaper fold and is usually created when a sheet of material is held up on either side by two points of tension. When hanging bed linen on the clothes line, for example, or holding up a blanket at the corners to fold it, you can easily see this same sagging formation appear in the center, and if we were to spin Gardena around the folding, her cape would no doubt form a similar U shape at the top between her shoulders. Sanam, outlining Godina, is armed, doing my best to articulate the shape of her anatomy with a decent amount of form, since a protective chrome plating is basically the equivalent of a shiny metallic skin. What I'm defining to begin with is the holding lines around the main muscle groups off her arm. Overlap occurs as the surrounding contours off the shoulders, biceps, triceps and forearm all lead into each other, creating a nice sense of depth within the arm structure. The reason the design for Cadenas armor was fairly easy to piece together is because it's so heavily based on her anatomy, which was a no brainer for May, because the human body is architected extremely well. This made it so that the appearance of functionality was built into her rama by default, which is what makes it look believable. Because of this, there's an inherent organic feel to its shape, language, the interior design, patents, air composed in a way that suggests it was forged by the forces of nature, encapsulating her body in a reflective steel skin that's knee indestructible. The reason I went for this aesthetic is because I wanted Gardiner's armor to feed into the idea that she is indeed from an otherworldly dimension where supreme beings of unimaginable power dwell. The reinforced properties of the armor would be far stronger than any steel, metal or iron found on Earth, and it had moved symbiotically with her body as if it was a part of it. You'll notice that as I ink, I'm applying a slight amount of weight variation. Even if I come back later to adjust the lines and refined them. It's become a habit of mind to vary their thickness even on the initial stroke. And it does give the line on a certain level of depth where we can see the overlap off her body. The cram plates, fabric folds end her luscious locks of hair. Having that extra emphasis throughout the illustration, as I develop it hopes, clarify the areas will need to revisit later on. It'll say, makes it easier for me to make sense of how it's coming together visually, because when everything is flat with the same level of contrast, it's hard not to get lost and confused, you're. I find it difficult to properly interpret what you're saying, especially if you're working on a relatively intricate character design. In fact, Gardiner's loincloth is kind of causing my depth perception to trip up right now because it's exterior Khan to his aunt, yet emphasized enough for it to stand out against her leg in the back of her cape. So later I'll have to fix that by significantly thickening up. It's an online to bring it forward, so I'm back onto the hair now and again, I'm using these long, sweeping lines to define her radiant locks by bending thumb along that gestural s curve. I'm able to describe the movement and flow of her hair with rhythm. This makes it look alive. Overall, her hairstyle forms a graceful silhouette of long, luscious looks that I'm building up one clump a time. See individual strands of hair tend to bind together and float in unison, which is why some mornings you'll wake up with a crazy new hairdo that just won't be tamed , regardless of how much you try to patted down those rebellious Tufts of hair and made up of hundreds of strands that are all stubbornly holding that form. Then you jump into the shower. What happens? It clusters together in a new direction. He get out, give your hair a good comb, shaping it into whatever star you like to rock for the day. But once more, all those strands are sticking together, their synergistic in nature, always working in unison to form some kind of composition. And I've got to say that as I'm laying in these lines, it really does feel like I'm combing gaudiness head. That's probably a good way to think of it, too. As you're styling the hair off your super heroines, pull each line toward the direction you want to brush it in what were mostly trying to convey through l line work is texture, shape and flow. That's it. So whatever you do, don't articulate every strand. It tends to be a natural inclination when it comes to drawing hair, but often just leads to a mess of scribbles. The major forms come first, then the texture we create through subdividing the hair, which conveys the illusion off strands. The country is, um, laying in to divide the hair up, alternate in their distance between one another. If I were to make them look to uniform, the hair wouldn't feel natural anymore. It would start to look plastic and fake. You can also see that I'm feeling in some of the gaps between the larger looks with final, tightly packed lines. Their purpose is to create separation between the layering, which will in turn boost the volume of the hair. This is basically a light form of rendering, where we're using tone to create more depth and later on a push it even further with additional rendering. It helps to think of each lock of hair as a strip of ribbon. Some will sit further forward and overlapped those that are behind or they might twist and intertwined with one another. The physics of hair is very dynamic in the way it moves and interacts with itself. The trick is to convey that through the use of line weights and rendering. Overlapping ribbons are defined with bold lines that give them that extra pop, while the receding layers which catch less light, are broken up into smaller divisions. As I mentioned before, this causes their tone to shift into a darker shade, ultimately adding contrast separation and a greater amount of depth. You can see, though, that these shaded pockets of here only travels so far before their lane is essentially cut off and mergers into the neighbouring contours. This creates a multitude of darkened V shapes, which cordon off the underlying layers cast in shadow to create a textual transition into the overlapping locks that catch the light. Now back onto the armor to render the polished Miral like shine off its chrome plated surface. And I'm starting with the course. It the way like toe approach chrome materials is to establish the course shadow first, which typically defined with an organic liquefied, silhouette the mid tones and then build off of that through a combination of narrow streams of shadow and hatching to create a stark transition into the highlights. In essence, both the core shadows in mid tones of fluid in shaping composition generally flowing along the surface being rendered, think of them like a complex system of black rivers that stream across the form. Of course, the idea here is to suggest that these shadows are actually distorted reflections off the surrounding environment. That's where the logical considerations do come into play as faras their placement. The co shadow was established on the darkest side of the course it. But there's also going to be a less intense secondary shadow present where the surface of the form curves away from the light in the opposite direction. The highlights themselves thinly grade eight into the shadows that frame their edge, making their shape appeared just as defined as the shadows to give the material that glossy shine. Rin Learning also occurs around the sides of the chrome plated course at emphasizing its silhouette and the reflectiveness off its surface. What we end up with is a composition of multiple shadows and highlights, all of which a place based upon the positioning of the light source. So as long as you generally keep that in mind and remember that all rendering should help to describe the formula. Working with, he can really let yourself experiment with the line and shadow shapes you use to render crime materials. And to tell you the truth, the way I've rendered Gardiner's course, it isn't doing a very good job of articulating her underlying anatomy. If we compare it to the rendering around Haram, you can see that the shadows and highlights placed on top of the individual muscles is much more descriptive of its overall form. On the other hand, her midsection looks like it's been covered with a solid chrome cylinder that doesn't really articulate her anatomy. This makes the courts that looks stiff, shapeless and impossible to move in. So I'm going back to describe the major forms of her body more distinctly. Instead of treating the AAMA as one shape, I'm going to give each of its individual plates their own shadows and highlights. You can already see the separation between the forms is beginning to re clearer. Now. The segmentation that's being created brings back the appearance of flexibility in her mid section, which is where the torsos greatest range of movement occurs. I'm still following the same rules I laid out earlier, using organic fluid shapes to define the shadows, mid tones and highlights, except now they're being placed within the context of the subdivided forms we've created. When it comes to crow materials, the surface is so reflective that it'll have light bouncing off of it, even in the areas where its surface is facing directly away from the main light source. The reason for this is that light rays don't just travel in a single direction. They rebound off of every surface they hit to some degree or another. Certain objects might consist of Matt materials that absorb most of the light, resulting in a weaker reflection. Others, such as chrome or aluminium, bounce light back with a much greater intensity. So the shadows appealed away from the edges of the armor plating and somewhat diluted by the secondary highlights that reflect off of its glossy surface. There's so many ways in which this can be stylized and presented in comic book out, but the way I go about it is I simply defined the bounding edge of the course shadow that separates it from the main highlight. Then, rather than completely filling it in a Grady, the interior values transitioning into a dark, mid tone that illuminates the shadow as it curves around the form and into the secondary highlights. This implies the reflections off the surrounding environment inside the shadow, creating that glossy Crume effect we're looking for. Unlike the subtle value shifts within the shadows themselves, there's very little blend between their outside edge and the neighbouring highlights, The transition is sudden to convey the intense speculate or ity over the chromium. So, in a sense, as we established the outline of the course, shadow were also defining the edge of the highlights on either side of it. Thes borders consist of multiple lines that double up against each other, varying dynamically in terms of thickness, density and spacing. They split off along the length of the course shadow, acting as a form of rendering to suddenly softened the edge of its trajectory. All that said, these lines have a certain energetic randomness to their shape language that, unfortunately, can't be faked or manufactured using an analytical approach, many of them aren't inked with conscious thought. I'm really just going with the flow, keeping the lines as smooth and slick as I can and using my I to judge whether or not the forms and values a reading correctly. There needs to be a natural gesture to your strokes that gives the lines a sense of movement. They should follow a rhythmic trajectory that invokes activity and liveliness. These lines are straight or uniforms, so once you loosen up and get your pen moving, you'll find it feels very natural to lay them in along the s shaped path, the main things to keep in mind. Other light source, which will dictate where the course shadows are going to be placed and that the secondary highlights are reflected back into the shadow on the shaded side of the form. Then all you got to do is give yourself some time and space for the process to click through practical application. The way I developed my approach to rendering shiny medals was by studying the way other artists interpreted similar materials. Some of the first references I came across with from the collections of Fantasy Art on My Bookshelf by Boris Villager and Julie Bell. Julie is very well known for her ability to paint chrome plated characters and creatures, so I'd carefully observe where she placed the reflections, shadows ingredients around their forms, as well as the Hughes. She chose to color them. But Herat was extremely realistic, which meant I had to work out a way to translate her aesthetic into the black and white stylized format off comic book line. Not for that, I looked to my favorite comic book artists like David Finch, Marc Silvestri and Jim Lee. Sometimes it was hard to find solid examples of how they went about depicting crime materials, but I track down as many as I could save them into my reference library and analyze them carefully. Problem was, I had no idea where to start. There was no method to follow. As cool as chrome plating looks, it's equally is intimidating toe attempt due to its visual complexity. But I copied what I saw in their work as best I could, and to my surprise, I picked it up pretty fast on my own. Sure, it took me a few tries to refine my approach, but after a while, glossy metals became one of my favorite materials to Rendah. The thing about crime material is that it all comes down to the visuals. If it looks right than it is right, the method doesn't quite matter as much as the end outcome. After making some slight tweaks to gaudiness face, I'm turning my attention back to her hair. We're going to be tackling a few things at once here, sticking up the line weights and adding in a second pass of rendering Teoh increase the texture and volume. First, let's talk about where I'm placing the line weights and why the everlasting locks of hair A given a bolder outline to pull them further forward. This distances them from the layers below, creating more depth as well as defining the composition off the hair with greater clarity by breaking it up in a way that makes it shape and movement easier to visually interpret. The second pass of rendering creates additional tonal contrast within the layering, following the already established form and flow of Gardiner's hair, the render lines even finals, this time around to create a greater value range that captures the subtler shades. The darkest pockets receiving the least amount of light are given the most amount of hatching to deepen their tone as they received, which you guessed it gives the hair even more pop. Since Gardena is a blonde, her hair appears much fairer than zings. What makes it distinctly lighter is that instead of being filled in with solid blacks, the shaded areas are suggested using lighter, mid tones which are created through the rendering. So while zings brunette locks range from pure white in the highlights to pitch black in the shadows. The darkest values within Gardiner's head don't drop below amid gray, even in the unlit areas. If you squint your eyes to blur the lines, you can see the tonal differences between. The two were working with black and white line art to create grayscale shading here, so we're not necessarily trying to indicate color as much as tonal value. Gaudiness hair could very well be Pinkel lime green instead of blonde, but we can't convey those use without adding some actual color. What we are able to show is help bright or dark. The hair is going to be as I render. I continue breaking up the hair and filling in the subdivided gaps with final hatches. I very their thickness and distance to control the density of the tone within each separation, building it out one stroke at a time until the desired value is shaded in. Because they're so thin and precise, each stroke is executed with a great amount of control, un constantly monitoring the role in purpose. Every line serves as they laid in. Is it defining the shape? Clearly does its thickness convey the right amount of debt, and over that for that particular element is it describing the form surface with dimension , volume and mass? And does the distance between the neighbouring render lines along with their weight variation composed The correct tone. Long streaming locks of hair can add to the drama of a super heroine, as its gesture complements the movements off her body or blues freely in the wind. But one of the other reasons I've made Gardiner's hair so long is that it strongly associated with high levels of status, authority and power. When we imagine a fairytale princess or goddess, for example, most of the time we're going to picture them with long flowing hair that falls well past the shoulders. Why is that? Well, it's because when hair grows beyond a certain point, it becomes difficult to maintain to keep those luscious locks beaming with vibrance and splendor. They've got to be groomed, styled, end conditioned regularly. That's extremely time consuming, impractical and difficult for most people to do, which is why it's a luxury reserved for those of highest status who have the freedom and wealth toe let others tend to the upkeep off their exuberant hair. It's also a sign of fertility youth and vitality. Statistically, women with longer hair a fan to be younger and age while its quality and strength directly correlates to their level of health, fitness and rest fullness, Certain mineral deficiencies and malnutrition tends to cause discoloration and even hair loss. So shiny, thick, lustrous hair serves as a cue for reproductive potential, which is why, biologically speaking, it's considered an attractive trait across many coaches, So I need it by giving God in a long, majestic hair. It would help convey her superior godlike status and to really hit the point home. I made her a blonde hair colors full under the umbrella of many different stereotypes, which is really just another word for easy to relate to associations. Fair hair symbolizes feminine beauty, pureness of heart and innocence, lending to the assumption that Gardena is indeed good when we combine the length and color of her hair, what we end up with is a super heroine who emanates extreme power superiority, sex appeal and a sincere sense of trust. And it's not just her hair. Every element plays into this idea. Her tiara, the cape, the glistening, chrome plated armor. As you design your super heroines. Ask yourself, What do you want them to represent? Then funnel every design decision you make into that idea? I'm adding the final touches to her hair, making small divisions where it needs more separation, extending lines that a too short and cutting back those that it too long. Thes subtle adjustments require a well trained eye that I believe can only be developed through experience. Think about it. Every right decision you make is simply the result of all the things you've done wrong in the past, and in the same way you wouldn't touch the stove twice after being burned. Once you learn to become a better artist through trial and error, the catch is you've got to be brave enough to let go of perfection. Embrace yourself, full those inevitable mistakes because it's the fastest way to level up. If we didn't want to create impressive out, we wouldn't be here trying to give their abilities a boost, which is why the thought of someone pointing out its floors feels humiliating. So we tend to be reserved in our approach in case we mess up. The timid may protect their egos, but you've got to be bold to make real progress. That's why I celebrate the mistakes I make because then I've got my next target inside. I can flag that mishap and surpass it once I know it's there, but only once it's revealed. Can it be conquered? So you've got to take action first. This reminds me of an incident that happened to my brother a few years back. He was crossing a narrow strip of road toe pick something up from the grocery store. One day the traffic was quiet and it was only a hop and a skip to the other side. So he didn't look for oncoming vehicles and he was hit. I'm not just talking about a little nudge, either. He was knocked to the ground and sprawled out across the bitumen. Luckily, it wasn't too serious. He went to hospital and they gave him the OK that very same day. But you can bet he's extra careful now, and in fact, he'll tell me off if I'm about to make the same error in judgment. It's a dramatic example, but honestly, illustrating comics is the same way the moment you catch yourself making a mistake, or someone points out an error you missed in your work. You go out of your way to avoid making it again. It's a powerful way to learn my brown. I also love playing arcade fighting games like Mortal Combat Chicken and Street Fighter. Mostly I'm super inspired by the design of the characters. You might even see a hint of their influence in the look of my super heroines. Typically, these video games require you to outmaneuver your opponent and beat them with a few well placed combos. Chances are, if you've ever played a video game like this before, you'll get laid out pretty first by more experienced gamer. But each round you're beaten, you begin toe wires up. You look at the habitual moves off the other player so you can avoid their blows. You memorize the button sequences that will allow you to give them a streak of pummeling. Instead, you save your para ups for the critical point at which your nemesis is about to be K herd. You go from a wild button smashing amateur to a butt kicking master how through persistence and determination but most importantly, actively avoiding past failures through the anticipation off your opponents next move, becoming a pro comic book illustrator is similar. You go into it not knowing the moves or combos. You win a few rounds, but you lose more until you're able to predict where those potential downfalls will occur. After a while you develop a strategy. You learn what works and you avoid what doesn't. What I'm doing now is thickening up the holding lines around Gardiner's loincloth and legs to make them stand out against her cape without that distance between them that look like flat paper cutouts that a stacked on top of one another using overlap is one of the easiest ways to create depth. If we look at the layout hierarchy of elements in God Enas design, we can see that the loincloth overlaps the legs, which sits in front of her cape. And behind that there's her flowing locks of golden hair. So we've got four layers of overlap happening just in the bottom half of her body. But then we've also got to create a sense of space between them, which will make the closest elements pop out further and push those sitting behind right to the back. This is where line weight variation helps create that sense of depth. It's a simple technique, but it's an effective one, emboldened the line to make it appear closer and keep it thin if you want to push it back. But why does this work? How does merely adjusting tow line thickness generate the illusion of depth in a two dimensional illustration? Well, it's because when we look at a scene, everything in the foreground is more emphasized. Things scale up the closer they get, that details become more crisp, creating a greater amount of visual clarity as they come into focus. In contrast, we see the opposite effect. When it comes to backgrounds, details begin to diminish and blur. Things become smaller, the further away they get, and even their Keller begins to fade. As the environmental Hayes dilutes their Hughes scale and resolution of the primary cues, we've got to tell how far away something is from us, the way we emulate distance within black and white line artist. Similar, we use size and detail to create space between the components that make up the scene, but most importantly, and this is especially true when it comes to our super heroines, we emphasized the elements that is sitting at the forefront of the character with a boater outline. And it's the heaviest contours. Our eyes will catch first before they're drawn deeper into the illustration, thanks to the hierarchy of depth we've created. Now, instead of a flat paper cut out, we've created a three dimensional presentation off the character that pops off of the page . Of course, this also improves the readability all of our super heroine. Because of the additional definition and separation between each element. It's easier to interpret what we're looking at, your really manufacturing the viewer's experience as they take in the character. To ensure it, they can properly comprehend what you're showing them. You want to create an immediate connection between the ink line out on the page in the idea it represents. This is the greatest battle of all, because the entire reason we create art is to manifest our imagination as a visual rendition that others can experience. But the trick is getting it to reflect our original vision as closely as possible. And although the final image may never be a perfect replica of its mental counterpart, the general concept should be clear enough for people to understand it without having to scratch their head too hard. Let's talk about the process for rendering drapery. As you can see, I've started shading, gutting as loincloth with some lengthy parallel render lines. The amount of pressure I'm applying with the stylist is near nil to keep them thin and ultra fine. But as you can imagine, since they travel down the length of the cloth for such a long distance, they require an extremely steady hand tow. Avoid any wobbliness, and I'm messing up constantly as I try to get these lines as perfect as possible. Almost every single one requires multiple attempts, either because the line wasn't neat enough or the tone being created wasn't set at the correct value. So not only in my erasing single hatches. In some cases, I'm redoing entire patches of rendering. With lines out of this long, it's best to work at a slightly faster pace, directing the lines as best you can along their trajectory. With a little extra speed, you'll find that your strokes have more stability. It's like riding a murder cycle. The faster you go, the more the bike tends to straighten up and balance out, but you still go toe, have a certain level of control to steer it in the right direction. What's my strategy for placing rendering in the When it comes to drapery? I treat every fold wrinkle increase as if they have their own geometry. You could liken it to a landscape with hills and valleys that shape the terrain of the cloth. So I shaved them, just as I would any other form. Keeping in mind the light direction and brightness as well, is considering the properties of the material in its tonal value. The type of material you're working with will greatly affect the density and distribution over the rendering silk, leather, satin, wool and cotton, for example, or reflect light and collect shadow insignificantly different ways. So we want to compose our shading to convey the contrast color, shiny nous and vibrancy over the material we've chosen for our super heroines drapery. Then we need to ask yourselves, what kind of folds will these materials form and how will they be affected by the fit of the closing? You probably already determined this when you linked in the characters outline, but the gradation over your hatching will still effect had type narrow, loose or broad. Those folds appear to be once they shaded in Orender, each fold as if it were a cylindrical tube, darkening up the creases that fall into shadow with an increasing number of tightly packed hatches. At the peak of the form, those render lines gradually become thinner, spreading out as they ascend toward the light. But the food's increases a secondary to the major form of the tray pre and so hold a strange middle ground between texture and surface details. For example, if we look at the overall Kong cave formation in the middle of Gardiner's loincloth, we can see an increased amount of hatching as that dip descends down at center. 9. Chapter 6: Inking Glitch: Now we're onto Glitch, the final character in our super heroine lineup. As before, I'm working with the trustee pen Tal here in Mangus Studio, using a tiny brush size to ink her facial features in the bottom left of the screen. Over in the layers tab. You can see that I've switched back to the inks outline layer, where I'm placing old a major outlines for my super heroines. Glitch included. After enough repetition, my approach has become almost automatic. I start out by inking arise, framing them with beautiful, bold lashes that not only caused them to look bigger but also draws attention to them as a central point of focus. Then I move on to the noise and lips. I figured out the placement and scale of the features when I penciled up the draft. So now my aim in the inking stage is to capture the best shape I possibly can for them. The set list curve in the contour or transition in weight variation can make all the difference here. It's truly surprising how much of an impact the variables over your line can have on your work. At this scale, everything comes down to shape. You want to capture each part of the character with strong, vivid shapes that enhance the area over the drawing being outlined. So stylization an exaggeration can be useful in many ways. If we think about certain cartoons or enemy, for example, the anatomy, hairstyles and costuming, all the characters within them are often designed with powerful shapes that pack a punch on screen comic book characters of the same. It's just that instead of being animated, their sequences are broken down into still frames. So we have the luxury of enhancing their visuals further by adding more details and rendering to dial up the realism, creating a more convincing representation of our characters, which still maintains that eye catching stylization one of the most important areas to capture this is your super heroines, hairstyle and glitches. Rockin hairdo differs a lot in comparison to the previous two we've inked up. It's a much shorter choppier cuts, so the line of beauty isn't as prison in its flow and movement, the overall shape of her hair and the subdivided clubs within it, a sharper and strata, which, combined with its length, produces a decidedly less feminine look than the average woman. This was an important design choice for glitch, since her personality is more masculine and aggressive. She's always looking for a reason to kick some butt and show the bad guys whose bus I'm not rendering her hair completely just yet. But I am indicating it's layering and texture just to get a clear idea as to how it's going to sit on top of a head, taking the time to understand the geometry over your characters. Physical attributes will help to the picked him later on within a range of dynamic compositions. This pays off in a big way when drawing your characters from one panel to the next. In a comic book sequence, you've got to be able to present them in an endless amount of scenarios, poses and camera angles. And the only way to confidently pull that off is by considering the structure and forms that make up their appearance. Now I'm working on glitches jackets, starting with the outline of its upturned color it'll say has a very sharp shape to it that Feliz, the encompassing theme off her silhouette glitches shape language is a direct contrast to Gardiner's softer, smooth flowing contours highlighting the stark differences in what they're visuals convey about, Um, God in his power is truly magnificent, but she could be reasoned with N Show mercy to remorseful villains who promised to change their evil ways. Glitch, on the other hand, is without a doubt going to shoot first and ask questions later. She's not elegant, has little need for vanity and comes packaged with a heck of an attitude. And if you look at the line work I'm defining her with, you can see these character traits reflected. You could literally describe these contours as sharp and aggressive. Even the folds of the material form originally around her body, who she is is woven into the line work itself below. The closing folds have already been defined in the underlying sketch. I'm still thinking about the tension points, glitches, jacket and how they pulled and pinched the material in different directions. Since clothing conforms to the body, her post will influence the composition off the folds increases in her jacket. You can see how, as her arm Benz and rotates in wood to rest against her hip, the fabric appears to rotate along with it, creating what's known as a spiral fold formation. This occurs when a twisting motion is applied to the fabrics, such as in this example, and it highlights how the materials physical state is constantly modified by the movement over your characters body. This is what makes various forms of closing so confusing to convey accurately. There's so many ways it can be stretched and compressed, and the right way is often dependent on its characteristics as well as the movement of the underlying forms that governance behavior. But once you determine what those variables are, the dynamic nature over the clothing becomes clearer and easier to manipulate. It's all a matter of physics. If you know where the primary tension points reside, you'll know how to direct the folds increases over the material as it's pulled across the body by the opposing forces of tension created by its movement. The place helps to define the direction and pulled the material, and the style and cut of the clothing determines the thickness in depth of the folds. It's that simple glitches Jacket is designed to have a loose fit around the arms and a tighter fit around the bust, where zips up at the front. As a result, the sleeves have thick of foes, the bunch up around the cuffs while those across her chest a sharper and more narrow. So, depending on the style of clothing, your super heroines wearing the formations that occur within the material can mix and match in interesting ways. The line work itself is extremely fine. Some folds ringtone using single lines, others a looped back to create a hook or less sue shape that suggests indented pockets of fabric. As a inking glitches design, It's easy to become overwhelmed and not really know where to begin or how to go about it. This comes from a false belief that we have to do everything all at once, when in reality, the best way to ink an intricate drawing is bit by bit that stops you from freaking out, keeps things manageable and allows you to be more productive in the long run. Remember, the inking process can be done in multiple stages, and the outline for me is always the first step. So that's what I'm focused on here. The shading and finer details of her latest. So I don't even think about them at this point. I keep my attention on the here and now and try not to look too far ahead. That stays off stress and anxiety and actually allows me to enjoy the act of producing my artwork. For me, at least, a lot of this is mental game. And if I'm not in the right headspace, my work turns into a chore that I just end up wanting to avoid. As I think in the outline for glitches bionic arms, I keep the contours smooth and crisp. Each panel of metal and tech is described with vivid shape, yet they fit together as a whole to form the composition off her mechanical anatomy. The reason this works so well is because the muscle structure off her arms was used as a base to design their robotic replacements. From there, it was easy to build a functional design that made sense and looked cool at the same time. The aesthetic and style off the concept likely comes from a lot of different sources that have stored away inside my mental library over the years. But there were none in particular that are referenced, are directly for glitch. Her design was very much developed real time during the drafting stage. Sometimes this can be one of the best ways to work, because the end result is often a surprise. The catches You must have a vast a bucket of ideas floating around inside your head by default, which most people don't. This is a risky way toe work, even for me, because without that outside input, it's tempting to stay within my comfort zone rather than exploring new possibilities that might not have been offered up by alternative reference materials. Next, I'm focusing my attention on glitches, pelvis and thighs, where I'm attempting to delineate them with lengthy holding lines. My aim here is to get their outlined down in a single stroke with a minimal amount of wobbliness. But unfortunately, that's not working out too well for May, which is why I'm hitting the undo button repeatedly to see if I can get a smooth line. Some of these contours air going to take multiple attempts to link in and might still require a little touching up afterwards. The reason I try to get them down in one fell swoop is because, ideally, I'd like to use the gesture off my hand to create a natural flow of energy throughout the line. This makes it appear more fluid and a life, especially when combined with the serpentine line of beauty. If he can get your lines down perfectly in a single stroke on the first, try more power to you personally. It's something I'm really able to do, likely because I don't have the discipline over traditional Inca who can't as easily go back and fix a crooked contour when working digitally. You don't really need to take advantage of the fact that you can go back in. Tweak a less than perfect line as many times as you need until you're satisfied. The best you can do, in practical terms, is keep your hand as Citius possible and guide the line toward its destination with care and precision. Beyond that, what makes you a great Inca is noticing where the areas for improvement are in the first place. If he can get good at spotting the symptoms of an illustration that's doomed without remedy , that'll mean much more than perfect execution off the process. So don't worry so much about messing up and starting again, especially if you're working digitally what matters is that you didn't go back and re ink those lines until they were as neat as you could get them next. I'm going to define the outline of glitches. Lower legs. Capturing a strong, vivid shape that emphasizes the forms of her anatomy is my main priority here. It could be argued that pushing the cars and ankles to this level of exaggeration results in an academically incorrect depiction of what a woman's leg should actually look like. But, unfortunately, realistic anatomy and proportions simply look underwhelming in comparison. It takes more than that to present a dynamic character that exudes interest in impact on the page. Don't get me wrong. Anatomy and proportions are important, but they really play a supporting role in emphasizing the alive nous and attitude of the figure. That might mean altering what we know to be true in reality. But that's when your skills as a comic art crossman graduate beyond an exclusive understanding in anatomy and proportions in transition into ah honed style that's uniquely yours. Now I'm outlining the interior contours of the tech. These lines are very faint and easy to jot down in a single streak, since they don't have far to travel the underlying pencils. A pretty tight, too, so there's not a whole lot of guesswork required to refine the design of glitches. Robotic legs Bunning King involves more than just tracing over the top of your pencils, no matter how clean they are, what you're really doing is complimenting the drawing with a defined outline that enhances it with added dimension. Sometimes that come mainly getting away from the original draft to achieve a more polished outcome. That's why these days I try not to be too rigid with my finished pencils because it'll be the inks that ultimately form the final rendition off the line on as long as I've got enough information thereto work with, I leave it up to the ings to determine the weight off the line and where the rendering and finer details should be placed. Admitting Lee, it took me some time to feel confident in taking this approach. I used to pre plan precisely how the final line work would look during the penciling stage . But as I began thinking over the drawings that were more loosely defined, I found the process much more satisfying in a creative sense. things became a progression of refinement rather than a carbon copy of the pencils. And this doubled the speed at which I was able to complete a fully inked illustration. The interior shapes that make up the design off glitches Cybernetic Lee enhanced rubber legs are carefully defined with a crisp outline. They share a similar shape language to her augmented arm. Replacements for Design, Consistency and Justus before have based their architecture on the underlying muscle structure off the leg. There's actually a term for this No one as re skinning, where you take something that already exists and apply, and new skin or texture to it. In the case of Glitch, we're giving her legs a mechanical re skin. But as an alternative for different character, you could apply some kind of shell like alien structure scales or cry Mama, just like we did for Godina. Now I'm going to outline the shape of the shadows in preparation for spotting the blacks, beginning with glitches Handgun. I've mentioned why I do this instead of filling them in with ink straight up. But just as a quick recap, I want the silhouette of these shadows to be shopping crisp and what helped me to maintain their clean cut shape is toe. Simply delineate the area I plan on filling, and first this ensures that the feel is confined strictly within the edges of the shadow zones of defined, which I find to be a more precise approach than blocking them in with big blotches of ink. I don't like leaving things to chance if I can help it, which is probably why I stick toe a routine way of doing things when it comes to creating Comey card. If I follow the rules, the chances of reaching my desired outcome a much higher some modest may find this habitual approach to be somewhat boring, since you're really just repeating the same Siris of steps over and over again for every new character they create. If we look at the lineup of super heroines weaving to thus far, they were all produced in the same way. But honestly, I'm willing to trade in the monotony of repetitive process to get my idea across. Clearly, I didn't need the creative experience to be in over one. For me, it's simply a means to an end. That's why it's so valuable toe have when you take out all the ambiguity and you've committed the method to memory, so you don't have to stress about how you're going to tackle the next illustration anymore . You'll be able to focus on what matters the idea itself before getting to that stage that the biggest challenge really is developing an approach and mastering its execution. As faras inking is concerned, that's going to require physical discipline. In order to steady your hand, calibrate your application of pressure, Sweezy inked output of your line work and to train your eyes so you can finesse the shape and energy off the contours that define your characters. I've gone ahead, linked in a series of thin, evenly spaced parallel lines along the interior, color, shoulders and lining of glitches jacket to give it some textual variation. This pattern falls into the medium science categorias faras shape language goes, and this is an excellent tactic for increasing interest in areas of the character that seem a little bit. It's a balance, though, because you do want to have a certain level of visual contrast within the desire. If every part of your super heroine has an equal amount of texture and detail they will flatten out. The scale of visual complexity is somewhat of a nuanced topic because it affects the designs, composition, order, value, contrast and detail. And there's no perfect balance because all of these elements will be dialed differently, depending on the character. So I go by the age old notion that less is almost always more, and that seems to keep my tendency to add copious amounts of detail to my artwork. On a tight leash, I've clicked onto the shadow feel layer to you guessed it, fill in the shadows I outlined only a few minutes ago. This process is also known as spotting the blacks, a term you might have already heard me use before. The size of my pen brush has now been increased so that I can cover more area at once. But as you can see, it's still set toe a reasonably small size to help me keep inside the lines as I work. The potent level of contrast, readability and visual interest added to glitch is immediate. As the key portions of her designers separated by the opposing black and white values, it's hard to pinpoint the exact reason as to why contrast is so appealing to the eye. But my hunch is that it simply makes what you're looking at. Easier to see. Contrast causes the individual elements off the character to stand out on the road. And when you think about the fast paced action shots illustrated in a superhero comic book , you begin to understand how truly effective the use of contrast ing values and color can be within a character design. You might be wondering why I don't just feel in the shadows with the bucket tool that had saved time, right? Some digital comic artists certainly opt for this approach, and it makes the whole process way less tedious. The reason I don't do it is because even though it had initially look fine from a distance , if we woulda zooming closer, there would be a faint white edge of separation between the outline and the fill. So I'd rather manually spot the blacks filling in the entire space right up against the outline to ensure there's no gaps left. I know I'm always talking about taking full advantage of these digital drawing applications , but honestly, I don't take that many short cuts for fear of losing my traditional skill set are making in glitches fishnets on the hatches layer, which sits above the shadow Phil, keeping each of the overlapping elements separate in case I need to go back and adjust anything. And as you can see, I'm doing that Ah, whole lot right now. What makes her stalking so tricky is the uniforms stitching that wraps around her leg. Each line must run parallel to one another and remain at a consistent distance, but that can easily be skewed it. The legs are even slightly foreshortened. These lines are also ultra thin, which makes keeping their trajectory smooth, consistently parallel and evenly spaced. An especially delicate tusk. The stitching full is a saddle curve as it travels around her thighs, helping to describe their cylindrical form. This adds more dimension to the legs and gives the impression that the stockings air actually being worn by glitch. Instead of being a flat pattern that simply over laid on top, you might notice a striking correlation between the pattern of the fish nets and the crosshatched formation typically used for rendering. They may not be shading the leg, according to the light sources, such but they're certainly describing its surface and dimming the overall time. Both are approached in the same way. The only differences are that the fishnet stitching is placed further apart than regular hatching, generating an even turn instead of a blended light to dark Grady in. As I think, in the stitching across glitches leg, I'm adding the slightest amount of weight variation to it at the peak of the form where the core highlight would be, you'll notice the lines that defined the fishnets gradually become thinner until this so faint that we can barely see them. This hopes to suggest the stretch of the stockings as they wrap around her leg and also creates some subtle shading that gives the form or depth to really enhance the effect the distance between the lines air adjusted. As the stockings expand and contract over the thighs in the larger portions of hell leg, we should see the stitching move further apart to convey the elasticity off the material. It's subtle, but you'll notice that these lines are placed closer together near the top of her hip. Then they are toward the middle of the upper leg to show that expansion on the cross Sanchez layer. I'm overlaying a second set of lines angled in the opposite direction to create that classic, diamond shaped pattern of the fishnets. These also have to be evenly spaced in parallel to one another, but consistent with the stitching we've already laid down. Keeping each line smooth and streamlined is what's most difficult about thinking fishnet stockings. Hard as I try, some of them still wind out a little wobbly. If I worked faster and thought about it less, I'd be much better off my dad. But unfortunately, I'm just not as confident as I would like to be with every aspect of my craft yet, And that's usually where speed and automatic execution comes from. So I just do the best I can, keeping my hands steady and my arm relaxed to try and ensure each strike isas fluid as possible. If my lines wind out a little bumpy, start veering off track or a spacing correctly. I'll just start again and have another go in the end. A few imperfections here, and there aren't always a bad thing. Any way they can give you a work, character and personality and make it appear less artificial. After all, that's part of what makes your style yours. No one will ever truly know your perfect vision. The best you can do is create its closest representation. But what the viewer sees is what they believe was always intended. Imperfections included. That's why your style is in a constant evolution. As you learn, get better and I'm not the floors. It's aesthetic matures. You see the best and worst of it, and that's what helps you to grow. But everyone else just thinks that's the way it was meant to look. They don't know what you class is room for improvement or a win. There's a little about my super hair ones that could be better to use. The the mistakes on perceiving might be precisely what you like about them now have dropped back down to the inks outline layer to work on the hair some more, refining its shape with heavier line weights and giving it a light. Render Pasto add texture and break up the layering the ever eternal value of glitches. Hair sits halfway between zings and guard Deena's, so I'm composing the density of the hatching to reflect that Next I add some line waits to her jacket. The outline of the color is thickened up first, while the striped pattern on the interior lining remains untouched to ensure a clear read on the primary shapes that make up the design, Defining the secondary details with a heavy line weight could dilute its clarity. So for now, I'm just going to focus on the major contours to place these line weights. I'm running my pen back over the outline I've already inked in, emboldening the lines just enough to get the key elements to pop. The amount of which they think end up is decided in the same way I go about dialing the density over rendering and other details with a careful I remember when it comes to black and white line. Not way using weight variation, rendering and detail to produce contrast, which gives our common got a greater readability and appeal. So we've got to strike a balance within the line, work internal values. That's what guides me as I tweak the thickness off these lines as I work. I'm constantly aware of how glitches coming together as a whole. Each line I strike in both contributes to an impacts her river or presentation in some way . This is where many of us mess up, succumbing to a tunnel vision. In other words, as we build up the illustration, our attention confines itself to the small area we're working on at any one moment in time , blinding us to the larger picture. What if you do? Don't forget to take a step back once in a while and check how your super heroine is coming together in their entirety, even if it's just a quick glance up and down the figure. It's too easy to run off track otherwise have jumped the gun a bit here and started adding in a light pass of rendering to give the fabric folds. A bit of foreman dimension usually electively the rendering until after the line waiting is complete. But sometimes when I'm in the zone, my work flee might fall slightly out of order. This does occasionally come back to bite me because as a result, the process becomes less organized and predictable. It doesn't take a whole lot of rendering to significantly raise the visual interest and perceived detail with English is jacket. My biggest challenge is figuring out the directional pool old the materials votes so that I can lay the hatches in along the same trajectory. Remember that as well as shading, the form rendering also helps to describe it. So the hatching where inking in should reflect the materials flow, which is relatively easy when all that's required is a secondary fine line that runs along the edge of the folds we've previously defined. That's usually enough to bump the mat and sink in the creases. What we also have to think about is glitches underlying anatomy so we can light the jacket accurately. The major forms off her body determined the density off tone in different areas of the jacket, since its surface folds are merely shaded within the context of the larger forms, they overlay. If we consider that the main light source projecting onto glitch is coming from the top left, what will see as a result is a greater amount of hatching around her and around the bottom of her breasts belly end the far side of her torso. Keep in mind, though, I'm also determining the amount of rendering needed based on the eternal value of the jacket. Once colored, it'll be a light de saturated science. So as a renda, I'm looking to generate an overall turn, which will be the equivalent in value. I continue working my way down the body, increasing the thickness off the holding lines around her hips and upper thighs. With the intricate composition of visual elements such as the fishnet stockings, gun holster and belts. It's more important than ever to keep the major shapes clearly defined, and we want them to describe her anatomy and costume assets in an accurate but also interesting way. The last thing we want is a meek outline that lacks style and personality. So remember to exaggerate those shapes with added energy and alive nous. Emboldening they're holding line for emphasis is a complementary aspect in inking. That'll give the final presentation off your super heroine, added Polish and a Hyatt level of quality for me. This is what puts the art in line on. Most of the subtle tweaks we make to the contours will go on notice, and that's what you want. The best parts of a monster flee executed Leinart illustration contribute to the some of what it ultimately becomes. That's what the viewer sees they don't know why they love the way it looks or what went into creating it, which is the coveted appeal of any great magician. The audience should never be aware of the ploys that went into your trick, and if you successfully waited, rendered and detailed your lineup, they probably weren't. Instead, they'll be gawking in or at the magnificence of your super heroines final form. Understand that every line you lay in tweak and sculpt will contribute to the quality over your final illustration. Even if it goes unnoticed, the smallest detail can make all the difference. And oftentimes, what sets your work apart is simply the willingness to give it everything you've got. That's probably the hardest part about the yanking process. Is having the ability to mindlessly immerse yourself in the task at hand for hours on end until the character has been completely inked, The technical considerations of the drawing have already been taken. Care off. All you've got to do is trace over the top and finesse the final line work without the engagement that comes through the challenges of drawing the illustration itself. Inking can be someone mind numbing, especially when there's lots of detail packed into it. So it's the kind of discipline where you want to find ways to motivate yourself and turned the Defoe drudgery into something fun and exciting. I keep myself inspired by having a clear vision off the destination in mind. I think about the end result of all my hard work and how my super heroine will look one. She's a linked up. This keeps me on a roll because this way each stage gets me closer to the final outcome. And if I use that as my compass, it'll manifest on the page in front of me one line at a time. The final payoff is always worth it, but more importantly, this is how you level up in your on instead of becoming complacent. You see it all the time in subpar publications, where the interior sequential Zehr illustrated with sloppy line on and colors that only worsened the presentation. And it's because the artist is either under the pump by a looming deadline or the heart just wasn't in it enough to really make it the best it could have been. I think he can always tell when an artist puts love into the work they create. It's not about getting it done as much as it's about the journey you take to get there, because when you think about it, you only get to create each body of work once. Then it's over. And sure, you might move onto the next one, churning out illustration after illustration as if it were on a production line. Which wouldn't be wrong. But what does matter is how much you valuing each piece of art you create for me. I try to indulge in the process for as long as it takes until I can get my character looking their best. And if there's a deadline, I've got to mate. I'll do the best job I possibly can within the time of gut because every artist wants to feel connected to their work. We're not just doing it to pass the time or bank a check. There's easier ways than that to make a dime. To become good at something, you've got to practice it until it becomes an unconscious habit, an automatic process that's executed without you having to think about it. This applies to your comment. Got skill set as well as your ability to constantly produce work of exceptional quality that takes focus and patients both skills that must be honed in and of themselves. So make it part of your practice to give every illustration you create all you've got. That's how you ramp it up to pro status. But most importantly, you'll be proud of the work you do in the end. That's all that matters, not how good you are, but that you paid your dues and went all out. There's nothing more true to life than reaping. What you saw have gone back and redone some of the rendering for glitches Jacket. The biggest issue I'm having here is trying to get the major forms off her body to read right as the material stretches around it. This is less about shading, however, and more about how the direction, length and density over folds within the jacket itself, a composed similar to the hatching technique we've used for rendering the fabric should be mostly bear an absent of detail at the high point of the forms that pick up the most light in this case, we're talking about the side of glitches body top of her breasts, shoulders and outer arm. So I'm a racing back, the folded contours of the material where needed and tweaking their trajectories to better reflect underlying anatomy. It goes without saying that shading the costuming, all of your super heroines, in a convincing way, is completely dependent on a foundational understanding all female anatomy, Which is why taking the time to define the muscle groups during the drafting phase has helped me out in a big way here, with the main contours waited, I've moved on to the rendering, and I'm now working on the hatches layer. My aim here is to give glitch more depth and dimension by shading her forms and increasing the contrast between the elements within her design. Each render line runs along the form surface, varying in distance and density to create tone of various values. Remember, hatches will gradually become thicker and sit closer together as they transition into the darkest areas off the form. Conversely, the closer they get to the light, the thinner and more separated they'll become. Three. Major considerations come into play when rendering, and if you keep them in mind, you should be able to use the technique effectively form value and light direction. These are the primary aspects that will govern the way you dial the variables over your hatching cash. It is such as the one that will be projecting from glitches. Head onto her color are an additional form of shading that helps lift your character off of the page there still sated using the same hatching technique as before. The only difference is there, confined to the shape of the shadows silhouette. In other words, unlike a regular shadow that would be completely filled in with black car shadows. A given a time to fill essentially everything hit by the car shudder is shaded within its bounding contour. The larger the object, the larger it's car shadow. If he was standing underneath a big oak tree on a sunny day, for example, you'd be under its shade things to the large spread of leaves and branches above. Within the car shadows tone, we should see. A subtle doctor like Grady in the darkest values will occur closest to the form, projecting it and require a denser buildup of hatching. Then, as the silhouette pulls away further from its origin, those hatches will gradually spread apart and become thinner toe lift, the tones value the resulting radiant should have a minimal amount of contrast, However. In fact, we want the tonal transition to be so subtle that it almost appears flat. Directing the render lines placed within the car shadows can take some experimentation because they're rendering doesn't necessarily have to follow the form their projected upon . I find an angle trajectory works best simply because it comes across is less uniform, but it often takes me more than a few attempts to render them in a way that complements the form surface. Of course, we still want to ink the hatches with some uniformity, having each render line run parallel to the next while maintaining a certain level of consistency along the way, absolutely, but not so much so that they become static. Ordered Variation is a contradictory term, but it fits perfectly for what I'm describing here. There always needs to be some order to your work for it to make sense, but throughout its execution, this must be done in a way that appears natural. That's what will bring your illustrations toe life and help you circumvent an underwhelming presentation. Your natural style is inevitably going to play a part in this. There are artists out there who have a rough, messy aesthetic to their work, while others prefer to take a purposeful controlled approach for a cleaner style. But what every great artist endeavors to do is bring their ideas toe life on the page, beginning from the very conception off their initial draft through to the final presentation. I think the key to achieving that all comes back to how relaxed you are and how much fun you're having throughout the process. Being in the zone, so to speak. That's when your passion starts to shine through within the art itself, because it reflects the way you felt and the things you thought about during its creation. The issue we run into here, though, is that the level of investment we place on the outcome of our work can stifle our engagement with it. We become more consumed with achieving perfection, and it breaks her immersion in the pure act of creativity with over analysis. Yet on the flipside, learning requires a logical approach to properly comprehend the techniques and methods that will ultimately become part of that process. So it's a balance now, I'm wondering, at the darker costume assets with English is designed. They require an increased amount of rendering to substantially lower their tone. So I'm packing those hatches in nice and tight as I pull them out of the course shadows toward the lightest areas of the form, creating a mid tone blend between the black and white values. With the added density of rendering glitches, anatomy becomes more articulated as well, the geometry off the belts and gun holster wrapping around her leg. We already know that defining the anatomy over your super heroine too much can take away from her feminine appeal, which is why, unlike the darker materials with English, his costume design, I still want to keep the rendering end details to a minimum when it comes to her bare skin . Since black materials made of leather, lycra or spandex, haven't increased combination of shadows and cross hatching to give them a lower value, their forms should be rendered with a greater amount of clarity after roll lighten shadows of the precise ingredients we need to suggest form in the first place. So if I'm placing these hatches accurately, each line should help to further describe the areas of glitches anatomy that it covered by these materials as well as the rest of her costuming, like the gun host arm rendering. Now, this is what gives these materials are much a darkest scale of value in comparison to the rest that make up a design. Without the added shadows and rendering, They'd have a considerably lighter turn, and the level of depth and contrast within them would be obviously much less. They should never be a moment where you're not thinking of every aspect of your super heroine as being three dimensional form is fundamental to posing, shading and lighting them in space effectively. And it all starts at the bare bone foundations off the drawing. As Aranda, I'm still interpreting the area I'm working on as a basic three d shape. Regardless of its complexity, this guides my understanding as to how the light should hit the major forms of the character, and from there as simply subdivide them to articulate her anatomy and costume elements within the broader context off their combined shape. And with that, I'm able to give glitches design a greater amount of depth. The final stage of rendering is where I get most excited because it's at this point out, characters really start to solidify and take on a life of their own. This is where we finally get a glimpse at what we've been working so hard to achieve. My golden rendering glitches robotic legs is to give each component that makes up their design a sense of form and thickness. This elevates them beyond a simple flat line drawing and introduces an additional level of depth, pushing the underlying pieces of metal deeper into the leg while protruding there overlapping counterparts as a ink in the hatches. I'm trying to describe the curved and sharpness of each piece of metal separately, since they don't all have the same geometry. Some of the late panels sit flat as a thin sheet of metal over the top of the underlying tech, while others take on a curve, Asia's show like appearance that helps form a mechanical representation off the lower legs anatomy. The key distinctions that separate the surface forms are they individual tonal transitions . Large, rounded surfaces tend to have a softer blend, so there ended with a gradual spread of hatching to create a diffused Grady int flattened. Hard edged panels, on the other hand, have a starker transition. So they're shading is condensed and confined to the surface panels that face away from the direct light. Even though there's a minimal amount of hatching occupying the lit areas of glitches robotic legs, I can still suggest their surface texture, with subtle strokes of detail oftentimes dropping in. Just a few of these faint lines can give solidity to sparsely rented portions of the form, but more importantly, it helps describe their material. And, of course, this can also lend to your super heroines backstory, for example, the sketches and indentations I've added to glitches mechanical legs imply that she's had them for a while and that they might have suffered somewhere and hair throughout the numerous conflicts she's found herself in. Next on placing in some cross hatches toe add depth. In contrast to the shading, these render lines intersect the first set at a 90 degree angle, creating a dense grid like mesh around the form, and most of them are added to the darker materials in order to increase the eternal contrast and lower the value range even further. Essentially, 10. Chapter 7: Base Coloring: Alright, so I've just opened up the line out for my super heroines and photo shop, and the first thing I'm going to do is set up the layers inside the layers panel to the right bottom side of the screen. Believe the line out of Created a Lay, a group called Base Colors, where I'm going to store the flats for my super heroines within this photo of created separate lease for this skin hair costume, end para effects and titled them appropriately to keep things organized. Next, I'm using a flat, hard edged, completely opaque brush toe lay in the base, flesh tones fizzing on the skin layer. If you look over to the right side of the screen, you'll see the color panel. It consists of three sliders labeled H for Hugh S for saturation and beef a brightness and were able to use them to adjust out colors. It also tells you a bit about the ones I'm using. You can see that the skin tone of chosen is a warm red orange. You. The saturation is set so low to delete the color, while the brightness is ramped up quite a lot at any point Throughout this lesson, you can refer back to this panel to see the exact colors amusing and the percentages for each slider you'll notice. There's a subtle difference between the skin tones off my super heroines. Gardena skin seems to have a slight yellow tinge to it, while glitches looks more pink. I've done this on purpose to create very Asian between the characters so that they're more distinct from one another. You might be wondering why I'm not completing the base colors for each super heroine in their entirety before moving on to the next rather than working on them separately, I've decided to approach the flattening process with a production mindset batch ing the colors so that I can work on them all at once. This simply means that I'm bringing each superhero into the same level of completion before entering into the next stage. It makes the process more optimized and keeps the progress of making across all three of them consistent. Beyond that, this allows me to remain mawr engaged. It's hard to be bored when you get to work on multiple characters of the same time. Next up, I'm filling in zings hair on the hair based color layer, which sits above the skin layer in the layer hierarchy. The color of treason is a dark de saturated blue to indicate her brunette hair do. Even if you're super heroines, hair was jet black. It's still a good idea to have a hint of color coming through to enrich. The shading will be adding in later. Now I'm deciding on the color I'm going to use for Gardiner's golden locks of hair. In the same way we're able to mix up the skin tones to add variation to our super heroines . Different hair colors can also make each of them look more distinct. In fact, despite the similarities between their facial features, proportions and body type, hair, color is one of the key attributes that set them apart. This is how I'm able to keep my super heroines idealized yet unique at the same time because it completely changes the vibe. That's why I'm not choosing these colors randomly. I'm thinking about the attitude, personality and presence I want the character tohave Gardena is a divine goddess with inconceivable powers, and her gold hair helps to convey the purity and kindness within her glitch on the other hand is a fiery, gun turning rebel, complete with mechanical enhancements for increased strength and speed. The deep orange hue of her hair color indicates a fiery, rebellious attitude, which is no surprise in popular culture. Redheads have been stereotyped for a long time, is being loud, passionate and strung. Trust me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of this babe. Well, there'll be hell to pay. Moving back to zing, I'm picking the primary color I'd like to use for her outfit, which will be filled in on the costume color one layer. I'm not too sure what her suits final color scheme is going to ultimately be, but for now have settled on a mid range mustard tone. The beauty of keeping the colors for each section on separate layers is that we can come back and change them later on if they need some tweaking. So don't be too concerned about setting the overall scheme in stone just yet. My initial college choices aren't always the best, because until I can see how they look together on the canvas, I simply don't know what's going to work for Sure. Sometimes I look toward nature to help me come up with a visually pleasing color composition. And since sings design has somewhat of an insect like appearance I'm using. The humble Bumble Bee is inspiration, picking a yellow and black color combo for her outfit. This particular scheme is perfect for a super heroine because off the vibrant primary color and it's striking contrast against the black, you'll notice that I'm not using the paint bucket tool to feeling the flats for the same reason I didn't use it to feeling the shadows during the thinking stage to begin with the Magic 12 It would be useless for selecting the blank spaces inside the lineup because of how detailed it is. The Last Sue selection is certainly an option, though, and back in the day, I used it all the time in conjunction with the cut and grad technique typically used for color and comical God. These days, though, I prefer to keep it simple by manually flouting the colors myself with the brush tool. The hardest part is keeping inside the lines and making sure you're on the right layer. Besides that, it's pretty straightforward, usually or trace around the inside edge of the area. I'm about to color first before filling in the rest. This way, I can carefully defined the boundary of the base colors against the ink outlines to help avoid traveling outside of them and to make sure there's no gaps left. I know tingly bring the fights right to the edge of the inks, but I place them underneath the line without letting the color spill out the other side, of course, fizzing second costume color, which is placed on the costume color to layer. I'm using a dark grey blue. As with her hair. This suggests that the material is black without that subtle hint of color. Ah, high atoned version of black would result in gray and simply look less appealing. Not to mention the subtle coolness of the blue hue actually complements the warmth of the yellow used for the rest of her costume. Which brings us to color theory and psychology. Let's start with what colors go well together and what colors don't. We've got the primary colors, of course, yellow, blue and red, which always great for forming a vivid color scheme that looks appealing to the eye super man's outfit for example, demonstrates the power of primary colors brilliantly contrasting. Who's also work extremely well. Which is why, if we look at a standard color wheel, the color sitting opposite to each other are going to be a good fit. And usually one of them will have a warm here, while the other sits on the cooler end of the spectrum. So as a general rule, cold colors such as blue, purple and green almost always contrast well with hot colors like orange, yellow and red. But that doesn't mean you can't have cool or warm combinations that are exclusive from one another. The neighboring colors off any single Hugh on the color wheel can also be used to create a harmonious palette, so purple, blue and scion would work perfectly well together. Let's take a look at Gardena for a moment. Her yellow hair contrast perfectly with the blue, have chosen to use for her cape as faras color psychology goes, or, in other words, the way colors make us feel. Blue invokes a sense of trust, security and calmness, while yellow is a positive color that conveys energy, power and optimism. All associations I want in built into Gardiner's character, the cool grays used for her government Anoma a basically just variant shades of the color I initially laid in for her cape. Sir. Teens of the same Hugh can also work well together to create a monochromatic color scheme when forming the color palette For my super heroines, I tryto have two or three colors, which share a common hue and a single dominant color. That's typically contrasted against the rest with varying levels of brightness, hue or saturation. In this case, Gardiner's yellow hair serves as the primary point of contrast, while the cool blues and greys making up the wider majority of her costume fit together under the same spectrum, creating a visual hierarchy of color. If we take the white dot on a black background analogy and change it toe on orange dot against a turquoise canvas just as an example, what will our eyes lock onto first? The orange dot? Of course, translate that to glitches design, and we can see that her hair will be the primary point of attention as well. But its contrast ing you can take all the credit here because it just so happens. Warm colors tend to pop forward and hit the I first, while cool colors received further back. That's why stoplights a red as long as there's a difference in hue, saturation, brightness or spread between the colors over your super heroine, she'll have some level of contrast with that in mind, trying to compose the scheme in a way that helps the design to read better and thus makes it more pleasing to the eye. Now let's talk more about the psychology behind color because it's all established. He in the base pallet. We've touched on the meanings associated to Godina scheme. But what about glitches? Needless to say, her fiery hair suggests a big personality with a strong will and hot blooded temper, which is scary. But all that says still kind of gives us a rush of excitement if we're being honest. The turquoise colored jacket, on the other hand, balances things out with clarity, calmness and a subtle hint of Aloofness. So there's contrast here to even in how the color scheme makes us feel. And that's a good thing because sameness equals boredom. You can see to the right of the screen that have added a new Leia titled Costume color. Three. To further separate the different parts of by design, there's no limit. Make as many layers as you need to and be shorter. Titles them appropriately. As we continue, these layers will build up rapidly, so toe optimize the process and avoid confusion. We must make sure they're organized. The reason I like to keep each element on a separate layer is because once the flats have filled in, I'll be able to use them as a mosque to easily select specific parts of the character I'd like to work on. This comes in especially handy when I want to tweak the colors I've already dropped in, and it's a nifty way to shade each individual section without worrying about going outside the edges. Working on the assets layer, I'm now filling in the flats for glitches. Gun notice how I used the same color for the leather materials throughout her outfit. Typically, you want to keep your palate limited to four or five colors. Max. Otherwise, Theo entire scheme tends to fall apart. Rename the powers lay at the overlays where I'm coloring in glitches. Stylish SciFi shades along with the other translucent materials that are present like Gardiner's bubbling Powerball of energy. Since the shape I'm feeling in here is rather intricate of decrease the size of my brush so that I can get into those narrow offshoots of emanating power if I accidentally go outside the line, it's not a huge deal. In that case, I simply hit E on my keyboard to shortcut to the eraser tool and bring it back in. Everything's on a separate layers, so it's easy to fix. And that's the beauty of digital coloring. I literally a passage e of the overlays layer. It's a 40% making it more see through, then switch it off to drop in the white flats for the eyes. After they're done, I create another layer for the Iris Kala version and finally zoom back out to take a look at how the overall color scheme is coming together. For My super heroines wasn't totally happy with things, so I'm tweaking it a little bit with the human saturation adjustments settings now leaning toward more of an orange red tone for the costumes based color. But more importantly, I noticed that her wings were lacking some contrast. They kind of blend into her arms, body and throwing hoops and don't really stand out on their own. So I'm using the last suit or to make a selection around her wings on the constant color one layer so that I can cut and paste them onto their own, which will then be merged with the costume color. Three layer Sounds complicated, I know. In other words, I'm separating zings wings from her main body so that I can easily select their mask and work on them individually without affecting the rest of her design. Starting with the addition of a secondary color on the underside of her wing, you can see how much of a difference this makes to the design. Already, the dark grey blue occupying the front of her costume is now dispersed throughout the wings to cover a wider spread, unifying the design with a greater amount of harmony. HRH arms and body also stand out more now that this additional contrast between the oranges and blacks, it's not just the colors you choose that make for an appealing Collis game. It's the way you organize them, and sometimes the composition won't be clear until their role filled in. You've got to step back at that point and take a look from a distance that whether or not they sit together in a way that allows the character to read clearly, is there enough contrast and separation between the colors? Does their hue, brightness of saturation need to be tweaked? And that's exactly what I'm doing now as I go through each base color and adjust. Um, to do that, I simply use the magic one tool to select. The colors are wanna edit on the corresponding layer, then click on the image, drop down many at the top of the screen, choose adjustments and hit the setting. I want to change most of the time my preferred options of the hue, saturation and brightness contrast settings where I mess around with the sliders in the pump up books until I've got the colors dial just right. As I pushed, the slide is back and forth. I use my eye to make sure none of the colors clash and balance them so that each elements throughout the design reads with clarity. Sometimes I don't know what needs changing until I modify it, just to see if I don't like the way it looks, I simply pull the slider back in the opposite direction or just hit. Cancel. I've made some. Neely is above the base colors Layer group, titled The Base Shadows and Base Highlights. This is where I'm going to paint in the initial lighting past, starting with shadows. I'm laying them in with broad strokes using the paintbrush, which he confined in the brush pack included. With this course, it's pressure sensitive. So the How do you press down with your stylist, the more color it'll let out onto the canvas. The color I'm using for the shadow tone is simply a darker version off the base color. On painting over to select it, I total my brush to the eyedropper tool by holding down Olt on my keyboard. Then I picked the color I want to use and darken it by adjusting the be for brightness slider in the color panel to the right of the screen. I also like to turn up the bass tone saturation to counteract its loss of richness from the decreased brightness. And since most lighting schemes consist of cool shadows and warm highlights or vice versa, I adjust the hue slider to create a cool of Aryan as the shadows are blocked in, I make selections around the elements I specifically want to work on by hovering over the thumbnail of their corresponding layer and clicking on it when the cursor displays the plus symbol next to it. This creates an instant selection around everything on that layer, allowing me to paint in big broad strokes without going outside the lines. Our goal at this point is to establish the general lighting scheme for our super heroines, which will build up into a refined rendering later run. So we want to make sure that the placement of the shadows and highlights a consistent with outline on this means the light source should have been already determined during the drafting and inking stages. Use that as a guide to help you figure out where the shadows and highlight should go. Moving on to the base highlights. I'm following a similar process. Color picking the base color. I want a shade making it brighter, less saturated end. It's you warmer using the hay HSB sliders in the color panel, then adding highlights to the forms for more depth and dimension. Don't be concerned about the details just yet. We only want to shade the general forms to begin with. That's why I'm working from a distance here so that I can focus on each character as a whole. Think in terms of basic shape by taking a super heroines design and simplifying it down into cylinders and spheres. These are the overall structures that every aspect of your character and he is too. So all the facial features, mussels and costuming will be shaded within the context of those major forms. And by taking out the complexities, it's much easier to comprehend where the shadows and highlights should be placed according to the direction of the light source. Think of the base shadows and highlights as the roofs for your rendering, you're just laying down a base that you can build up from later, after the lighting hierarchy has been established across the general forms, it becomes way easier to start carving out the sub forms that describe them with detailed aspects of your super heroine. If we would a zoom in and articulate the facial features straight after the base colors were filled in, we could probably render a decent head, but it would be difficult to keep its leading consistent with the rest of the body. The base shadows and highlights provided guide to help us avoid that by establishing the overall lighting scheme first before we get stuck into. The details have made selections around the super heroines to create a mosque that covers their entire figure. To do that, I simply held down control plus shift and click the thumbnail of each base color layer to combine their selection, Alessio any gaps, then make a new layer called mask and fill in the selection with a mid tone grey by right clicking on it and choosing the fill selection option. Next, I'm giving the lighting some color on a new layer titled Shadow Overlay that set to the multiply blending mode and sits above the base shadows and highlights. Selecting a de saturated purple blue, I run a soft airbrush over the areas of shadow within each super heroine. This takes the base shadow tone derived from the flats, and color arises it to reflect the hues seen in naturally lit environments. The local values will be fine, as is if we were dealing with a pure white lighting set up, but you usually only see that in artificially lit rooms. Most natural environments have a light source that's warmer in color, with complementary cooler tones for the shadows. For the highlight color of created, a Neilia above the shadow overlay titled Highlight Overly and switched, its blending mode toe overlay. Going with a warm yellow tone, I then run my airbrush over the highlights. The blending modes allow us to add color to the lighting while preserving the base shading we've already done. Next up, I'm going to give my superhero in some makeup on a new layer called Huge Shift, which is set to the multiply blending mode with a small airbrush. I overlay warm pinks and reds on top of the lips, nose and cheeks to enliven the face. These cosmetics significantly impact the aesthetics of the features by accentuating the stereotypical traits we find most attractive about them. Finally, a shading some eye shadow using a cool de saturated tone which adds contrast to the eyes and draws more attention to them. We've now set the stage for the rendering phase old the coloring process by establishing the base color scheme, lighting and an enriched Cal appellate to pick from next up will refine the rendering of each super heroine, building up the forms, detail ing their materials and bringing them to completion with a polished presentation. 11. Chapter 8: Rendering Zing: moving into the rendering stage, all of our super heroines of zoomed in on zing and created a new layout labeled Orender Pass one. I'm working on the head first, shading the forms around her face to articulate the features with more depth. The brush I'm using is the paintbrush, which he confined in the brush pack included with this course will be using it almost exclusively throughout the rendering process. Rendering is all about describing the forms off your super heroine with more depth by building up her base shadows and highlights and blending them together. In other words, darker tones are added to the shaded parts of the character, while the highlights are given brighter values and the transition between the two is made much smoother since the color palette is already established, choosing the right colors without trustee, I drop. It'll is simple. I'm able to pick from the dark tones to come into the lip parts of the form or sculpt out shaded areas with brighter values. If I want to tweak the selected color, I use the hay HSB sliders in the color panel to adjust its brightness, saturation and hue. As I render the face. I'm constantly toggling back and forth between the brush toe and the eyedropper. This is how I blend tones together. The paintbrushes, opacity, or level of translucency is dependent on pen pressure. So the harder I press down the list see through the color will be so I can use the eyedropper tool to create mid tones between separate values, gradually blending them together into a seamless transition. For example, if we want to blend, a light and dark tone would sample one of the other and paint over their division to create a mid tone between the two. From there, we can color pick the mid tone and painted further into each value, repeating the process until they're completely blended. Sometimes these tonal shifts of subtle so you want to brush each strike in gently as you combine them together. Round forms with soft surfaces like a sphere, tend to have smooth, eternal transitions, so this applies to them, especially hard edged. A block forms, on the other hand, are blended rigidly for them. We want to separate the surface planes with distinct values that have a minimal amount of blending. Moving on to the hair I treat each look as if it were a ribbon bumping out there. Highlights to create volume and separating them with lower values. The main goals for the first pass of rendering is to blend the base tones and clarify the forms. So as you shade, think about the surface you're trying to describe from what direction is being lit, What's the material made of and how shiny or reflective is it? The intensity of the eternal values and harshness of their blending helps to describe all of that zings. Brunette hair, for example, has some shine to it, which means the highlights need higher contrast against the shadows to make them distinct. As I said, a main go with the first pass of rendering is to blend the turns and give the forms a clearer read, and we'll be refining that even further, with a second pass later. Since the lighting scheme has already been established across the overall ham S, I'm honing in on the secondary forms to articulate them with more clarity. I'm using a tiny brush size to get the highlights and shadows painted in at the right thickness. Ah, long had tangled ribbons of hair. The more intricate. The area I'm working in, The smaller my brush will tend to be. Now we're onto the arm. A. This is a great example of a costume component that has both rounded surfaces and hard edges. He can see how the spherical forms of her breasts, for example, are blended with a soft, seamless transition that leads up into the shoulder pads. If we take a look at where their outer edge joins onto her body of the side, a clear separation is established between the light and dark values. Depending on the element your rendering, there will be some forms that you want to keep distinct with a sharply defined edge. Others will be blood or even completely lost as their surfaces blend together. For example, we can see a very subtle dip in turn between the top of the chest and shoulder God. Even though these forms aren't defined with a hard edge, we can still see a shell, a degree of separation between them. But the bass tones blended. I'm now building up the highlights off her breasts and shoulder guard with brighter values that I've sampled from the headpiece using the eyedropper tool as I lay them down there, blended into the shading. I've already done suffering the eternal transitions across the form. This increases the contrast and depth of the armor while maintaining its smooth surface. Shadows can be made darker in the same way by Keller picking Hughes that a lower in value and using them to push the forms I'm working with further back, I repeat the same process for every surface within the design, keeping in mind it's geometry end material. Besides blending the base tones, this is pretty much what I'm focused on throughout the entirety of the rendering process. Here we have a great example of the different degrees of separation between forms. Zings arms are quite muscular, making their anatomy more pronounced. Each muscle varies and definition according to the lighting and their depth. This is easiest to see in the forearm, where the structure is more intricate as the muscles full into shadow. The shading creates a hard edge that contrasts with the highlights of the neighbouring forms, giving the level of separation between them greater clarity. In the brightest part of the arm. However, where we see a largest part of light, the darker values begin to disappear, and so the definition of the muscles get softer as their shadows are diluted by the lighter tones. The edges of each form is defined by its shading, so the eternal transitions are largely dependent on the lighting. Some separations will soften or even disappear underneath. The core highlights bridging the surfaces off the two forms together. Others are split with a clear division off lighten, dark value and sometimes both. Soft and hard blending can be applied along a single edge, depending on the form, shape, size and placement in relation to those around it. So it's a balance as you play with the value, in contrast of various times to describe the three dimensional qualities off your super heroine. What helps is having a good feel for Forman lighting but knowing how they work and using these principles to their fullest advantage at two different things here, watching me put them into action, which is exactly what you want to do a lot of the time we hold back on our art from a fear of not feeling qualified enough to properly execute it. So we read some more about form. Watch a video on the basics of a lighting, a sphere and maybe even do a few studies. Yet we still hold back on applying that knowledge to the very illustrations we want to create. But that's where the real learning happens. I can guarantee you'll learn much more about shading through the creation off multiple super heroine concepts. Then you will from rendering a basic shape because there's way more things to challenge you . All the concepts you would have studied individually are being used here, but more importantly, you're seeing them applied in a purposeful way to render a full super heroine concept. Take sings throwing hoops, for example. Their geometry is pretty basic and easy, enoughto light with just the right amount of difficulty to challenge a beginner but not to overwhelm them. The same could be said about the other individual components that make up her design. The key is to translate the complex forms inside your mind first into simplified shapes that are easy to shade. If you can get into the habit of doing that, you'll find two things happen, the first being that your art stands toe look more three dimensional. Just because that's the way you're thinking now as you create it. The second is that you'll find rendering much easier both when using cross hatches during the Anqing stage and coloring. From there, you can begin training arrived to control the different tones of color used to describe the forms you get used to balancing out the intensity and values inside the shading, according to the lighting set up and materials you're working on next are moving on to the legs here, and the first step is to peek a darker color, and Leadsom sherry's in around the quads. That's done with a simple brush stroke that runs along the edge of the muscle on the father's side of the form. Then the shadows are blended back into the rest of the muscle until a soft, smooth transition between the Tynes is created. Notice how the intensity over the shadows and highlights around each muscle is determined by the light full off across the legs. Overall cylindrical shape. The muscles on the darkest side of the form have Dima highlights and deeper shadows. But on the bright side we see the reverse weakest shadows, with highlights that are more intense. If we think about the simplified cylindrical form of the leg as the primary form and the muscles as secondary forms. Then we can say that the secondary forms should always be shaded according to how the major forms of lip keeping this in mind should allow you to shade smaller forms in their larger context. With the right level of contrast and value as I renda and thinking about the form, volume and mass of each muscles so that I can accurately describe it, I imagine them as individual solid blocks of mass that fit together around the leg. And if I could construct a digital model off my super heroine and three D print around as a statue that I could hold in my hands, I wonder how she would feel what she might look like under the light of my studio at different times of day. Where would the shadows collect and highlights hit? Believe it or not, my other great passion besides calm people card is digital sculpture. In fact, for a time I worked in the video games industry doing exactly that. Among other things. What drew me to the medium was that I could create a three dimensional representation off my characters that I could look at from all angles and even bring the life in the interactive world of video games. I thought that was so cool. But my real fantasy was and still is, to create a line of figures based on my characters that I can put on display and look at every day. To my point, every one of these digital scopes is constructed with tiny surface planes, called polygons, that connect together to make up its geometrical mesh. You might wonder what that has to do with coloring your super heroine. Well, it kind of has everything to do with it, because there's an uncanny resemblance between the way a comic book artist and three D model of think about creating characters. Both must have the ability to convey them with accurate form lighting end materials. You can also add proportions in anatomy to that as well. The difference between the two is the model is representation. All the character is actually constructed in three D space, whereas the comet Bogardus is suggested and manually rendered on a two d canvas. So, of course, having a background in modeling helps you to better understand three dimensional form and lighting so that you can confidently implement them into your illustrations. You're super heroine is much more than a colored line drawing on a flat piece of paper. She's still a dynamically lit figure with depth, the volume and mass betrayed in three dimensional space. You've just got to manufacture all of that by hand in a convincing way. That's the art of creating captivating, comical characters. And it's the greatest challenge we face, no matter how experience we get. But that's why I ultimately chose comics over any other art form because it forces you to become a truly powerful artist through the trials and tribulations one must go through to master it. You've got to understand perspective, form proportions, anatomy, composition, color and lighting to their deepest extents and the payoff. You'll be ableto wield these tools to create anything your mind can muster up without limitation. You begin to see everything differently, the art that leaves you and or the scenes from your favorite movie or video game the world around you. As they abide to these fundamental principles. You know what makes them work and why I like near seeing through the Matrix and in doing so gained the ability to manifest your own imagination on the page. That doesn't mean you still won't need a little help along the way to articulate your ideas , though. End in the case of your super Heroines anatomy. You don't have to have every muscle catalogued away inside your mind to convey it effectively. That would be nuts. I can't even remember what I ate for dinner last night. In fact, we can usually only recall about seven things on anyone. Topic before we start the struggle, Let's test this out. Listers many comic book titles as fast as you can out aloud and count how many you're able to come up with on your fingers before you pause. How many did you get? Honestly, I got about six, but I've got a terrible memory. Still, it's a fun experiment that you could do for anything. Comic book companies, artist movies, etcetera or you've got to do is remember the principles that make a well constructed, comical character work, and luckily there's less than seven off them, or at least close to that. From there. The best thing you can do for your art is used as much reference material is possible, especially when it comes to anatomy. I assumed out now to get a good look at housings. Rendering is coming together as a whole. I want to make sure the lighting is consistent and that the forms are reading correctly across the entire figure. For the most part, they are. But there's still a few tweaks on making to the values of the highlights and shadows to find Shane's their definition. Some forms need to be brought out a bit more. Others need to be pushed back and the making these judgments based on their relationship to the rest of the figure. Certain muscles, for example, simply protrude further out, while others are barely visible. If I don't get their definition correct, Zing won't look is convincing. Remember, though both lighting and materials affect these things, so we must take them into account as well. I seemed back in and made a new layer called Render Past, to which have stacked on top of the 1st 1 Over the next three minutes or so, my brush will be invisible, making it hard to see where I'm painting. For some reason or another. The recording simply didn't capture it in this bit of the demonstration. But I'll do my best to let you know which area I'm working on until it comes back. At the moment, that would be the head region where I further articulated, sings facial features with well refined shading and smoothed over her head piece. It probably looks like there's not much happening since the adjustments I'm making are extremely subtle. Working on her chest piece and the arm toe are left. Now. The aim in the second stage of rendering is to continue building up the forms with more value, making the shadows deeper and the highlights brighter. This pushes back the low points where the shadows collect and pulls out the peaks where the light hits at its most intense, giving the form a greater amount of depth moving down to her legs. I'm going through the same process to add more height to the muscle groups. Head costume is made of a robbery latex material, which means it will have a bit more shine to it, so to make it look like the highlights, reflecting off the material with the harsh glare, I narrow the spread of their Grady in and use bright of values to intensify them. And to modify the brightness off my color, I use the beast's lighter in the color panel. At this refined level of rendering, I'm just looking to bump up the brightness a little bit, so the adjustments are only slight. If I were to ramp it up to a stronger intensity, there's a good chance that it had pulled the form out way too far and mess up the shape of its surface, or it would make the material looks shining up. Then I wanted to be. Instead. The way you wanna work is bit by bit, strengthening the values off the highlights and shadows with soft brushstrokes that don't let out an over abundance of color. This allows the stronger Hughes to mix with those that are being painted over that way, the buildup is gradual, allowing you to steadily increase the depth and volume of each form with greater control. Figuring out the level of brightness for your highlights and how Dr Shutters should be is of course determined based on the lighting conditions, material being rendered and the form itself. But it also comes down to the amount of contrast and depth you want your super heroine toe have based on your personal taste, because a large part of this has to do with style and the way you want your work toe look. When all is said and done, some artists like to leave their characters with a flat shaded finish. Others prefer the classic airbrush look from the nineties. And then there are those who opt for a more painterly presentation. Mine is a mix of the latter, a painterly approach with an airbrush aesthetic, and I formed it over time as I learned from other artists and allowed them to influence the direction off my work. In the end, I developed a repeatable pattern that gave me the results. I was looking for the very method you're learning right now, and my suggestion would be to add to it. As you continue discovering new techniques, seek out the you find most inspiring, dissect the part you love most and weave them into your overarching style. As you can see, we now have a visual on the whereabouts of my brush, making it a little easier to track the highlights amounting to the black secondary colors of her costume a sharper and brighter than the rest of it because their material has ah Hyatt level of reflectiveness. Different materials change the way forms around it in dramatic ways. Everything from their level of contrast value calor and transparency. But the one thing that always remains consistent is the form, shape and regardless of the material, it must be described accurately. If I cover the outside of a rubber ball with a thin layer of L foil, it will reflect light very differently than it normally would. However, you'll still be able to very clearly tell that it has a spherical shape. That's the way I'm thinking about the forms throughout zings design. Some of them are covered in orange, latex or steel armor, while others are wrapped in black PVC leather. And although some are close to being the same material, they all have varying levels of hue and glossy nous. I'm treating zings, wavy locks of hair as if they were made of ribbons because both follow a similar form and tend to be lit in the same way. It's important that I capture the right amount of shine as I lift at the highlights because otherwise the hair will appear flat and lacked volume. Now I'm giving the black material around the front of her costume a few touch ups to smooth over the surface and widen the distribution off the highlights the subtle tweaks are making here. Ah, hard to see that my new re balances internal shifting, blending to help describe the forms with more clarity. Next, the matting in the speculum highlights on a new layer above rendering passed to. To put it simply, a speculum highlight is the bright spot of a light source reflected by shiny or glossy materials. I'll typically place them around the face in the eyes on the tip of the nose, lips, cheeks and chin to make the skin glistened. Materials made of metals. Such a zings, headpiece and aama also get an increased amount of speck. Of course, hair is one of the most important things we need to make look shiny. So where the light is most intense at the highest point of her ribbon like looks, I'm going to use pure white to paint in an increased level of speculate or ity. This instantly creates an appealing like catching shame that makes the hair shine with vibrance. The added contrast also helps to further separate the hair, giving it more texture and depth in its layering. I'm turning up the speculator ity off the highlights around zings aama, using gentle brushstrokes to gradually lift their brightness. Since its surface is made of metal, we want to try and create some differentiation between it and the rubber latex materials that make up the rest of her costume by introducing a bit more shine to it. The blurriness, or spread, of the speculum, highlights a determined by the roughness of the forms material. A completely smoothed, polished surface will reflect a shop clear projection of the light source, making it appear more glossy, while those that are uneven or irregular will tend to soften the reflection. Even a slight amount of texture can be enough to defuse the speculum highlight of a relatively smooth object. So you want to think about how the forms feel textually. Would your hands glide across the surface without friction, or would it be abrasive, bumpy or patent to the touch? Considering the tactile qualities off the materials you're working with will help you to render them accurately the more aware you are of what it is you're actually trying to depict, the easier it will be to determine how it should look. Sometimes we get carried away in the moment and completely forget about what it is we're trying to convey. Building up the forms one brush stroke at a time with various tones and values. But how you balance the matter is what matters most because that's what sets the different materials throughout your super heroine apart. You can see now I'm using a very small brush size as I work here. That's because the speculum highlights are quite small, with focused intensity at the brightest point of the form, which is what gives the material a shiny ER appearance. The harsh of value sharpened the highlights, resulting in less of a spread. So rather than blending, the men were lifting the speculate or ity, out of the existing highlights to make them stronger. This means we want our brush strokes to be thin, precise and faintly brushed in to progressively increase the brightness off the reflected light until we've reached an optimal amount of shine. Very little blending is required for speculative highlights once they're painted in, if any at all, because the brush I'm using already kind of does it for me. With its precious sensitive opacity and transfer settings, you can see that I'm running a thin highlight along the edge of zings footwear. I've done the same thing at the top ridges off her knee pads and the seams around her upper thighs. This is a great way to emboss flat shapes that sit against the form as well a surface, patterns and textures. It adds depth on a smaller scale, creating more dimension within the intricacies. Off her costume, attention to detail will give you a super heroine, a greater amount of believability. You want to put the time into fine tuning the most minute aspects of her design, even if they're not noticed by anyone. Because, remember, it's the level of craftsmanship that separates the cool characters from the crowd ones. Sure, it'll take you longer to finish, and there might be other artists out there who are pumping out work faster than you. That doesn't matter, though. It's about quality over quantity and to create great art. You've got to set the former as a priority when you can have created a Neilia set to multiply where I'm painting in a few cars, shadows throughout, sings design. This gives her more depth by creating additional separation between the overlap of forms. Cash shadows also make their spatial separation clearer to see. To put it simply, they help us judge how far away or close the forms are from one another. Next I select the super heroine, masked by holding down control plus and clicking on the layers thumbnail. Then isolate the selection to zing. Using the last suit you'll end. Okey to de select the others from the lay, a drop down menu. I create occurs adjustment layer, which I used to turn up her contrast, and that another adjustment layer full the color balance where I tweaked the Hominy and temperature closings Collis game. The adjustment layer is only affect zings since we made a selection around her before adding them. As you can see, they make her pop right off of the page with enhanced contrast and color, and there's a ton more you can experiment with as well to tweak the Hughes and tonal values over your super heroine. Now matting in a secondary light on a new lait named Rim Light, which is placed Just believe the adjustment layers have picked a de saturated coup green as its color and proceeded to illuminate singing from the opposite direction. Besides giving the forms on the dark side of seeing added clarity, secondary highlights make for an epically dramatic lighting set up, which is just what you want For a super heroine. The increased amount of delineation along the shadow side of her body gives the forms more distinction and allows those in front to stand out further. This, of course, creates more depth and dimension within the design, but also enriches her color palette with an eye catching pop of contrast, thanks to the rim lights. Complementary Hugh, since the secondary light sources projected from behind the outer edge of the surface is that a cast in shadow will be emphasized by a thin strip of light. This is where the term rim lighting comes from because we're highlighting the forms rim. However, the intensity of the secondary light source should never be brighter than the primary light source itself. This would make it too overpowered and throw the entire lighting scheme out of whack with this in mind, you can choose any color you like for the secondary light. Although it's ideal to pick one that complements the hue of the primary light source, they're pretty easy to paint in. All we're doing is running a thin highlight along the dark side of the forms, edge at its peak, or press down slightly harder to intensify its brightness and take the pressure off as the form dips back in to fade. The highlight out there should always be a hot spot to indicate the point at which the light source hits the surface. It's projecting onto at the highest intensity. This helps to describe the forms of volume, but also conveys the reflectiveness off its material as we talked about earlier. The thickness of the secondary highlights is determined by the mass and shape of the form. The larger it is, the broader the rim light will be. It's only the outer edge of the forms that are illuminated, though, since the character is being lit from behind, so variation in the rim lights with should be minimal just enough to hint at the size of each form. As I had the secondary highlights to zings legs, you can see how much they bring out the definition off her anatomy. This is really what the rendering stage has been all about, giving clarity to the forms, accurately conveying their surface materials and lighting each surface in a convincing way . It's not a quick process, but when done right, it can add a powerful amount of dimension and real nous to your super heroines. It's at this point that Sings Designed begins to take on a sense of wholeness, which is what makes these final stages of her creations served rewarding. You never really know how your super heroine will turn out. In the end, you just gotta wait until she's done. There's something really cool about bringing a rough sketch he scribbled down on the page to have definitive level of completion that fully realizes your idea. In its ultimate form. It's not just the final result, which is satisfying, but the journey we took to get here. It'll take passion and drive to see your super heroine through to the end. You might be slugging away for hours or even days, refining the vision you've got for her, and all the while you'll imagine what it'd be like to bring head alive. Inside the pages off her own comic book, pondering the world, she'd explore heroes she had team up with and villain she go head to head with along the way. Every super heroine has a story behind her, and it starts with you the creator. When the final polish has been added and she's ready to cold done, you won't just see the surface presentation. You'll see the some of the time, effort and love you contributed to her. And with that represent using the first complete super heroine came out character lineup. What? Norse? Um, right it's been, I hope you got a ton of inside out of this lesson. Next up, we render Godina. 12. Chapter 9: Rendering Guardina: so just real quick. Before we begin, I'm changing the color of Gardiner's energy, pulled by adjusting the he saturation settings over its layer to see how some alternative variations might look, I settle on a warm yellow, then zoom in to start rendering her face on back to working on the render. Pass one layer using my paintbrush with a small brush size so that I could describe the final, most subtle forms of her face. Darker tones rather than around the eyes. Highlights on the rid of the knows that cheeks and chin. I switch back and forth between the brush and I drop it'll by hitting the okay, sampling the colors I'd like to mix and blending them in on the fly. The eternal transitions. A smooth and sleek to give gutting his face. A soft, supple appearance You can tell God in it takes real good care of their skin. Seriously there. This conveys a more feminine, youthful complexion that would otherwise be lost with hard transitions and defined edges. Overly articulating the underlying bone structure of the skull tends to introduce more masculinity to a female character or ages thumb, resulting in a more mature look as I rented the face. I'm thinking about its overall anatomy in a simplified way, in my mind of converted it into planes, a basic interpretation of the head that makes it easier to see what areas will be in shudder and which areas will be lit according to the direction of the light source. The anatomy of the female head is quite complex, with an intricate underlying system of muscles that overlay the major forms of the skull. It's almost impossible to render it accurately based on memory alone. But by learning the planes of the face and memorizing, demure, at least able to store a mental model of its basic structure. That's all you need to figure out how it will be lit underneath a given light source. With so much to consider, our best approach to rendering is to compartmentalize everything it entails at a base level , which is the light source and a simplified interpretation off the heads form. That's all you need to light it. At first, everything else can be put aside to free up mental ram. This, in turn, leaves us more room to think about what planes will be in shadow mid turn a light. Then we can worry about the blending and the level of softness, in contrast, needed to describe the forms correctly put into action. All of this is executed automatically as I lay in the various tones of color and mixed them together. But this is the thinking process I go through, and it's important to be very aware off the micro considerations that go into rendering the forms in materials within your super heroines design. There's a lot of them, which is why keeping each part of the process as simple as possible makes it more manageable. The less complicated it is, the easy it'll be to think about end, the more streamlined the workflow becomes. That's when you begin toe work more fluidly, with less hiccups along the way. Now I'm breaking up Godina za luscious locks of hair with darker shades of color. Following the flow, the form with each brushstroke, the gaps in between a pushed back by the darker values, while the overlapping layers of hair are brought forward with brighter highlights. This adds more depth, texture and visual complexity to the hair as it split up and defined with clearer shape and volume. The hair is divided up by dark, hard strokes of color that extend off the ink contours of the line, work and eventually fade off into the highlights along the ribbon like looks themselves, However, the eternal transition is gradual, forming a soft doctor like great Asian along their trajectory. This clarifies the layering in composition of the hair so that it's easier to read. Visually, Gardena has last just their care. So as I shade it, I'm trying to give the overall style a real sense of form. By making short, there's a decent amount of variation between the different shades of hue. I think about how much height the overlapping layers need, tohave in comparison to the deeper pockets of hair to create the right amount of distance between them. It is not enough. Contrast between the values her hair will come across is too flat. Hair has a dynamic nature that allows it to move and compose it so freely it follows led and gestures that are in constant motion according to the environment and movement of the character. This gives it a life of its own, and we want to maintain that by avoiding too much consistency, uniformity and order in the way we divided up next time, rendering the skin tones around her shoulders and upper arm instead of adding value to the base tones, I'm simply blending them in. My aim is to establish the defining edges of her anatomy. Then great ate the highlights and shadows across the form surface, describing its mass and curvature. From there, it's easy to intensify the tonal values to give the form additional depth. The shading is soft with seamless doctor like radiance that a gently massaged together. This makes the skin look silky smooth and flawless, which is especially important for maintaining an attractive, youthful appearance for our super heroines. Harsh tonal transitions and overly defined anatomy will have the opposite effect, resulting in an unflattering, haggard complexion. Your super heroine may very well be built in tone, but even pronounced muscle mass should be softly shaded to maintain the appeal of soft looking skin. Our goal here is to convey how her body would feel to the touch based on visuals alone. This applies to all materials throughout guardian is designed, including the fabric I'm rendering for her top. In this instance, the core highlights and shadows are determined by the underlying primary form. Off her breast, the creases of pulled out from the shadows up toward the light and as their deluded by the light of values they fade off Before reaching the peak of the breast, the phones were extended downward in the opposite direction, away from the highlights and eventually disappear into shadow. The reason for this is simple folds a convex elevating off the surface and thus catching more light. While the concave creases caused deep impressions in the material that collects shadow, the two are basically inverted surface forms. The sharpness of these folds increases very depending on the material. Some fabrics a relaxed with a minimal amount of reflectivity, so the shading will probably be softer tight. Shiny clothing or wrinkly materials. Pro into compression usually have sharply defined folds increases, so haven't think about what you're super heroines Outfit is actually made off. That will help you determine how it should be shaded. Moving down to Godina Zappa Thighs, we've returned to rendering her flesh tones again. I'm softly blending in the shadows and highlights across the surface of each form while keeping their outer edges Scharping Crisp to create a degree of separation between them. Even though we're striving to keep her skin silky smooth, blending everything together would flatten out her anatomy and make it too vague in saying that God in his legs still aren't as time to sings, which means the underlying muscle groups aren't going to be is pronounced. For the most part, the only divisions between the forms that we're going to see will occur around the inner thighs, hips and lower abdomen. It's important to remember that defining the edge of a form is just as important as rendering the surface. Both contribute to the clarity off its shape and mass. The colors amusing to render her skin have already been established, thanks to the base shadows, highlights and overlays. So all I've got to do now is sample those times and softly blend them together into a smooth, radiant. But what I want to point out here is the rich mix of yellows, pinks and purples that make up the skin's color palette and why I have chosen them. For starters, the woman Hughes literally make her look more alive, indicating increased circulation and all round healthiness. The cooler hues reserved for the shaded areas of the skin, complementing the warmth of the highlights and enriching the color palette with more variety. Next up, I'm going to tackle the rendering. Full guiding is a lengthy loincloth. The diaper fold formation at the top of the material was defined by the ink, so my job now is to emphasize it with greater depth and dimension. I used the same approach I took for rendering her top, punching in the concave creases with darker shades of color and pumping up the foods with brighter highlights to bring them out. Just like the terrain of a landscape. The composition of folds within a dangling sheet of material such as this, we even alternating composition of hills and valleys. The darker shades have found in the deepest crevices of the cloth and the brightest tones to find the pinnacle of its highest peaks. Everything in between is shaded within that value range to indicate the varying levels of depth within the material. At the base of the loincloth, we can see that it collapses against itself like a curtain hanging from a road. To emphasize this overlap, I use lighter tones to pull the forefront, folds out and use the dark of values to push the receding material further back. He could almost polish up guardian Osama and use it as a mirror to fix your hair and check your teeth for court bits of broccoli, something all the bad guys get to do when they see her fists rocketing toward them. Because, as we know, chrome plated metal is one of the most reflective materials of the mall, shooting oncoming lights straight off its surface with fierce intensity. The process for rendering cream is pretty simple. Believe it or not, all I'm doing is flattening out the highlights with a very light near white blue. They're not completely, even though there is a subtle Grady int where the brightest edge of the highlights its closest to the shadow. From there it very gradually fades across the highlight into a slightly darker tone. But the transition is barely noticeable. The highlight itself is essentially defined by the edges of the shadows. There's a core highlight, which were laying in now, and a secondary highlight will add in later that'll Grade eight into the shadowed areas of the crime. We've got a fairly hard division separating the highlights and shadows due to the intense contrast between their values. In fact, there's essentially no mid tones except within the reflections themselves. It's just pure black shadows against white highlights, with nothing in between to blend them together. Question is, am I still trying to describe the surface form off the muscles as I render the crime? After all of that kind of delineated within the Ama's design itself? Not so much this time around. Shading metallic skin a Rama with this level of reflectivity is less about defining form and more about establishing the highlights and shadows exclusively where it's simply placing radiance within thumb and leaving the line work suggest everything else. So how do we give her crime? Quoted anatomy, A sense of dimension? Then That's good more to do with where we placed the shadows and highlights rather than the rendering. We just need to make sure they show up on the form surface in the areas they should, according to the direction of the light source, rendering crime Let's complex. But it doesn't actually take much to get it. Looking old glossed up and spit shiny. Remember, the highlights are essentially made up of a single tone, except for the fact that they're not quiet with the faintest radiant. The brightest point of the eternal transition is found at the edge of the reflected light next to the shadow. Of course, there's a defining edge on either side of it. So which one of my talking about here? That would be the edge of the highlight, which is further from the light source itself? Finally, enough. In Gardiner's case, the light is shooting down from the top, right, so the brightest point of the highlights reflected off glossy AAMA will be situated to their left. So where the shadows and highlights would otherwise blend together into a mid tone on a mat surface, we get a mighty clash of contrast between the most intense values. Nancy Gardiner's majestic blue cape. My approach to rendering this material is quite similar to the other. Fabrics are shaded throughout her design thus far, but let's do a quick recap anyway. We know that the basic aim here is to bring out the folds with bright atones, since the retreating forms are going to catch more light than the impressed creases, which will instead be pushed in deeper with dark of values. I'm color picking the different shades of blue that already occupy the cape and following the flow of the material as I paint them in doing my best to describe the forms within the material. Blue is a brilliant color choice to use for God Deena's outfit, not just because it complements the rest of her color scheme, but because of its meaning. As I said before, Blue is trustworthy and safe. It's also a calming color, which equates to the feeling one might experience in Gardiner's presence. It signifies goodness, in my opinion, and when combined with the pure connotations of her fair golden hair, we create the kind of or a selfless super heroine might have, who puts the well being and safety of others before her. A zoomed out here, giving Gardena a few more touch ups to balance out the highlights and shadows before moving on to the second pass of rendering. Got to make sure all of those forms of reading nicely first and now, working on the rendering past two layer, I'm bumping out the highlights off her face, deepening the shadows and polishing up the forms as I go. The second rendering past is really all about defining the forms off the character to the utmost degree of refinement By carefully balancing the intensity of value, contrast and blending toe articulate their subtle nuances the faces one of the areas we've got to pay close attention to. Because those variables differ from form to form, the sub forms within the heads. Underlying structure, like the muscles and facial features, are all lit relative to the full off of light cast down from the main light source. So I add, bride attains to the forehead cheeks top of the mouth and chin, gently needing them into the forms to create a soft radiant. I used darker shades of color to define the inner sockets around her rise, rigid the brow and the drop shadows below her nose. The spread of light across each form requires some thought, because it determines the broadness and steepness of the elevations or dips throughout her face. The slightest imbalances or value could completely change the faces. Appearance Next up, we're finding Godina za lashes, looks of golden hair. Just look at the way it blaze majestically in the wind. What a great way to convey her otherworldly divinity. She's got a bit of a fantasy Web going on, doesn't she? Maybe throughout her story, she battles orcs, goblins and trolls and gets around on a giant fire breathing dragon. I should have given her a magical sword that would have been epic. As you can tell, the closer I get to completing my super heroines, the more excited I get. Hopefully you feel the same way about yours as they come to life on the page, they seem to do the same thing inside our minds as we imagine the world's. They'll occupy the baddies they'll come head to head with and the friends they'll make along the way back to the task at hand. You can see him emphasizing the separation and layering within her hair, using even darker tones to push the shaded pockets of shadow further in. Likewise, I popped the highlights out with brighter colors and combined thes intensified dark and light values give the hair maximized levels of depth and contrast as they painted in. I'm following the flow of the hair running my brush along the length of each look. My aim is to describe them as vividly as possible, of course. But the other, possibly even more important thing I'm trying to do is increase the readability off the major masses that make up Gardiner's overall hairstyle. We can see how detailed it is with those overlapping gold locks sweeping down around her face and back. That's why it's so important to define the larger formations composed within it. Smaller, more intricate details always adhere to the larger shape. So we've got to make sure we're working within the context off a more macro perspective to bring visual clarity to our work. Now I've gone back to softening her flesh tones a game. The priority here is to get the surface of the formal looking nice and smooth, while describing it accurately with the right amount of great Asian between the highlights and shadows. So I'm feeling the forms out as a painting, each brushstroke trying to get a real sense of the surface geometry I'm dealing with at no point in my thinking off the area I'm working on as a flat shape that simply needs to be filled out. It's all about anatomical mass at this point, ensuring the arm muscles and bosom are all rendered with a healthy amount of volume. For the most part, I'm simply tweaking the grade Ian's to capture the right amount of co viciousness across each surface, which pretty much comes down to the spread of the highlights. But we can't forget about the edges old those forms, which are refined with darker values. Remember, the hard division between sub forms will become shallower and maybe even begin to bridge together as the primary forms turned toward the line. There's defining contours throughout the entire body, ranging from the hard outlines created by overlapping body parts like the armpits base of the breast, not to mention cleavage to the surface divisions between the muscle groups, which are either soft or sharp, depending on how ripped the character is. Guardian is built. But she still got some padding, which means we can see the major masses of muscle, but not necessarily the deep grooves illustration you'd see on a body builder. The level of articulation within your super heroines anatomy all comes down to her individual physic because it can certainly range between softness and firmness. But honestly, you'll probably want to tone down the level of definition, just a tad in most cases, Taking my attention back to gaudiness top, I'm working on blending the tone some more. What I'm trying to do here is give the material a satiny look by pushing the darker shades up from the bottom toward the top of the breast, thus narrowing eternal Grady in increasing the contrast and hopefully making it look a little shiny. A. Of course, all the while I'm refining the folds increases to making sure that they wrap around the major forms off her bosom in a way that describes it. The length and depth of the creases play an important role in doing that because, as we know, the material is going to even out as it stretches over the highest point of the form, the Adama's peak of her boobs a basically one big, broad point of tension that pushes the material outward from the top of the armor and shoulders. So what will we see is a result. Shallow increases at the peak of the breast as it protrudes Ford with an increased cluster of condensed wrinkles and folds around the base and top of the chest. Her loincloth is essentially made of the same materials, so I'm attempting to give it a similar amount of shine. By adding more contrast, the shading mostly that simply involves bringing the shadows closer toward the highlights. I'm not too worried about intensifying the value range because it'll be amplified anyway by the curves adjustment layer. I'm going to throw in over the top once I'm done. My main concern is just to get those forms lick correctly so that the surface I'm working on end the material. It's made off. Reads as it should. You've probably noticed that this point that the rendering processes rather repetitive. So once you get the paint brush and I drop it'll working together synergistically or you've got to do is consider the form, material and lighting conditions you're trying to convey. The analytical pot is the most challenging, but actually doing it is pretty easy. Here's the thing, though. If you take action first, it gives the mental side of the equation something to work with, so just get stuck into it. Sometimes there's no way to know what's going to look good or utterly terrible, for that matter, until you try it out. I mean, think about it. What's the worst that can happen? So maybe the forms look flat, the lighting makes no sense, and the wacky color combos make you want to gouge your eyes out. Excellent. You've got something toe work with. Start fixing things up from their use, your eye and artistic taste to figure out the areas that need a little more shadow or a little bit more brightness. Tweak the contrast and sharpness of the Grady Inskeep, shading those forms until they've got the right amount of shape. And, of course, swap those IKI Hughes out for better ones that complement the color scheme. Now I know they say we shouldn't ever compare our work to others, but I say do it. If you're not happy with how your coloring looks, check out the work of other artists and analyzed the Hughes writing contrast and material rendering they've managed to pull off in their work. Then compared to yours, what are the differences? Those comparisons are going to tell you the changes you need to make. I knew I wanted my style of coloring toe look a particular way. So I researched similar styles that I liked and mimicked. What they were doing. If you're just starting out, how was he supposed to know what to do? You've got nothing to judge your work against. It could be brilliant or it might be trashed. There's no way of telling without some kind of baseline. Most of all, you've got to get feedback. Other people are going to see things you're just not aware off. Heck, showed them examples of the kind of coloring you'd like to do, then present what you've done and ask them if you're missing something. I know we get a little sheepish about that kind of thing. Don't worry, I do, too. But I figured out early on that the payoff of seeking out advice from other artists who were better than me outweighed the preservation off my eager. It's seriously one of the best things you can do to give your abilities of power up. If getting good really matters that much to you, put that first and do whatever you can to speed up your progress. Learning alone is for fools, all right, time for some glass I'm under speculum Highlights layer, adding small reflections to guiding his lips, nose, eyes and cheeks and As you can see, this just makes her skin glisten with an added amount of radiant shine. I'm also giving her hair more vibrancy, increasing the highlights to get those golden locks shimmering in the light. Unlike the speculum reflections on her face, I'm fading in these brighter turns toe gradually raise the intensity of the highlights. After all, Head doesn't have a completely smooth shell like surface. It's made up of individual strands that add texture, which means the speculum reflections throughout it by going to be blood to an extent, no doubt about it. Ramped up. Speculate or ity adds a mega cool effect to the elements throughout your super heroines design, but we want to use it sparingly. Speculum highlights suggest shiny nous, however normal materials a shiny. Nor did they have the same amount of reflectivity. If you make everything look ultra glossy and boost the speculator off every single form throughout the character to the hilt, let's just say she's gonna have a rather oil down look about her. If that's the case, the next question is, why do I had so many speculate highlights to the skin of my super heroines? It's a little over the top, isn't it? Well, I do it because I like the look of wet skin there I said it. And that's probably because it suggests what the pink pigments also hint at increased physical prowess, which, as we know, is demonstrated during a taxing gym, sesh high performance sports contest or an intimate rendezvous. In all cases, increased blood flow n perspiration indicate that Gardena is fit and healthy. As we know, speculum highlights a pretty don intense. In fact, they're probably going to be the brightest values across your entire character, so their placement is extremely important because that greatly affects how we perceive the form, their reflecting off. It's fairly easy to guess where they should go as long as you're conscious of the formula working with end the position of the light source moving on, I've made a selection around Gardena and added in an adjustment layer for the curves to tweak her contrast. The curve graph allows me to deepen the darks and broaden the highlights, making every element we shaded thus far bounce off of the page with increased depth, and I mentioned, and then what I'm gonna do is give her chrome plated armor. A secondary highlight, its painted into the shadows coming in from the far side of the form further wrist from the primary light source. So, really, the darkest values have found around about the middle of the form, where they converge into a solid black. Against the highlights. I'm using a complimentary yellow for the secondary light, which contrasts beautifully with the purples and blues inside the shaded areas of the armor . Now, in real life, crime pretty much reflects everything within the surrounding environment. In this particular scenario, however, it's really just reflecting the two light sources. The black squiggly lines are enough to suggest that distorted elements inside the scene that are being mirrored off the surface over Godina, Osama. So we're faking it. But we're also style izing the crime to make it look cool. It would be pretty hard to make out what the's surfaces air reflecting anyway, given the complexity and composition of the forms. Sure, if it was a flat sheet of metal, it had capture a fairly clear projection of what's in front of it, just like a regular mirror. Not so much the case with curve a cious organic shapes they're going toe warp the heck out of everything that's reflected in them. What I'm looking to achieve within the shaded sections of her cry Mama is a nice yellow to purple gradation that kind of looks pink in the middle and at the sides of her body, where the rim light is bound to be more intense. I amplify the intensity off those warmer tones to bump up the materials shiny nous. But remember, we don't want them to surpass the core highlights in terms of brightness lighting has. In order to it, he can see the immediate increase of glossy nous within the crime. It's high contrast, super shiny end. As faras appeal goes. Our eyes love the high octane intensity of the stock values. It's attention grabbing, visually stimulating and downright cool to look at. The addition of chrome plated armor or anatomy, for that matter, will make your superhero and stand out amid the crowd. Because of its pulverizing visuals. I like the otherworldly qualities both the material and fitted design of Godina Osama brings to the table. To there's this presupposition that she wears it like a metallic skin, bringing about a sense of extreme power, strength and magic that are outside our realm of possibility. It's the exquisite forgery of the plating that in cases her in a liquid metal like shell, which makes it seem like she's not just wearing the armor, but that it's actually part of her. It doesn't hold her back in any way. In fact, it only reinforces her Shia power. And all of that just fits in perfectly with the idea that she's this ultimate super heroine that outclasses all the rest. I can only imagine the type of supervillains should fight. No doubt they'd be just as powerful to you'll have to forgive me. I know I'm talking guardian are up a fair bit here, so I'll put a lid on it. After all, who says your super heroine won't give her a good beat down? What I will say, though, is seriously think about the design elements you could include within your super heroine, that it playing to who she's supposed to be. At a core level, you're conveying the bio of your character through a visual presentation. Maybe you won't get ALS. The details about her past or history and the nuances of her personality presented all in one shot. But the cliff notes should most certainly be there. List at least five of the most important aspects about your super heroine. Their powers. Background where they're from. And ask yourself if those things clearly communicated in her design. Now that Gardiner's fancy cry Mama is pretty much rendered up. For the most part, I'm adding in the final polish by running some intense speculum highlights along the edge of each plate. This gives Haram A that extra level of gloss. It also creates more separation between the paneling, adding depth to the surface patterns across Karama. Simple little details like this enhanced the believability over your super heroine tenfold . It's not something you'd notice if it were missing, but it does give Haram a much more solidity, and by that I mean it actually looks more solid. As in, if you reached out and touched it, it would feel cold, hard and smooth have probably talked a little bit too much about touching the forms of my super heroines, but to me, a convincing character should suggest what you would physically feel if you were to reach out and run your hands over the various surfaces and materials you're trying to convey through their design. You can see a clear distinction between the way gutting Escape would feel textually in comparison to the hard steel of her cry Mama. The real difference lies within the Grady INTs. Tynes, in contrast, of the shading we've used to render these materials. So now I'm tweaking the curve some or end on top of that adjustment layer, I've added in another one for the color balance. Turning up the Reds and blues to harmonize the Hughes within guardian is color scheme. These adjustment Lee is really just helped to mosque my inadequacies as a colors by enhancing everything for me. But, hey, as long as my super heroine looks her best in the end, I'll use the dirtiest digital tricks in the book. Digital art is like the Wild West. It's a land of lawlessness and where the cowboys seriously, there's no right or wrong way to go about this stuff. In the end, it'll winds up in print form anyway. The poster or magazine is what the audience holds in their hands, so the visuals are all that really counts, okay, Turned to get into some more rim lighting so we can give Gardena some real pop. This time. I'm using a bright baby blue color for the secondary light source, running it around the outer edges off her form on the side of her body that's cast in shadow. This basically creates an illuminated contour that delineates their shape and makes them clearer to see. Without that secondary highlight, they'd be more indistinct and harder to make out. For example, you can see how now the shaded part of God in his upper arms clearly stand out against the darker tones within her cape and hair. She's a tough chick, so we definitely want to emphasize those biceps. The same could be said for her hips and legs that way. More emphasized now things to the blue backlight. In fact, what I'm really trying to do here is separate her entire body from the interior of the Cape so that it's more distinct. We want her shapes to read vividly, and what better way to do that? Then Toe outlined them with a bright strip of light in the darkest parts of the figure. It brings clarity to the interior silhouettes of her design that wouldn't be otherwise noticeable by literally shining a spotlight on them. And it's because the values of her outline are inverted to create a complete contour around the forms in both the shadows and highlights. Previously, we had the solar black contours to establish the ink Leinart and everything it entailed. But once we start coloring, they don't show up so easily. In the shadowed areas, the secondary highlights compensate for those lost outlines by illuminating the outer edge of the forms and essentially allowing them to glow in the dark and to create even more distance between guardian. His body and the back of her cape zoomed out, made a selection around the capes base color toe, isolated and started airbrushing some darker blues onto the cast shadows layer because it said to multiply these huge double up on the tones below, like two overlapping pieces off colored cellophane. This is all about making the character more readable. Each part of the design should be clear, cut indistinguishable. If it's not, that could lead to all kinds of trouble, including confusion, misinterpretation and ambiguity. I've added in a few more cachiaras, while I'm at it to distance the layout elements from one another and pushed the amount of depth inside the character are typically dropped him in around the underside of the fringe just to lift it off the face and around the bottom of any clothing items that arresting against around the body. I've made another isolated selection around the Cape to miss around with its colors, using a new color balance adjustment layer. I felt like the previous plea was just too deep, dark and saturated. Figured if I could dilute the colors a little more and brighten up the overall turn, it might jibe with the rest of her design a bit better. Now I've gone ahead and created a selection around her energy ball again. I'm using the base color mosques toe isolated, super nifty. Then I airbrush a like green hue into the middle of it on the powers layer, which I've got set to the hard, light blending mode. This illuminates the energy bull and makes it look like this, some kind of magical power emanating from it. And then I continue touching her up, making those tonal transitions even smoother to keep the surface forms soft and sleek. Of course, part of The reason I'm backtracking over these areas is because I'm super particular about the readability off her anatomy. I want to make sure that the masses of muscle fat and bone accurately reflect a physique. They don't have to be correct in a real world academic sense, but they do within the context off Gardena herself. She has a certain set of proportions and the body type that's unique to her specifically. And my goal is to make sure her forms are filled out to the right degree of definition by adjusting the eternal blend between the light and dark values of used to shade them. It's all to do with the lighting, and Howard disperses across ever anatomy. As I was saying earlier, the speculum highlights can have a profound impact on the perceived shape and depth of the form, which is why now, and repositioning the speculum reflection on Gardiner's breast to adjust its curvature. This was a hard fixed a spot, but something just didn't look right to me in the way the light was bouncing off her boob. It can be small modifications like this that not only eradicate the minor floors in your work, but raise its level of believability. I'm giving her tops amore rendering to trying to get the forms below to re consistently with the layer of fabric above them. Since the flat ironed out areas of the material conforms so closely to her breasts, I'd basically treat them as the same surface. The folds increases on the other hand, a shaded based on their elevations and recesses within the cloth relative to the lights full off across the major forms. And now I'm back to tweaking the eternal transitions around the rest of her body and particularly focused on the shading off her skin. It's a tricky material to Renda, and the way it's lit can completely determine how her anatomy is perceived. It could flatten the form, raise it, hardens so often or make it appear more smooth. There's so much we can do with rendering conveying form with any color and material under whatever lighting condition we want. But learning how to control the technique to get the effect you're after is where the challenge lies. It certainly took me a while to work, it'll that that's for sure, but I'm probably making it sound hotter than it looks because the truth is, your brain basically learns all this stuff automatically just by you doing it. The first superhero, when you render, probably won't be as great as your second, and the third will knock them boys out the ballpark. I mean, how cool is it that we can get better at doing something just by doing it? Your mind is always competing. The things you hear, see and do. It's analyzing and filing them away into your memory bank. And every time you repeat and activity those neural pathways created from past experience a reinforced as a result, you get better and faster, and you literally level up your abilities. The challenges you came up against in the beginning, a conquered and stored away in the back of your head. As experience points and the more competent you get, the less you think about them, leaving room for your brain to focus on the Hyatt ear obstacles that lie before you. This is why the contrast and lighting within every new superhero and I create will be balanced out a little better than the last. Her forms will be described with more accuracy and the materials more convincing even though been drawing since I was a young and I still haven't reached my peak yet, either. I continue to grow and evolve little by little, with every new character I create. You might be wondering what it is I'm changing here and why I'm changing it. If the adjustments of that minuscule how do I even know where to make them in the first place? Over time, you just become more aware and start picking up on the minor details. When you get to those higher levels of development and you've overcome the big obstacles, that's what your attention centres it on. Next, the finer aspects over your art. It's as if you are artistic eye increases its resolution. As you hone your abilities, your focus sharpens, and you gain more clarity throughout the creation process. As a result, your choices a more precise and targeted because you've got a clearer vision off what you're trying to go for, and sometimes you get a better idea of what you don't want. And I've got to say that I just can't seem to get this hip area looking right. The way it's connecting onto the leg makes it appears that they one form, and most of the time it does kind of look that way since they followed the same curve. But they're still needs to be a few Shelley dips here and there to indicate separation within the anatomy. So I'm messing with the shading in an attempt to give the hip burn more shape. The changes are so subtle that they're barely noticeable, But I'm just trying to get the dimensions old, the form to read a tiny bit better. We're working at an extremely fine level here. So I'm observing Gardena with a very critical eye as I run back over the Grady INTs with light brush streaks that let out just enough color, too refined, eternal transitions. And I'm going to continue working at it until I'm completely happy with the way it's looking. I don't stop until I reached that point. Perfectionism does have its perks, and, of course, it's certainly got setbacks. As with anything else, there's a balance you want to make your super heroines look their best, but you don't want to be redoing the same concept over and over again like a broken record . The trick is knowing what you're capable off. When you complete your super heroine, you'll set a new bar for yourself. Just a zay will here with mine. And if you've put all you've got into creating her, then that's it. That's the best you were able to do this time around. Be proud. Give yourself a pat on the back. Now you know what your best is. It may not be better or worse than anyone else's, but that doesn't matter. 13. Chapter 10: Rendering Glitch: all right. Super heroine number three. Here we go. On the rendering, pass one layer, blending in the base values and building up the forms of glitches face. What's interesting is that the heads overall shape is primarily defined by the skull. So as I paint, I'm thinking about the underlying recession's end, patricians of bone and how the features fit into it. Then there's the complex system of muscles just below the skin, which gives out features movements so that they can express thes sub forms help fill out the face. Some features are defined more by bone, like the brow and nose ridge, others by muscles such as the mouth and eyes. Of course, the surface layers of skin and fatty tissues softens the face out, which is why we certainly don't want to be articulating the muscles, cheekbones and eye sockets to to find a degree that will just make us look like a gaunt, sunken eyed zombie. As with all the other super heroines we've colored up thus far, I'm making sure glitches face looks nice and smooth, describing the subtle dips and curves throughout it with gentle Grady INTs that a mixed together so flee moving down to her neck. I'm indicating some of the key muscles will see on the surface. There's a lot of them believe the skin, but the only ones that are really visible on top of the long band like strips of muscle that run from the bottom of the year down to the center of the color bone. The neck is definitely one of those areas that can easily be overdone, so remember to keep the shading soft and subdued. As for glitches, chest the primary forms we want to convey. Here are the collarbone end, of course, her breasts they attached to the basic barrel shape of her upper body, which is lit based on the direction of the light source. This is why we get a brighter turn at the top of the cleavage because the sternum actually faces upward. The brightest areas of her breasts don't occur at the top of the form like you might think . Instead, they're highlights a place at the front, where they protrude outward from the chest. At the base of the breast. We see that their outer edges contoured by the shading. Remember, we don't want to blend every form together, I've smoothed over the base shading of glitches, empathize with some subtle tonal transitions. Their anatomy is pretty simple, no flexed muscles elevating off the surface, just the basic forms you'd see on a regular lady leg. Now let's move on to her hair. As with the previous super heroines, my goal here is to split up the larger looks into smaller groups. Bump out there highlights and push back the gaps between them with darker shades. Toe give the layering more depth and volume. The style of her cut is pretty choppy, so I really want to emphasize its texture to suggest a messy feel like aesthetic glitches. Wild Hairdo describes her well hotheaded and fiery, essentially the encompass mint off her character. When you contrast that against Gardiner's majestic golden locks, you can certainly see a stark difference in the vibe They give off. Just goes to show how much of an impact hairstyle and color can have on the way people perceive your super heroines, personality, attitude, temperament and presence. Trying to attend to the rendering of glitches. Groovy teal colored cup jacket. I imagine it's made of some kind of leather material, which means the shading will have higher contrast with folds that give off a heightened level of shine increases that are pushed in deeper with darker tones. First off, I'm trying to describe the form of her jackets massive collar, which folds up and around the back of her neck. It maintains its own shape and is relatively unaffected by the underlying surfaces off her body. Instead, most of its folds are determined by the zigzag style card of the material and how it's pulled into position as it loops around the opening I fully the direction off the folds increases with each brushstroke if there's one thing we want to capture, if the movement of the material as it's twisted and stretched in different directions, this conveys the malleability over glitches jackets so that it appears loose and flexible instead of stiff, implying that it's able to move alone with her body while it's in motion. It would be a mistake to think that the viewer will simply make the right assumption about what it is you're showing them. That's not the case, Trust me, All they've got to go on is the visuals you presented. Your job is to make them convincing enough to ensure the audience gets an accurate understanding off what they're looking at. If you fail to do that, there's a good chance your work will be misinterpreted. This often comes to us as a shock because in our mind the vision is clear and we wonder why no one else gets it. But it's not really about the idea itself. That's cool. It's a great idea. This is more to do with our ability to communicate it. The vision you've got inside your mind might be is clear as day, but all your audience sees is what you show them. They're coming at it from a place of complete obliviousness, so everything must make sense on the page, not just subjectively, but objectively. If I've defined glitch with Attila's a jacket, then that's what it needs to actually look like. Not at your cotton jumper or a coat made of denim. It's got to be leather, and this applies to the appearance of the materials, texture, flexibility, self nous and looseness. Imagine your audience comes from a completely different place that doesn't speak your language. You can tell them about it or explain it all. You can do is show it to them. That should be enough clarity within your concept that they see and fully understand it in the same way you do the way you intended. Sometimes it's hard to know yourself how you want things to come across. For example, I'm having a tough time figuring out how the folds increases should be directed at the front of Glitches jacket. It's a loose fit around this particular part of the body, but there's still areas where the underlying forms of her rib cage and breasts shows through as the material stretches and flattens out around them. Regardless of how many visible folds increases there are, the shape of her body is still going to fill out the jacket to some extent. My dilemma, however, is figuring out where the high points and low points off the underlying forms are going to show through and how much because that will determine how the all that is dispersed across the jacket. So I'm trying to define the folds increases in a way that allows the forms below to read clearly going by the direction of the light source. The highest values are going to be found on the left hand side of Glitches body, where it's hitting her with the most intensity. This means both the folds end. The underlying surfaces that give shape to the jacket will receive the brightest highlights in these areas. But remember, as the larger forms protrude out from the body and create tension points within the material, the Fords are going to merge into the highlights, while the creases will fade off completely before reaching their peak. In between these points of tension, the highlights will extend into the valleys that bridge those forms together. And since the material has little underlying support from the body in these areas were able to see more contrast and deeper values. To put it simply. If you imagine to coffee tables that assert a short distance from one another, which is then covered by a white coat and sheet, we would see that the material is held up by the two table tops. In between thumb. However, it would dip down, forming what you could essentially think of as a con cave crease in the middle, and as a result, the spread of light across the material would fall off into shadow glitches jackets somewhat did. He is to her body in a similar way. Instead of cloth stretched between separated tabletops, however, we're looking at leather pulled between the elevations and recessions within her anatomy. Since the outfit is quite loose, we can still see that some of the creases within her jacket run clean across the top of those underlying protrusions. Their contrast in value shifting in relation to the lighting conditions. In other words, the highlights and shadows I've used to define the folds and wrinkles will vary in intensity, even if they don't completely dissipate at the top of the primary points of tension. And remember this in most cases, those tension points are responsible for directing. The folds increases inside the material. In this instance, her leather jacket is compressing against itself in strange and interesting ways due to its complex cut and style. But even so, determining where those tension points reside can really help us out here. If it's not her underlying forms pulling the jacket this way and that it will be the movement in positioning off her body. In the end, we're trying to suggest the form being covered while also conveying what the material is made off, rendering clothes and drapery convincingly relies on those two things ever seen one of those horror movie sets that is staged in an abandoned house where all the furniture has been covered up with sheets to protect them from dust and damage. And it kind of looks like there might be a person underneath one of them, but it just turns out to be a creepy old man agan. Well, of course, the sheet takes on the shape of whatever object it's covering. It's not a straightforward with clothing, though, because additional tension points become involved due to the structure of the outfit and how it's joined together. But if you want to become well practiced in depicting drapery, my suggestion would be to cover a few of the items sitting in your bedroom with a small cloth and sketch has some studies off them. It could be anything but the more interesting the shape is the better. For example, I've got a lava lamp, giant enemies statue and Dumb bell sitting in my studio that would all serve as perfect subjects as a ways conveying the right material for each item of clothing throughout your design should be of equal priority in glitches. Case her jacket needs toe actually look like it's made of leather. Different leathers have varying levels of reflectivity, thickness and texture, all of which I'm establishing with the intensity over the highlights and shadows, the softness of their blend and the amount of contrast between their values. All right, time to render out glitches, robotic arms and weaponry. He We're dealing with a lot of hard edge surfaces, so I'm trying to keep the shading smooth across the forms while making sure the edges of each faces sharply defined. The design may look complex, but rendering it is pretty easy, since the lineup is filling in most of the details for us, I'm simply taking at one piece of metal at a time, mixing their highlights and shadows into a seamless Grady int. I treat her gun in the same way. In its simplest form, it's essentially a narrow box with MBAs, surface details that add interest to the design. The areas of Shadow have already been filled in, for the most part, things to the ink. So all I've got to do is Smoothes over the light of bass tones hard edged metal elements are among the easiest forms to Renda due to the lack of ambiguity between their surface planes. Unlike organic forms, each faces distinct, making it easy to tell which ones are going to be lit or cast in shadow, since their surface areas are generally even. There was so much simpler to shade, usually only requiring a subtle Grady int to indicate the dispersion off like cast across them. If it's not flat plains, it'll be curved faces, which is still relatively simple. Surrender glitches. Robot arms consist of round or completely flat steel plates and cylindrical pipe formations . Although I'm treating them as though they're all lit under the one light source, I intend to each piece separately. That way I'm able to focus in on the individual components of the design. Instead of becoming overwhelmed with rendering the entire arm all at once. No matter hell intricately intimidating your design might be. Just take it one step at a time and hone in on the specific area you'd like to work on next . Everything else can be ignored for now. That's not to say you don't want to occasionally check in with how your super heroine is coming together. Overrule. Just don't get freaked out by the largest scope of your idea. It's the individual parts that make up the whole, so attend to them. First and foremost, I'm taking the same approach to rendering glitches cybernetic legs, shading each piece of metal individually at the same time, I want to give the entire leg additional depth and dimension. So in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about how the steel plates are layered. Those in front said highest, so they're lifted out with broader values. While the take underneath is pushed back with darkest shadow tones, the metal itself has a certain level of reflectivity to it, which I'm using to dial the sharpness and intensity of the highlights. Its shiny but certainly not as glossy is Gardiner's Crow Mama, which just goes to show that you can have similar materials with very different properties . Unlike the crime glitches, robotic legs reflect light with a dimmer intensity, mirroring a blood projection of the surrounding environment off its surface. This is because the steel absorbs more of the incoming light rays and diffuses them across the form. As a result, we see a soft, a blend between the shadows and highlights. It still gives off a nice shine with a certain level of speculative E. But the contrast between the light and dog values aren't mirrors. Intense in comparison to gutting is AAMA. As I render on thinking about the shape of each piece of metal composed with English. His leg. I consider the size and steepness of their curve to determine the gradation of turn. Across the surface. The base values are blended in together with the same rendering technique I've been using for everything else so far color picking the tones I want to combine and mixing them together until I've created a smooth transition between the colors. Rendering is simple in and of itself. The hard part is the balancing and judgment calls you have to make to convey the forms, materials and lighting accurately, which is what I'm constantly focused on throughout the process. All right, you can see a zoomed out here to make sure glitch looks good. From a distance, we should be able to easily make outperforms that it defined throughout her robotic legs. They need to be distinct, yet at the same time should fit together harmoniously to compose the primary shape of her legs. Seeing her from back here, I noticed that glitches jacket still doesn't look right when your character is not working from a distance again. No, there's an issue, and it's all to do with the left hand side off her lower chest. This is a prominent area of the skeleton that sits close to the surface on a physically fit and healthy body, which means it would noticeably fill out the jacket more in this area. The rib cage sticks out due to the way it's angled, slipping further Ford at the bottom before curving back into the body. If not for the breasts, this would make her ribs the primary point of protrusion in the upper torso. So they're going to catch a decent amount of light and create a significant point of tension within her jacket. That's what I'm struggling with here. The material should be relatively flat as it evens out and stretches over the form similar to the way it covers her breasts. But I've messed up in the Leinart stage by inking a crease too far over into the side of a ribs to be fair. The jacket is prying to wrinkling due to the nature of its material and the looseness of the fit. But still, it's something doesn't look right. It needs to be addressed. So really, my main goal here is to get the forms below to show through a little more. In other words, I want to make it look like she's actually wearing the jacket. The lineup somewhat restricts what I'm able to do here, so I've got to work around it as best I can. I could go back in just a race, the crease in question. But I honestly don't want to touch the inks again. As far as I'm concerned. Once the line I'd is complete and you venture into the coloring stage, there's really no turning back in saying that. This is why I'm struggling now. So it becomes a matter of tweaking the shading within the jacket to fashion the folds increases in a way that also suggests the major forms below. I may not be able to change where they're placed, but I can certainly adjust their thickness and sharpness by changing how broad their shadows and highlights are. I'm still not exactly sure what to do here. So I'm just throwing their own paint strokes until I stumble across the outcome I'm looking for. That's the way it works, sometimes through a process of exploration and experimentation. I'm using my I to judge whether or not I'm getting closer or further away from the solution , Um, after seeing what works and what doesn't. As I said before, a load of this is about problem solving. I often get stuck at some point and have no idea how to get out of it. But it doesn't stop me, and it shouldn't stop you either. When it inevitably happens, Dining at the imperfections has always been part of the creative process and always will be . Otherwise, it would require no expertise, hard work or talent. He could just pull a new super heroine out of your hat effortlessly without breaking a sweat. And you know what? If that were the case, being a comic book artist would quickly lose its charm. We may think we want things to be easy, but if everything was smooth sailing, the challenge wouldn't be there anymore. And as a result, engagement would be lost. We'd be bored. There's a scale of difficulty with any task that determines whether or not where it would lose ourselves within the process and transition into the zone. That state of creative immersion where time just seems to disappear as the rest of the world slips away and you're able to focus exclusively on the task at hand to reach that state. However, what we're undertaking must be difficult yet achievable. If it's too easy, we lose interest too hard and we give up. This is what makes comic art so easy to get into every step of the way we're challenged, but it's a fun challenge, and yet we're playing the long game. We might not see a significant improvement in our skill set until much later, but simply working toward our goal to get better is enough to keep us hooked. As a mentioned before. This is totally comparable to playing a good video game. The reward is in itself the challenge, and you know what I feel like that creates a tighter bond between us and our art glitch, and I are working through some tough stuff here and after all said and done all remember the journey we've embarked on sounds overly sentimental, I know, but seriously, there's a history behind every piece of art ever created, and the artist is just a much a part of it as the work itself. I'm feeling much better about the shading for glitches jacket now, so I'm refining what I've done, bumping up the highlights and deepening the shadows to increase its depth and dimension. All right, so never onto the second render pass, where I'm going in and refining glitches face and more on the rendering past two layer, I'm touching up the forms, suddenly raising and reshaping them to get a desirable aesthetic for the overall structure . I want all of my super heroines to exude a noticeable amount of physical allure, most of which will radiate from the face with a keen eye on pushing, pulling and smoothing out the surface with various shades of here, molding the features and articulating the surrounding anatomy toe a final degree of detail moving down to the neck and chest. I did the same thing. Adding definition to the surface forms with brighter highlights and darker shadows, making the prominent edges within the anatomy mawr distinct and softening the skin with smoother tonal transitions. This is where a basic understanding in anatomy can help out a lot, not just in terms of knowing what the underlying muscle groups are, but how they look on top, knowing what muscles to define over the flesh and to what degree is a key aspect in anatomy that often gets overlooked. And what makes it extra complicated is the fact that everyone's body is different. Some people have more time to physic. Others have a greater amount of fat and some of skinny, all of which affect how the muscles below show through. But, as I mentioned previously, you don't need a medical degree to pull off accurate looking anatomy. Just make sure you have some decent references on hand while you work. I generally know where the muscles go, and that makes things easier, for sure. But there certainly way too many nuances within the human body structure for me to completely wing it. So I've certainly got my references up. As I work, you can see that there's a little more pink in the pigment of glitches, skin in comparison to gaudiness, slightly yellow atone, which means the different shades of hue. I'm sampling here primarily consist of warm peaches, pinks and purples. This gives glitch of fair complexion, which meshes well with her red hair to indicate an Irish, well, possibly Scottish heritage. Speaking of her hair, you'll notice that as I increased the intensity off the highlights, I'm using a bright yellow instead of a light or inch you. This gives the color range of the hair a greater amount of richness and variety. It's a fiery combo of color that reflects her temperament and sassy personality as well. The cutters, short and choppy, messy at the back and stylish at the front. So I really want to emphasize the layering here and give her hair some additional lift, volume and texture. To do that, I increase the depth of the layering by bumping up the highlights and darkening the shadow tones of the underlying locks. As I render, I'm maintaining the direction and shape of the head by running my brush along the jagged toughs that form its overall style, as if I'm combing them out with the water of wax or gel. Next time attending to the inner lining over the jacket, it's supposed to be white in color, but looks a little too close to the turquoise hue of the exterior leather, so I'm touching it up a bit to make it more distinct. The reason the two colors were so similar in the first place is because I was painting the white straight on top of the jackets base color, which just created a brighter, more diluted version of it. It's good to have some contrast in the colors of your characters clothing just so that it doesn't look so playing. If the white wasn't there to offset the teal glitches jacket would have seemed flat and lacked a certain amount of visual appeal. Around here, I'm refining the folds, increases more, articulating the various directions that jackets being pulled and stretched in while conveying its material with greater clarity. The idea with second rendering passes simply to turn out the definition off the shading. We've already done toe a higher resolution. This is the point at which the final checks are made. As we retrace our steps and touch up anything we've missed. This process can only happen later down the line. Once we've already made some progress, you can't polish a sculpture that's not yet formed This is just the nature of the workflow . Start out rough and continue refining your work until the final presentation is complete. That point can come at any time, depending on the artist. The level of fine she and articulation I like to see in my super heroines might not match your taste in style and aesthetics. Generally, comic art is a classically clean cut graphic medium, and what I'm demonstrating for you here is a typical 90 style. But these days you can pick any lookie like for your comic art. Whether it's messy, need realistic, heavily stylized or whatever. It doesn't matter. As I build up the highlights and shadows throughout the jacket, I'm endeavoring to give each fold increase as much formas I can to incorporate an added sense of dimension. I would have described the surface of the jacket vividly, suggesting it's tactile qualities. How would feel the touch? Would it be cool, warm, rubbery, textured, hard or soft? I'm thinking about the fit of the material, the areas where it sits loosely and those where it conforms tightly against the body. This requires a set list tonal shifts with the lightest brush strokes, each sub form is shaped to the finest degree of intricacy with purpose and intention. They must be defined on their own and shaded consistently with the light source in mind, but also need to fit within the wider context of the leathery landscape that makes up the rest of the jacket. The dips and rises within the material. A carefully balanced to establish the right amount of height and depth, which changes drastically as they run across the larger primary forms below the surface. At the key, tension points around the breasts, ribs and shoulders. The jacket fills out and even titans leaving little leeway for folds or creases to form. In fact, the material completely flattens out wherever it's pulled closely against the body. Everywhere else, we see compression in the material as it's crumpled and bunched up or pulled between the tension points. The entire rendering process we're going through here is an attempt to indicate this the characteristics over the jacket, how it behaves and interacts in tandem with the body, the style fit movement and the very material it's made off. As I said before, this is a matter of showing not telling, So we've got to make sure that we capture everything we want to say about our super heroine in her taste in fashion with a clear visual representation of who she is. If you can pull that off successfully, your super heroine will be way more impactful, allowing the viewer to understand and relate with her on an incredibly powerful level. Something else we can do to add visual interest to an otherwise bland looking design is including alternating patterns and textures within it. In the example of Glitches jacket, we can see that the smooth teal leather makes up its majority, but the shoulder padding cuffs and in aligning all have a striped patton. This creates additional contrast on a few levels between the colors, which we already mentioned the visual complexity off the design as well as its scale and density. Notice how the till leather still makes up most of it, though. While the white striped pattern acts as a secondary point of interest, it's important to have a dominant color end or patent within each element to establish an overall scheme. I'm still hung up on this section of the jacket. The composition of the folds increases just don't seem to be describing the underlying forms off her body clearly enough for May. My intuition tells me that the highlights need to come further toward the center, except I've placed a big crease right over the top off her rib cage in the lineup. But I'm doing the best I can to patch things up and reshape the area with some strategically placed highlights and shadows, I believe he can fix almost anything that doesn't initially go to plan. These are the times where you're tested most as an artist. Problems arise all the time during the creation process, and you've just got to find the best solution for them. Sometimes the damage is so great that it simply can't be saved. You learn from the pain, and you start again with a better idea off what not to do next time around. But usually there's still a glimmer of hope. You just got to get a little imaginative and do what you can with what you've got thes and no one as happy accidents and un personally a big fan of them. When you can turn a lemon into lemonade, things often wind out for the better. Plus, you get the added bonus of learning from your mistakes. Art is war, sometimes full of battles that must be fought to victory. And nothing feels better than conquering the trials and tribulations you're faced with along the way. Crawling through the mud and jumping the hurdles makes you a much more confident artistas. Well, you end up developing this unwavering faith in yourself that no matter what happens, your work will reach completion and the end result will be great. Regardless, After a while, you no longer fear making mistakes. That's just something that comes with the territory. Never for a moment do you contemplate the idea that things won't work out. The ability to adapt to the unexpected directions Al artwork can take sometimes makes us unbreakable. As much control as we've got over the outcome. Your ID is going to be whatever it's going to be in the end, and this is certainly the case for our super heroines and any of the characters we decide to create. So I don't mind spending the extra time tweaking this one little area again. It's a fun challenge that I literally can't seem to escape. I'm completely occupied, trying to solve this puzzle, and slowly but surely, I'm fashioning the folds in the right direction with adjustments that are so slight even I can barely notice them. But every brushstroke does count, and even the tiniest improvements are worth the effort. It just comes down to the amount of time and energy you're prepared to give to your super heroines. Sometimes that's predetermined by a deadline, which can and does often happen. This is okay. That's usually the way it goes with studios and clients and even your own projects. But what if you could get faster and at the same time maintain, ah, higher level of quality within your work? So now we're building up the highlights and shadows within glitches, mechanical arms to emphasize their forms with more definition. Again, I'm running my brush along the surface area with light strokes, describing it with greater solidity. Justus before and using the second rendering pass here to really boost the depth of the forms. I want every component within the arm's designed to pop so that the overlapping steel panels stand out against one another with vivid clarity. The key to achieving this is simple, as always, lift out the pieces of metal above with brighter highlights and pushed those underneath further in with darker shades of shadow. It's important to note here that all the shading where doing is based on the initial lighting past, which sets the value range we're working within. Now. This allows me to render the subbed forms off the design resting, assured that the overall leg and character as a whole, for that matter has theatre pro PRI. It fall off of light across the body. That still doesn't stop me from zooming out occasionally to make sure the forms of reading correctly from a distance. If not that every now and then, I'm squinting my eyes to blur the details again just to double check that the rendering undoing on a smaller scale is consistent within the broader scope of glitches lighting scheme. This is a common mistake that arises in both thinking and coloring the individual parts of the character, like their facial features, mussels and the various other components that make up their design, are well rendered superbly, with near perfect articulation off the forms. The big problem is, however, the dispersion of light across the length of the figure is completely even. Every element is lit equally as if they've all got their own separate light source. However, that's not how a single light source actually projects light. It has a certain level of decay, meaning that it starts off strongest at the light source but weakens in intensity. The further away it gets in the case of are super heroines. If the light sources said above the character, her body should be lit brighter at the top than at the bottom. This is what's referred to as light fall off. The transition can be subtle or severe, depending on the brightness of the light. If you're super heroine is standing directly underneath a powerful light source such as the sun, the spread of let across a figure is going to be fairly. Even in candlelight, however, the light will be weaker, making its full off more obvious and sudden. All righty. Now I'm adding instance speculum highlights to give glitch some extra gloss, starting with the face of place. Some spec around the eyes, nose, cheeks and lips to make the features stand out more. And I'm doing the same with her hair, boosting the brightness off the highlights To get those locks radiating with added shine, I feed them in just a little to soften the speculum reflection across the hair, carefully monitoring their intensity. Sometimes a press down hard if I want the highlight to be more striking, other occasions call for a lighter touch to dial up the level of speculative. Gradually, it all comes down to the material or texture you're working with. But to put it simply, the smoother the surface, the shopper and more intense, the speculum reflection is going to be glitches. Gun is a special case. Most of its speculum highlights run along the outside edge of the hard edge shapes that make up its design. It's the corners and edges off. These forms that will pick up end reflect the most amount of light. But on top of that, they'll usually cop a lot of wear and tear, boosting the speculate, or ity along the edges of any full moon. Naturally, make it look moment tally. This applies to most flat surfaces, which glitches Gun primarily consists off. Cylindrical forms. On the other hand, that are more rounded, reflects speculum, highlights along their out a curve, and will certainly see more of that when we start adding them into her mechanical arms and legs. Different materials reflect light with varying intensity, which is why the level of speculate, or ITI, is such a great way to indicate what they're made off. Speculum highlights can make an object look plastic, metal, stone, porcelain or glass, the level of shine and glow. Si nous being one of the key visual indicators that tell us how hard, soft, smooth, all rough they might be to touch. I'm upping to speculate Arat e over the highlights throughout Glitches jacket now keeping them soft and narrow as I run them along the folds with just enough intensity to indicate the shiny nous over its material. Leather jackets have an innate Kunis about them. They cultivate a threatening, potentially dangerous and rebellious appearance, which is definitely the image I'm trying to convey here for glitch cultural associations in fashions, a great forgiving, your super heroine, a particular vibe, and I'd highly recommend taking full advantage of that during the design phase. If she's tough, give her some badass Get up. If she's a powerful god like entity, be short a dresser for the occasion. If She's your typical superpowered crime fighting visual anti, then break out the tights. She's going tohave assumption surrounding who she is and what she's about, regardless so why not intentionally influence them in the direction that best describes her ? If you're stuck for ideas, think about the super heroines from your favorite comics, movies or video games. What do they all have in common? Figure it out and let that inspire own designs. I certainly used a bunch of fashion references to come up with a captivating concept for my super heroines. The black leather matting speculative now has a much more intense level of reflectivity to it thing. Glitches jacket, a reminder that Noel letters shine equally. The highlights of shop a embroider, starkly contrasting against the significantly dark of values. All of these materials have varying levels of speculate or ITI, and I just got to reiterate how important it is toe have that visual differentiation between them. I believe the reason this works so well is that our eyes and thus brain loves to be stimulated. The mind quickly becomes bored with consistency and sameness. That's why we don't like eating the same meal every night, playing the same video games or watching the same movie more than once or twice within a year, where turned off by visual monotony and repetitive nous. Once our brand experiences something, it's process stored away and done with until we're able to learn something new about it. Then the brain gets hungry for fresh information to consume and seeks out the next thing it can devour. But its favorite flavor is novelty. We literally get a spike of dopamine, the happy, good feel chemical that gets us all excited when we discover something new. Next up, I'm adding some more shined a glitches mechanical legs. By intensifying the brightness off the highlights along each form, we're able to create even more distance between the lower layers of steel and those above. The added depth makes the robotics look more three D. But even more than that, the design reads clearer. It's easy for an element this detailed to become visually indecipherable, where what's being looked at is confusing or difficult to understand. This is never intended by the artist, of course, and from their perspective, it probably makes a lot of sense to an outside of the It's hard to predict how, though perceive your are the only way you can have any real control over their experience of it is to uphold the principles of composition, form, value, color, in contrast that, you know, work well. And there's many more principles that will help you to manufacture your illustrations to. I'm just listing those at the top of my head and you can use them to your advantage. This all comes back to being a good visual communicator, helping the viewer understand what you mean when you show them something, giving them enough information so that they can come to the right conclusions. We're not talking about practical tactics and techniques here. This is more important than that. What we're discussing is your inner artist game. No one ever really talks about it because it's new ones and difficult to discuss. But as you progress in your development as a comic book artist, this will become increasingly important. There's a lot of talented people out there, for sure, but not all of them can convey a consolidated idea or narrative. And that's exactly what every comic book studio is looking for. Your ability to tell a story in every frame. Your assumptions about glitch have been intentionally directed. She looks like a badass crime fighting cyborg because I'm speaking your visual language. It's easy to take it for granted because we go off course. She looks the way she does. What are you talking about? But remember, glitch was built from nothing. A simple, rough character sketch that now has been rendered and polished up to show you the clearest representation off my idea that I could come up with moving on from the speculum. Highlights have made an isolated selection around glitches. Glasses copied their base color onto a new layer and said it's blending. Murdered too soft lie. Then, from the image adjustments dropped down. I used the hue saturation settings to adjust their tent to a color I think will work well with the rest of her design. Then I airbrush some additional colors into her shades, just to give them more variation, even going so far as to change the blending murdered again, first to color burn, then to multiply, attempting to arrive at a color combo that will look cool. I also mess around wit