process ✪ gay mermaid/princess painting!

Helloooo my dears!! I'm here to talk about the process for this sweet digital painting that I am so overwhelmingly proud of TuT I sketched it up on stream, and very much had the "wait how did I do this" feeling

SO as I was working on painting it, I tried to be mindful of the "process" I was following, so that I could share it with y'all!! This is the first time I feel like I successfully digitally painted something, so I feel like I've leveled up in some way hehe. So! Onward to the process!

I started with some rough thumbnails, as I was trying to figure out what to draw on stream -- I was thinking about mermay, but also wanted to draw a girl in a pretty pink dress, so I tried to see how I could combine them, and I thought of a mermaid who visits the pond in the princess' rose garden:

Like I said, rough thumbnails! Which were actually so helpful and I need to do these more often, it's so much less scary than sketching out a full piece while I'm brainstorming. I was also trying to figure out the perspective I wanted -- I kinda wanted to do something flat and very kid's book-esque, where the princess's dress would be fluffed out around her in a perfect circle as she leaned down to the mermaid, and the mermaid leaning forward on the bank chatting with her, but then as I started sketching, I found it going in a slightly more realistic direction, and suddenly this appeared on my canvas!

You can watch the VOD of this stream here, and you can hear me be very shocked with myself upon finishing this sketch >u< I've talked in the past about how I've struggled/been afraid of drawing two people interacting in a romantic context cause it never feels Right, they never feel like they're sharing the same space and SO when I successfully drew these two gazing lovingly at one another and I was actually giggling while I was drawing it, I was STOKED!! >:D

I usually do lineart, or something like it, with most of my paintings, but I didn't want to lose the flow and character I captured in my sketch, and my sketches are pretty neat anyway sooooo I just went ahead and decided to paint my sketch :D

Next up, I chose my colors and scribbled in my flats:

I zoomed out a lot to see this sketch as another thumbnail, to see if the composition, colors and everything worked together even at a quick glance, and I was really happy with them!! So I started painting. I set my lineart layer to multiply (cause I wanted to keep the red but it was also messing with my eyes on the darker tones), and then continued to paint on the layer underneath my sketch where all my flats were. This was mostly to define each shape and make sure my colors were to my liking. 

I then merged my sketch with this color layer, and started painting on top of everything, which blended the sketch with the colors in a yummy organic way. For the sketch, I used the Procreate default brush Technical Pencil, and for coloring, I used Technical Pencil, MaxPacks Gouache Flow, and MaxPacks Pastel Natural. Max's gouache brushes are so creamy and delicious, and interact with each other in amazing ways, and the pastel brush has a wonderful texture to it. I used the pencil brush for little details as well, and I occasionally used a MaxPacks Watercolor brush to add a little intrigue to the large areas of one color.

I also recently learned about "hue jitter", so every stroke I make with my brush, the colors shift ever so slightly, which adds a beautiful subtle dimension to everything. You can access this by tapping on the brush you're using in the brush menu, tap on "Color dynamics", and scroll down to "Stroke color jitter", and adjust the Hue slider to around 3-4%. Mess around with it, cause your hues can vary GREATLY if you so choose!

I know it's frustrating when people just say "and then I just kept painting" when they talk about their digital painting process, but it really is the truth unfortunately. I just kept going over what I had laid down, defining details and shapes, until I was satisfied. I had to be very conscious about not getting too wrapped up in the background details -- I felt myself wanting to overwork the rose bushes (even the reeds) but I didn't want the viewer's eye to linger there. I wanted the most defined detail to be in the two lovers' faces, so the eye would be drawn there first and foremost and the rougher environment would serve to highlight them.

You can see above how almost all the shapes are defined with color, so at this point I was going in and seeing what needed some lineart, contrast, more/less detail. I agonized for ages over how I was gonna render the rosebushes, but I landed on a scribbly edge to simulate the rough leaves, and then rough squiggles to represent the leaves within the shrubs. Which was a good call, if I do say so myself >:)

For the sparkles and the bodice details, I had them each on separate layers -- the bodice details were set to Overlay, and the sparkles were set to Vivid Light. I added another lily pad to balance out the water more, added some lace to the dress along with the pearl necklace, and then threw a Noise layer over the whole thing cause I'm a sucker for that little spice that a Noise layer offers 😮‍💨

And that's the finished piece!! Here's the process gif again so you can see all these steps against one another:

(You can also see where I stretched the image a bit to help it fill out the 5x7 canvas just a little bit better. <3)

I'm so happy with this piece and I hope that this post offers some useful insight to the process!! Sending all my love!! 

Stay frosty,
Chey xoxo