ramonn90

Fixing Poor Drawing with Realistic Painting! - My Process Video and Brushes!

Added 2025-09-26 16:55:15 +0000 UTC

Hi there! Here are some insights on my latest practices, along with practical art suggestions, my process video, files, and brushes! Let's dive in:

A Sad Look Lines Can Catch

The statue's gesture did not really feel that sad, I assume because of the lighting. Still, I wanted to capture that expression throughout the line art, specifically in the eyebrows and the shape of the eyes. Due to the folds' complexity, I struggled a bit in creating volume with thin lines in the shadow. The light was so intense that it felt a bit burned out, so I needed to add an extra dark shadow right where the light could not reach, in the small corners within the previously defined shadow. I don't usually use black shadows, but I quite like them, especially in the work of Mignola. Lastly, I've noticed some inconsistencies in the proportions: the head was too small in relation to the body, and too much space in the composition was empty. So, I adjusted the line art and later the rest of the layers. That's why it's key to keep your layers split and with some sort of order, so you can go back and change things without too much chaos.

Blue - Perfect Drawing for Magic Wand Tool
I went into the intricacies of each branch through line art, to the point where I wanted to be able to split the tree drawing from the background using the magic wand tool. This is useful if you want to paint the interior of a shape relatively quickly; yet, you cannot have discontinuities in the line, it must be almost perfect. So, considering the number of branches, I think it's fair to say that most of the work on this practice goes to that step of the process, as you will notice in the video. After that, the base color was simple, and the job went around having the proper shape for shadows and tone variations, from purple to brown.

Maki Maki - This Is How Chaos Looks Like
A happy guy ready to be eaten. I'm such a fan of Japanese food that at least once every two weeks I do something related to it. This was my attempt at capturing a tasty salmon maki. It's very difficult to keep all the shadows in one layer as they vary greatly in tone, the shadow in the seaweed is darker than the one in the rice. So, for these particular cases, I don't follow such a strict protocol of execution for shadows. Instead, I focus on getting the highlights right, and as for the rest, I try to guess each tone in different layers. It's a mess, I know, but since the picture is not that complex, I don't mind.

Seeking a Nice Moment - Texture and Values
Lately, I've been drawn to paint moments of parenthood, maybe I'm getting old, who knows. I also liked the values within the picture. Sadly, I could not find a way to keep them simple, so I chose to capture them through textures; at least in that way, it did not feel like a cheap copy.

Nostalgia - Careless Line Work
The old cellphone was a nostalgic casual tool to practice on, but what I enjoyed in this process was the approach I took with the line art. I decided to use my brush called "Hard Shapes" instead of my usual "Pencil Oh - Line Art." Why? I don't really know; I guess I wanted to get that loose, almost careless line art I used to have when doing my practices with Procreate. It felt refreshing. As for the render (color and values), I kept using the same brush. I like the combination of mediocre line art with some level of realism, it's an interesting contrast.

Half Tiger - Brush for Fur
The tiger was cool, but what I quite liked was the white space in almost half the composition. As for the render, I'd like you to take a look at how I use the scatter brush to get that fur texture where the black patterns were. The trick is to see in the reference the direction of the hair and make the strokes to the left or right. Make sure you use a reference with no intricate lighting so you can put all the attention on the pattern and texture. It's very easy to lose yourself and end up frustrated.