Creating Digital Art from Start to Finish
Hi everyone! I hope everyone who celebrated 4th of July had a lovely long weekend!
Today I’d like to show you how I basically create digital art from start to finish. A lot of freelance that comes my way lately needs to be digital art, and that may be the case for you too!
As with any drawing, I first begin with a concept, and sketch it out.
Each artist works differently at this stage, and that’s ok. Some people like to have simpler, rougher sketches, that convey just what they need and allow them the freedom to change stuff as they go along. Personally, I tend to lean towards detail, and like to plan ahead, so my sketches are usually more detailed and refined. I work out of the problems and put down my final lines, so that when I get to the inking stage, I can essentially just trace. XD In this case though, the client wanted something a little different than what I had in my original sketch, and thus, the final lineart looks different.
Once I have the sketch done, I’ll create lineart, or ink my drawing. Sometimes I like to ink by hand with a pen, and other times I like to ink digitally too. In this case, I’ve actually used a combination of both: I used a series of Sakura Micron pens to ink the characters, and used Photoshop/Paint Tool Sai for the plane and their goggles.
I also correct any mistakes I made while inking at this point, and fully utilize the benefits of digital art: being able to rotate/resize certain parts, cleaning up lineart and making it thinner/thicker, etc.
Once I’m satisfied with the lineart, I create the flats: putting down a layer of solid color underneath the lineart so it creates guidelines for me to color/render on.
Since I’m working digitally (and can essentially change anything at any time), it doesn’t really matter which colors I choose for the flats at this point - my goal is to separate each major piece so I can select them easily later on.
Once I’m finished flatting, I now have to decide how I want to render my piece. Cel-shading is the quickest and most comfortable method for me lately, so I decided to go in that direction.
Cel-shading is like imitating cels in animation, or in anime - it’s not blended, but depth and “shading” is added by simplified, more dramatic shapes. It’s a nice style because it looks clean and polished! At this stage, I only put down the basic shapes of where the shadows would be. This is also where I designate the light source (of course, you should do that before you start rendering. XD)
For this piece, I decided to go with a simpler rendering. Also, in order to give it a lighter, airy feel, I’ve also decided to make the flats all white, and for color to only display on the rendered areas.
See how dramatic of a change that makes? It now looks like the characters are completely bathed in sunlight. As a final touch, I’ve darkened some key areas of the rendered spots, making some darker and some lighter - thus creating some gentle gradients of color.
The last step left for the characters are the final touches.
I’ve added highlights to the girl’s hair, and rendered in the lenses for both goggles I’ve also added a color gradient to the birds, so they look less white and are a little more vibrant.
Next, background!
Instead of cel-shading the plane, I thought maybe rendering it very lightly with the airbrush tool would look a little gentler. This is quick and easy and by adding the highlights and shadows in the right places, you can achieve a great amount of depth with actually very little work.
I also filled in the background (with another gradient XD) and rendered in some clouds.
The last steps are to just add final touches. I added some clouds in the foreground, to make it look like hey were flying through the clouds on a sunny day. I’ve also added a slight blur to the clouds in the front, to create “depth of field” or make it look as if the clouds were closer to the viewer. Last but not least, I’ve added some white glows to the googles, airship, and one large glow at the top of the canvas, to emulate the sun’s rays.
That’s it! I would urge all of you to try out digital art, if you have the opportunity - especially if you are considering on making art as a career. Digital art is popular nowadays, and it’s always good for an artist to learn their ropes. At the same time, remember what all of us here at MangaStart stress the most: foundation! if you can draw well with a pencil, or color well with watercolors, digital art is just the same as any medium - it takes practice, and knowledge. And life drawing skills apply no matter what medium you’re using. 
Best of luck! Until next time. ^O^
