Watch me draw 🎨

I haven't done a drawing process thing in a while and I'd love to do more of these. But I was so happy with today's thumbnail, I want to show you how I did it! This was done in Painter Essentials with a Wacom Intuos Tablet.

1) I find a reference especially if I'm doing a pose involving other body parts. I Googled "drunk anime girl leaning on hand" and found this image. I make 2 layers for the outline. One for the body, one for the arm.

*edit I forgot to include the red pencil sketch as seen in the last process. It helps me map out the features. Imagine red lines going across the face and collarbone lol.

2) I pull up 3 different thumbnails that I already drew. I look for those that match the style I'm going for. Then I'll start with eyes, nose, mouth, brows and little details like that. They all get their own layers ofc.

3) I make a layer for the shirt and another for the color. I just freestyle this part but it's similar to other shirts I've drawn.

4) I originally tried to draw the hair outline from memory. I could've literally referenced one of the thumbnails I pulled up but I closed it out at the time. I originally tried to draw a normal high pony but then I remembered in my last F4F I did half up half down and thought it was cute. I change this later in the process.

5) Here I added other details like shadow, blush, chest.

6) This is the point that I pulled up the reference on the left. I used this reference for my last F4F thumbnail.

7) Then I color in and add shadows and highlights to the hair.

Of course, I condensed it to 7 slides but every little detail has its own layer. Because of the tablet and program I use, my eyes are on the screen while my hands are on a separate device making it more tedious. (i have to undo and redo more than I would if I were directly drawing on an ipad. I would love to get an ipad one day but I'm pretty used to this method by now :) It's what I first used to learn digital art 10 years ago and I'm determined to master it. I used to use photoshop and I loved it so much more but maybe I'll get it again when I have a couple bucks to drop 😅I hope you liked seeing this! I'm happy to show more processes if that's something you're into.

Was there anything that surprised you? Was it more complicated than you thought? I learned that moving forward I need to give myself more time. Today I started at 2pm and finished 8pm (I've gotten faster hehe). Whereas my last few thumbnails I did in less time and the sloppiness kinda shows.

Okay I'm gonna go shower and get ready for bed 🤍