Art Explained: Easy Reflections (Shiny Wooden Floor)

This time on Art Explained, I want to go over how i've made (what i think is) a convincing polished wood floor. You can apply this logic to any flat shiny surface, but i've mainly used it on floors.  Let's take it step by step, using the example of a festive commission for artfriend Loz. 

1:  Base Floor Shading

This feels a bit like "draw the rest of the owl" but let's say you've already shaded the rest of the scene. Your foreground and background are shaded (and can be referenced for colour) and the floor surface has it's base colour and contact shadows.

2: Flat Reflections

Using the same style of brush you've shaded the main piece with (here: airbrush. If i'm doing block shading i'd use a turnip pen) draw some rough reflections, with accurate-ish colours. So here i've got the underside of Loz's feet and jeans, the armchair, and the skirting board and wall. I've used separate layers to make life even easier. Right now it looks Loz is sat on a sheet of chrome...

3: Transparency

Next up we're going to make the reflections partially transparent. The rougher our floor is, the more transparent we want the layers to be. I've set the skirting and wall layers to be even fainter to help the foreground stand out ( helping to mimick real life reflections on rough surfaces which get fuzzier and fainter the further they are from the contact point )

4. Floor Details

Finally, we want to give this wood floor some woodiness. Clip Studio Paint has some "texture" layers we can apply for things like cloth/marble/clouds - and fortunately wood. I have a feeling they just mimick the "multiply" blending mode and darken the layer beneath them. Once I've warped it to align with the angle of the floor and lowered its opacity - then i can add some floorboard lines. These are grey, which when set to "Multiply" darken the layer beneath - creating a semi-convincing floorboardy look.

So there we go, a polished wooden floor perfect for rabbit people to pad about on :)
Let me know what you thought of this explanation - and what you'd like to see from future Art Explained post.