PROCESS 3 + FINISHED ART 1

hey everyone!
a little update: i decided to post here all art - private as well as public - for the sake of easy browsing, and as to not miss anything from yours truly. so up there is the latest commission piece from ahlis-xiv @ tumblr! 

complete with some detail shots:

now, as promised earlier, i'm gonna take you guys through the abridged process of how much i change the piece after i call it 'finished' - that is, lineart is done, flat colours are blocked in, and it's time to shade and add fancy effects. not a full step-by-step, but a little behind the scenes.

click here to zoom in

flat colours: this is where i start!

cell shading: (which apparently is spelled cel-shading, but on this patreon we break the rules): i decide on the direction of the light, which is a fireplace from around the righthand bottom corner. i choose the warm shadows to give the piece a cosy feeling, and shade the details on the character, the nook, and the table. the book shelves also could have been shaded, but i decided they were pretty busy visual-wise already, and i didn't want to overshadow the character and overload the piece with messy unncessary details.

colour sliders etc.: this is where i mess around with levels! i amp up the warm tones throughout all values. but, to prevent the whole piece from becoming an illegible orange blob, i leave the space around the window, and put there a soft, cold, blue glow (with an airbrush or a gradient) to alleviate the orange...ness...? yeah. orangeness. i added the blurry embers (which didn't make the final cut, unfortunately) to indicate that, yeah, the light is coming from a fireplace, a 100%.

more sliders etc.: more messing with sliders, this time to blue-ify the shadows a little - in further attempt to de-orange-ify the piece (i'm a poet). i use tilt shift blur to blur the furthest right and left, but keep the center in focus. the vignette, which is basically a (darker) gradient popping from the corners/sides, helps indicate that the nook is the only place the that's really lit up, aka the cosiest, most comfy place to sit. does it make sense? probably a little, what with the firelight illuminating whole rooms in real life, but it's not so jarring and looks pretty.

at the end i put a subtle noise filter to give everything a little texture. and off it goes to the client!

this was a wonderful monster of a drawing and it took me a long while, but i am very happy with how it came out - hope you guys enjoy it too!

toodles! 💕