PROCESS VIDEO: yule goat monster pin-up // nsfw

here’s the process video of the winter holiday painting i did of a yule goat monster - download it below!

wait, did i say process video?

yes! $5+ patrons will already know that i’ve been doing process videos of the last two MOTM paintings, rather than my usual process packs with pngs and a gif. i’ve recently started using an art program (procreate) where it’s easy to record the canvas, and i’m excited about how it allows me to show you the entire process!

please excuse the poor quality of this video, though. when i made this painting i didn’t know that i need to set the quality of the recording when i create the canvas—i thought as long as the canvas itself had a high resolution, i would be able to export a high res video. but apparently that’s not how procreate 5 works. i couldn’t fix it after the fact, but i have learned from my mistake and future process videos will be of better quality!

for this piece i decided to do a proper pin-up, where the monster really looks like he’s posing for the camera on what basically appears to be a set. i didn’t originally plan for it to come out looking so much like an old postcard, but it did and i’m very into it. maybe i’ll do more postcard-esque monster pin-ups for other holidays? i’m not making any promises, but it’s a fun idea!

i’ve already mentioned how the design is based on old depictions of the yule goat and yule goat masks/costumes, combined with straw yule goats—here’s the compilation of concept sketches i did to figure it all out. his face is a bit mask-like, i gave him straw horns rather than real horns, and turned the red ribbon that wraps around straw yule goats into a kinky ribbon get-up. i wanted to draw him reclining on some pelts resembling the dark wooly coat the yule goat often wears, surrounded by a couple of gifts wrapped up in an old-school way. in other words i had a pretty clear mental image of the pose, composition, and background.

the beauty of the video format is that it really shows all the trial and error that went into transferring the pose idea from my brain onto paper, and how i went about refining the sketch into a lineart. you can see how i tried positioning his legs, head, and arms in several different ways before i was happy with the pose. foreshortening is always tricky but i’m exceptionally happy with how his right thigh came out—it really looks like it has weight and mass, if that makes sense?

i put a great deal of care into the lineart, which is quite detailed and textured. i carefully outlined the fluff of his neck and chest, the slightly longer fur on his thighs, and his musculature. only when i had finished linearting his whole body did i add the ribbons, trying to enhance the sense of threedimensionality with the way they wrap around his limbs.

the background was a bit tricky. i wanted to keep it simple and ‘vague,’ without too many details or too much definition—it should provide a setting without stealing attention away from the character. for this reason i didn’t do any lineart for the background, i went straight to starting to colour it with brushes that mimic chalk and charcoal. in general, the colouring of this piece is inspired by the look of mixed traditional media (watercolour, goache, pastels, and ink) on sepia paper.

when i started colouring the character i first used a medium grey hue, to which i started adding lighter and darker gradients, but i soon gave it a yellow undertone. yule goats come in a variety of colours and i wasn’t entirely sure which palette i wanted to go with, so i sort of experimented my way to the end result. the fur on his chest and groin is darker in patches that mimic body hair (though is whole body is covered with fur lol), while the overside of his thighs, arms, and presumably his back are lighter in hue. i also coloured the ribbon on a new layer, keeping it separate from the main body of the character.

i started adding details, but actually realised that i wanted to keep the colouring of his fur really soft and smooth. i’m used to polishing and refining my pieces to a greater degree than this, so i habitually started adding more texture and definition. but i ended up undoing it because it honestly didn’t look as nice as when the colours gently blended into another, with the lineart itself providing just the right amount of detail and texture. i think it’s because the colouring style mimics traditional media and because it looks a bit old, yellowed, and faded—it just works. 

at this point the main problem i really needed to deal with, however, was how i had used the same colour palette for both the character and the background, making it all blend together into an earthy grey mush.

since i had the background on one layer and the character on another, it was easy to experiment with the saturation, temperature, colour balance, hue, contrast, and brightness. i didn’t re-paint anything—i simply went to the menus and messed around with different settings, going back and forth for the rest of the process. even just playing around with the colour balance sliders brought out a lot of interesting undertones, and increasing the brightness & contrasts did wonders for making the character look more alive.

the background went through several iterations before i finally decided on giving it a rather blue-grey tone, a relatively faded, low-contrast look, and some gaussian blur. the character, on the other hand, has a more warm, yellow hue, and his body is brighter and with more contrast between light and dark. as a result the monster stands out against the background in both temperature, vibrancy, and sharpness. in sum, this process is a really good example of how the application of digital magic can really transform and elevate a piece. 

while i was experimenting i also finished up the background and added some more detail and polish to the character, but without going overboard, for the reasons mentioned above. it was because of the watercolour-y appearance that i decided to add the ‘god jul & gott nytt år,’ which again is directly referenced from early 20th century postcards. i just love the idea of a present day monster person going through a box of their grandpa’s memorabilia and finding this old, yellowed, faded, but very naughty christmas card from 80 years ago.

// art + character © me