XaiJu
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Painting a Car - 1 Hour REALTIME DEMO πŸŽ¨πŸŽ™

Follow along with me as I explain my thought processes and decision-making as I paint this funky lil car. Nothing is edited out, so you can see my ups, downs, and struggles of creating a successful painting.

 I'm still learning how to talk and draw simultaneously, so apologies for the excessively long video!- I'll try to keep my future demos shorter, and the more focused tutorial content even more short.

Were you able to sit through this entire thing? Let me...

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Car warmup paintings πŸš—πŸš™πŸŽ

What's up y'all πŸ€™
I've been having a lot of fun with these low-pressure warmup/cooldown paintings of cars lately.

The goal here is to keep the level of details reduced to a minimum, while mostly paying attention to essential color relationships, i.e. base car color, trim, and shadows. How I design these shapes are important too, but i'm trying to not hold myself to keeping the proportions 100% accurate.

Also, to k...

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New content soon 😈

Hey all 🀘

I haven't posted here in a bit and just wanted to check in.

I have some pretty cooool videos planned and I cant wait to share it with you all. My goal is to shift focus of my Patreon offerings and move towards real-time demos and video content. While being less "refined", I want to share a more candid behind-the-scenes look at my art, processes, and inspiration.

Thanks for your continued support!

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Vibrant Portraits 🎨 Process Breakdown

I know this looks different from my usual stylized work! I believe practicing various styles, esp more realistic ones, is crucial to keeping my skills sharp and versatile.

In this post, I'll quickly guide you through my color-focused process for painting a vibrant portrait:

Step 1: Initial Sketch

Start with a loose sketch to capture the basic proportions and shapes of the face using simple lines and geometric forms. I also try to roughly figure out where ...

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BMX Dude TIMELAPSE πŸŽ₯

This was a fun one. I found some cool references and tried to combine them with my own twist πŸ”₯ maybe this is my sign to get back into BMX!

 

 

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✏️ Draw Like a Pro: Comparative Measurement πŸ“

Drawing accurately from reference/observation is super important for getting good. One method I swear by is called 'comparative measurement.' Basically, it's a fast technique that helps you get proportions right by comparing different parts of your subject to each other. Let's break it down:

Step-by-Step Guide to Comparative Measurement

1. Choose Your Reference: 

Find a reference image you’re exc...

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Core Brush-Kit 2 (Free download) πŸ–

Hey Patreon fam πŸ€™

After a whirlwind of designing and testing, I'm so thrilled to finally share my rebuilt and optimized brush kitβ€”a focused variety of tools that I've tested and now use exclusively in my own art and workflow.

Enjoy and feel free to share what you create with it!

The kit is tested on Procreate, Photoshop CC, and Clip Studio Paint. Free download below πŸ‘‡

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How to find good art References!

Identifying and analyzing these 3 key elements in your references will help maximize your fun AND learning when tackling studies! 🎨

1. Interesting subject: 

Find what interests YOU. Nothing is worse than struggling to focus and invest time into a drawing that you don’t care about. In this example, I was in the mood to draw birds!

2. Clear + appealing silhouette shape: 

One elemen...

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Xxxtentacion TIMELAPSE πŸŽ₯

Found this image of him wearing a snorlax backpack and I was like "I NEED to draw that"

I didn't manage to record the last bits of the painting, but I ended up removing the speakers from his backpack, in favor of a simpler design. What do you guys think? What that the right move to make? πŸ˜‚

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4K Desktop Wallpapers πŸŒ„

Hey Patreon fam!

I formatted and uploaded some favorite artworks of mine into a wallpaper pack. Each image measures 3840x2160, suitable for more laptop, desktop, and even tablet displays. The .zip file is attached below.

Enjoy!

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Tractor sketches - TIMELAPSE + TIPS

Key things I like to think about when rapid-fire sketching for MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY:

-Look for BIG+SIMPLE shapes. You can see this primarily in the pockets of shadows and cast shadows. Create clear, graphic shapes.

-Simplify 3D forms- I like to break things down into more angular, geometric forms as it helps me more eas...

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Crystal-sword Girl TIMELAPSE

Had a blast looking for the reference used in this painting- I've been having a lot of fun pushing myself with a wider variety of ways to pose my characters recently as well.

Check out the reference I used for this pose:

 

This isn't the exact one I used at the time, but rather closest I could find since I have seemed to deleted it by accident!

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More gloopy abstract shapes πŸ”ΊπŸŸ‘πŸŸ¦

I'm addicted to these exercises lately. Try them out when you need to get your day started or want a meditative way to relax and draw!- Be sure to have fun and enjoy the explorative process with these

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Intro to RGB Sliders - Realtime DEMO/TUTORIAL

Guys I recorded my voice... apologies for the terrible quality. I don't have a mic right now so I just used my headphones. I'm still getting used to my voice as well as explaining my concepts in a structured/coherent way so please bear with me throughout the video!

 I figured that seeing me work and figure things out realtime would be more helpful than a highly polished and edited tutorial- Making art often involves a lot of problem solving and improvisation, so watch me struggle a...

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395 TIMELAPSE

Had some fun designing and accessorizing this character.

I was actually looking for pose references on google, and came across this cool stock photo of an army lady holding a rifle

 

I liked the energy so I tried to recreate that in my drawing- key points being her arm/hand placements in relation to her rifle. For everything else in my painting, I made it up and had some fun!

R...

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399 WIP

This was a tough pose, guys!- I fought to find a silhouette that worked, as well as figuring out how to cleanly render the variety of overlapping shapes. In the end, cleverly placed shadows helped distinguish the overlapping shapes and push the receding ones back in space.

Overall, I'm not superrr happy with this character, but it was a great exercise in rendering a slightly more complex pose.

I've attached a GIF that breaks down the Flats>Shadows View Post

Character flats WIP

Quick post for today:

Clean flats = happy rendering!

Check out how much rendering can be done with only 3 multiply layers clipped to those flats.

Timelapse + PSD + More in-depth write-up will be provided to the paid tier members soon!

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Fish homies WIP

We're painting a couple of fish dudes today!

Key things I'm thinking about:

-Strong, graphic silhouette

-Clear distinction between soft, and hard edges

-Limiting to tight ambient-occlusion-type shadows

-**Personality!-Most important. Using all of the above tips to decribe the fish. For example, if they could talk, what would their personality be? How do they swim? etc. etc.

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390 TIMELAPSE

Hey Patreon fam,

I've been away from my workstation for about a few days, but I'm back now! Daily content will now resume- thanks for your patience!

Designing characters doesn't have to be difficult- I find that otherwise boring/simple character outfits can be made unique by effective use of shape design, color, and well-placed accessories + accents. Most of the big shapes (such as pointed hair, wide pants, rounded hat to offset the pointed hair, etc.) were designed early o...

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Shape exercise

Try this exercise next time you draw! It can be done with any medium of course, but here I'm using Adobe Photoshop. This page took me about 1HR to complete.

I like to create abstract shape fills, then using a multiply layer clipped onto that, paint in form shadows that follow the contour of our shape. It's fun having the freedom to push/pull shapes, and find new ways to describe the topology and form naturally as I work.

As you can see, I warmed up and got the hang of it by the ...

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385 WIP

Just a little preview of what I'm currently working on!

These past few days, I've been revisiting my art fundamentals and, in this case, re-evaluating how I go about rendering 3D forms. While I feel like my style has been more "flat" and "graphic" lately, it's been fun re-teaching myself to think of myself more as a sculptor when approaching rendering, and focusing on communicating different and more complex forms. In application, I've been using my stylus' pressure sensitivity to real...

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Not feeling creative?- Draw what's in front of you!

Not gonna lie... I have a lot of days where I struggle creatively, whether it be coming up with ideas, or executing them effectively.

One exercise that gets me back on track is simply drawing what's in front of or around me. In addition to being a small morale-boost, still lives and observational drawing are an easy and fun way to get myself warmed up and ready to tackle the bigger projects.

I encourage you guys to incorporate an observational drawing (even if rough) into your wa...

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377 TIMELAPSE + PSD

Open up my PSD and check out the variety of blending modes used..especially for the car's windshields.

When painting clear/transparent materials, I often utilize overlay, multiply, hard light, and vivid light blending modes. They all have their own "glazing" effect, with each behaving differently or more intensely than the others.

In this case, I used a combination of normal, multiply, and vivid light, to achieve the look of darker and transparent glass, while still refracting a...

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374 TIMELAPSE

What up Patreon fam!

This one took ~3 hours in total. I wanted to make sure that the "walking" pose was communicated without getting lost in intricacies and folds of the super-baggy pants, so I made sure to start by drawing the legs' structure THEN placing the pants on top of those forms.

I still wan't super sold on the initial sketch, but decided to resolve any remaining kinks/weird shapes later in the color-flats stage.

Drawing the anatomy beneath clothes is crucial IMO, ...

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377 WIP

Note the "color lookup" layer that is clipped to my art group.

Try applying some of the color-lookup preset filters on your own art! It's a nicely subtle way to tie together the colors in a painting- especially with lots of colors.

In my painting here, I turned it down to 66%, as to not over-saturate my colors too much.

 

This painting still has...

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376 Timelapse

Check out this fun painting of a hand I made last last night.

Sometimes when I don't know what to draw and I just look at what's in front of me... I noticed the more complex and organic shapes/forms of my hand and figured it'd make for a cool painting haha.

I wrestled with over-smoothening the forms for a bit, and had to take a step back carve "defined" geometry back into the shapes. This is why I often struggle with more organic forms, since I don't know when to stop over render...

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373Sketchpage

Lil collection of doodles

Whenever I'm struggling with what to draw, or want to warm-up, I often draw lots of simple rounded-rectangle forms that overlapand interact with eachother. It's a shape-language that I really enjoy drawing in; in a way, it's in my comfort-zone and gets me warmed up and feeling more confident before a drawing sesh!

Also I might fill up a page with more blocky-head paintings! Maybe like a series? I dunno. Let me know your thoughts y'alls

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Hey Patreon // 371 Timelapse

Hey! I started making it a habit to record my screen when I make my paintings. It's super fun seeing how drastically a piece can evolve as you work on it.

 Personallyyyy I think it's totally okay for a piece to completely change as it's being worked on- I often add new details and even change the concept entirely. The process can be chaotic at times so I try to lean into it!!

That being said, check out how I painted my latest piece. I was super tired and lazy so I just jumpe...

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