Step by Step: Fast & Sketchy Comms

Here's an explanation for everyone wondering who I do my drawings. This is a Sketchy Comm, so the simplest & fastest ones I offer. And this is how I do them:

1) Sketch - In this case I worked over a YCH sketch, but usually I do 2 ~ 3 layers of increasingly detailed sketches until I feel like everything important is in place. Currently I try to focus on this type of body and how it's built, how the different bodyparts come together, overlap each other, etc. To get the volume right basically. Oh and I worked from a photo here (I most often do)

2) Outlines - with a smaller, less transparent brush on a new layer. I work fast and try to be loose here.

3) Base Color - I just block everything in with great help from the magnetic lasso tool 🙏 I usually use masking on my groups/layers so I can brush the colors in sloppily while keeping the outer edges clean. If available I pick the colors right from the ref sheet.

4) Light - On a new layer, I paint in light with a big, textured brush, just where I feel like it. With these fast comms, I often do rim light, because that's the fastest/easiest way for me. I erase what I don't need and try to think three-dimensionally about the body, my goal is to show the volume of the body via the light and guide the viewer's eye to the most important/interesting part of the picture by using the most detail there.

5) Color - I play around with different colors and layer effects and pick usually 1 tint for the darker part of the figure and 1 tint for the light. Those two colors will most likely be complementary colors more or less, and I try to pick ones that harmonize with the character's base colors. Here I wanted to go for a warm morning-feeling. (Orange-yellow multiply layer over the whole body + bg, the white light color was tinted slightly blue and set to overlay iirc)

6) Last Corrections - If everything's alright so far, I'll go in with a small opaque brush and add details like single hair or scales here and there. Then I emphasize a part of the outlines and make the most important ones the thickest - again, more details and more contrast where I want the focus point to be. Then I adjust the colors to make them pop more and add my signature ... aaaand done!

Was that interesting? Should I do another one for my other methods? :^D