Beachside Fitting Process + Brush

Hi everyone! It's been a hot minute since I posted my last step-by-step. For nearly half of my supporters that are artists, and/or those who are simply curious, here's some thoughts on my process! 🥳 At the bottom I've also included my brush again, in case there are new folks here who missed it. Anyways, without further adieu...

I start with a cleaned rough sketch as I personally believe it makes the lineart stage a LOT more easier and quicker. In my experience, the more rough the sketch the more likely you will not be happy with your linework. This is because messy and frayed lines tend to indicate indecisiveness or lack of knowledge in what you're trying to do, so it's important you lay down a strong and clear foundation for the rest of your drawing.

If you want a background in your drawing, I HIGHLY recommend you plan and sketch it from the beginning. Treating your BG as something you slap on later tend to show more lack of cohesion and care. Think of your BG as a "character" of it's own, and that it can have it's own personality and quirks. Here I'm taking it as an opportunity to showcase some towels, a hint of Toby's work uniform, and some fun sandals that are probably a Pawletics product. 👋🐯 I wanted one of those simple wooden structures at beaches where people go to change.

Flats stage is self-explanatory really. I like to use the magic wand tool to quickly fill in my linework to save time. I know in my mind I wanted a big contrast of bright/warm colors of Toby around the darker, cooler ambience of blues. Please note colors is NOT my strong suit and I struggle and adjust it all the time with layers. 😓

For shading, I usually do 1-2 different layers set on Multiply because I like an extra sense of depth so it's not strictly cel-shady. For highlights and rimlight it's good to think of your light source, where it's coming from, and what mood you want to set. ☀ Be thoughtful about it and remember that the greater the brightness/contrast the more eye-catchy the area becomes. Drama and all that~

Towards the end I like to add gradients to soften my drawings since I work so simple. Extra effects like noise and vignetting is sometimes added (if you dunno what I'm talking about, check my previous tips/tricks posts!). I will also take the chance to adjust colors again or modify the linework as I see fit.

But yeah! That's more or less another swing at explaining my process. Please let me know if you guys have any questions. I should've also asked WHAT drawing maybe you'd guys want to know how I drew, but I decided to just pick a Toby piece again since I think this one was a more invested illustration. 😁 Feel free to poke below if there's a piece you want to see the process of!