"Whoops! I almost lost my hat!" - Process

1. In Manga Studio, I start with a very rough thumbnail sketch with big fat pencils. The fat pencils force me to keep the sketch loose without getting too caught up in the details. Only after I work out the pose do I rough in some ideas for the clothing and props.

2. Final sketch. Now I go back and do a more detailed sketch, working out the the body, clothing, and props.

3. Inking. I use a variable-width inking brush for the characters and a constant-width brush for hard things on vector layers. I use lots of different layers for different parts, which makes it easier to overdraw and erase as needed. I also went ahead of inked the shape for the eyelashes because the brush stablization in Manga Studio makes it a lot easier than doing it in Photoshop later.

4. I started my color work with the backdrop. First, I created a new brush which was a silhouette of a random cluster of leaves from a photo of a tree with lots of scatter, angle, and flip. I used that to stamp down the darkest color for my leaves. Then I locked the transparency of that layer and switched to a middle color and stamped in more leaves. The lock keeps the shape of the tree the same while the medium color adds depth. Then I switched to my lighted color and added a few scattered bright areas. I switched to a new layer and a standard hard variable-width brush and scribbled in some trunks and branches. Then I locked the transparency of that layer and used a softer brush to sketch in some bright areas on the trees.

5. Switching to a hard edged airbrush, I refined the detail on the tree trunks.

6. Finally, I added a mask to the tree trunk layer and used my leaf brush to stamp out parts of the mask so it looked like the leaves were covering the branches in those places.

7. I convert the imported lines for the characters to a folder with a mask and put a solid black layer in the folder. (CTRL-click RGB in the Channels tab, invert the selection, create a mask from the selection.) This will come in handy later when I color the linework. Then I create another folder and start creating the basic color blocking. I like to do all my color blocking by making a folder and then filling it with different solid color layers for each section of color, whch makes it easy to change a color later. This is a very fussy way to do it and it's probably much simpler to just fill a single raster layer with flat colors.

8. Form shading. I create a dark brown solid color layer (linear burn) and start painting in the basic form shading with a soft airbrush. For the hair, I used color burn for richer shading and I used a variable-width soft airbrush to smudge detail into the shadows, picking up the shape of the hairs. I used the art history brush with a custom fur brush to shade the fur.

9. Cast shadows. I make a new dark brown layer set to multiply and start painting in the cast shadows with soft brush, using a smaller brush in places where the object casting the shadow is closer to the thing the shadow is on.

10. Backlight. I painted the backlighting with a soft airbrush, pressing harder on the shineist objects. Backlighting really makes the characters pop. I don't use any backlight on non-reflective objects. I used a gradient of blue to green for the color of the backlight to match the environment. I also painted a white backlight on the dominant side of the latex to make it extra glossy.

11. Shiny. I used a solid white layer for the primary shine, which is on the underside since the light is coming from below, and painted spots and streaks using a hard variable-width brush and then using an airbrush to soften the highlights on one side. After painting all the shine, I use the cast shadow layer to make a selection and delete the shine from anywhere covered by shadow.

12. Reflection. To make the latex even glossier, I added a simplified reflection by paiting large blobby areas on each surface, next to the highlight, then airbrushing to soften the edge near the highlight. I used green and blue for the color, depending on the angle of the surface.

13. For the blush, I add in a light red layer, airbrushing just on the same area as the skin for the cheeks and other cheeks. I use the same method to add color for the eyeshadow.

14. Colored linework. Going back to the linework folder, I started adding new solid color layers, using the mask to paint the color of the linework. Since the new layers are inside a folder with a mask defining the linework, I don't have to be very precise when coloring the lines. I always add new color layers below the ones I already did so that I can be sloppy in the areas that are already covered by colored linework.

15. Eyelashes are done with a folder containing a solid grey layer and a solid black layer. Using the lashes I made earlier with a variable width brush, I add a few thin streaks on the grey layer mask to add depth to the lashes and soften the look with a few strokes of a soft airbrush. For the tears, I used a white layer with the fill turned down just a little and add a layer effect with white inner glow set to 100%. Then I use the mask to soften the edge where it touches the skin or mask. After, I add a new white layer to paint in the shiny highlights.

16. For a stylized, painted look, I added a white layer on top of the whole thing and used a natural brush to cut a window through the white.