Modblot's Sketchbook

[modblot]

Cool work here man. I loved the  comic stuff. It is really well done.

Do you add color with a soft light layer above the values?

Yeah, it depends on what I'm trying to do with the color. Photoshop's layer mode are kind of weird and they are very dependent on the grey value of the color.

Like, if you want to add color subtly at first, pick soft light layer blending mode, pick the color you want, and make sure it's 50% grey also. (see attached pic)

If your goal is to add a lot of saturation or get a glowing effect, you should probably use overlay. Overlay blending mode will add saturation upon saturation, soft light dials it way down and tends to not add saturation up.

I use Manga Studio 5 and I use soft light layers to start adding color. At some point I flatten everything and just start using my eye to add color and pick colors from the color picker and palette. And if I want to do some sort of effect, I use an Add (glow) layer in Manga Studio, but I try my best to not rely on layer blending modes and just paint what I see.

Jesus, dat Seal is godly:D

I love how you show us your process, especially for Guile, I like how you included the sketches and variants. There are tons of them lol. That's my bane, properly starting and finishing things, so respect for that:)

Thanks! That Guile painting was like a huge step in growth for me and it was because I was ruthless with myself. I completely finished 2 black/white value studies and decided to start over because it just didn't feel right. 

I think the most important step in finishing a piece of art is the sketch stage, where you set up the values. If your sketch is rough and isn't thought-out, you might start on the color and finishing the piece and then you get into a spot where you are really stuck and can't solve it and now you've dumped a ton of time into it.

I got near the end of the painting and decided Guile's face was wrong, so I made a new layer, I painted his whole face black, and started over lol. It was hard, but I'm happier with the face now.