So one day I picked up my Cintiq 16 tablet again and began testing different tools on Clip Studio Paint Pro. I did not have much of a plan to draw anything at that point. I simply wanted to see what this program has to offer, what the brushes and tools looked like, and how they behave. I stumbled upon the Gouache brush and immediately fell in love with the soft, feathery texture it gave, as it reminded me of the Wings drawing I did a while back using dark, textured paper and white watercolor pencil. This is where it struck me that I might be able to create something similar digitally and I got excited about it.
Because Wings were created with nothing else, but a single white pencil, I used the same approach to Jellies letting the background layer shine through in places creating depth, shape, or shadows.
But how did I arrive at jellyfish as my subjects? Well, since I was testing the brush on a dark background, I picked bright colors that popped in the almost neon-like matter. What strange things shine in the dark? All kinds of luminous, fluorescent critters in the sea, such as plankton, and even jellies of course!
Something that I learned that helped me a lot to get the effect that I wanted was drawing within the actual size, not zoomed in or zoomed out. Zooming in helps with tiny details while zooming out helps with overall composition and placement. While actual size assures that the line thickness or layers look clean and how you want them to be. That probably is something silly to note, but maybe for some, who also like me don’t have the biggest screens, both your pc and tablet, to work with, could help.
Softness was the main goal throughout the painting, even in the tentacles which I probably drew and redrew likely hundreds of times to make sure that the lines are soft, curvy, and flowy. I am super happy with what I managed to achieve with Jellies.
And so I decided to tokenize them too! ^^ It was super easy to hook my Hive account to the NFT Showroom, to begin with. The site is super easy to work with and everything is pretty much straightforward, which makes me think that anyone stumbling upon it from outside the Hive world would be able to figure it out pretty quick as well. To tokenize your piece it costs only 5 HIVE (a fixed amount), which is a tiny amount in comparison to what I have heard people end up paying in other NFT platforms for failed transactions.
The only thing I felt was missing was the bidding system, but I read that it is in their roadmap for the future, so that is nice since putting a price on your work is extremely hard. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, right? Someone could be sticking a pineapple to the canvas and call it art, while someone else would look at it and think hmm, is this a joke? With art people like what they like, and the other way round. Anything goes which is fine.
What’s next? I will keep working on finding my digital style of course and continue my journey of progression which is never-ending. But as I was looking through posts on my feed yesterday, I stumbled upon a fresh drawing contest from HiveGamingCommunity, which I find super cool as I have been gaming a bit more myself lately. So I will try and do that this week and hope I will be able to post it in time before submission time runs out.
Until then, thank you for reading and stopping by! ^^
P.S. if anyone has tips on how to make traditional pieces into NFTs too, I would appreciate them. Do I make them print-ready? Got to learn that too.
Song of the day: Agust D - Daechwita
This is great - I didn't know you were getting into digital :)
A bidding system would be good, but I wonder how long the window would need to be on it?
Thank you. Decided that it wouldn't be a sucky skill to learn and branch out in few more mediums and technologies :)
Not sure how bidding works, just that there is fixed time probably and then once it expires the works get transferred to highest bidder I guess. I am sure they will figure out good system.
Cool glowy jellies emerging from the deep darkness! What hope do they bring us? Do they bring vaccines? :D I definitely see the similarity in texture to your Wings, which I think is really cool that a digital piece can have that same look and feel.
Woo! Go you! ^_^ How are you liking digital art so far? Breaking into a new medium must be a real challenge, but I imagine it's at least somewhat freeing to be able to undo things, so that you can refine the details and take more risks without worrying about ruining something.
Looking forward to seeing what you make for that contest!
Thank you! Yeah, why not! You know at this point it seems like forever ago the world was normal. I hope the damn vaccine comes soon.
Yep, it was a pleasant discovery. Quite encouraging light at the end of the tunnel xD
It is definitely harder than people give it credit and while yes you can go back in and change things however many times you want, it is not that freeing for someone with even tiny bit of perfectionism in them, there is it is time to stop thing that is hard to do.
Hehe, I really hope I can make it in time, I am not the fastest at artsy stuffs.
Es un exelente post, muy instructivo, gracias por compartir.
Muchas gracias! Pensé que sería interesante para algunas personas :)
I like it! I am dipping my toes in the water with digital art too, for a traditional artist it is definetely a challenge. I am pretty sure that one would need high resolution images for digital, so scanning the drawing would work? Or redo them in illustrator... I am sure that you will get better and better, the talent is there.
Thank you @creativemary! It is a challenge for sure. Even just sketching on the tablet is so much more different than drawing with pencil on the paper, it just slides so smoothly with no grip whatsoever, it is like I am learning how to draw again xD so different and the variety of tools and programs out there, I got really overwhelmed for a brief period of time I needed to just put the tablet down completely for a month straight. I felt so happy to later discover something a bit more familiar and now I feel a lot better about it.
I have scanned things before, what worries me about it is how scanning process affects coloring, because in the past someone mentioned that with watercolors I should be careful because scanning supposedly can mess up how they look, I am not sure if it is true. I also looked up some videos now on how others create prints, but I will have to look for more equipment if I decide to go that route, studio lights or something similar to be able to take good quality photos.
I am also trying to do digital art, it is totally different. I agree with the change of colours after scanning.
I wish you good luck with going digital, I'm sure that you'll succeed because you are very talented
@m31 Thank you for the Raspberry Cupcake #14
It is adorable. I'm now a proud owner of the first NFT in my collection! ^^
hugs
