KAWACY’s 

TOPH COMPLETE PROGRESS SHOT GUIDE

Please understand that English is not my first language. So, i am very sorry for any
grammatical errors and/or weird spelling.

WARNING!

Please do not repost or redistribute or make this file visible to anyone who is not a patron.
I made this special for you who paid ^^ Thank You !

This is a complete progress shot guide of one of my artworks:

Toph [Avatar: The Last Airbender]

INSPIRATION

So it all started when I decided to rewatch the whole 3 Seasons of Avatar: The Last
Airbender. And because of that, I fell in love with Toph all over again. So I thought why not
contribute a fanart for my all-time top favorite Avatar character. I was so happy when I
posted the wip of this because many of you still remember her and love her as much as I do.
And that had boosted my motivation to properly color and finish the drawing.
It's becoming a tradition for me to browse my inspiration folder first before drawing
anything. So when browsing my lighting inspiration folder, I was mesmerized by the works
of these artists, Sousou and MLin. That's why the lighting in my Toph drawing was actually
inspired by them. I love the way the light comes a little bit from the back of the character. I
thought my Toph would look even stronger and much more intimidating with this kind of
dramatic lighting and glad I was right.

Both artists Sousou and MLin are two of my top favorite artists from a long time if you don't
know, especially MLin I’ve loved her works ever since her official art for B from HeroWarZ.
Please do check out their artworks if you haven't seen them already.

Sousou: https://twitter.com/_sousou_

MLin: http://blog.naver.com/biqgo2002

PROGRESS WITH EXPLANATION

Note: I draw using both programs: Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop.

1. Rough sketch.

As always, I drew the very first rough sketch on my Samsung Galaxy Tab because the ideas
usually come to me not really in the right time a.k.a when I'm outside with my family having
dinner, when taking bath, or when I'm pooping so I make sure to have my tab all the time
for a super quick sketch. I had to sketch this right away when the idea was still fresh so I
wouldn't forget.

Usually the picture in my head is thousand times better than when it is on the canvas
however this time it's the complete opposite. I actually loved the sketch more than how I
pictured her in my head.

In the middle of drawing this one, I drew another full-body Toph to see which one was
better. Turned out I liked the close-up drawing more so I had to abandon this sketch. Let me
know if I should color this or not in the future?
When I moved the sketch to my computer, I didn't trace the super rough sketch I did on the
tab. Instead, I sketched everything from the scratch because I thought the angle on my tab
drawing was off and was lacking that dramatic effect.

As you can see, I wanted people to focus on Toph's sexy hand so I drew her hand super
detailed complete with the finger folds and nails. There are few points you need to
remember when it comes to drawing hands, such as the length of the fingers and the base
shape of the palm.

I sketched with my usual 'Dry Brush' Brush Tool to achieve that traditional pencil strokes
effect. If you don't have the exact 'Dry Brush' texture, you can use the default 'Noise' or
'Cloud' texture in SAI and they will give you similar pencil effect.

I started drawing the sketch very roughly before thickening and erasing some of the lines to
simulate better pen pressure.
 2. Lighting.

After the sketch, of course it's time for Linearting. While usually I would make a new layer
for the lineart, this time I thought it was unnecessary. So I did the neat lineart on the same
layer as the rough sketch. I erased some of the messy lines and immediately replaced them
with clean lines. And that's why I was using a lot of Eraser Tool in this step.
When the lineart's ready, I started painting the main base of the character to separate it
from the background for easier painting process later.

Here are the complete brush settings for base. These are not just for painting main base but
also for sub-bases.

As for the lighting, I made a new layer on top of the base with Layer Blending Mode set to
Multiply. I erased parts that were hit by the light and then I gave them some orange as
transition color for the light.
If you ever study lighting on photography, please do observe the transition color in the light.
Sometimes they can be pink, sometimes orange, and sometimes they're yellow.

There are a lot of other good color combinations for lighting that you can try.

Obviously my favorite combination is the combination of purple with orange which was
inspired by a lot of Kim Hyung Tae's artworks.
Lately I've been into drawing a frame for my background drawing. I think the white space in
the artwork makes the character pop out more, almost like popping out of computer screen.
So, I made the background base frame with Round Rectangle Tool in Photoshop. The
Roundness Radius I think it was around 20px.

The color of the background frame ranged from a very light grey to a very light yellow or
sometimes even gradient from dark grey to light orange.
 3. Base coloring.

I always pick my base colors from the official artwork of the character I'm drawing. That way
the colors can stay accurate to the original. In this case, I searched for good reference
picture of Toph then I used Eyedropper Tool to pick all the colors.

But before applying all the colors I have just picked to my own drawing, I had to rotate the
color wheel first several times in order to find colors that match my taste. Since I don't really
like bright neon colors and more into unsaturated colors like grey or pale purple, I tend to
rotate the color wheel toward the unsaturated side of the color palette.
When picking the black base color, I made sure to pick dark grey instead or just one level
brighter from jet black to make sure my lineart stays visible.

The brush I used to apply the sub-base colors was the exact same brush as the one I used to
paint the main base, which was Airbrush Tool. I just used smaller brush size to paint better
details, usually around 6px to 9px in size.
Before putting any color on the background, I had to brainstorm and decide what color was
dominant in my background drawing. In this case, the blue color from the sky was pretty
dominant in my opinion. So that's why I added light blue to dark blue color gradient to the
background using Gradient Tool.

4. Base shading.

After I had my base colors, I needed darker and lighter colors to have a more defined shape
of the character as well as volume and depth.
I tend to paint lesser and lesser details the farther the object gets which is why the farthest
part of my character drawing tends to just have a pale purple silhouette.

This was basically how I picked colors for my base shading. Obviously I picked darker color
for shading and lighter for highlighting. But then I rotated the color wheel again to make
sure they come from different color family so the colors wouldn't be so boring or corpse-like.
Group of colors like green, yellow, and red I would use most for highlights; while the
complete opposite group of colors like blue, cyan, and purple I would use most for shadows.

I used a very soft Airbrush Tool for my base shading so I could have that smooth and super
soft coloring effect. I also needed this kind of effect for easier color blending later.
I added a little bit of pink to the top right part of the background because if you don't know
yet, pink and blue makes the best color combination. I'm sure a lot of artists agreed with me
on this.

This soft pink was added using the Radial Gradient Tool, that's why it's small and round.
 5. Detailing.

Finally, it's time for the actual painting process. I call this step 'Detailing' because in this step
I detail everything by painting more defined shapes to the character and the background.
For better understanding of the painting process, please take a look at the mini step-by-
steps below.

Detailing eyes.

Toph was blind so I had to make the pupil light colored to give out more of that blindness.
I always draw the corner of the eyes super sharp especially when drawing them from side to
give my character a fierce look regardless they have wide or slanted eyes.

As for eyebrows drawing, I actually followed 2D eyebrow embroidery technique where they
would divide the hair lines of the eyebrows into two parts. The front hair line is usually
facing up, while the back hair line is facing down.
Detailing hair.

Before drawing the actual hair, first I had to draw the hair flow for easier and accurate
drawing of the hair layers. I never draw my hair 100% straight. Even for characters with
super straight hair, I had to modify the hair flow a little bit to avoid it looking fake and
awkward.

As you can see, they look more natural this way.

Here's a free hair tutorial of mine you can follow. Please keep in mind I tend to avoid
drawing the hair too realistic, I love them clumpy.

I used my usual Marker Tool to detail everything.

I love the texture Marker Tool gives. They remind me of Copic markers.

6. More detailing.

With the exact same Marker Tool, more details were added in this step including the rocks
in the background.

Detailing hand.
If you want to be able to draw a good hand, first you have to know exactly where all the
bones are located.

After that, you have to know the exact length of each finger. Basically, you have to
breakdown a hand in great details.

Now even if you know all parts of the hand, drawing hands can still be hard. I used to draw
50 hand poses a day for my hand drawing practice. Try doing it at least one hand pose a day
to improve fast, doesn’t matter if you use reference or not.
Detailing skin.

Most of my skin paintings are smooth. That's because when compared to the rest of the
character, you can see I don't really put that much details into the skin.

I decided to add some blood and cuts on Toph's skin to show that she's a strong character.
I've drawn many types of bruised skin, here are some of them.
I used textured Airbrush Tool for the rough background painting.

I like painting my background rough because that way the viewers can focus more on the
character. But that doesn't mean I don't give details to my background.

Painting the rocks in the background.

 7. Even more detailing.

This was the last step of detailing. Here I was still using the exact same Marker Tool though
occasionally I decreased the brush size down to 8px to paint greater details.

Detailing fabrics.

I used to draw clothing fabrics really thick and bulky and only now I realized that's not good.
So now when it comes to drawing fabrics, I like to keep it simple and flat. Take these works
for example.

Similar to hair drawing, you'll need the fabrics flow to be drawn first before anything else.
This way you'll be able to draw the folds well. Because the quality of fabrics drawing is
actually measured by how well you can draw folds.

Detailing accessories.

Accessories are often made of gold or silver. In other words, they are shiny as hell. I tend to
put excessive sparkles to the shiny part to avoid it looking like brick material.
Overlay layers will help a lot for the shine. So if I think the shiny parts are lacking some glow,
I'd just make a new layer with Layer Blending Mode set to Overlay and use bright orange for
the color.
Lately, I've been adding smokes to my drawing as some kind of a finishing touch. It all
started when I was confused of what more to add in order to make my drawing looks fuller.
I browsed my 'Inspiration' folders and found this artwork by mDD.

I thought it was a great idea to add smokes to the drawing. Aside from filling the white
space, those smokes can give better volume to the drawing as well.

Before polishing the smokes, usually I lower the Opacity of the smoke layer first to make it a
bit more transparent.

Detailing smokes.
 8. Polishing.

Polishing step was where I painted over everything I have rough painted earlier. I used even
smaller Marker Tool to fix tiny errors such as messy lineart and missing colors.
Here’s the list of things I could do in this step.

It's almost impossible for me to fix major errors in this step. The reason was because I
worked with many layers. Once there's a major mistake, I would have to go through all the
layers to fix it. That's why I had to double check everything before I reach this step.

Here are some of the mini step-by-steps for polishing process.

Polishing eyes.

Polishing hair.
Polishing hand.

Also, here's how I polished the rocks in the background.

I used smaller 'Middle Flat' Airbrush Tool, around 7px - 8px in size for polishing the
background. Rocks tend to have uneven surface and very random shape. What I did was
combining all these possible shapes together to form one solid surface of earth in the
background.
 9. More polishing.

And here's the last step of polishing. After this I would move the drawing to Photoshop for
finishing effect so I had to make sure I've polished everything here.

Polishing skin.
Polishing fabrics.

Polishing accessories.

There’s no new painting technique here except for the skin polishing where I tend to add
skin-textured highlight at the end obviously to exaggerate the skin texture and make it more
realistic.

I have a lot of skin-textured brush I've purchased long time ago, here are some of them.

You don't have to use exactly the same textures. Any skin textures will do, just apply them
to your skin painting really softly.
To be honest, Rosuuri was my inspiration for this kind of skin highlighting technique so I
thought of giving her credits. This particular artwork from her started my skin highlight
addiction.

Polishing smokes.

After I made the smokes transparent by lowering its Opacity down to 30%-40%, I painted
over it using my usual 'Detailing' Marker Tool. Since the background was now see-through, I
had to be very careful when polishing the smokes.
 10. Finishing.

That’s all for Paint Tool SAI. And now, it’s time to export the illustration file to Photoshop as
how I told you before to add all the finishing effects.

I would usually add tons of finishing effects such as adding textured layer, sun rays, dust
particles, RGB effect, color correction layer, etc; but not so much this time.

The first finishing touch was the sweats dripping down Toph's face. When a character is
tired or when they're watching others doing silly things or maybe even when they're
aroused, usually I would add some sweats on their face or on their arms and other body
parts. Most of the time I paint these sweats manually.

But there's a way you can achieve similar effect on Photoshop using the Bevel and Emboss
layer effect.
Although you can't leave it just with the effect alone, you'd still have to manually paint over
the sweats for them to look more natural.
The other finishing effect I often use is the RGB/3D effect. This time I applied the effect only
on the outer corners of the artwork.

To have this kind of 3D effect, all you need to do is to mess with the RGB Channels tab in
Photoshop. Stretch the Red and Blue layers in the direction shown below.

Yes, it’s really just that simple and here’s the result you’ll get from applying this effect.
Lately I've been adding kakeami textures to my artworks especially for background drawing.
Kakeami is the Japanese word for crosshatch textures. You can often find these textures in
mangas. There are many shapes of kakeami.

The one shape I usually use for my artwork is just the simple diagonal lines.

I was inspired to do this mostly because of Inuyasha mangas but recently I've been
reminded again when I browsed my 'Inspiration' folder and found this artwork from
Sakimichan.

I use kakeami as a replacement for textured layer since I don't really add textured layer to
my artwork anymore. This way I can keep my painting looking raw without too much
distraction from the textures.

I have included a self-made instant kakeami brush as this month's brush bonus.
If you look closely, you can't really tell where the lineart in my background has gone. That's
because I rarely use lineart for background painting and even when I do, I tend to get rid of
the lineart in the end to intensify the background depth.

The other obvious finishing effect of mine is the color correction layers I tend to add at the
end of finishing step. There are many color correction layers I often use such as Levels,
Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Vibrance, etc. But the one I used here in my Toph
drawing was the Levels one.
The purpose of adding this Levels layer was to make the character's head pops out more.
The other purpose of adding this kind of layer was of course to instantly color correct some
parts of the drawing.

Last but not least, it's the torn particles.

In order to blend the drawing even more, I use these particles. I used to paint them
manually but now not anymore. I thought it was time-consuming to paint them one by one,
so I made my own brush for this kind of particles.
That’s all for the .PDF explanation this month! I hope it helps and thank you very much for
your support! I hope to see you all next month for more interesting rewards! 

Happy Valentine's Day 2019

February 2019: Complete progress shot guide by Kawacy.