akemicchi's request & doodle thread [Closed]

[sei.chan]

wow I actually think you got her painted style quite on the mark ....all I can see is that hers has some type of light overlay, and texture I like the smoothness in yours tho ;D

edit: ah this is what I meant :

(I noticed she lines her shadows a bit) I prefer yours tho, just thought for the sake of comparison I'd add the thingys <3

Hey, thanks. It could be a lot better, though. Until I either figure it out or find something I like, I'll keep trying new stuff.

Ohhh, overlays! Totally forgot about those! I think touching up my artwork with a little bit of it will look nice; I really like what you've done, sei! (also why that title) I'm not too fond of using textures right now. Once I get more skilled, I'll try using them, but for now I'm trying to get the coloring down first. Thanks so much!

Sorry just saw this can I still make a request?

Go ahead!

For Kazuki Yone, she uses an orange that's close to being pure, and lowers the opacity. I've done it before tons of times, it looks fine. Did you edit your colors? If it looks muddy, you can change up the hue and saturation. Or you can add other colors, or as sei chan mentions, an overlay.

Hi, hiko! Oh, but doing it that way (orange and lowering the opacity) needs another layer. I do the same (orange color gradient) but I just do it straight on the base layer. It's exactly the same, just with less resources.

Huh? Wait, hue and saturation won't help muddiness... By muddiness, I mean, the values are messed up; messing with the hue or saturation won't fix that. Brightness and contrast, I can totally understand, though! And YEAH, sei has a great idea, using overlay. I totally forgot about using that!

Yeah, from what I saw on the book. But since she uses a different version of Photoshop, idk if that'll work with SAI. I've tried it before, but instead of just leaving the layer as it is, I used overlay for the layer with the colors, and combined. Because it was on overlay, it ended up being much lighter than it should be, so at that point, I edit the colors. You can do it that way, but coloring in black and white helps you see your values. That way, your shades won't look almost the same. You can probably try multiply as well, but I never liked doing that because it looks muddy. Idk honestly because she uses an older version of Photoshop, I have CS5 so I can't really know, will try and read more when I get the time.

I'd color in black and white, but then what do I do with it? Do I just overlay the flats? Set the grayscale layer on multiply? Lock the shadows layer and color the shadows? Or do I repaint everything with the values as a guide? Besides, what's stumping me is how she makes those stroke. (Referring to her example in the how-to book.) My watercolor tool doesn't make strokes like that, and in the example, she uses multiple layers which she merges into one once she's finished. I know Kazuki uses photoshop, but there are sai artists that are capable of mimicking the effect, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. That's not the default watercolor tool. ^q^;;

And I agree with everything that sei chan said. I guess I forgot to mention, but I think you pretty much nailed the basics of her coloring style (or just how her style is, not really down to the details but it's close enough). Sidenote, when I saw that sleeve, I immediately shouted Snowbound Land. But anyways, it's actually because the edges of her shadows are much sharper. You blurred yours yes? You can either try and create a watercolor brush that works for you (I just use redjuice's watercolor brush for SAI), or you can do your blurred thing but sharpen/line the edges so they look more defined. Not all your edges should be sharp though, but some of them should have them. You can also add textures as sei chan tried to do. It adds texture to your drawings, makes it look more interesting, and it kind of unifies everything.

I don't blur everything-- just the parts where soft shadows occur and gradient blending. Murasaki doesn't really have that many hard shadows, but I'll try to incorparate more hard shadows into my drawings. I'm kind of hesitant to sharpen, since I'd like to raise my skills and not really take the easy way out. Way I figure it, I just need to get better at drawing fabric, so I'll probably do some realism/fabric studies. I'll try that lining thing, too! I used to do that with my cel-shading, so I'll pick that up for soft-cel, too. The tool I'm using is making shades look absolutely terrible though. ^q^ These artists aren't using the default watercolor tool, and if they are, they're using it on one layer, not separate ones...

Textures are for cheaters. >:( Nah, I'm just kidding, I love the look of textures, but I want to get the basics right first. If I add textures, I won't be able to see my mistakes or I'll get lazy. :')

It really depends on the artist. Some lock the opacity of the b/w one and colors that, some use another layer with layer modes. When they start with greyscale, they're not thinking of color at all at that point. They're focusing on their values, they don't want their drawing to look flat if their values are close to each other. Color, as beautiful and helpful as it is, gets in the way sometimes when you're trying to look for value in your drawing.

I see, so they just do whatever. I still don't know what to do with mine, though, if I start out with value underpaintings. What sort of keywords should I google to find tutorials for it? "Value coloring"?

Huh? What's wrong with my values? You're implying there's something wrong with my values and that I'm hiding it with colors, but it's not obvious to me with the picture you've chosen, even with the comparison. (If it were the first image, though, I definitely agree that its values are completely screwed up, haha!) Compared to Murasaki's, mine is more gratuitous with the dark values, but is that really a problem? Should I try for lighter colors? So far, all I can see is that the contrasts between the highlights, midtones, and shadows should be much more bold, but overall values look fine to me. You'll have to point it out, because I can't see it. o|-<

... Unless you're telling me to work with grayscale first, which I'd try, but unfortunately I have no idea how to translate those values into colors, haha!

Eheh, I'm not really interested in the cel-shading techniques, but thanks for mentioning them! Hopefully someone'll find them useful!

All in all though, these artists don't really do anything special with the way they color. Imo, it's just that their drawings are detailed, very dynamic, and somewhat filtered.

Whoa, hey, you can't say they don't do anything special and just chalk it up to skill and experience! There are many, MANY different ways of coloring. Saying they 'do the usual' doesn't really help, since my 'usual' is painting on one layer. "orz I get that they're skilled and experienced, but what I'm asking about is their method.

I'm also going to have to disagree with you, since there are many artists that aren't good at all and they are praised to hell and back because they've mastered a very attractive technique (either coloring, composition, storytelling, etc). Coloring is the biggest thing. In fact, what I've noticed is that if you know how to color in an attractive way, you can definitely hide your lack of skill. One friend of mine is an amazing anime artist, whose attention to detail is godly, has extremely intricate and delicate backgrounds, breathtaking compositioning skills, and extremely lovely colors schemes. She paints, so when she shifted to an art program and started using layers, her art-- unfortunately-- looks mediocre, and she isn't getting the attention she deserves.

Knowing how to use the medium you're using is just as important as knowing the basics of art. These otome artists have mastered both. I'm still learning as an artist, but what I want to focus on at this point in time is the technique portion.

Oh, I forgot to mention that. Did you use any filters on yours? Sometimes, a way to make your drawing look better is on Photoshop, you duplicate it, gaussian blur the duplicate, and put it on a layer mode you think looks best for your drawing. Idk if my long ass post helps you, but I tried. I can try linking you to some pixiv tutorials if you want. They're not really from otoge artists, but I think most techniques otoge artists use are used by Japanese digital artists in general.

Oh, I know that method. I used to do it, but then I ended up getting complacent with my art. ^^; I don't like using filters, at least not at the moment. Those are finishing touches, and I don't think I have the basics down properly yet. I'll pretty it up next time-- I'm just focusing on the shading clothes portion right now.

Thanks so much for your time! I really appreciate you taking the time to help, hiko! I'll try my hand at these things: value underpaintings, overlay, hard shadows, and lining shadows. ovob

Omg so beautiful <3

Hehe, thanks, Hazel!

I just wanted to say your values seemed alright to me. I think Hiko is getting a bit confused values are important but its also important to remember depending on what color you use they come out darker when B.W. Ake used a nice brownish red the density at which she used it made it come out in b.w darker (not sure if density is the right word lolz). Also I disagree the way you color definitely has an impact on your piece and there are several techniques out there so yes coloring is at least to me a very important part of your art it can crumble or help it. Also filters doesn't help out that much if the drawing isn't any good. That being said I named the .jpeg that cuz its true <3

[ofdawnandtwilight]

Aaaaaahhhh your newest style is so so so pretty I'm in tears <3 Your art has been gorgeous from the beginning and seeing them in the art style I love the most is just sweet candy to these sore eyes, you're amazing! I am in nowhere near to having your skills so I can't help you much unfortunately but I can definitely say that you're getting very close to Murasaki's style, if not already spot on which I say you already are >w< (I made this beastlike sound when I saw that you're referencing from her btw, I'm so obsessed with otome artists that it's borderline unhealthy).

But yeah, sorry that I can't help, I just wanted to say how I personally love the new colouring style you're going for. Keep up the fantastic improvement! ^^

[sei.chan]

Aaaaaahhhh your newest style is so so so pretty I'm in tears <3 Your art has been gorgeous from the beginning and seeing them in the art style I love the most is just sweet candy to these sore eyes, you're amazing! I am in nowhere near to having your skills so I can't help you much unfortunately but I can definitely say that you're getting very close to Murasaki's style, if not already spot on which I say you already are >w< (I made this beastlike sound when I saw that you're referencing from her btw, I'm so obsessed with otome artists that it's borderline unhealthy).

But yeah, sorry that I can't help, I just wanted to say how I personally love the new colouring style you're going for. Keep up the fantastic improvement! ^^

IKR thats why her artsu is bae

-like beyonce says if you like it you have to put a ring on it <3 -

[alexwhite]

i've been trawling through this forum again and i have to say, you draw like how i wished i could draw back when i still thought i could draw anime.
I eventually realized that its not possible for me to have an anime style so i gave up but looking at your work makes me both jealous and nostalgic. great stuff!

[hiko27]

@akemicchi: GOD. I am so embarrassed of my previous post... I was too freaking dizzy because of the heat that day and I was lugging around my 18 by 24 sketchbooks, drawing board AND two heavy ass 9 by 12 sketchbooks for more than an hour, my post became a train wreck of a mess. Really sorry if it was confusing.

And I thought when you said muddiness, you meant the individual colors, not the composition as a whole. And if your value ranges are narrow, then it wouldn't exactly be muddy, but just dark. Usually people say the colors are muddy instead of the color harmony as a whole. The colors on the left here would be what I'd call muddy. The colors on the right are the same value, but I just upped the saturation.

Well, you can overlay the color layer, you can also try multiply but as I mentioned, it ends up too dark for me, and loses a whole lot of the saturation. Locking the shadow layer and going over it with one color won't maintain the values you used initially. You can use it as a guide if you want? Ah, yeah, SAI's default watercolor tool is shitty... I rarely use any of their default brushes. You can go to ptsbrushes.tumblr.com to check out some SAI brushes you think you might want. As for how she does it, I finally got to read it closely, and it seems on Photoshop, she uses the airbrush tool on custom settings. Since you have the book, you can look at step 9 for her brush settings. The top one is the airbrush, has no modes/effects on it, with 10% 強さ or I'm guessing at this point means opacity, with 0% feed and opacity checked. The one on the bottom is the eraser with an airbrush effect, 10% opacity and opacity checked. She mentions the opacity can be between 5% to 20%, so I'm guessing she changes it up depending on what she goes for. Because she uses specific settings for her eraser, I'm guessing the way she does it is she does a cycle of airbrush, erase, airbrush, erase, and so on and so forth until she gets her desired result. You could sometimes get the way she does her clothes that way where you erase some of your shadows. God, I'm so bad at explaining, idk if that makes sense. I can point out at which places she's done it if it'll help. As I mentioned, you can use redjuice's brush settings. It looks decent enough for the style she goes for.

Well, the lines don't have to be super sharp. Just something to help make the ends of your shadows look much sharper than they should, and much more grounded. Hahaha, I'm with you on that. Textures are an easy way out, but you can't deny that it does make drawings look better if the lights and shadows are done correctly. Most people think textures are a way to cheat, but that doesn't mean when you're a professional, you can't cheat. Kazuki Yone, Aya Murasaki, Satoi, Hanamura Mai, and many others (Chinatsu Kurahana doesn't do textures, I believe, as well as Fujinari Yuuki) uses textures in a shit ton of their drawings. Some artists use filter. It's like filters, it's like icing on top, as I'll mention somewhere below... Idk which paragraph because apparently I love to write essays. But yeah, if you're just starting out (as well as wanting to focus on your drawing without the help of these things), it's best to forego them and leave them for later. I leave them for later most of the time.

Here are a few concept art threads about grayscale painting to color. At this point, it really depends on you what you want to do. I probably sounded like an ass in my previous post, so sorry if it sounded as if I was forcing you, but just go at your own pace, and study what you want. My color theory professor started us off with values (well, after we did a color wheel for the hundredth time) because once you fully understand value, your eyes get used to seeing it when color comes into play. People have a hard time seeing anything aside from the color itself, that's why most of the time, when you're being taught in an art class, one of the first few things they teach you is value (and why, I'm assuming, most beginning drawing classes' drawings are all done in black and white). Well, if you're going for a realistic feel to your drawings.

Ugh, sorry if I wasn't able to explain it at my previous post. But looking at it, the hair's ranges look close that if I squint, it all looks dark except for that tiny bit of midtone for the highlight. I'd say lighten it up a bit and see how that goes. For the shadows on the sleeves, they still look a little too close. Where are your cast shadows (cast shadows can be on the form itself), core shadows, reflective light, all that jazz? I don't know which is which, so yeah, you'd probably need to darken some of your shadows. Same goes for the pants. If the light was coming from above, I'd see a tiny bit (depending on the angle as well as distance of the light source) of a cast shadow under the waistcoat, as well as on the hands. Probably even somewhere on his crotch, and somewhere on the creases there as well. As well as creases on the bottom of his pants. If you looked at Murasaki's, like on the ribbon, you'd see she has her cast shadows (though really small), some midtones and though very faint, some highlights (but then it's faint because the light is far). I can't exactly say the same for that cloth thingy around his hips. But yeah, I wouldn't exactly use Murasaki as a good model to study up on light logic and values but nevertheless she still has them.

Lol sometimes I forget my definition of things is very different. When I said not doing anything special, or doing the usual, it means they do what other artists do as well. Like the way Kazuki Yone does her shadows (the whole airbrush-erase thing), I'm pretty sure Murasaki does it as well, just a little differently. I assume she does her shadows, then she comes back with the base color to use as an eraser for the shadows. Idk if that makes sense? I don't know what you're disagreeing to?????? I never did say it was just up to skill and experience. And coloring isn't the most important thing, every aspect of your drawing plays a role in your piece. It goes both ways: You can do a lot without color, and just relying on color will limit you. And coloring in an attractive way is kind of vague, do you mean correctly? But then, if you're coloring realistically, then you're still using light logic as well as lines. If not, then probably values, an effective use of contrast, your composition, design, or maybe your message/idea. There have been tons of black and white drawings out there that look as amazing as any colored pieces as well. If color was the most important thing, I don't see why art schools all over the world aren't teaching how to draw in color right off the bat. I do agree that color is the biggest aspect to study in art because there's tons of things you can do with it like color harmonies, adding values, contrasts, playing with color and negative space, make it into shapes (aka foundation skills done without color), etc, but it's not the most important thing in your piece because remove all those that I said and more, and all you have are colors on a canvas. It's kind of like having to take algebra and trigonometry before going into calculus wherein calculus is color. It's a whole other field, but you do need to know your foundations before being able to be successful in that field.

And that does tend to happen when people go to art schools, or study their foundations, especially if they've been drawing for years but I do wanna ask, has she mastered everything yet at that point? I was like that back then. I did a shit ton of details in my drawings (I was inspired by shoujo manga and those can get very detailed like Yoko Maki, my goddess ughhhhh), it'd take me a few days to finish one because of how much detail I put into it, but I myself know I have weaknesses in other areas. It's really up to her at that point if she wanted to continue on mastering one aspect while ignoring her weaknesses, or going back and building up all her foundation skills though it might take a while. Just because it was attractive doesn't mean it was done correctly. If you can do one thing perfectly, you can hide your weaknesses but at some point in time, those weaknesses of yours are going to catch up to you. And getting attention isn't what all of us want. I mean, yeah, it's a good thing when people notice your art, but there are times you just want to draw something because you want to express something, it's just fun, or you just want to get better so you practice. Just because her art is mediocre and she isn't getting the attention she deserves doesn't mean she's a failure of an artist or that her skills went down. She's just reallocating some of that skill to her weaknesses and probably because she had to deconstruct and re-learn some of the things she already knew. Also, keeping your weaknesses as they are won't help you improve as an artist. And that's why you're working on your art right now, you're working on what you don't know, hoping to improve.

I wouldn't say that all otome artists have mastered this. I'm looking at the cover for the book we've been talking about for Kazuki Yone, and if you look closely, you'd see she hasn't exactly shown you that she's perfected light logic (that is, assuming from the shadows on the guy's face, the light source could be at the top right but if that's where the source is, where's the sword's shadow on the girl's clothes??????). I've also shown that with Murasaki's drawing that I grayscaled (if only there was a way to remove the textures, it would probably illustrate my point much clearer). It is pretty, you can't deny that, but neither of them have mastered all their foundations. Do you have to? Psh nope (I personally believe no one can master any aspect of art because I'm a perfectionist and a masochist), unless you want to or you're not aiming at an otaku (god I don't like using that word) audience. But, you should do more than just know the basics. Technique does matter as well, though at this point, I don't know what technique really means because if you think about it, it's just how well you understand a certain topic and how you manipulate your knowledge of that (as well as how good your hands are I guess).

And yeah, okay, it's good you don't do that. I forgot where the link to that was, but there was this one thread at conceptart and one post talked about how you should master your foundations first before doing filters. It's kind of like the icing on top, it should only be used to make your already beautiful drawing beautiful.

You don't have to do those, I was high when I wrote my previous post apparently >.> But, you should do value studies to help you not just understand but master (well, at least to a certain point) values, because believe me, once you've gotten that done, it'll do wonders to your drawings when you do them in color. Sidenote, I was one of those amateurs where they don't think they needed to learn the foundations because hey, my art is pretty enough as it is, but then I hit a wall as well as a sudden need to just grow and improve more as an artist, and realized I had to go back to my foundations. I'm still learning as well, but if I did offend you in my previous post (or in this) or if I sound very pushy, sorry about that. I tend to go overboard with critiques when it seems like the person would be fine with whatever I can dish out.

Edit: I read over my whole thing and I'd like to add that the critiques I gave was more of a general critique instead of "Does it look like Murasaki's?" But that doesn't mean Murasaki isn't using any of her foundation skills so yeah.

Edit 2: Most of what I say is just my opinion though, so it's perfectly fine to ignore if you don't agree with it.

@sei.chan: The values don't change even when you convert it into color, it's just your perception of the color as well as what colors are around it (and on that note, yellow is the brightest because our sun is yellow ). Like with this image, you'd think the colors in the middle of these two boxes are different but in fact, they're the same. I forgot who it was that studied this... Someone in my color theory class was doing a paper on them, but yeah, this was the sort of thing the chemist did. The relationships of colors to each other, and how that affects your perception of them.

[sei.chan]

@akemicchi:

@sei.chan: The values don't change even when you convert it into color, it's just your perception of the color as well as what colors are around it (and on that note, yellow is the brightest because our sun is yellow ). Like with this image, you'd think the colors in the middle of these two boxes are different but in fact, they're the same. I forgot who it was that studied this... Someone in my color theory class was doing a paper on them, but yeah, this was the sort of thing the chemist did. The relationships of colors to each other, and how that affects your perception of them.

I'd just like to say That I didn't say that , I said "what color you use they come out darker when B.W." I was directly talking about ake's drawing the colors she used to shade the pants and the colors used to shade the hair should come out darker than the rest considering the pallet she used, that's why I also said "depending on what colors you use" since I meant contrasting color like a dark blue against an orange should make dark blue come out as a dark grey in b.w. even in the squares, since they contrast one looks lighter the other one is darker(yeah that illusion of the squares was taught to us in h.s too XD)
Also I agree an artwork doesn't necessarily need color, I said the way you color implying on people who are coloring since you stated" All in all though, these artists don't really do anything special with the way they color. "Imo, it's just that their drawings are detailed, very dynamic, and somewhat filtered." the reality is they do color and color in their art work is what draws the attention as much as detail etc. Hence why I said color can help or ruin an image, from color pallet to techinque imagine the same drawing but with an unappealing color,

add to that a diffrent coloring techinque that really leaves an after taste.... so In my lil world coloring does matter and it can make an art piece special just look at yuumeis deviantart XD you'll drool by the way she handles her colors. Color can help hide a crappy art piece and can make a pretty art piece Gorgeous as well so its a skill one should try to master as well and not leave behind.XD but yes I'm a dork too so you shouldn't take my words heavily...lol

I promise I'll get to requests soon. Just need to finish up a batch of commissions.

Doodled this really quick to loosen up my arm. I might clean this up later.

so excited for the anime aaaa

p.s Ake how can you draw that just to loosen your arm its pretty owo

[hiko27]

I'd just like to say That I didn't say that , I said "what color you use they come out darker when B.W." I was directly talking about ake's drawing the colors she used to shade the pants and the colors used to shade the hair should come out darker than the rest considering the pallet she used, that's why I also said "depending on what colors you use" since I meant contrasting color like a dark blue against an orange should make dark blue come out as a dark grey in b.w. (yeah that illusion of the squares was taught to us in h.s too XD)
Also I agree an artwork doesn't necessarily need color, I said the way you color implying on people who are coloring since you stated" All in all though, these artists don't really do anything special with the way they color. "Imo, it's just that their drawings are detailed, very dynamic, and somewhat filtered." the reality is they do color and color in their art work is what draws the attention as much as detail etc. Hence why I said color can help or ruin an image, from color pallet to techinque imagine the same drawing but with an unappealing color,

1.jpg

add to that a diffrent coloring techinque that really leaves an after taste.... so In my lil world coloring does matter and it can make an art piece special just look at yuumeis deviantart XD you'll drool by the way she handles her colors. Color can help hide a crappy art piece and can make a pretty art piece Gorgeous as well so its a skill one should try to master as well and not leave behind.XD but yes I'm a dork too so you shouldn't take my words heavily...lol

God I've been bad at trying to understand what people mean recently xDD Sorry about that then, I thought you were talking about in general. Yeah, an artwork doesn't need color, but it does help it a whole lot. It's just that, imo, every single aspect of your artwork helps make it beautiful, not just color. And when I said that about their artworks, I unconsciously included the way they color in the detailed part. But yes, it's as you said, it can make or break a piece. I just don't feel like it should be the most important thing (unless that's what you're trying to do then ignore this). It's kind of like saying hair is the most important part of your body. If you think that (aka that's your preference in a person), then that's fine but you can't deny that your arms and other body parts all play a role in helping you live. I've been told I take things too seriously, so sorry about that D:

I'm gonna stop replying here now. I'm just barging into someone's thread now, I feel so bad. Sorry about that akemicchi.

[sharikah]

wow I actually think you got her painted style quite on the mark ....all I can see is that hers has some type of light overlay, and texture I like the smoothness in yours tho ;D

edit: ah this is what I meant :

(I noticed she lines her shadows a bit) I prefer yours tho, just thought for the sake of comparison I'd add the thingys <3

Hey, thanks. It could be a lot better, though. Until I either figure it out or find something I like, I'll keep trying new stuff.

Ohhh, overlays! Totally forgot about those! I think touching up my artwork with a little bit of it will look nice; I really like what you've done, sei! (also why that title) I'm not too fond of using textures right now. Once I get more skilled, I'll try using them, but for now I'm trying to get the coloring down first. Thanks so much!

Sorry just saw this can I still make a request?

Go ahead!

For Kazuki Yone, she uses an orange that's close to being pure, and lowers the opacity. I've done it before tons of times, it looks fine. Did you edit your colors? If it looks muddy, you can change up the hue and saturation. Or you can add other colors, or as sei chan mentions, an overlay.

Hi, hiko! Oh, but doing it that way (orange and lowering the opacity) needs another layer. I do the same (orange color gradient) but I just do it straight on the base layer. It's exactly the same, just with less resources.

Huh? Wait, hue and saturation won't help muddiness... By muddiness, I mean, the values are messed up; messing with the hue or saturation won't fix that. Brightness and contrast, I can totally understand, though! And YEAH, sei has a great idea, using overlay. I totally forgot about using that!

Yeah, from what I saw on the book. But since she uses a different version of Photoshop, idk if that'll work with SAI. I've tried it before, but instead of just leaving the layer as it is, I used overlay for the layer with the colors, and combined. Because it was on overlay, it ended up being much lighter than it should be, so at that point, I edit the colors. You can do it that way, but coloring in black and white helps you see your values. That way, your shades won't look almost the same. You can probably try multiply as well, but I never liked doing that because it looks muddy. Idk honestly because she uses an older version of Photoshop, I have CS5 so I can't really know, will try and read more when I get the time.

I'd color in black and white, but then what do I do with it? Do I just overlay the flats? Set the grayscale layer on multiply? Lock the shadows layer and color the shadows? Or do I repaint everything with the values as a guide? Besides, what's stumping me is how she makes those stroke. (Referring to her example in the how-to book.) My watercolor tool doesn't make strokes like that, and in the example, she uses multiple layers which she merges into one once she's finished. I know Kazuki uses photoshop, but there are sai artists that are capable of mimicking the effect, and that's what I'm trying to figure out. That's not the default watercolor tool. ^q^;;

And I agree with everything that sei chan said. I guess I forgot to mention, but I think you pretty much nailed the basics of her coloring style (or just how her style is, not really down to the details but it's close enough). Sidenote, when I saw that sleeve, I immediately shouted Snowbound Land. But anyways, it's actually because the edges of her shadows are much sharper. You blurred yours yes? You can either try and create a watercolor brush that works for you (I just use redjuice's watercolor brush for SAI), or you can do your blurred thing but sharpen/line the edges so they look more defined. Not all your edges should be sharp though, but some of them should have them. You can also add textures as sei chan tried to do. It adds texture to your drawings, makes it look more interesting, and it kind of unifies everything.

I don't blur everything-- just the parts where soft shadows occur and gradient blending. Murasaki doesn't really have that many hard shadows, but I'll try to incorparate more hard shadows into my drawings. I'm kind of hesitant to sharpen, since I'd like to raise my skills and not really take the easy way out. Way I figure it, I just need to get better at drawing fabric, so I'll probably do some realism/fabric studies. I'll try that lining thing, too! I used to do that with my cel-shading, so I'll pick that up for soft-cel, too. The tool I'm using is making shades look absolutely terrible though. ^q^ These artists aren't using the default watercolor tool, and if they are, they're using it on one layer, not separate ones...

Textures are for cheaters. >:( Nah, I'm just kidding, I love the look of textures, but I want to get the basics right first. If I add textures, I won't be able to see my mistakes or I'll get lazy. :')

It really depends on the artist. Some lock the opacity of the b/w one and colors that, some use another layer with layer modes. When they start with greyscale, they're not thinking of color at all at that point. They're focusing on their values, they don't want their drawing to look flat if their values are close to each other. Color, as beautiful and helpful as it is, gets in the way sometimes when you're trying to look for value in your drawing.

I see, so they just do whatever. I still don't know what to do with mine, though, if I start out with value underpaintings. What sort of keywords should I google to find tutorials for it? "Value coloring"?

Huh? What's wrong with my values? You're implying there's something wrong with my values and that I'm hiding it with colors, but it's not obvious to me with the picture you've chosen, even with the comparison. (If it were the first image, though, I definitely agree that its values are completely screwed up, haha!) Compared to Murasaki's, mine is more gratuitous with the dark values, but is that really a problem? Should I try for lighter colors? So far, all I can see is that the contrasts between the highlights, midtones, and shadows should be much more bold, but overall values look fine to me. You'll have to point it out, because I can't see it. o|-<

... Unless you're telling me to work with grayscale first, which I'd try, but unfortunately I have no idea how to translate those values into colors, haha!

Eheh, I'm not really interested in the cel-shading techniques, but thanks for mentioning them! Hopefully someone'll find them useful!

All in all though, these artists don't really do anything special with the way they color. Imo, it's just that their drawings are detailed, very dynamic, and somewhat filtered.

Whoa, hey, you can't say they don't do anything special and just chalk it up to skill and experience! There are many, MANY different ways of coloring. Saying they 'do the usual' doesn't really help, since my 'usual' is painting on one layer. "orz I get that they're skilled and experienced, but what I'm asking about is their method.

I'm also going to have to disagree with you, since there are many artists that aren't good at all and they are praised to hell and back because they've mastered a very attractive technique (either coloring, composition, storytelling, etc). Coloring is the biggest thing. In fact, what I've noticed is that if you know how to color in an attractive way, you can definitely hide your lack of skill. One friend of mine is an amazing anime artist, whose attention to detail is godly, has extremely intricate and delicate backgrounds, breathtaking compositioning skills, and extremely lovely colors schemes. She paints, so when she shifted to an art program and started using layers, her art-- unfortunately-- looks mediocre, and she isn't getting the attention she deserves.

Knowing how to use the medium you're using is just as important as knowing the basics of art. These otome artists have mastered both. I'm still learning as an artist, but what I want to focus on at this point in time is the technique portion.

Oh, I forgot to mention that. Did you use any filters on yours? Sometimes, a way to make your drawing look better is on Photoshop, you duplicate it, gaussian blur the duplicate, and put it on a layer mode you think looks best for your drawing. Idk if my long ass post helps you, but I tried. I can try linking you to some pixiv tutorials if you want. They're not really from otoge artists, but I think most techniques otoge artists use are used by Japanese digital artists in general.

Oh, I know that method. I used to do it, but then I ended up getting complacent with my art. ^^; I don't like using filters, at least not at the moment. Those are finishing touches, and I don't think I have the basics down properly yet. I'll pretty it up next time-- I'm just focusing on the shading clothes portion right now.

Thanks so much for your time! I really appreciate you taking the time to help, hiko! I'll try my hand at these things: value underpaintings, overlay, hard shadows, and lining shadows. ovob

Omg so beautiful <3

Hehe, thanks, Hazel!

I just wanted to say your values seemed alright to me. I think Hiko is getting a bit confused values are important but its also important to remember depending on what color you use they come out darker when B.W. Ake used a nice brownish red the density at which she used it made it come out in b.w darker (not sure if density is the right word lolz). Also I disagree the way you color definitely has an impact on your piece and there are several techniques out there so yes coloring is at least to me a very important part of your art it can crumble or help it. Also filters doesn't help out that much if the drawing isn't any good. That being said I named the .jpeg that cuz its true <3

Then I ask for Hirito. And thanks.