Isvus's art Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lantern festival fold study]

Yo, this looks real good! The streaks of saturated warm colors really make it pop.

Codiacs responds:

Thank you!

[An Elf and her Slime]

Awh, that's a cute slime :3

RaynLikeRain responds:

Peak slime is a cute slime! >:D

[the amazing gl circus]

Yeah there were some thumbnails in my youtube recommendations that gave me second thoughts and I'm always skeptical of hype this insane, but I've perfected a strategy of just watching a series while completely ignoring all events in the fanbase. These two look so cute!

SkyHawkins responds:

Yeah I try to avoid the whole fandom zeitgeist whenever possible. Even putting all that aside, this show just didn’t look to me like something I would enjoy, so I was happy to be proven wrong

[Michi the Shopkeeper]

Lmao. The Shopkeeper Meme will never die. Rope, bombs, lamp oil? The Impostor? They're yours, my friend, as long as you have the memes.

johferson09 responds:

"Big Nail, NG BF Figurine, Pistol Mags? You want it? It's yours my friend ..."

[Go to Sleep~]

I think I'd rather stay awake Mr Jeff. No real reason ofc.

For real though, good job on the light and shadow on his palm. It looks great.

Bigfatgoogiewoogie responds:

Arigato !!

[Pretty purple]

I do like me some purple :D This looks dope.

Skullcrusher7805 responds:

Thank youuu I appreciate it 😎

[hot boy (I couldn't think of a better title :b)]

I mean.

The title's describing the content, so full marks there. I obsessively keep backup copies of my bigger projects because I don't think I could handle the psychological damage if my file were to corrupt itself randomly right before I finished.

VergilMaster1037 responds:

I saved the progress before, and when I closed the entire program I needed to restart my computer for something, and suddenly this happened, but you are right, I never thought about making another copy

[A Girl and Her Droid, issue 3 cover.]

I AM READY FOR CHAPTER 3.

Artist-Lost responds:

YEY! See you this weekend then!

[Cloud Strife]

Ah yes, my second husbando. I was so frikken hyped when they announced the remakes. It got me so jazzed that I went and wrote a fanfiction that I never finished and never will. It's all about the journey, man.

Also I thought I'd ask since I like the way you do lighting so much, how generally do you do it? Do you separate things a lot or keep it mostly on a smaller number of layers? Do you use layer properties to get the final colors or do you directly apply them? It looks like you mostly do things without lines.

I'm also well aware that most of it is just you being a good artist who knows how to render light, but hey. Every bit of information I can get my hands on helps!

RaynLikeRain responds:

I'm glad you like the way I do lighting! I'll try my best to explain though I may not be the best at it

First I'll describe my usual process since I did things differently with this one, I'll describe that after.

After the initial sketch I will refine it (effectively lineart) on the sketch layer, erasing the rough sketch lines as I go.
Then I'll apply the flat colours to individual layers, and shade them to a near finished state.
At this point I'll duplicate the lineart layer and put it below all the colour layers, and set the linart layer that's at the top to Linear Burn, and give it a dark red colour.

After that I usually tweak the colours a bit using Correction Layers (Tone Curve, Gradient Map, etc.) to make the colours pop a little more (I use Clip Studio Paint so if you use something else try looking for an equivalent the main one is Gradient Maps).

Then I get to the fun part where I merge all the layers and can start painting over any rough bits left, this is also the part where you can add any small details that are hard to do with lineart (Cloud's bolts on his shoulder pad for example).
It's important to note that the Linear Burn lineart can get a little bright in some spots, especially around the eyes, so you can paint back in the dark lines whenever you see it.

And that's basically it for my usual process, hopefully some of that makes sense though I understand it's hard without a visual reference :')


For Cloud I did things differently, firstly I was a lot rougher with the lineart opting not to refine all of it, in favour of just refining the important bits like the face.

Then I roughly painted in all the colours on a single layer, and then used a clipping masked multiply layer set to a mid-tone reddish colour to get a very rough idea of the shadow placement.
The important part here was again using Gradient Maps to get a nicer pop of colour.

From there that's when I merged all the layers and started overpainting which took up most of the time spent on this drawing.

Once I had the rendering all finished, that's when I went and added the extra lighting effects such as the red rim light and the subtle glow around the edge from a red glow dodge layer.
Effectively this is the part where you can really integrate your render with the scene, though it's important to always have your scene in mind as it'll influence the colours you go with.

I guess this is a lot of information for a reply but hopefully it can help you in some way!!

[Smuggler]

Holy moly, her tattoos. Man that must have killed your hands. I'm realizing that with you, good fabric rendering is pretty much a given.

Pawsofrage responds:

Thank you, well, I still have a lot to learn, including drapery