clockbirds:

stylized fur tutorial. thanks for the question! i’ve been getting quite a few requests regarding how i paint fur, but honestly even i don’t have a set procedure for it yet orz

still i thought i would take a few moments to randomly blob out a clump of fur just to see for myself what techniques i’m using right now. so for brushes, i generally like using the watercolour ones. i have two atm, one set to a larger min. diameter (with high ease of mixing), and another set to a smaller min diameter (with low ease of mixing and high load colour).

• (1) i use the smaller brush first to sketch in the general fur shapes, they’re pretty big at this stage, we’ll be adding in smaller clumps later
• (2 – 3) using the larger watercolour brush now, i blob in a few shadows – keeping in mind the light source. i then select a lighter colour and make the brush smaller to make the definition between the light and shade sharper.
• (4 – 7) now i take out the smaller brush again and refine the edges and points! i also use it to quickly add extra tufts of fur and then i’ll switch back to the larger brush to blend the new tufts in. and i basically keep doing this until i’m satisfied with the level of detail.
• (8) i adjusted the levels to make the contrast higher. you can do this to make the character blend into whatever environment you’re painting them in.
• (9) added colour with an overlay layer! although tbh i usually paint in colour to begin with in most of my drawings. but overlay/add layers are still super helpful for creating nice lighting effects and interest! you can add highlights and rim lighting at this stage too~

hope this was helpful!