scary Archives - J Hunt Graphix

1 Jan 2018

The Valentine’s Pool A Pre-Valentine Design

Valentine’s Pool

The Valentine’s Pool is a heart shaped pond deep in the woods that crackles alive with magic once a year to grant a single wish to the worthy of heart. There is only enough magic in the pool to last a single night so those who wish to discover it, must plan accordingly and venture in at the right time.

About the Design

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Why do I say this? As I was doing some after Christmas shopping, I saw that the Valentine’s Day products were very quickly replacing the Christmas decorations, cards, and lights. So, to jump on the bandwagon of Valentine’s Day, I thought I would create this.

The design is created with Clip Studio Paint and was created using seven layers…whew…that’s a lot of layers for me.

Layer number one

The first layer was a typical pencil layer that I inserted so keep myself on track with what I wanted to draw. I used to do this in a sketchbook and then scan the pictures in but now I just draw straight in the program from the get go. After I sketched what I wanted, I just deleted the layer by dragging it to the trash can.

Layer number two

This was my inking layer. This layer I spent the most time on as I wanted to make sure that there were no “holes” in my lines. This is crucial to the flatting process. If there are gaps in the lines, the color will flow out and color other elements that may or may not need color. I used varying pen sizes to get some good texture and depth.

screenshot43 — These are the final inks. I added some blending to the far tree in the background. I was going for some darker depth.

Layer number three

The third layer was for my flat colors. I set my inks up as a reference layer and then began filling in the color. Since this was a Valentine’s Day pic, I kept my pallet to three relevant colors of the season. I was looking for a bit of a gothic appeal so I used pale colors and limited myself to three.

It is also important to point out that I duplicated my flats layer before I added highlights and shadows. This preserves your color layers and allows you to use your copied color layer as a reference. It makes color picking so much faster. I also turn on fix pixel. This keeps your air brush strokes from going all over the place keeping your design a lot cleaner.

Layers Four Through Seven

These layers were for extra items that I put into the design. I used one layer for a painted background. Those mountains were painted in using a texture brush and then blended so that they looked far away.

I used another separate layer to create a pink fill. This is the sky color that you also see in the background. I fill the entire piece with color and then erase out what I don’t want to use. This is time saving for me but I’m sure that there are other ways to do the same thing.

This is a screen shot of the inks with just the pink fill in the background. I used the fill bucket to paint in the whole layer and then erased out what I didn’t need.

This is what the design looks like with the pink fill. As you can see, I erased out what I didn’t need. In the background is the tree I erased out to leave the branches. Another layer I used was the glow layer. The glow layer makes certain elements really stand out. In this piece, the magic effects were placed on a glow layer to increase the contrast and make it look more magical.

The trees in the background are actually from a “tree brush” that I used. I set up the largest size I could and erased off the parts I didn’t need. The result is that the branches from the giant tree I placed now look like individual trees in the distance. I reduced the opacity so that they look blurrier and further back in the page.

Animation

This is the animated version of the design. Seven animation cells to animate the design. I primarily added in the magic affects to the pool to make it shimmer. I didn’t want to make it too complicated.

Summary

That is all for tonight. If I left some things out that you may want to know more of, please ask. I am always happy to help everyone out. Also check out my book. You can find it here. Amazon Prime holders can get it for free. It is available in hard copy and E-book format. The book has a lot of these types of tutorials designed to help you come up with design ideas.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, maybe you’ll like the one I did during the fall. I also did an interesting autumn piece earlier this year as well. Also check out Pilgrim in the Woods. You will find some really cool tips and tricks that I used to create it. I always on the prowl to collect suggestions and comments from everyone. Let me know what you think.

2 Nov 2017

Pilgrim in the Woods

Pilgrim in the Woods visiting a Thanksgiving Dinner near you.

Pilgrim in the woods is visiting a Thanksgiving dinner near you. Halloween is over but are all the spooks really gone? The ghosts aren’t screeching and the werewolves aren’t yelping but the woods is not empty of danger.

The Pilgrim

How is it this pilgrim is here and what does he want? It’s been many long years since the Puritans first came to America and shared the first Thanksgiving. Was someone left behind or is this would be wanderer plagued with unfinished business? Time will tell when the truth is finally uncovered. I could write horror stories all year round. My goal this year is to come up with a horror idea that ties in with every major holiday. I don’t know if I will ever write a full story or not but ideas are where more ideas come from. Let me know if you have any special requests out there.

About this Design

I hope you are all enjoying my latest design. Please let me know what you think by commenting on this post or dropping a note through a form.

I used 13 different layers to design this scene. I didn’t start with a pencil sketch. In fact, I clicked on the oil paint tool and went right to work painting out the scene. The scene background was painted with the oil paint flat brush tool. The digital oils provided a nice blending affect to build the background just like playing with Play dough. I alternated shades and used the blending tool as well to get the lighting effect I wanted.

Tips and Tricks

Below are some screenshots of layers that I used. The first one is a 33% opacity layer that I drew the trees on in the distance along with some shrubs. I used a very light brown within the pallet that I was working with. This effect created some of the white noise that comes with designing wooded areas. A G-Pent was all I needed to design the trees. A darker bleed tool brush was used for the shrubs. I like to keep things murky and then pull the details out.

Background

This next section is of just the trees themselves. See how they are on their own layer? I can manipulate the depth of the piece easier this way and control the highlights and shadows without creating digital mud. Using the selection tool helps to keep the overspray from going out of control. I still have a little. Through color discipline practice, it becomes easier to paint in this fashion. The airbrush highlight and shadow tools create nice textures on the tree. I selected where the light was coming from and then I just stayed consistent until I got the trees completed. Additional texture was created by using a darker pencil to enhance the bark.

Foreground Trees

As I go over each part of the tree, I can slowly pull out the natural texture of the tree along with other minor details such as the roots and growth defects in the tree that make it look more interesting.

I used the ink pen tool to design the Pilgrim and then I sketched out lightly what I wanted and then filled it in. I already knew that I was going to use a silhouette so I didn’t worry about every detail with the character. Extra grass created the mired affect. The woodlands known to be wet.

The Pilgrim Design

I used the polygon line tool to detail the parts of his outfit that I felt viewers would need to see to understand he is a pilgrim. I used Google to find a some good ideas for what I wanted the pilgrim to look like. Again, not a lot of serious detail required. Using my G-Pen with white pigment, I colored in some wrinkles and added some buttons. If I did my job well enough, you can tell that it’s a pilgrim.

Some additional details I added were the sun beams shining through. The line tool is awesome to get this detail. I changed the opacity on the beams so they look more transparent and played around with the color. True yellow just wasn’t covering it.

I designed the bridge with just blocks of grey matter that I blended together. I used references for this too because I just couldn’t picture the bridge the way I wanted in my head alone.

Summary

23 Oct 2017

This Thanksgiving…Enter The Turkey!

31 Aug 2017

Rainy and Ghostly Evening!

Hello everyone!

Tonight I experimented with some of Clip Studio Paint’s animation capability. With a little trial and error, I was able to make the haunted look of this design even more frightening by adding some willow O’ wisps, rain effects and a soft fiery glow to the pumpkin’s eyes.

If I haven’t said it before, I’ll say it again. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year…and not just because of Halloween. I enjoy the color changes in the leaves and the smell of the air as neighbors burn them (only where it is legal of course).

Hope you enjoy this .GIF. Let me know your thoughts about this or anything else you see on my website. If you have questions, please ask. I love to help!

Goodnight all!

22 Aug 2017

Ghosts and Pumpkins

Dark spooky nights and visits from ghosts. Who could ask for more fall fun? Lots more coming your way as my imagination takes off. Stay tuned! Follow my blog!

Something specific you want to see? Let me know. I’ll gladly create a scene and post it to my site!

26 Jul 2017

Spirit Falls

Good evening everyone!

Spirit Falls is my latest concept piece that I have developed tonight for your viewing enjoyment. What do you see moving through the waterfall? Ghosts? Spirits? Magical energy? These all are components for the theme that I followed so you are all correct.

This piece took me four hours to put together from start to finish. As usual, I started with a saved template that I use to build my digital artwork. It is a grey matted “paper” that I use for all of my images. I find that it is much easier on the eyes than when I start with all white. My screen tends to get a bit bright as well so the grey background helps a lot…also nice for helping me to measure my highlights and shadows. The template I use is 2894 × 2039 pixels.

I found a generic photo of a waterfall that I embedded into the piece and then blurred over a dark lavender fill. I blew it up to twice it’s size so that only the texture of the water shows through. I then removed just the fill that I needed so that the waterfall would show through. This manipulation of generic photos saved me some time.

I created a new layer and penciled in the warrior. I drew him much larger so that I could get the pose the way I wanted. As a side note, I don’t use any programs like poser or anything else that would generate a 3D model. This will probably change in the future as I do like to save time. I think the freehand pose gives it more freedom of movement.

I then used an ink wash to color the body and clothing. I can blend and build color very fast with the inking tool. I have always loved ink both digital and contemporary. Using my air brush tool, I placed shadows, highlights, and details in the skin where I thought it was necessary.

After all this was complete, I then shrunk the figure down and placed him in the foreground. With a little blending I was able to make him part of his surroundings…especially the ground.

Lastly I added one more layer for the ghostly movements you see starting up top and moving toward the bottom left…..or do they start bottom left and move up? Due to the lack of signs to tell them otherwise, I’m sure the spirits made up their own minds.

I hope you enjoy and happy blogging!

22 Jul 2017

Ghostly Orb Forest

Ever walk into a forest and see ghostly orbs fly around you? This is what it might look like if you do. I imagine a lot of activity all at once as if an energy burst is suddenly being released until finally pulsating out of existence.

This piece was designed in black and white to create a spooky mood accentuating the darkness and shadow of the night. The orbs are a bright contrasting white so they are able to communicate their presence, movement, and let everyone know they are there.

This piece was designed using Clip Studio Paint and consists of four layers. The initial pencil layer was later converted to detail layer toward the end of completing the piece. The other layers are an ink layer, background layer, and shadows layer.

To create a more 3 dimensional appearance, elements of shadows and highlights were placed throughout all of the layers with a proper amount of blending where needed to fuse the elements together.

The trees were created with a thick inking brush with fine detailing afterward. A tree texture tool was used to give more of a bark look to the skin of the tree. This also allows for more interesting shadows as they were placed with an air brush tool.

The bushes in the foreground were created with an ink wash set to a grey tone much like taking a sponge to a piece of paper with ink. Just enough texture to provide the look of bushes without much more but it helps to frame the piece together.

In the background I placed a slow moving mist moving throughout the trees again to provide some more depth and make it seem as though the orbs were traveling through the woods.

The far background has a number of different tree and grass designs making it seem dark and very difficult to find your way through.

Hope you enjoy this piece…be sure not to get lost should you enter the woods alone and unafraid.