Starling Snow

September 17, 2018

Tree Keeper | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, September 17, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone! Hope you had an awesome weekend!

I was very close to have this one finished by friday, but life got in the way. Still, sometimes it's nice to have an extra day or two so you're able to look at your painting with fresh eyes and make any required improvements. Another plus is that I had planned something pretty quick and simple for the background (gradients with some textures) so it was nice to have the time to put some effort on the bg!

I really had lots of fun with the outfit design as well as playing around with the lighting and shadows by messing around with the Adjustment Layers and their Modes.

I've mentioned on a few posts back that I would link the brushes that I've been trying out lately and I've been forgetting to add them, so here they are:
https://www.deviantart.com/conorburkeart/art/Brushes-663943084
https://www.deviantart.com/aarongriffinart/art/BRUSHES-609357781
https://www.deviantart.com/houstonsharp/art/My-Brushes-424639896
I hope you like it and I'll see you soon!

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September 13, 2018

Scouting | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Thursday, September 13, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone!! It's been a while! Hope you've been having a great week! <3

As I mentioned on my previous post, my schedule has been a bit tightened and unstable due to other jobs but I hope to get back in order with my weekly posts. I also want to start a sketchbook so I can post some quick pieces once in a while :D

I've been sitting on this piece for quite a few days now and I finally finished it. I've been loving playing around with new PS brushes, specially the textured ones!

I hope you like it and tomorrow I' will be probably posting another finished piece!

See you soon! <3

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September 4, 2018

Head On | Digital Painting Art + Life Update

starlingsnow Tuesday, September 04, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! How have you been? I missed posting so badly.

Life happened and it's been a stressful week. I had the need to adjust myself these last days since I'll be having other obligations job wise in my main field of work - translation.

I hope I can still keep my mon/wed/fri blog posts, but if not I'll still try to get 3 pieces a week out just on different weekdays.

This portrait was actually taken from a full piece from another digital painting that I was working on, but as I wasn't very happy with it, I decided to just crop the face area and play around with it. It was fun working with curly hair which is quite different from my usual wavy/straight hair hairstyles.

I hope you like it and I'll see you soon! <3

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August 29, 2018

Step by Step w/ Commentary! Princess Bubblegum and Lumpy Space Princess Fan Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, August 29, 2018 art , art tutorial 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

For today's post, I decided to make a step by step process of one of my previous pieces. I've already posted a few step by step "tutorials" before, where I gave a brief overview of the different stages of one of my pieces. If interested, you can check them out here and here :D (Just please note that these were made quite some time ago and my style and way of painting have changed since then!)

I actually love reading these sort of posts where people break down their process, so I really wanted to find the time to make one of these again!

I chose my fan art of Princess Bubblegum and Lumpy Space Princess, since it was a simple process and I liked how it turned out (which is honestly a bit rare).

So let's start!

I. Greyscale sketch base

Some people start coloring their pieces from their lineart sketch, color blocked shapes or just loose lines to contour the main parts of the piece.

From my experience throughout all these months, what I realised that works best for me, is to color from a greyscale painting. Greyscale is often advised for beginners to practice understand values and form. Personally, I prefer greyscale because I like to have a somewhat of a visual of what my final painting might look like.

II. Base colors

There are many many ways to color a greyscale painting. Some of them being: gradient maps, color adjustments, layer modes, etc. When I start to color a painting, I usually like to add an overlay color mode, (other popular layer modes to add colors at this stage are the color, soft light and multiply mode) and pick a base color of each element of my painting. Here I used the Overlay for the hair and outfit and Multiply, with a bright beige color, for the skin.

At this early point, I don't really care much if my base color is on point, because I just want to have a foundation to work off from.

III. Skin coloring and Lumpy

Here I started to render the face by first clicking on the Lasso Tool and going around her face, so I could freely color it without going over the hair parts. I mostly just used normal layer modes and went over the skin with the Soft Light mode so I could give her some lighting. I also started to color her outfit and to be honest, it was very overwhelming to work with so many pink shades u.u

At first I was just gonna paint Princess Bubblegum, but as it was looking too simple, I decided to add Lumpy too! I started with a purple color blob and shaped it in a "fluffy" way with the Lasso Tool.

IV. Hair and Outfit

At first I struggled with making her sleeve look puffy, but references are always great and can help us get avoid further frustration!

I also fixed her bangs and painted some hair strings on the side so the hair wouldn't look stiff.

Some hair strings were shaped to go over Lumpy so there could be a cute interaction between the two characters. This also helps to make them "blend" together in the painting!

V. More Rendering and Highlights

Highlights are always a fun part to me - there are times during the process of a piece that I don't have too much faith on it, for several reasons, and sometimes just a few highlights can make a difference and make it come to life. For the highlights I used the Color Dodge layer mode and I went over her hair, crown and Lumpy.

I usually paint in a semi realistic style and the way I found to make Lumpy belong in the painting (since it's not human), was to play around with shadows and lights.
As I decided to have a sky as the background, I filled the bg layer with some light blues.

VI. Shadows/Highlights, Adjustment Layers and Background

With a Multiply layer mode, I darkened around her face and throughout her hair. With an Overlay and Color Dodge layer, I went over their head to give a "magical" aura and a few highlights on Bubblegum's skin, hair and face!

I also used a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer to darken the characters, thus making the background appear lighter. With Color Balance, I fine tuned the overall colors.

For the background, I added a few clouds and some flower petals as it's a really good way to fill some negative spaces without causing too much distraction.
Finally, I duplicated the whole painting into a new layer, used Gaussian blur and changed the layer mode into Soft Light with the opacity reduced.

And that's it! Not very complicated. If you'd like to check out a more detailed process, the PSD file for this digital painting, is up on my Gumroad here! :)

I hope this can be of some use and if you have any questions, be sure to ask! :)

See you soon! <3

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August 27, 2018

Sorrow | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, August 27, 2018 art , 2 Comments

Hi everyone! Hope you had a great weekend! <3

Here's a portrait to start off the week, that I painted on and off throughout this weekend. I still feel like it was a bit rushed since I was out today all day, (and I really wanted to post on time today) but I'm still relatively happy with the result.

I really wish I had a good back story for this digital painting, but it was purely me having fun on Photoshop :D

I recorded the process of this piece and I'll be sure to post it on my Gumroad tomorrow! I also plan on getting back to posting time lapsed process videos on my Youtube channel, and this time, with proper voice over! :)

Well guys, I hope you like it and I'll see you soon! <3

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August 25, 2018

Guardian | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Saturday, August 25, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! <3

Once again, I'm a few hours late from my usual uploading days (mon/wed/fri) since it's already saturday here. I've been feeling so hesitant about my art lately, that it makes me lose a bunch of time on little details and such.

But anyways! -

Here's my digital painting to finish off the week! :D I've been having a great time playing around with poses and outfits. I'm still not really good at anatomy, so these have been great exercises and challenges! I went with a guardian of the forest/mountains sort of theme and I wanted to try an abstract background. I usually have the urge to render every element of my pieces, but for this one, it was very refreshing for me to just leave it as is.

The PSD file process of this painting will be up on my Gumroad tomorrow, if interested (and I still have lots of catching up of things I was supposed to finish this week blog wise :c) EDIT: You can find the PSD here!

I hope you have an amazing weekend and I'll see you soon! <3

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August 23, 2018

In Control | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Thursday, August 23, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! <3

As I am writing this blog post, it is past 4AM and my eyes hurt :( This digital painting took me ages as I didn't have a very clear concept of what I wanted it to be. It was still fun playing around with armor designs and what not! - but I'll make sure that I have a plan before committing to a piece next time, or else I'll just have to pull another all nighter :c

If you're interested in the process of this digital piece, tomorrow, I'll have up on my Gumroad the full layered PSD file! EDIT: You can find the PSD file here.

Have great night and I'll see you soon! <3

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August 21, 2018

Countess | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Tuesday, August 21, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great weekend <3

Phew, such hot days here where I live. It makes painting while sitting on a desk physically and mentally a bit challenging. I had a hard time having something ready to show for today, since my initial concept got me a little frustrated - so I just went simple with it.

Lately, I've been loving the painterly and messier look in paintings and this was actually fun to work on once I knew in which direction to go. Whenever I lack inspiration, I go on DevianArt and search for new PS brushes to work with and it works everytime! I'll be sure to link some of them on my next post if you'd like to try them out as well!

With this said, I hope you like it! See you soon <3

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August 17, 2018

Evening Dip | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Friday, August 17, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

For this digital painting I wasn't really sure on where I was going with it, but it turned out to be a fun process. There were some struggles (colors and outfit rendering), which made the piece take a bit longer to finish, but overall, I'm happy with it!

The concept became this sort of sorceress taking a break from her daily tasks by going on an evening dip on a lake :D If you're interested in the process of this piece, I have the PSD process up on my Gumroad here!

Hope you like it! Have a great weekend <3

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August 15, 2018

Butterfly Collector | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, August 15, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! <3

Here's another digital painting for this week! Surprisingly enough, this one didn't took me that long - I sketched it out last night and was able to color block most of the piece. Today I just fully rendered it and took care of the background.

I usually have no idea on what I'll paint next, but for this digital painting, the setting and theme had already crossed my mind a few days ago, which already is a good start when we want to paint something! :)

If you're interested in the process of this piece, I have the fully layered PSD file and the step by step png up on my Gumroad here!

I hope you like it and that you're having a great week so far! See you soon! <3

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August 13, 2018

Wind Ambassador | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, August 13, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone! I hope you had an awesome weekend! <3

Phew, finally I was able to finish a digital piece! This digital painting is the final result of a black and white sketch from my previous post. I love working from a shaded sketch, but I usually leave it with little to no detail as I prefer to think about them once I'm in the coloring process.

I don't know why, but last week I felt a bit uninspired to paint - However, this weekend I was so motivated to work on this piece! I've been incorporating textured images into my paintings and it really gives it a breath of fresh air into the working process. I had a blast coming up with her outfit and rendering it in a more of a painterly style :)

If you're interested in the process of this piece, I have up on my Gumroad the full layered PSD file as well as the full res pic here!

I hope you like it and I'll see you soon! <3

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August 11, 2018

A Work In Progress | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Saturday, August 11, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

These last two days weren't the greatest for me, so unfortunately I wasn't able to have a finished piece for today :c However, I tried my hardest to at least have something to show! So here's a black and white base that will be ready to color and add more details during this weekend.

I hope you have an awesome weekend and I'll be seeing you next week! <3

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August 8, 2018

Peaceful | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, August 08, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

I've been messing around with traditional art lately, so for today's digital painting I went with something smaller and a bit more simple than usual. It was still great practice and lots of fun, as I sometimes have trouble with the profile of the face.

I'll be sure to paint something a bit more complex than this portrait to post on friday, so make sure to come by! :)

I have up on my Gumroad the video process of this piece, as well as a step by step png and the full layered PSD! You can find it here!

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August 6, 2018

Mushroom House | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, August 06, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone! Hope you had a great weekend <3

I've been wanting to paint some backgrounds for quite some time now, but I love painting characters so much that everything else always gets pushed behind. For this piece, I wanted to go for a mushroom house that's in the water. I was going to add some sort of ghost/abstract silhouette, but it turned out a bit goofy :D

I hope you like it! See you soon <3

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August 3, 2018

Envision - Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Friday, August 03, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone!

Here's another experiment with textures! Besides textured PS brushes, I downloaded some free stock images to compose some cool effects. I'm actually loving this technique - and since it's new to me, it feels like a breath of fresh air after so many months painting daily.

The main idea for this character's outfit is that it has two whips in the back that can be charged from her headpiece :D I want to make proper concept art in the future and if the process of future digital paintings are as fun as this one was, I'll be very happy about it!!

Well, I hope you have a great weekend and I'll see you next week <3

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August 1, 2018

Summer - Digital Paiting Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, August 01, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone!

It finally feels like summer here where I live! This year the sun has taken quite a while to properly show up, so it's nice that it finally feels like summer time.

For this digital painting, I wanted to paint something water related. The initial concept was something a bit different than this. I had the character laying on the water, but I prefered this version so I could come up with a swimming suit and have it showing.

This piece was made a bit on a rush, but I hope you like it!

Hope you're having a great week so far and I'll see you soon! <3

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July 30, 2018

Texture | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, July 30, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! How was your weekend?

For this monday's digital painting, I decided to go for my most unused brushes on Photoshop and mess around with them! Even though I usually go for smooth finished pieces, some of my favorite artworks from other artists are highly textured pieces. I'm still not sure on how to achieve their results, but I'll get there some day.

The initial concept of this piece was supposed to be a nature sort of warrior with armor made out of leaves, but then I let go of the concept as I went and it turned into this. I hope you like it! <3

Hope you have a good one and I'll see you soon!

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July 28, 2018

Marceline and Hambo | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Saturday, July 28, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone!!

I feel so bad I missed friday's post, but this particular digital painting took me quite a while. Three full days of despair, pretty much :D

First, I was a bit indecisive about which Marceline's outfit to go for and to be hontest, during painting it I didn't have much hope for a good final result, since her clothes are relatively "normal". The thing is that fantasy outfits usually make a big impact on a painting and I was a afraid I wouldn't achieve a result that I would like without a cool outfit!

Her bass was also a bit difficult to work with. It's still not perfect at all, but it was nice to paint something that I haven't dared to paint before.

Either way, it was overall a fun piece to work on! :)

If you haven't seen my take on Princess Bubblegum and Lumpy, you can see it here! :)

I hope you like it and that you have an awesome weekend! See you soon <3

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July 25, 2018

Ruby | Birthstone Series - Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, July 25, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone!

Here's another illustration for my birthstone series! This month's birthstone is the ruby and it represents love, just like a few other birthstones. The general idea for this digital painting, was having a character that is a sort of goddess of love who restores broken hearts.

Initial idea was to have a proper sort of temple background, but due to lack of time so I could get this posted in time, I had to go the quicker route and go with a simple background :D

I hope you like it! Will see you soon <3

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July 23, 2018

Red | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, July 23, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hello everyone! How was your weekend?

For this monday's digital painting, I had something else planned but as I realised I wouldn't have finished it on time, I went ahead and painted a weird and alien-esque portrait :D I think I might use this in the future and make it feel a bit more completed since I liked how her head design turned out and her initial concept was supposed to be some nature creature!

I hope you like it and I'll see you soon! <3

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July 20, 2018

Lux | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Friday, July 20, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone!

Here's a quick portrait for today. There was really no specific theme/goal for this piece, other than me wanting to paint a portrait and somewhat come up with an outfit :D I didn't really have inspiration for the background, so I just went with something that would compliment her.

I will have the full process PSD up on my Gumroad tomorrow, if interested!

As always, I hope you have an amazing weekend and I'll see you next week! <3

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IG | YT | DevianArt | Gumroad | Prints

July 18, 2018

Princess Bubblegum and Lumpy Space Princess | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Wednesday, July 18, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone!

Since I haven't done fan art in a very long time and I got into Adventure time, I decided to paint Princess Bubblegum and Lumpy Space Princess! :D I decided to go with a semi realistic version of the two, and I found myself a bit overwhelmed with so many shades of pinks. I tried to make them work as best as I can and I think I've had enough of pink for a few days now :c

I have the full process PSD up on my Gumroad and prints available at my print shop, if interested! <3

I hope you like it and I'll see you soon! :D

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July 16, 2018

Mask | Digital Painting Art

starlingsnow Monday, July 16, 2018 art , 0 Comments

Hi everyone! How was your weekend?

For this monday's digital painting, I was inspired by Money Heist. I loved that show and today it randomly came to mind. I had a few troubles with the sketch phase since I forgot how easy to ruin a profile view of the face is. Thankfully it all came together as I went.

If you're interested, I have the full PSD file of this digital painting's process along with a step by step png on my Gumroad!

Also, I've already put together my print shop! :D For now I'm sticking with Inrpnt since I don't own a printer at the moment. I decided to upload my favorite pieces over there, but if you have any other suggestion from any previous digital paintings of mine that you'd like as a print, please let me know <3

I hope you have a great week ahed and I'll be seeing you soon!

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IG | YT | DevianArt | Gumroad | Print Shop

September 17, 2018

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