KAWACY’s 

HYRULE WARRIORS COMPLETE PROGRESS GUIDE

Please understand that English is not my first language. So, i am very sorry for any
grammatical errors and/or weird spelling.

WARNING!

Please do not repost or redistribute or make this file visible to anyone who is not a patron.
I made this special for you who paid ^^ Thank You !

This is a complete progress shot guide of one of my artworks:

Link [The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors]

INSPIRATION

Inspiration came right when The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Warriors game trailer was released.
I was a big fan of Link and I am still. Particularly I fell in love with the blue scarf he was
wearing in the trailer and I wanted to draw him wearing it so bad.

One of the artists who has inspired me and gave me motivation to draw so many Links was
mmimmzel. Her drawings in general have always been top-notch in my opinion but
especially her drawings of Link from TLoZ series.
But this time, there weren't really any specific artworks that inspired me with my character's
pose or lighting, unlike usual.

I specifically searched for some sword poses and some magic effects to be set as references.
But then again it's probably because this was such an old artwork. I drew this Hyrule
Warriors fanart back in September 2014. So my "Inspiration" folders weren't as many as
now and I often to just googled my inspiration or references.

Take a peek at my "Inspiration" folders now. They're more than 3000 images in total now. :)

It's always nice to save drawings from artists you love and study directly from their works.
You'd find yourself to improve most from doing that compared to studying at an art college.
But it's also important to learn the basics at college, just don't expect them to teach you all
the specific things you want to learn in art because most of the time they would just teach
you art in general. And I speak from experience. Good luck and most importantly, keep
practicing!
PROGRESS WITH EXPLANATION
Note: I draw using both programs: Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop.

1. Rough sketch.

While looking at the provided references, I created my sketch. My tablet pen slid smoothly
somehow and this was one of the neatest rough sketches I have ever done in my life and I
was proud of it.

Brush settings for sketching.

(Notice that at that time, I didn’t have

my usual ‘Dry Brush’ textured Brush Tool
so I used the default ‘Simple circle’
instead.)
If you’re having a hard time to draw object perspective for example a sword, I have a simple
trick for you.

Just draw the object with a normal angle and then click ‘Ctrl+T’ to Transform it. Then, pick
the ‘Free Deform’ or ‘Distort’ option to have the object in the angle you like.

Because that’s what I did here with the exception I redrew the sword and made the already
angled sword my base.
 2. Lineart.

Yeah, I don’t know why I would draw lineart over such a beautiful sketch. I mean nowadays,
if I succeed with drawing such neat sketch I would skip the ‘Lineart’ step and would just go
straight into coloring.

First reason would be because I often ruin my sketch by giving it too thin or too clean lines.
If you’re confused of what I mean, it feels exactly like this.
Second, it would be faster to just go straight into coloring and fix a bit of the messy sketch
lines later.

Anyway since this artwork was drawn years ago, my drawing method surely differed from
my current one. So let’s just accept and move on.

After sketching, came the Lineart step. This was the step where I ‘Lineart’-ed everything to
create even tidier and neater lines so I could minimize the errors and the fixing for when I
color later.

Still, don’t forget about the importance to have variation between thick and thin lines in a
Lineart.

This helps to create volume in your drawing.

After that, I separated the character from the background by making a base under the
Lineart layer.

And it’s still with the exact same ‘Base’ brush settings as usual.
 3. Base coloring.

I separated the main base layer I made earlier into some sub-base layers and grouped them
by colors.

Although back then, I didn’t group the sub-base layers as much as now. I mean now; I would
also separate the hair, the face, and the eyes. That’s because my motto back then was “The
less layers the better” and besides my one-layer-painting game was still going strong.

Anyway as always, the main purpose of doing this was to prevent any shading to bleed
outside lineart and it’s easier to paint everything step by step or part by part.
Also, this was the base color palette transformation for my version of Link.

As you can see, I’m not really a fan of saturated colors even to this day. I’d always pick pale
or pastel color palette over anything. But this only applies for when I choose base colors
since for shading or for when painting details, I would combine both saturated and
unsaturated colors.

But having the interest in saturated or very strong color palettes isn’t always bad. Take
these artists for example.

It just depends on how well you blend your colors.

 4. Base shading.

After that, I entered the step where I had to add very soft shading all over the character as a
start before I began the real painting process. This was to provide all colors needed for
blending later.

This was done using my usual soft Airbrush Tool. Sometimes I used Gradient Tool in
Photoshop to shade bigger parts.
Before picking colors for shading and highlights, I would always rotate my color wheel first
to have richer and livelier color palette instead of monotonous one.

See the difference between the two types of coloring below? Focus on the “white” color
family for good example.
None of them are wrong or ugly though. Nothing is wrong in art. It’s just a matter of taste
and perspective.

This is how I would usually rotate my color wheel for shading and highlights.
Conclusion: Group of colors like green, yellow, and red I would use most for highlights;
while the complete opposite group of colors like blue, cyan, and purple I would use most for
shadows.

5. Detailing.

After the base colors were all provided in the last step, it’s time for some real painting.

In this step, I roughly shaped everything using a Marker Tool just to give basic shapes to
everything or a ‘guide’ you may call it, which later these would make the ‘Polishing’ step
way much easier.

Please take a look at the mini step-by-steps provided below to see my painting progress.

Detailing eyes.
Link’s eyes are very unique and iconic especially with those sharp eyelashes. So I tried very
hard to stick to his original eyes design by keeping his eyes shape as well as eyelashes and
only mixed a little bit of my style there.

Detailing hair.

I know my hair painting never looked very realistic but that’s because I’ve never aimed for
realism. So please bear with me.
I’ve made a free version of full step-by-step progress for painting hair in the past. I’m putting
it here again in case you’ve missed it.

The usual complete Marker Tool settings for detailing.

Brush size varied from 9px to

5px depending on how small
the details are.
 6. More detailing.

So I entered Level 2 of detailing where I gave more accurate shape to the rough shaping I’ve
done earlier but still with the exact same Marker Tool settings.

Detailing fabric.

I remember to keep it simple and flat when it came to painting fabrics because I didn’t want
my fabrics too 3D or too bulky. I wanted them as flat as I could with just few folds to show
that they’re flat and flowy materials.
These are some good fabric paintings and I’ve been using them as references lately. They
might help you too.

Detailing armor.

When it comes to painting metals, I always start with painting them very matte in the first
few steps and then add some glossy or shiny finish later on.

And that’s to avoid them looking like a brick or concrete.

In the background, you might notice I’ve added some grunge texture. The texture was
added instantly with a Photoshop brush. So no, I didn’t paint them or dot them manually
although it’s not impossible to do them by hands if only I had more free time.

7. Even more detailing.

This was the last step of detailing and I was making sure to cover everything here before I
moved to ‘Polishing’ step.
Because once I polish, I wouldn’t be able to go back to ‘Detailing’ step no more. If there are
mistakes, I’d be forced to fix them in the ‘Polishing’ layer and it wouldn’t be very practical.

Small mistakes are okay for ‘Polishing’ step but mistakes like fixing the position of the eyes
or making the head smaller or removing gloves etc. major mistakes like those are a big no
no because it would take a lot of work.

Detailing belt.

The belt material was thick so I made sure to give the edges of the belt some more volume
than the part in the middle to give out that thickness.
Detailing chainmail.

This took so much time and energy to make. I'm sure the current me would've done it
differently. I would've used the help of instant Photoshop brush to do the metal braids.

But honestly, the result of the hand-drawn chainmail compared to the instant one done
with Photoshop brush was far better and more natural in my opinion. It’s just that it’s taken
too much time to paint.
 8. Polishing.

As how I explained in my previous rewards, ‘Polishing’ step was where I painted over
everything. In other words, this was kind of the more advanced step of detailing where I
would paint even smaller details and because after this step there will be no more painting.

These mini step-by-steps below will show you how I polished everything. Please focus on
the last two steps to see the difference between ‘Detailing’ and ‘Polishing’.

Polishing eyes.
Polishing hair.

Polishing fabric.

As you can see, the end results show how very polished the objects are look after the
process as how the name of the step implies.

The magical wind surrounding the sword was drawn with a Pen Tool. Nothing too special
here, I just put some random thin strokes after creating a huge flowy line as the wind base.
Sometimes I would smudge the edges a little using Smudge Tool in Photoshop to create
much better flowy effect.
 9. More polishing.

Finally it has come to the last step of ‘Polishing’. Here still with the same Marker Tool
settings, there were no different painting methods than the ones in the previous step.
Clearly it’s just the continuation of everything.

Polishing armor.

The armor sample here wasn’t as shiny as in the actual artwork. That’s because I wanted to
show you more of how I drew cracks in objects. Just add more whites and sparkles, if you’d
like to make one very shiny armor.
Polishing belt.

Polishing chainmail.
Also, here I added inner outlines for the wind and added some blinding glow to make it look
more magical.

And that’s all for ‘Polishing’. Now let’s leave Paint Tool SAI and move on to the last step of
all.

10. Finishing.

All the effects that were added in this step were done using Photoshop CS4 painting
program. Paint Tool SAI didn’t really have the complete tools for finishing effect. So that’s
why I felt the need to use both programs in order to create an artwork with higher quality.
The magical rainbow dots you see here were actually done with a self-made Photoshop
brush. So no, I didn’t paint them manually one by one. What I did was I just set one simple
circle as a Brush sample then I scattered the circles all over the magical wind.

I used a huge sparkle stock file for the title which I have attached for this month’s bonus file.

Filter > Blur > Lens blur… for some depth.

I added a bit of light gradient on the bottom right of the artwork to create even more depth.

I did some color adjustments on this artwork including Color Balance Adjustment Layer
which I rarely do nowadays because I don’t really want to ruin my original painting color
anymore. Recently I would only use Brightness/Contrast Adjustment Layer, but I’ve seen a
lot of artists still use the Color Balance Adjustment Layer to achieve prettier color palette, so
I might consider using it again in the future.
I gave it really subtle 3D effect on the corners of the artwork. It’s really soft so you can’t
almost see it unless you pay very close attention to it.

If you want effect similar to this one, you can mess a bit with the RGB channels tab in your
artwork.

As for last finishing touch, I added some texture to give the impression of a more detailed
looking artwork. I wanted to have the texture really subtle so I turned the Layer Opacity
really low.
The texture I used here was my usual grunge texture. You see, this texture file has been with
me for so long and I’ve used it for various artworks throughout the years especially artworks
with horror genre.

You can search for textures similar to this one on Google or you can even make your own
textures by taking photos of your surrounding objects like wall with cracks, dust, wooden
table texture, etc.

That’s all for the explanation this month! Thank you so much for your support and I hope to
see you again next month for more interesting rewards! 

January 2018: Complete progress shot guide by Kawacy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2018 