Skins and Accents

Hello, guys! I love drawing, and I was thinking of making skins and accents to earn some cash here on FR!

Does anyone have any tips or advice that might be useful for someone who's never done one? lol The programs I use are FireAlpaca & Painter (that support layering).

What are some techniques that look good on accents? How do you make ones that look good? How do you make ones that alter the actual lineart, like this one?



Anything is appreciated!

@Disruptive
I don't have any tips for the programs you use unfortunately, I use paint tool sai. Most programs should be good to go as long as they support layering and have the "multiply" layer effect for the shadow layer.

There aren't many "techniques" for accents, as they're really just your own art and style slapped on a dragon. :D
I can give you some general tips though:
- you ARE allowed to slightly edit the lines/shadow layers, as long as they remain intact and noticeably darker than the colors below. That means if you have a light pink skin, you can change the hue of the lines and shadows to be a dark pink instead of the black/grey they usually are. This can help your colors pop out more.
- If you draw without the lines/shadows layers turned on, I'd check how your skin looks with them on once in a while. Depending on the colors you're using, sometimes they will drastically dull or darken your colors if you don't double check often.
- keep in mind where the lines and shadows are, and see if you can incorporate them into your skin! Since they have to be there anyways, see if you can line up a straight line from a wing with the sword in your accent, or let the bundle of roses end at where the shadows begin. This can make those layers less obvious, while still complying perfectly with the skin rules!

And finally, the skin you showed doesn't actually alter the lineart -- if you look carefully, it still exists over the skin. This skin is basically just a skin with flat whites covering everything except for where the train is. That way, your dragon's original colors show through and the white will sort of camouflage into the white background of the website, making a sort of illusion that the rest of the dragon isn't there. c:

Have fun and good luck! :D

@Succulents

Wow, that's actually pretty helpful!
I'll totally use these! I didn't know you could change the color of the lineart - I thought that was outside the rules! lol

Thanks so much!