Digital Art: Blending & Layers

As technology advances, so does the potential of digital art. Many artists nowadays are trying out digital art as a medium of such to do art. However, the transition from a traditional medium to a digital one is not always smooth. Though there are a lot of skills and instincts that are transferable to digital art, there are many aspects of digital art that must be known to help beginners have a better ground on learning digital art.

I’m here to give a few tips and tricks that can be very useful to beginning digital artists! I have experience with the digital medium for five years now so I know the basics pretty well. Some of the advice stated here is directed to beginners only. However, I hope experienced people in the medium could learn a bit more from this!

- V Mokhtar, Staff 2020-2021

On Blending

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On Blending

Your digital program is built to have a lot of functions to help artists. Do not be afraid to use them! Do not trust people who say it is considered cheating to use these tools. Traditional art has separate difficulties from digital art. One such tool is blending modes. Use blending modes to bring out greater colors in your drawing.

Fig. 1. Comparison between using your own palette only vs. using blending modes.

In Figure 1, I used the same flat colors to make both drawings and blending modes really help elevate the drawing! Blending modes help in digital art and you should not be afraid to use them! Using blending modes also helped keep a more consistent tone throughout the shading and lighting process. This can really help a drawing or painting since there are occasions wherein diverting to a different tone ends up looking distracting rather than appealing.

Of course, as you grow more as an artist, you can master your own sense of color. With enough practice you can color pick your own palettes. However, I still strongly advise using blending modes since it takes a very long time to reach that level of skill in color. Blending modes can also give you results better than you expected!

Here is a quick rundown on different blending modes. I used the same shade of red at 100% opacity to demonstrate what it looks like with different blending modes and how much variety can be achieved. There are many other blending modes that are not listed here but the ones stated are the most common ones.

Here is a quick rundown on different blending modes. I used the same shade of red at 100% opacity to demonstrate what it looks like with different blending modes and how much variety can be achieved. There are many other blending modes that are not listed here but the ones stated are the most common ones.

Normal

The default mode that does not alter the colors in any way.

Add

A blending mode that adds light onto the color below. This is the preferred blending mode to use for lighting because of its strength. I suggest experimenting with colors that would work best for you with this blending mode because some values are very strong and may not be the effect you want.

NOTE: You can also use dark colors such as burgundy (#800020) if you want to achieve a softer light without using screen. The only color not viable for the add layer is black (#000000).

Multiply

A blending mode that uses the color on the current layer to darken the colors below. It is an excellent mode to use for shading.

NOTE: You don't need to make a color "dark" to use the multiply layer. It is completely possible to use bright colors like powder pink (#eec4c9) in shading if that is what you're looking for. The only color you cannot use is white (#FFFFFF).

Color Burn

A blending mode that "burns" the color on the current layer onto the colors below. This blending mode typically serves as a shading layer but the value of the shade would depend on the value of the color below. The explanation is convoluted so it's a blend mode best experimented with hands-on. This blending mode is seldom used but there are times where it serves as the better shading mode depending on what the artist is looking for.

Color

Changes the hue of the layer below to the hue of the current layer. This is extremely useful if you made an error in the color used and you want to change the color without erasing all the effects you have done on the layers below.

Overlay

A blending mode that "overlays" the colors below with the colors on the current layer. It is good for doing light tone adjustments such as the temperature of the painting. Depending on how you use this, overlay can serve as both a darkening or lightening layer. However, for you to fully understand this I suggest you experiment on your own.

Screen

A blending mode that adds a soft light onto the color below. The light produced by a screen layer is not as strong as the add layer and is not as frequently used. However, I personally think screen is a great layer mode if you want a faint light effect or a good, soft backlight to emphasize a figure.

Please do take note that while these blending modes serve the same function universally across all programs, the product produced may differ depending on the art program used. Of course, this wouldn’t be a problem if you use only one art program. However, if you are the type to frequently switch programs when drawing you need to be more careful about importing a drawing.

To provide an example, many artists switch programs for different purposes such as working with MediBang Paint then switching to Photoshop for color edits. Usually, the universal file that these art programs all use .psd to avoid any complications. However, there are times wherein the values differ depending on your art program. Below is an example of such when it happened with me.

Fig. 2. A drawing using the same file with different programs. The left from ibisPaintX and the right one from photoshop. No modifications were made in-between programs.

As you can see in Figure 2, even though I used the same file type and blending modes the look of the painting changed. I can only assume it is dependent on how the program is coded affecting the way blending modes work across platforms. Of course, there are ways to bypass this problem such as saving it in .png format (but sacrificing the layers and compressing it into one). Just to be safe, I personally suggest you make the whole drawing/painting in one program then once you’re done with everything export it in a .png to an editing software for final adjustments.

On Clipping Layers

The concept of organization has never been easier in digital art. Layers are used by artists to separate where you place images. Other than that, layers also have another function: clipping layers. If you aren’t fond of trying to draw inside the line, clipping layers ease the difficulty. Clipping layers will reference the layer below it as a guide on where you are allowed to color.

Fig. 3. A comparison between not clipping layers (left) and clipping layers (right).

As seen in Figure 3, the clipping layers prevented the colors in layer 4 from going off the border of the line art. Clipping layers are extremely useful in keeping a drawing clean. Clipping layers can also greatly improve your efficiency since you don’t need to worry about coloring within the border when adding flat colors. It is also important to note that you can stack multiple clipping layers and they all will have the same base layer.

Fig. 4. An example of stacking multiple clipping layers onto one base layer.

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