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What's up ya'll! As I was thinking of what I was going to draw next, a friend of mine brought up this drawing I did almost 2 years ago. I was so happy I could finally point out what made my old drawing odd. After a bunch of attempts on exploring other techniques, I guess it's kind of paying off :3

For years, I have stayed in my comfort zone, drawing nothing but anime characters in anime style (which didn't have noses, by the way). I always dismissed the thought of trying a bit of realistic-ish drawings as I've really struggled in drawing noses. Joining steemit has really pushed me beyond my comfort zone. Aaaand, 2 years after my little attempt, I decided to recolor it again, or at least the face.

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2016 Luna

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Step by step ♥

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Sketch

As most drawings/paintings start, I started off with as sketch. I don't do much side views and noses. Seeing that I've tried to do both, I've must've taken lots of determination to get this one right haha

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Coloring the skin

Back then, I was afraid to use contrasting colors. When picking a color to use as shade, I choose the one closest to it. It was only a few months ago that the right contrasting colors would give life to your drawing. Tip to myself from few years ago: There's undo button, layers, opacity/fill and other bunch of stuff on Photoshop. Never be afraid to try out what's on your mind :D

In this one, you can barely see the different shades which made the color pretty dead/dull.

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Coloring the eyes and lips

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You probably thought these were the same images, didn't you? That's where you're wrong. If you look closely, the eyes and mouth had a little color on them. The fact that most of you probably didn't notice the changes is the main reason why you should aim to make your colors pop out. That way, they won't go unnoticed.

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Coloring the gears

I'm pretty happy with Luna's clothing so I didn't change much about it (actually didn't change anything at all just the contrast and lighting). I even had these pretty cool details back then. I mean, she fights wars. Her gears must be at least scratched a little, right?

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The cool thing about layers is that you get to be as careless as you want without damaging other layers (not that I'm saying it's fine to be careless). Check this one out:

Notice how carelessly I colored the blue part of the suit. Then it gets entirely covered by the black part and no one would even know that it's that messy in the back ;)

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For the nice errr strings on the helmet, I used a customized brush. The default brushes didn't look much like strings so I made my own brush (if I remember it right).

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Coloring the background ♥

I filled the background with dark blue and with a few shades lighter, I tried to make the belt of stars ♥

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A bit more details on the gear and tada! Again, it may not be visible but I tried to add a few light on the parts facing the starry night and yet again failed as I did it too little to be noticable.

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Makeover!

When you do makeovers, where do you usually start? The least appealing parts which in this case is the face. So I completely removed the entire face before starting the recoloring haha

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Luckily for me, I organized them neatly in folders as seen above. One click of a button, and the entire face is hidden. Convenient!

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In this one, I used a bit more darker colors and did an attempt on a nice nose. I was really happy with my nose :3

As for the lips, I used more light colors. I was afraid to use light colors on the lips back then as I didn't want Luna to look girly. She's a warrior!

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Coloring the eyes and brows

I just discovered this technique with the brows while I was experimenting and I think it's a lot better than the thin one I made back in 2016. Anime characters had really thin brows (some even have just a line for brows) so I didn't know how to draw brows back then. I'm really happy with how this brow turned out and I can't wait to share it with you guys soon n_n

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Color adjustments \o/

There's a quick remedy for dull colors. Adjustment curves! With this little tool, I got that nice effect I wanted n_n

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I could've ended there but I wasn't satisfied with the stars. So, I decided to make everything else darker to make the stars brighter by creating another layer and filling it with gradient color, then changing the blending mode to 'Overlay'.

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Final:

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I'm reaaally happy how this recolor worked out! The best thing about seeing your old stuff is you get to see how much you've learned; and from that, you will be motivated to learn more, to improve, and to further explore your capabilities.

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That's about it!

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Thank You!

I hope you guys enjoyed this one as well!
Feel free to comment any tips or suggestions. It will be greatly appreciated! If you liked the content, please leave an upvote. For more, please follow @kothy.

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All images were drawn and edited by @kothy

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