Hello, Hive friends!✨It's me, 
Left photos was taken directly from my saved game and right was drawn by yours truly; edited using Canva
Step 1: Sketch and Line art
Let me be honest. Backgrounds aren’t my strong suit (I’m still working on that!), so I focused entirely on drawing or painting Sebastian in this piece.
I started by sketching his proportions using Krita’s pencil-hard brush. Since this was just the sketch layer, my lines are still wobbly and messy—utterly regular at this stage. Once I was satisfied with the sketch, I tried to refine it into cleaner line art (which I am also bad at). The stabilizer tool was a lifesaver, though, as it somehow helped me smoothen my lines, especially in areas where I wanted them to look soft.
Step 2: Base Colors
The fill bucket or the fill tool sounds cool, but since I’m not that good at using it, I’m sticking with the plain old basic brush to fill in the basic color. Of course, I stayed true to Sebastian’s in-game colors—purple, black, navy blue, and a pale skin tone—on separate layers since they will be added to layers like his skin, hair, and hoodie. I personally love this method as it allows me to tweak individual elements later more easily.
And the reason why I wanted to tweak some things is because I'm also messy at laying down the foundations (basic colors). But I promise, I clean it up later, hahaha.
Step 3: Adding Shadows and Highlights
For shading, I used the brush “Bristles-Glaze 4” and just tweaked its opacity depending on whether I wanted the shade to be soft or hard. This technique helped me add depth and texture as I continued to mix and shade.
All the shading layers were set to multiply mode, which helped blend them naturally with the base colors. I focused on creating subtle contrasts to keep Sebastian’s emo design with his sweet personality, as shown in the game if you have more hearts with him.
Step 4: Using the Blend Modes
To achieve softer aesthetics, I used "soft light" or "lighten" to adjust the lighting and temperature of the character-- so even if it doesn’t have a background, the audience could still tell what the weather is and what time it is just by looking at the character. It is still quite challenging for me though, but I'm so happy I pulled it off!
Step 5: Rendering
Finally, this is my favorite part of the process. Rendering just means refining the small details to have big impact on the piece (that is according to me). This step involved sharpening the edges, cleaning the line art, tweaking the colors, shades, and highlights, and adding more textures. I really don’t know how to explain what happens during the rendering process; it’s just that sometimes magic happens during the process as you keep on tweaking and adjusting things.
Final Output:
Tadaa! Here’s my version of Sebastian. I was pretty satisfied with the results and think that I did give justice by painting him in this style.
Software and materials used:
- Krita
- XP-Pen Deco 01 Ver 02
Thanks for reading! I will be posting more fanatics soon. Until next time, keep discovering and creating!✨