Attempting the Glow Effect
Have you seen those reels where artists do a simple drawing in white paint pen, then outline it and make it look like a really cool neon effect?
Like this one by NashVibes Art
Or this one, by Gaspi Mendoza
The process looks fairly simple: white drawing on black paper, outline with a light version of a colour, then again with a darker version of that colour.
So that's what I did.
Except it didn't look quite right. It's okay I guess, but I wanted to do better. Maybe the white wasn't thick or consistent enough? Maybe the blues weren't contrasting enough? So I got out some more paint pens.
Even if I accepted the neon bit, I couldn't get over the messy white line. So I tried drawing the colours first, then doing the white afterwards.
Then I switched colours and spent some time experimenting with different line thicknesses and methods.
Then I did even more doodling and swatching.
Now, that one on the bottom right there. the arc? There are two things I like about it. The nice consistent white line (even if it is a little thin), and the pencil halo.
That's the trick!
When you look at a lot of those videos, they don't show themselves using any pencil. But in some of them you can pause on the final image and see a pencil halo. And in this one by Celyn Haf, you can actually see the pencil being added.
So that's what I did. I drew my image in a light coloured paint pen - in this case purple. Then I outlined it in a darker purple. Then I added a halo in pencil. And finally, a thin white core.
It's not perfect, but I was happy to call this experiment concluded.
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Now you'll notice that the dates on these art pieces are way back in January. This is because I have a bad habit of doing blog projects and not writing the blogs for months (sometimes even years). I'm writing this post in August and I thought I'd have another go at this glow neon effect.
Except that it didn't go too well.
I did manage to narrow down a white pen I like, and two blues.
I even established that drawing a monster was a waste of time. I'd just do something abstract.
Okay maybe not. I'm not the steadiest when following lines by hand. I HATE inking sketches I've done traditionally - what on earth made me think this would be easy?
I tried some straight lines.
Also nope. I was ready to give up. But I wanted to prove that the neon thing worked. So I grabbed my iPad.
I just used it as a canvas - no fancy digital art editing or anything. All I did that I couldn't have done with paper and pen, was use layers. Look, I even downloaded the time lapse for proof.
And it doesn't look too bad. But the unsteadyness of the lines did annoy me a little, so I went full digital. Outline tools and gaussian blur and everything.
And now I'm accepting that I'll never get the neon thing down and moving on.
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