[gardog]

This entire piece is just... so well done, omg :000

[Immortalkitten]

Thank you all so much!

I like how you made the flames look!
Also need to know if the cat got out safely >_>

You'll be happy to know that the cat will be 100% okay! The books, on the other hand...

kitty <3 Love the setting with all the details and im very curious about eye symbol repeated everywhere (maybe the god?). super pretty and makes me super curious about the story ^^

I'm glad you like it! The eye symbol is definitely an important motif in this story. It's both the emblem of a cult playing with powers they should leave alone and a recurring ancient symbol that appears throughout history if you look closely enough. This guy is the unfortunate target of the cult's fixation, and suffers for it.

[Immortalkitten]

I would kill for a flames tutorial by you!

I don't think I'll make an oekaki guide, but I can give a little breakdown.

I start by blocking out the basic shapes with a large pen, mostly focusing on composition and the flow of the flames, few details.
I fill in the shapes with a solid color and add the smaller edges as I go, making the overall silhouette of the flames. I rely more on pen pressure than manually planning each flicker. I break up solid chunks with the eraser as well.

After that, I lock alpha and pick two or three more colors and start layering them in, following the flow of the flames.
Typically, yellows and whites should be in the deeper areas, as they are the hottest parts of a flame, with darker oranges and reds fading out to the edges. But I find that putting lighter colors on the edges helps it stand out in monochrome.

Once I have the colors in place, I duplicate the layer twice - for the first copy, I add just a little gaussian blur to soften the edges, and usually set the layer to overlay. For the second, I add a much larger ambient blur. I lower the opacity of both of these.

For more realistic flames, I do all of this with an opacity-pressure brush to keep everything soft and airy. For more dramatic comic flames like above, I just use a hard edge brush.

An additional tip I've found when coloring in monochrome is to add a solid color layer over everything set to vivid light, around 40% opacity. That gives it the effect I use here. It's a good way to add a sepia tone as well.