[castiiian]

as promised, here's a tutorial for how to do fur patterns like this!
if you have any questions, please leave em below for me to see!

notice, i'm using chickenpaint v2! your mileage may vary if you're using a different program!
obligatory guide to oekaki here

1. choose colors, lay down your base

if you want your base to have an established pattern (like stripes, spots) do so now while coloring your base!

personally i have only tried this technique with a limited amount of colors (3-4),
but it should be possible to use whatever colors and as many colors as you like!

if you have a hard time choosing colors, you can stick to black and white and instead practice only using values (dark and light)
later on, you can use a color mode (like "overlay") to colorize your artwork in cs,
or drag your artwork to another program where you can color it instead!

be aware that the next step is blending (during which new colors are created and some colors might not "blend well"!)

2. blend

i blended here using the default watercolor brush!

if you have difficulty using the watercolor brush,
you can alternatively try a low opacity pencil/pen, the air brush, or a soft edge eraser.

i blended on the base layer, but we'll be doing the "fur strokes" on a new layer above
(taking advantage of "clipping" layers, to keep our brush strokes within our base!)

i like to leave some "brush strokes" of my blending tool visible to make the base more visually interesting!
but you can try for a more smooth gradient if you prefer the look of that

creating a nice base is a super essential step!
for more realistic animal coats, you should follow the anatomy of your subject
for example, coloring the "upper coat" darker and the "undercoat" lighter

be sure to account for your patterns too, don't blend them out too much or they might lose their shape!

3. following the fur direction, start adding brush strokes

make a new layer above your base, this is where you'll add your individual fur strokes!

using a small brush with size sensitivity and opacity sensitivity
i'll go between each section of color, using the base colors i've already set down
varying the size and opacity, i add small lines of color

for longer fur, i'll draw longer strokes
for shorter fur, you should draw shorter strokes

eventually, i will use the color picker between strokes to add more variation in color
using the blended colors we created during step 2 to "blend" out sections
you don't need to color pick often if you remain in areas of "similar" color

i also like to use the soft edge eraser to lower the opacity of some strokes,
and to soften the tips of some strokes to make them blend better into the base

if you do not have a tablet or pressure sensitivity,
you can manually adjust your brush and eraser to change the size and opacity
i also recommend using the soft edge eraser often to create more "variation" of opacity with less effort!

4. keep going, keep adding fur

be patient here, this is a time consuming step, but well worth the wait!

basically, keep going with step 3 until you've filled out your whole base (or are otherwise satisfied with it!)

5. duplicate your strokes layer and box blur it

here i just duplicated my strokes layer (i used 1 layer for all my brush strokes)
then i used the default box blur (find box bur underneath the "effects" menu at the top)

skip this step if you prefer the plain look and rather not blur it!

6. lower opacity of box blur

here, i set the opacity of the blurred strokes layer to about 50%
experiment and see what opacity you like best!

7. add brush strokes outside the lines

optionally, for more realism and to make your subject look fluffy,
you can add a layer atop your lines and color pick from your fur to add a few brush strokes outside the lines!

[castiiian]

tutorial for my collection!!

[castiiian]

thank you for this!!

[castiiian]

ooooh,, this is gonna be very useful, thank you for the tutorial!

[castiiian]

This is awesome, I'm definately using this! Thank you so much! <33

[castiiian]

i am. ridiculously late BUT this is actually so cool !! might try my hand at this when i get a chance. i have a bunch of cats now hehe so that wont be a problem >:3 i dont have pen pressure myself and dont have the motivation to erase each stroke lol but will try it out hehe, thanks for the tutorial! <3