by Melonbread » Mon Apr 20, 2026 7:23 am
Quick little basics of how I render metals on oekaki. Posting this in editables so people can snoop my layers if they want to, I hope that's alright!
#1 thing to remember with (polished) metal is that it's very reflective, so it shows a lot of bright, relatively crisp bounce light. The closer it is to another surface, the brighter that reflected light is! This also makes it really easy to see texture in it, such as scratches or brushwork (in the case of gilded objects).
All of my highlights here are yellow because the gold is the only thing in the drawing, but if there were something else there I'd probably go in with a soft brush on Overlay or Vivid Light for more reflections. As always, this is mostly a suggestion that can and should be tweaked, simplified, or built upon to suit the need.