TUTORIAL- PART ONE: FIRE/SMOKE/SPIRIT EFFECTS

notice: this is not the only way! this is just my preference of doing it :)

(the program i use is firealpaca/medibang!)

1) alright! so, you have your drawing-

for this tutorial, i'll be adding fire/smoke to the dragon's mouth!

2) so, now you go to google- and search up whatever effect you want. for this one, i'll search up "smoke" on google images.

okay! so now you've got a handful of things to choose from!

NOTICE: ONLY USE EFFECTS WITH BLACK BACKGROUNDS (you'll see the use later)!

so, i've found a pretty nice image!

now copy it (right-click>copy)!

3) now that you've got your image, let's go back to our drawing and then paste it onto the drawing-

okay! now for the handy thing- 

go to select>transform, or press ctrl+t-

and then press transform-

now you can resize it/move it! so move it and resize it to the approximate location and size you want it to be-

alright! now press "okay" (on the bottom right).

4) now for the magic.

see that thing on the right? the thing that says "blending"? 

change it to "screen"-

:OOOO

screen basically removes all black from a picture and preserves the rest- it's a bleSSING

5) okay! so now you've got this white smoke. but... it's white. 

so, how do you change its color? 

create a new layer above the smoke layer-

and take a brush with the color you want your effect to be (puRPLE foR MY BOI)-

and color over your effects-

and then, go to blending...

and set it to "overlay".

alas, but what about the purple outside? 

to get rid of it, go to the thing under the blending modes, "clipping group"-

and then turn it on!

Basically what clipping group does- it makes it so that the layer you're on does not go outside the layer below's barriers.

(this is super handy for shading and coloring too)!

now you've got your amazing effect!

BUT WAIT! we're not done just yet! it still looks weird!

this brings us to our final step-

6) merge down the "nEW LAYER" to the "sMOKE" layer-

yeah! now that it's merged, you can do hue/sat/brightness changes! so go to:

Filter>Hue

and now mess around with it until you like how it looks! (i also refined it a bit)

awesome! you've now got your effect, lookin' great!

7) warp!

if you don't like the shape of your effect, don't worry- "mesh transform" is a sAVIOR!

go to select>mesh transform.

now mess around until you're satisfied with the shape by draggin' the dots and warping it a ton!

sweET!

and of course, after this, you can add glow and other touch-ups! i hope this helps! next chapter will be:

ANATOMY

good luck with your creations! (bonus: tag me if you create anything using this tutorial! :D)