IPAD PAINTING MADE EASY - Pacific Islands landscape tutorial in Procreate

On this channel I specialize in making really complex looking images easy to create. So just follow along with my step-by-step tutorial of this painting and you will amaze yourself. So you can probably apply most of the process and techniques to a different app or whatever tablet you happen to be using. Having said that I am using the app Procreate on the iPad and as such it's 297 by 210 millimeters at 300 dpi. In terms of the colors I have pre-selected some colors in this area. Each of the colors has what we called a hexadecimal code related to each color. Each code is listed down in the video description. Type them in here one at a time and press enter. The color appears up here then you can just tap it together and create your own. There is also a link that takes you to my Patreon page and you can download the color file there for free. In terms of the brushes I'm going to be using today I'm going to be using mainly within airbrushing the soft brush and the medium brush at the top of the list. I'm also going to be using within the organics the rainforest brush and then I may introduce a couple of different textures later on but I'm yet to decide exactly what they're going to be. But I do use all the default brushes within the app anyway so you don't need to download or purchase any other brushes in order to follow along. If you like this kind of tutorial please make sure to give this video a thumbs up, hit the subscribe and also the bell notification to make sure you do get notified all the future videos that I do. With all that said and done let's get started so we can go to our first layer which is layer one. I'm just going to go to my first color from the top row and I'm just going to drag and drop into the canvas area to flood fill the entire canvas. So we've got a really nice blue to start with and without changing the first layer because it's just a flat color anyway I'm going to go to the second color and we're going to choose the color for the bottom part of the sky area. We're going to stay on airbrushing, soft brush. I'm going to put it to about 15 size and 100 opacity and then about two thirds of the way up. I'm just going to do a stripe all the way across, just go over it a couple times to neaten it up if need be. Then I'm going to go to my adjustments, gaussian blur and blur it in to about the 40 percent. Back to my layers and create a new layer. Look at my colors and I'm going to use this third color along on the top row and I'm going to use this to bring out some textures in the sky, some hazy kind of things. So we're going to stay on the soft brush and I'll put it down to about two percent size and much lower on the opacity now at about 20 percent. I'm just going to start bringing in some suggestion of kind of wisps and things in the background. I'm probably going to blur this in slightly so I don't get overly precious about it. I'm just sort of sliding my hand literally across the glass or across the screen and at the same time doing some taps and dashes just to kind of build in some texture here. It's a subtle feature and we're going to do some more distinct clouds over the top but I'm just keeping it relatively loose and it is set at 20 opacity but obviously if you're someone who presses on quite hard naturally then you might want to set that lower. I generally have quite a touch with the brush and hold it quite loosely. You can just build this up in a series of taps sort of dashes that generally I'm doing at a slight pitch a slight angle like this certainly for this side and maybe I could start to do slightly the opposite for the other side just to pitch it slightly differently why not and just draw the eye slightly and subtly more into the center area. So again just a series of kind of short dashes. I pressed on too much then so I can just dial it back. Be aware that if you are slightly heavy-handed then you could always just turn it down to like 10% and see how you go then see if that works better for you. You don't want to create any flat areas you don't want to overdo the texture you want it to be really quite subtle I'm going to do more prominent clouds immediately in front of it anyway. I'll just do a little bit more and just bring it up the other side just a tad as well and then tell you what we'll sharpen it up just a little bit so put it down to the lower part of 2% because there is quite a bit of wiggle room within even the same percentage and then I can just tap a bit more firmly a bit harder on the glass on the screen just to create some slight variation in texture some points maybe even put it back up to the 20% again and I can use that now just to build in just some slightly different things. Again we want to draw the eye into the focal area or more into the center perhaps we should just have a couple of sharper little things in the center area but not too much, something like that. We can go to the adjustments, Gaussian blur and just blur it in a little bit more to about the 3% just take slightly the edge of it literally and just think that works a little bit better. So we're going to go back to our layers and create a new layer, layer three and on this new layer I'm going to switch to the organic rainforest brush which I do prefer to use for cloud texture rather than the actual cloud texture that is featured within the app. I just think the rainforest brush does a better job. Back to my colors and I'm going to go for the very end color on this top row. I'm going to put the brush size to about 4% and the strength to about 50% and I'm just going to create a series of cloud textures that run across this section near the top and again I'm just doing a little bit of a few taps to allow some sections to just merge up into the higher parts and I'm keeping it relatively random still, just a few series of dots. There's just a section of cloud there that is much closer to us and I'm just getting that down as a base layer. Then I can go to the next color coming from the right hand side so the second from the right. I'm going to put it down to 3% size and really quite low at about 20% strength opacity and in and around those areas I'm just going to start creating some shadows and sections within that cloud that really are just creating some darkness. You don't need to do it for every part of it but you certainly need to just start building in some of that too. Again you don't need to overdo this, something like that will do initially. I'm going to create another layer on top, go back to my colours and use this white or it's nearer white, it's not pure white but it's pretty close. I'm going to turn it down to 1% put it up to 50% strength opacity and I'm going to use this now over the top of the things we've just done just to pick out some of the shapes along this top edge. So I'm going to be a bit more precise initially which is why I put it down to the 1% and I'm just going around the top edge of some of these shapes just picking them out. I mean there's even an argument for going back to the airbrushing and the soft brush doing it with that so you can be really controlled down to the lower part of 2% 50% on that and just tightly controlling around this very edge and even lower than that on the sides actually so down to the 1% and the airbrushing too and you can just really go around some of this top edge. We have some shapes created for us by the rainforest brush so we can use that as our guide and just go around and sharply define and tidy up that edge with this brush now just give it a really nice sharpness and contrast so we've got that dark colour then the lighter colour over the top and we can just go along and create that for the top edge and like I say just look out for textures that are subtly already there and just use them as a springboard to create the shapes that you think will look good and don't try and copy the exact shapes that I'm doing because clouds change from minute to minute hour to hour every single day you're going to get a completely unique set of clouds so there's nothing to say that your set of clouds need to look like the same shapes as mine so I'm just giving you a rough sense of how to start to build it up and we could flip back to the organic forest brush put it up more to about the top end of 2% and keep it at the 50% strength opacity and we can start building in a bit more of this now into this area perhaps now we can start bringing some of this texture down overlaying so you're going to get some of the shadow in some bits but then you can go over the top and just mute it with some highlights we don't want either the highlights or the dark shadows to really overpower so you want a combination of the two so you can just go in and tap on and around this just to knock some of that back and really fragment and break it up bring some more over here as well doesn't have to be terribly tight in terms of texture it can be a little bit more vague and loose nothing wrong with that I'm just going to go to my adjustments causing blur and blur it in just a couple of percent so about 2% again go back in with the airbrushing soft brush and same settings as last time so still at the 1% size and 50% strength just go in and define where you feel you want to you can have some little breakaway sections perhaps just some extra strength clarity on some of these edges but not every single one you decide the level for your particular sky I'm just going to go to my smudge tool on the soft brush within the smudge have it at about 5% size about 70% strength and I'm just going to go in and just blur in slightly that bottom edge what we've already just created there just to soften that a little bit more now I'm going to create a new layer and go back to the second color from the right this darker blue with the soft brush set to 2% size and 20% opacity for this section certainly here slightly more central and off to the side I'm just going to sharpen up slightly the bottom edge just to give it a bit more weight often with clouds you'll get a heavier or rather flatter bottom edge and we can get some distinct lines of shadow on the bottom part maybe have it sort of stop and run out of steam over here something like this and again we can go with the white and the highlights just go in and intersperse that with some white as well I'm just going to do the same over here but not so much dashes more slightly more blobs on the so we're just creating some slight variation of different textures and the overall effect so they can emerge together so something like that to begin with I'm just going to go back to layer two with my soft brush with that light color at around 10% size and 10% opacity strength and I'm just going to build in a little bit more white for the background there too so I'm just doing it directly over the top of those clouds just brings it together a little bit more I think that works quite nicely so just a few times like that but now I'm going to move on so I'm going to go to the top layer and create a new layer back to my colors so I've used all the top row colors initially I will come back to use one or two of them as reflected colors in the ocean but I'm going to go for the first color on the middle row to begin with and I'm going to go for the selection tool and the rectangle and just below those clouds I'm going to draw my rectangular box like so so it selected all this bottom area and I'm just going to drag and flood fill that area with our color and then I'm going to go to my adjustments causing blur and just blur it in to about three percent and that's creating our horizon line I'm going to create a layer above go back to my colors I'm going to use the second color from the middle row with the soft brush set to 20 size 100 opacity I'm going to do the bottom edge and stop about halfway I'm going to go to the adjustments Gaussian blur and I'm going to blur it in to about 60 I'm going to create a new layer I'm going to go for the second color on the top row and with the soft brush set to the lowest part of two percent just before it turns it into one I'm going to put it at around 80 strength and opacity and I'm going to find a point over here and I'm just going to draw a line all the way across but then crucially not let go of it until it snaps into a straight line and then I can let go then I can go to the transform and then I can adjust and put that line wherever I want so I'm going to choose to put it a little bit below that horizon line just a touch so we're creating a double edged line now I'm going to go to my adjustments Gaussian blur blur it in a bit to about five percent I'm going to go to the layer duplicate the layer and transform maybe just move it upwards a little bit and we can keep playing around that a little bit so I'm going to create another layer duplicate it move it down this time I'm going to take that bottom edge and just expand it move it something more to about here so we're creating a series of almost stripes on the horizon line just to create a sense that it you know we've got different layers of different things happening along that ocean and water area I'm going to create a new layer go back to my colors I'm going to go for the first color on the bottom row and with my medium brush set to the lowest part of two percent and down to about sixty percent strength I'm going to zoom in a little bit and over on this side I'm going to follow that horizon line and just give it some features some distant sort of land features that are just emerging above the horizon line and I'm going to have them merging off to the right side so I can just create some lumps and bumps that just subtly give the impression that there's land features maybe it gets a little bit nearer therefore bigger as it goes off towards that edge like that and as such we can have it shifting and changing color slightly too when it does that so I'm going to go for the second color I'm going to leave the first color for this section as it comes over here perhaps just turn the color down that's rather strong so I'll put it down to about 25 percent and just go over any features over on this side a little bit and then maybe just lightly have them disappearing off into that first color like that I'm going to create a new layer go back to my colors and go back to the third color now this is going to be for some slightly more prominent features we're going to stay on the medium brush we're going to have it at the two percent but we're going to put it up to about 40 percent strength and now just in that slightly thicker lowest stripe I'm going to have from there emerging some land features that are just emerging out of the water so I want the bottom edge of it to be relatively straight it can have a slight curve to it if it need be but it's going to be sticking up out the water predominantly so you want it to have a nice flat edge and all of the features are going to be growing upwards from that point so and we can have just a couple more nearby locally to it and then maybe some more over this side too and if you wanted to just draw a line first so it snaps to a straight line just to give you that bottom edge just so you can feel a bit more confident about it I don't mind doing it more freehand but if it makes you feel better about that edge then do that first but you can always go back in with an eraser too and just define and pick out certain details I'm just filling it in roughly to begin with and I'm just going to go all the way across it will contrast nicely with the blue that was immediately behind it so you're creating different layers sense of distance with those different blues and I'm being a bit loose and rough it doesn't actually matter because like I say I can go back in with the eraser anyway and tidy that up I'm going to do that now so if I go to my eraser long press on the eraser so then when I go on the eraser it's now on the medium brush too I'm going to have that down at the 2% and probably up to 100% opacity because when I want to erase these features I actually want to just completely get rid of them not subtly get rid of them but completely so I can create gaps like this I can tidy up the bottom edge make it neater like this really easily give it a much sharper cleaner look on that bottom part where required obviously we can alternate between the eraser and the brush just to add back in where required to and also obviously we can turn the strength of that down to something lower and we could always add some sort of middle points in between where we're not quite as light as the blue in the background or dark here but something literally in the middle of those two areas both in tone and obviously in terms of geographical kind of location doesn't need to be very clear or very obvious it is more of a distant feature and when we add things into the foreground it's just going to lend the quality and the character to the things that are off in the distance too okay so I'm just going to go back a couple of layers so we had layer eight that had a highlight so that will do go back with my colors this second color will do as well I'm going to have it at the 2% size at 20% opacity and I'm just going to go in again just bring out some of the lights that might be in between those dark features and I can even try the third color in the top row as well just to even push that a little bit further bring out some of the lights why not and we can further now we've got land to base it from we can add some of its impact just a little bit below as well and then I'm going to bring in some sweeping sort of gestures now I'm doing this is kind of sweeping faint lines that cut across but I'm doing it very very very light so if you're heavy-handed again just turn that way down you could even put it as something like 5% it doesn't need to be strong at all I'm just doing some subtle sweeps texture being built in for stretches of water I'm going to pitch it at an angle so it's give some perspective to the scene and because we have a lot of light up in this cloud area it's going to be literally reflected in the water so I'm going to put that up to about 3% size keep it at the 5% opacity and I'm just going to start tapping in just some extra light in this area because it it will bounce back off the water in this area too we just need to add a little bit more strength of that in this region doesn't need to be a clear reflection it's very turbulent or water that will certainly have you know breaks in it and it will have distorted and diffused it so you really don't need to be exact reflection of the sky it would look strange if it was I just think where the lightest points are and maybe just do a couple of blobs to correspond very roughly and very loosely but really not much something like this okay I'm going to create a new layer from the very top so I'm going to go to the top layer and create that layer so now on layer 13 you can go back on some of these layers and actually merge them together so if you look at layer 8 they were all duplicate layers so you could go back to those and just pinch them together so now they've merged down to one layer so whereas it says layer 13 now there isn't a total layer of 13 layers so if you have an iPad or a tablet where you're limited in the number of layers that you can use then that kind of thing will help you continue to follow along so on this new layer layer 13 so on layer 13 I'm going to stay on the airbrushing but move to the soft brush I'm going to have it at around five six percent six percent and forty percent strength opacity I'm going to go to the fourth color on the middle row and I'm going to start creating some sense of where I want these island features to be so we're going to have emerging out of the water we're going to get shallow water areas and then we're going to have some blobs some shapes that are emerging out of the water little island features so we can start to imagine where we might want to put them you can control this wherever you want to put them is absolutely fine and maybe we have more of a solid collection of them in certain areas and then we could always start just merging them together I'm going to get a complex of little island features that all join conjoin together whatever you think works best then you can go to the adjustments Gaussian blur just blur it in a bit something like 20 percent and we're just getting a sense of it first so then I'm going to create a layer above and I'm going to use this layer now to start to put in some of those island features and then we'll go back and we'll really refine the the surrounding kind of really vibrant colors around them too so I'm going to go to the bottom layer I've used the first three colors I'm going to go to the fourth color and with my organics rainforest brush I'm going to have it set to three percent size and ninety percent opacity and I'm just going to start putting in my features in fact maybe that's a touch too big so I can put it down to the top end of two percent and I can really start placing in where I want some of my features to be now now you're in control of this you don't need to do the exact shape for your islands that I'm doing use mine as a starting point perhaps an inspiration but then make it up as you go along I have looked at pacific island formations to get an understanding of them and it's roughly based on things that are there but I'm allowing it to kind of evolve and become a little bit of its own thing too so we can have them going off the edge of the canvas like this maybe a couple going off the edge here to build up some blobs I mean generally speaking you're going to have more of a mound a dome shape across the top and a slight flattening out across the bottom part but initially just get a sense of where you want them to be don't worry too much about that overall shape until you've got a bit more of it mapped out and then you can go back in and just further refine and define exactly how you want those shapes to be I might do another one over here a smaller one maybe make this a bit a bit of a bigger shape that's something in the middle here make this exactly how you want it you do not need to slavishly copy the shapes that I'm doing I've got images that I'm referring to but I'm not copying them exactly I think I will just make some of these join together make them a little bit more pronounced as larger shapes you can always go back in and use the other more vibrant colors to create a sense of separation as and when I feel appropriate turn it down to the lowest part 2% I can really go in there just add some smaller ones just to add to the mix okay I'm going to go to my eraser and use the airbrushing medium brush I'm going to have it to 2% size and about 90% opacity or strength and I'm just going to tidy up the bottom edges of these features it's okay if they're quite rough and foliage shaped on the top but even then we don't want too much so if you've got any bits that really stick out too much you can always go in and just tidy them up a little bit but certainly that bottom edge we want that to be slightly tidier now so we can go in and smooth out some of those details where it hits the water flatten some of these out have a neater crisper line just spend a little time going around doing that and you can also use this to perhaps if you put it at the lowest part of 2% you can get in there and you can really define some of these shapes with the eraser now you've got the rough sense of where they're going to be I think a little bit of definition just really decide where you want the edges to be I think that's going to be useful okay I'm going to go to the layer tap on the layer and turn on alpha lock then I'm also stay on the rainforest brush it doesn't really matter but I'm going to go from the first color that I've used the second color I'm going to have it up to 4% size and 100% opacity I'm just going to start bringing in some of this slightly darker just not quite on the very distant ones but just the next band and it will only color in the sections that I've actually just created on that layer so it doesn't color anything else now because we've got the alpha lock on I'm going to go from the second dark color to the third one do the same again for this slightly even closer area and just go over it it's really useful the alpha lock for things like this you can really create a sense of distance and then I'm going to go for this color which is pretty much black I'm going to turn it down to about 50% and just turn that up to about 7 or 8 size and I'm just going to add some of that really sharp contrast black in this area so just by doing that we've created a sense that there's more of a distance here than these ones compared to these so I'm going to create a new layer on top of that and I'm going to go to my colors here so we've got some greens and again with the rainforest brush set the lowest part of 2% and about 80% opacity I'm just going to zoom in and I'm going to start just with a series of blobs really start creating texture sense of trees and foliage tree canopies it's really going to be densely populated with greenery but this is the darkest green that we're going to use so we use this as a base layer certainly from the foreground area you need to really see a lot of that green I'm going to leave the bottom edge of it quite dark so you can have bits of it encroaching down but you want to leave this predominantly for the upper part of each of these dome shapes really and it'll be more apparent once I start adding the lighter greens on there as well so in fact I'll do that just to demonstrate that so I'll go to the second green of these three on the right and with a new layer I'll start just defining that so maybe put that down to the 1% now just with a series of taps start to bring out more of that green a series of dots now you really are going to have to spend the time just manually putting in this texture there's no quick fix for this really you have to just get in there and just start letting that effect mount up and then last of all go to new layer with that bright really vibrant yellow green and this is where you have to use it more sparingly so even turn that down to about 50% size sorry 50% strength opacity 1% size and then you can just carefully start putting in in places bits of that really vibrant green but you don't want to go overboard use it judiciously just sparingly where you think it's going to have the biggest impact because you're on a separate layer you can go in with the eraser and you can just remove any of that via most vibrant green if you feel like you've gone too far with it but we're just going to start building up that effect now now bear in mind our light is going to catch the top edge we want the side that's facing us to have a bit more shadow so for example with that lightest green now we've got three different layers we've got the light green the middle green and the darker green so still on the lightest green selected at one percent size and 50 strength i can really use this vibrant green to sculpt and define edges use this to trace out where that top edge is going to be although we've done most of the blobs and the formations actually this color is going to be super useful just to pick out the exact shapes that we want to define because even within this area where it generally it's quite a muted non-specific blob you can go in there and you can break it up into a series of small amounts now so you decide so alternate between the three different greens so i've used the lightest green quite a bit there but i'm going to go back to the middle layer which is the middle green i'm probably going to use that quite a lot so again at the one percent size this one i'm going to turn up higher so it's about 90 strength opacity can be a bit more gung-ho about this one just add a lot more of this really build up that green first and then use the highlight color just to bring out the highlight edges there's not a particular rhyme or reason to the the way that i'm approaching these now i'm just sort of scatter gunning the green as i'm going along i'm working one area and then i'm just sitting back and looking at it and then going in filling in another area there isn't a reason why i'm doing it in any order i'm just responding to it and seeing what i think needs a bit more again use this again to further kind of round off the top of these shapes to this shadow color was a little bit scruffy and this actually allows us to go in with these lighter colors and i would keep them as much as you can on the different layers so use the lighter color on the light color layer it allows us later on to play around with that layer if need be and i wouldn't worry too much about some of these highlights being a little bit vibrant i'm well aware of the fact that when we add a vibrant color up here it kind of doesn't sit too comfortably with the muted dark shadows here i'm going to show you something a little bit later that just helps balance it off in accordance with those more perspective dark shadows as well so just add them without too much worrying at the minute so one percent size and 50 strength for that strongest highlight it is really quite potent so just go sparingly with that and then 90 strength for the other two greens but you decide what works for you that's just what i'm showing you here and i'm just going around the top for some of these dome shapes picking them out giving them some more clarity tapping as i go although it is a nice texture i think that you can't just you know smooth and fill it in because it is quite flat looking so it certainly stops it looking lifeless and dead back through the layers again with the dark green same thing except a higher percentage in the opacity now it's quite time consuming this part which is why i've just been speeding through this just to get you to the next stages so i'll just continue to add some more of these dots and then we'll catch up to show you some other techniques as well okay so we're going to take those top three layers and i'm just going to pinch them together so they become one layer tap on the layer turn on alpha lock again go to my airbrushing soft brush i'm going to choose a suitable nice blue color so i'll go for the third color on the bottom row i'm going to put it up to about 15 size and low on the strength at about 10 and it just subdues some of that vibrant green just a little bit more softens it in so that it really pushes it more towards that front area it's one of the again the beauties of the alpha lock is that you can just work freely without worrying too much and then you can just push it around a little bit later i might go in and refine that again along with other things a little bit but for now that will do i'm going to go back to layer 13 go back to my other more vibrant colors too probably going to go for this super bright color now which is fifth in from the left with the soft brush down to about maybe five percent and about 15 strength and i'm just going to use this now to go around some of these edges and really start to just create that lovely contrast that's going to set off these island features now we're not going to see it at the top edge i'm going to go down to the lowest part of two percent and just up a little bit more actually to about 25 you're not going to see it at the top part of these island features for the most part you're only going to really notice this when you can see it meet the water that means this example just around this very bottom edge you can really start to just maybe surround some of these any bits where you get a collection maybe they just link together as well but they certainly go around the bottom edge of these features and it's a really nice feature that just very quickly starts to bring this out make this a really nice effect we can really ground them so to speak grounding because we're adding it to the water you take my meaning you really start to help it connect and root itself to the actual location and just add it to the bottom edge of all of these really binds it all together without really a lot of effort keep it a little bit scattered in areas there's going to be areas where they do kind of connect together it's behind everything else you've done already anyway so you can create little bridges almost that connect between them channels that feed from one to another and go around against these might just link up you can be quite loose with this you don't really need to be too defined i'm doing a little bit of tapping and scattering of this as well i'm only using the soft brush but i'm just enjoying going round and tapping adding this texture in maybe i'll turn it up a little bit to more like three or four percent some areas perhaps just need something slightly bolder to link them together we can really bring its impact a little bit more strongly into this region for example link them all together a bit better around here up and down between whatever you think is useful so i'm back down to the two percent again maybe just create some points of texture that just come in here a little bit as well so alternating roughly between the two and four percent and i can just start to build in some areas that really links them together where i feel it needs it less so in some areas more so in other areas so just down two percent perhaps i just want to create a bit of a channel between some of these and you can go off a little bit on this edge as well doesn't need to link up to everything all the time having some broken textures dots in and around that edge i'm going to blur it in slightly more again i'm going to allow this texture to kind of dot its way around the edge you can hear me tapping around the edge once i've specified where those edges are just soften them in this dot texture and then i'm going to go to the blur the adjustment scores in blur blur it in a bit more it's about three percent create another layer but i'm going to change to the artistic and aurora brush now for some of the brighter colors this can look a bit wild when you actually really show it because it has two different tones typically but it presents but we are going to use it more subtly so i'm going to have it at about eight percent and about thirty percent opacity and i'm just going to go around this edge allowing it to create a nice texture along the right edge there i'll do the same here too around the shapes that we've just created also in the foreground you're going to notice more of this texture when we can really see closer to us than we are in any areas around here so we'll keep it predominantly for these sections here and we can allow just a few more bits just to link away perhaps just whip away suggestive of perhaps other bits not into this section because this is where the water really is going to be a bit deeper then we can blur it in so we can go to the adjustments causing blur and i'm going to blur that in to about the four percent and i'm going to repeat the process again i'm just going to go around so we're using the bright vibrant color here so the fifth from the left again just in case i didn't make that clear we can just go over some of these join them in again add them in around this edge tap it in in places too again adjustments causing blur blur it in another maybe three percent i'm going to go back to layer 12 and create a layer above that so we're on layer 15 but it's sandwiched between layer 12 and layer 13 again still on the aurora brush i'm going to this dark color now so fourth in on the left on the bottom row i'm going to have it at about 10 size and 30 opacity and because it's underneath the other layer we've just created we can just start to tap it in and around that edge and it's just creating a really nice darker kind of color that just circles around what we've just created which i think really assists and helps it again i'm pressing lightly so bear that in mind depending on how heavy-handed you happen to be okay i'm just going to go to the adjustments blur that in somewhat so not massively so maybe about three percent again i'm going to go back to layer 14 it's another layer above that this time i'm going to stay on the aurora brush but i'm going to go to a dark color now so i'm going to go to this color which is sixth in from the left and fifth in from the right you can see on the color wheel it is an aqua color but it is very dark i'm going to reduce the size of the brush to about four percent and we'll put it up to about forty percent strength this time and now i'm going to create something with a series of dots a variety of dragging it going over it with a few dots you gain some variation you get some bits that are more concentrated and i'm just creating some texture kind of in the middle in and around this area this light blue area i'm just sort of breaking this up a little bit so around six seven percent you can just continue adding some of this in and around a few taps the taps seem to work a little bit better so don't go overboard with this a couple in these middle areas but again we don't want to go overboard might be as well to stick it on something like the soft brush and go in and control this a bit more manually initially we're just going to start relying upon this texture to add just multiple little points of texture really and just speeds up the process for us you can tap it in and it really is helping save us time and go to the adjustments gaussian blur blur it in just a little bit to about three percent then i'm going to shift to my airbrushing soft brush turn it down to the lowest part of two percent i've got that's about 30 and i can just go in and further add some little details and around this edge now so i'm kind of tracing around a little bit where we've got the lighter blue that meets the dark blue but also you can have perhaps in this center area maybe a slight shift in that aqua color and a few sort of smaller features that are just underneath these shallow water areas here that just change the look and feel of some of these colors maybe as we're just moving away from here you're going to get just the hints that there's more things under the water there so you can just lightly tease out some extra textures just a little bit into the blue area but not much and then again you can just refine and control some of these textures that go neatly around in places not too much we don't want it too dark actually i'm going to go just down a layer so where we had layer 14 and i'm going to add this color to it now which is the sixth color on the middle row i'll stay on the soft brush and i just want to add it to the mix it's a slightly warmer color need to create some variation here and there go on the color wheel you'll see that it's definitely more into the green than the other colors the other colors are more i would say more into the blue green but this is definitely heading more towards the green and it really is a nice contrast i'm just going to go around some of these areas now adding a bit more of that really nice green effect and with the quite aqua color as well we can just further define some of these edges a little bit so we're just getting sort of like rings of different colors perhaps we could go back to this color in fact would be a nice option which is the fourth in maybe this whole center area could just be a hint darker and again we can just use this to bring out some of the little details as we go around there some sort of like rings and suggestions of extra details are just sitting underneath the shallows here as it goes around this feature i'm going to go to layer 16 and i'm going to use that same green solid that same color which is the fourth in on the left and on a low opacity at about 10 with about three percent size i'm just going to start merging those in at that edge a little bit more just softening in some of that texture merging it in with the water a little bit harsh i think this color can just just help soften it in a little bit better in places can always go over it with a dark color again just to redefine if we need to i think this just does a good job at just softening some of those textures in a little bit okay i'm going to go to layer 16 and create a layer above that and we have to start thinking about the reflections in the water now i'm going to go to the third color in the middle row i'm going to use the medium brush i'm going to have it down at two percent size and 100 opacity and i'm just going to start thinking about the shapes that we've got and i'm going to create a version underneath them where i can imagine a reflection now at 100 clearly it's too strong it doesn't matter because we can go to the layer properties in the end and we can turn it down and have it an appropriate level for our reflection but it just i think initially helps to have it at 100 you can see very clearly where it is and what it's creating so you're going to notice it more over in these areas so just underneath in the water you can really create a reflection for them i'm going to go to all of these and create an appropriate reflection for all these shapes now we will subdue many of them i think initially it makes sense just to add them in there and then go back in and remove as appropriate now you're not going to see so much of them over in this area now instead of that we'll use a different shadow rather than the reflection but you notice it in these sections so i'm going to go to that layer like i just said to the end and just reduce that down to about 70 percent then i'm going to create another layer above that now i'm going to go to the fourth color on the bottom row and this is going to be slightly darker so again have it at 100 initially and just offset the side on these shapes i'm creating a bit of a shadow so i'm doing it off on the left hand side of them predominantly and if i've already created a reflection doesn't mean i don't add a shadow and i can do a combination of both perhaps it doesn't need quite so much when it's up in the distance on the distant parts but i need a shadow on all of these sections nevertheless so reflection is obviously a different element than the shadow so it needs both you can just use it to further refine that bottom edge in areas too and then obviously on that layer property on the end we can just reduce the strength of that too where we need to an important feature you can just go in there and further refine that now as well when required i've got you the organic and the rainforest brush and i'll probably do that shadow with this now because really i suppose the shadow should reflect so to speak the actual texture of the foliage from there shouldn't it so i'm just going around this edge with the 100 on the rainforest brush just to give it the same feel as the islands island formations i'm going to go to the top layer and create a new layer and with my medium brush set to 1 size and 40 opacity i'm going to these two grays here i've got a light gray and a darker gray i'll go for the light gray you might not need to use the darker gray but maybe i will and i'm just going to start piecing in light textures around the base of some of these formations because it's not going to be instantly green it's going to have an element of rock outcrops from the actual water before we get anything growing on it so it needs this little sort of subtle element to make sense and again we can use the gray actually because underneath some of these shadows it's not going to be immediately very obvious so it's just a subtle element and almost unnoticeable so i'm just going backwards and forwards between these just to add specks of this effect on the bottom edge as and when required just a hint of it here there actually goes quite a long way you don't need to add too much just a few hints at it sometimes less is more so alternating between the dark and the light gray adding more variation to those rock features notice down the same layer i'm just fine tuning now so i'm going to go to my third color on the top row with my soft brush airbrushing set to two percent size and really low that's about 10 opacity and i'm just going to start building in some more textures in the water back here perhaps i'll turn it even lower into the one percent why not quite subtle details so i'm just adding some more lines and breaks in the color in this background area i'm trying to keep it fairly consistent allow my hand to glide and be pretty standard across but i'm just adding a bit more variety of texture in this area it looks a little bit flat so let's just add some noise into this region doesn't have to be particularly thought of over just some dragged shapes through that area and some more over here we could always go in with a slightly more aqua kind of color as well so let's do that the lightest of those colors maybe back up to about the two percent or the lower end of two percent at least you can just bring some of those in here as well again sweeping across here why not back to the perhaps the white this time and again it's still at the 10 opacity so it's super low i'm just going to bring some of this white in now to this area just to really sell some brighter reflections and highlights up in here need some extra brightness the sky is pretty bright there so it should reflect some of that luminosity doesn't make a lot of sense if it doesn't a bit more here and there i think helps it turn it up to about three percent size and maybe just bring in a bit more across here as well i feel like it needs it a little bit okay i'm going to go back to layers 12 and 13 so first of merge down so it becomes one section now and i'm going to leave out an alpha lock i just feel like i want to subdue slightly more of this so i'm going to go to my second color on the bottom row with my airbrushing soft brush set to about five percent size and ten percent opacity and i feel like i just want to add a hint of this blue just into this back section just to knock them back a little bit i don't want to overdo that that's probably enough may even have slightly ever done that but anyway there you go i think it helps a little bit more perspective there which works back in with the light green at the bottom and the organic rainforest brush with a one percent size and about 30 strength and just a few more points of texture but predominantly i think we're kind of approaching the point where i'm going to leave it for this tutorial i'm just biasing it slightly more to the one side i did decide that the sun was coming just slightly more from that angle so i can just slightly steer that now to resemble that more without going overboard it's the kind of thing that you could really spend a long time on all these little details so i do encourage you to do that if you are enjoying this but other than that i'm going to leave this tutorial here at this point i hope you've enjoyed following along please give this video a thumbs up hit the subscribe and don't forget the bell notification to make sure that you are notified of all my future video tutorials thanks for watching see you again soon bye for now