How To Add A Glow Effect To Your Art (Patreon)

Hello my lovelies!

Gosh it has been a busy week, I feel like not much happens for a little while and then everything happens all at once!

Since it's Halloween I thought I'd show you a quick explainer on how to add a glow effect to your illustrations so that you can make things look extra magical ✨

It's a really simple effect and a lot of fun to play with, so here's how it works:

Create or open an illustration that you'd like to add some glowy elements to.

On a new layer above or behind the element that you want to glow (depending on the effect you're going for), draw around your element using a really soft brush in orange or brown.

Make this new layer 'screen' blend mode and adjust the opacity to get the brightness you want.

And that's it, it's that simple!

You don't have to use orange or brown but I find that gives quite a warm, natural effect. You could definitely play with different colours to see how it changes the look of the glow!

Now this won't work on a white background because 'screen' blend mode makes things lighter and brighter so if the background is already white then it can't make it any lighter.

Open an illustration you've already done and see if you can add a nice glowy effect to some of the elements. It works great for lights, fireflies, ghosts and anything that could be bright.

Here's another illustration I used it in this month that I've animated to show the lights on and then the lights off so you can see the difference.

Enjoy! 🥰