Sophie Jantak: 'How I make traditional-art-inspired 3D grease pencil paintings from meshes'

Sophie Jantak writes:

Hello, I'm a former-2D illustrator who got hooked on grease pencil, and now talking about it is my favourite thing! My last 2 videos are all about 3D masks: how I take simple meshes and turn them into "living paintings" that can have all kinds of interesting textures and effects and can even look like traditional art.

In the first video I explain the basic concept of 3D masking - used, for example, for the 3D portion of this piece:

(Zelda Breath of the Wild fanart, characters and creatures belong to Nintendo. Art by me)

The concept: how to get the fill layer to stay within the line art when this fill layer is constantly changing shape, as our camera rotates around the object?

The first video ends by explaining how to do this even with an animation! (although it's definitely finicky and not for the faint of heart. But doable!)

In the second video of this unplanned series (and by series I just mean I made the first video and realized I had WAY more I wanted to say!) I take this concept further, making masks from multiple meshes, giving them different colours and getting a gorgeous pencil-drawn texture. And then I take you through the process of how I would make it into a final piece, with the noise and thickness modifiers, as well as how to use the build modifier to get an effect that takes my breath away every time - of the whole piece being drawn in like magic.

Here is the end product of that video!

(based on a Draw This in Your Style illustration by Cheyenne Barton)

Discovering grease pencil has truly felt like unlocking some serious magical powers, and these videos are the culmination of what I've learned (so far!) I hope you enjoy :)