WALKTHROUGH: Neon Tailed Foxy
EDITING ARIA FROM 2025: I apologize for how small the images in this walkthrough are. When it was first created on my old Patreon, you could right-click to view them larger but that was no longer the case when I retrieved them for this re-upload. I hope it’s still helpful for some despite the issue! <3
Hello Moonbeams,
I took some process photos of Ivan the fox during the making of my piece To Run Toward Death or Dreams
I began this piece completely on a whim. I laid down a bunch of watercolour and salt and then began building image within the textures. I then sketched in the little shrine and loosely sketched the fox with paint.
I began lightly rendering using my shadow shade (made up of Prussian blue, violet and ochre yellow), which I use in place of black. It has a super rich depth and is a blue/black.
I continued rendering with my Shadow shade, using a rough size 1 and size 2 round brush that were fuzzy and worn which helped me to create some initial fur texture.
Of course my studio assistant was there to help me the whole time. Very efficient as you can see!
I began to further detail his fur with a size 20/0 brush, still using my shadow shade. I love starting with rough brushes for fur detail and slowly going down to more detailed brushes.
I also began using a bit of white watercolour ground, and white gouache for some of the fine highlights on his face and around the outer edges of his body to give him a glowy look and help him stand out against the background.
I wanted to keep his look somewhat transparent and ghostly so I was careful not to go too dark. On the other hand, I did not want him to look totally flat so I bulked up the darker values on his edges.
For the glowing tail, I put down gradients of Opera pink and Carbazole violet. I then use a bit of clean water on my rough size 2 brush to lift away some off the paint at the glowing center areas of the tail. I used the same technique of painting a fur texture with the rough size 1 and 2 brushes, and then further refining them with my 20/0 brush.
I have mentioned this before, but one of my favourite colours for glow effects is Opera pink. It is so vibrant and bright and just feels like it is glowing naturally. I finished off the tail by adding some white watercolour ground and white gouache highlights.
And here is the finished piece! I hope you enjoyed the process!
~ Aria
