My digital painting finally stopped looking like a muddy mess after 4 tries

I spent all last Sunday working on this one fantasy landscape in Procreate. The first three attempts just looked like someone smeared wet clay around. On the fourth try I finally figured out layer blending modes for the sky and suddenly the mountains had real depth. My husband walked by and said "wait, that actually looks cool" which felt way better than I expected. Has anyone else struggled for hours with color mixing before it finally clicked?

2 comments

2 Comments

riverf3418h ago

Layer modes changed everything for me after I started using multiply for shadows.

betty_shah9h ago

Completely changed my workflow too when I figured out multiply for shadows @riverf34. I remember one time I was trying to get cloud shadows right on a landscape piece and kept overcomplicating it with different brush opacities. Then I just slapped on a multiply layer with a soft blue-gray and bam, it looked way more natural. Still use it for anything that needs depth like under foliage or in clothing folds. Multiply just does the work for you.