Tried flattening my layers in CSP instead of using a separate painting layer and it saved me so much time

I was doing a commission piece last week, a portrait with like 30 layers. Every time I wanted to adjust the lighting I had to merge or group stuff and it was a mess. So I just flattened everything down to one layer and painted directly on top with the color picker. Felt risky but honestly it cut my work time in half for the shading pass. Anyone else do this or am I just being lazy?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaron_gonzalez11d ago

Stop acting like flattening is some genius hack. You're literally throwing away all the flexibility that makes digital art worth doing. If you wanted to work on one layer you could just use a physical sketchbook with a pen and save yourself the tablet cost. The whole point of layers is having control over your shading without wrecking everything underneath. When you flatten and mess up one brush stroke you have to undo or repaint the whole area instead of just tweaking that shadow layer. And good luck going back to fix the original sketch after you've painted on top of it for hours. I've seen too many artists flatten early and then cry later when the client asks for a simple color change that would've taken two seconds with layers.

bell.emma11d ago

Ngl that's just how this whole culture is now though, everyone's so scared to commit to anything that they overcomplicate the basics.