SO. On my last stream someone asked me to show how I make balloon drawings, so I did! I tried to explain every step, why I do it, and what sort of effect it makes. I thought that it would also be neat to do in text+image format, for anyone who happened to miss the stream- so have some text spam information.


Part 1: Draw a sketch. This is the main part where you're basically on your own in terms of abilities, I don't know how to explain this part other than do the lines and make the thing.

Part 2: Once you have a completed sketch, decrease the layer opacity and make a new vector layer (or move the document to a program that supports vector art; eg Photoshop to Sai) Only put lines on places that are actual physical borders- anything that's just a border between two different colors will be going on a separate layer. My only personal exception for this is for eyes, which I do on this lineart layer.

Part 3: Second vector layer for color border lines - basically the same as the previous layer, except only for color borders.

Part 4: Now you can turn off your sketch layer and touch up the lineart layers, just to be sure everything is good before you move onto coloring.

Part 5: Flat color time- I recommend making two layers initially- one for background (set it to a color that won't be on the character at all for contrast. It makes it easier to see) and one for the color itself. Depending on the program you use, coloring may be more or less easy, but the paint bucket tool + lineart layers should be more than sufficient. May require touch-ups after painting.
5B (not pictured): If you're also drawing non-balloon things, or have anything not transparant, color that on a separate layer. This will also include the balloon's knot (if visible) or any other solid parts if they have any.

Part 6: This is the second layer of color - what this is for is making it so that the edges of the balloon appear to be "thicker" than the rest of the latex. I included a diagram sketch of how exactly that makes sense - if you look at a transparant hollow sphere, near the edges you have to look through more of it, instead of the center where it's simply two thin sheets. Note that if you aren't planning on making the drawing transparant, you don't need to do this at all.

Part 7: Another transparancy effect here - we're going to color the back half of the balloon as if the front half didn't exist; or if you were looking at it from behind. This is only if you want transparancy. If you don't, you can skip this entirely.

Part 8: Last layer of transparancy for color. Here you want to put any other colors of the balloon that technically are "behind" the part of the balloon you are looking at. In this example you can see that the legs are behind the front paws- so we will color in where the legs would be if the paws were not blocking the view. there's also a kinda crappy diagram of what I mean, if the visual representation helps with that.

Part 9: Time to make your balloon start to shine! Here you'll initially define a light source. This can be anywhere, in the document, out of it, front, back, wherever. Just be sure the lighting is consistent. Any surface that is directly facing the light should have a bright highlight. Also note that concave curves also have a small area that will reflect light, as shown in the diagram.

Part 19: I typed that wrong, shit.
Part 10/11: Diffused lighting. This will make the highlight not stick out too much, and will look more like it's actually being lit instead of just having a stripe or something. If you look at the example, I typically do three strokes with an airbrush(?) type tool. Two are elipitcal and follow the highlight, and one that is a line across the highlight itself.
11 B: Optional, but you can have color reflect off the balloon and onto other parts of its body! Just use the body color as the shading color and shade the other color with it.

Part 12/13: Now that you've done the entire outside of the balloon, now we'll go back to using the third color layer for shading the inside. This is what is visible when light passes through the first layer of latex, but reflects off the back layer. It's the exact same as lighting, except you shade based on the back side/curves of the toy instead of the front.

Part 14: Once you've finished all the layers, time to turn everything back on!
I alter the transparancy of the layers themselves. The values I tend to use are:
Front and back colors: 60%
Behind colors: 80%
Everything else: 100%

Part 15: Draw a really crappy sketch saying you've finished and post it on the internet.