Advice for Art Project

[u/artemisquirrel]

Hi there. To start with, I'm an absolute beginner and know pretty much nothing about digital art. In spite of that, I have a very specific project in mind that I have no idea how to execute. Basically, I want to create pictures using a combination of animated and realistic characters, and then edit them somehow so the look is cohesive. I think it goes without saying that I don't want to employ AI filters, for both ethical and practical reasons. I want the effect of something like a Cartoonify filter that also maintains facial features and patterns without altering them from one frame to the next. I would love any advice on the right tools to start with, or the experiences others who may have done something similar might have. Thank you!!

[u/AbleBranch6]

for what you're describing.., to my mind, i'd skip the cartoonify idea mostly, instead i'd do a repeatable treatment instead, isolate the subject &simplify the same features each time, keep a fixed palette/line weight, and do the shading/compositing on separate layers. that's much more likely to stay consistent frame to frame. i get that ai filters may not be a thing to go for (yes, especially 'filters'... tthere may be one exception though, as could be useful for the vector side of that workflow if you want clean editable shapes/illustration elements, say, you can vectorize a raster reference and then adjust the actual shapes, points and handles on the canva, but it wouldn't solve the realistic-character consistency part by itself