Of Base Line, Layering and Edging

With the fundamental principles stablished, I had to come with more techniques.
 
The first one is a motif with musical origins. Any melody has its main notes, and they can be noticed by the head of the tempo, or sometimes by the bass line. The most important thing about this motif is that it portrays the core of the idea. The Base Line influences all the rest of the work, as it is its foundation. Its identity and originality is found there.

Next comes Layering. Some songs feature different melodical lines that rettain the same Base Line as an undercurrent. What differs them are the different layers that are added later. It's a gradual process in which each added layer becomes less influential to the whole, but still important as being a guide for the next ones. One who ignores the steps and makes details after the base line is bound to have a piece of work with no concise identity, or worse, no right proportions, hence violates the Principle of Solidity. Layers must never come before the base line and this rule can only be broken if Solidity is not required.

The Base Line is closely related to Templating, though this one is a more skill-oriented motif, and Layering is also the reason why Templates are important, as so many different identities can be added in one single formula. And this is the most interesting part of the whole process, as the same base line is the origin of a whole different world of ideas, and the wise use of layers is to explore the base line to bring all the most different results from it, even if each layer is a guide to the next one and shortens the options.

To sum the process in one example, drawing a well-proportioned human head is the template for drawing heads, so the Base Line is the human identity, and Layering gives it progressively more personal identity, like a fractal process. After the species identity, comes the racial and ethnical one, and then the familiar and lastly the personal identity. But this is only one very simple example, as it can vary a lot on how a base line and its subsequent layers are assembled. For instance, a personal characteristic (weight, for instance) can be more of a guiding base line for the construction of the character than the ethnical background.

Anyway, the later layers show the fancier details of the work when spices and the personal element (like the Prime Undertones) are used. It's when Edging is used. It has its origins in my drawings, and it was hard to find a name for it, as in the intimacy of my mind I refer to it the emotional response from making a certain kind of stroke that usually gives it a sense of hard-edgedness. One of the uses of Edging is to reaffirm the base line throughout all the layers. It's also where Firm Grip makes itself most present, because its inherent expressivity in early stages of the process can result in unmendable mistakes.