#i think im FINALLY getting the hand of this digital art thing

[the-kneesbees-arts]

arthur morgan <3

#the kneesbees arts #arthur morgan #arthur rdr2 #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 fanart #red dead redemption 2 #pretty proud of this one #i think im FINALLY getting the hand of this digital art thing #my last charles post was the only one of like fifteen other digital things that actually looked good #but im fr proud of how this one came out :) #OH ALSO #i hid a penis somewhere in this drawing #first person to find it gets...uhhh... #a virtual high five

[pyrriax]

hi tumblr im pyrr pyrriax and im in my trimonthly artist arc, lord help me and all the projects that are currently sitting in my drafts while i am lured in by the siren song of drawing

#haunted ecosystem #this is not helping with how much my hands hurt on a daily basis this is why i type and dont handwrite/draw very much. #im lured in regardless and i really need to find an artform that doesnt Hurt but for now. digital art <3 #like theres a difference between my dumb doodles (quick easy not much different from regular computer usage) and actual art #but im an artist at heart i spent sooooo long being an artist and thinking i was shit at writing. that is wrong! im actually kinda good #im rambling in tags today because i have been not social (my partner is in genshin hell and my beloved is. somewhere.) #okay but on another note i reread the first. couple chapters of wtds this morning? the pacing is a little weird and the tense is fucked #but its actually a lot better than i thought it was? you can tell i was fleshing everybody out in my head and i totally forgot about how #i described the watcher [who i am STILL redacting the name of until we get there] and just. ough. pandora being very logical #and then jumping to the latest chapter and fucking sobbing because i forgot about how it went and just. pandora and his. #whatever the fuck is wrong with him. #i have gotta start recommending people read that again. its surprisingly friendly without context because of how i approached it #that fic has taught me so many things its actually a little comical. it also made me relearn how to make and write ocs so thats fun #once i finish that main fic (and i WILL i am actually planning to sign up for a thing. im finishing it i swear.) i finally get to show off #more of the world and characters ive crafted. showing backstories and what-ifs and all these oneshots ive been keeping close to my chest #for like absolutely ages because i dont want any spoilers on my tumblr #and. im finishing that fic in pseudo-memoriam of somebody who deleted their accounts everywhere. still miss you dane! #ok this has completely gone off topic ily tumblr im going back to drawing and i might make a new pfp #it'll still be lavius but it'll be fray lavius since i think about him a lot and i like his color palette.

[decafbat]

i really like how much depth your art has, do you think you could show how you break down bodies when sketching if that makes sense? it’s something i struggle with a lot in my art! ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

ok apologies in advance, this is probably going to be a really long and tangential rant about art that may or may not actually help you in learning how to construct bodies. im just gonna put it under a cut to save everyone from seeing this huge text wall.

i dont think its gonna be possible for you to replicate my methods here, because theyre mostly just really specific shortcuts for finding certain proportions and reference points for anatomy, which i'm fairly versed in, but not as much as i'd like to be. the shortcuts you'll need will be different from mine. im glad you think my art has depth, that is something i am trying to seek very intentionally right now, and i dont think im even close to the depth of form i am actually aiming for. so like. this makes making a tutorial kind of inherently hard. nevertheless, i threw this quick sketch together after like 3 failed attempts. (i was doing those attempts digitally, ended up giving up on that and going back to traditional because its what im most comfortable with rn)

i didnt get all the steps i took to get here because scanning that much would be cumbersome but ill try to explain how i got here. i start with the head almost every time.

i use a lot of symbolic/graphic shapes when drawing heads and dont stick to using forms very often besides the circle at the center of the head, which i use as the base to form these graphic shapes around. think of it like "wrapping" the ball in various textures and masses. the eyes are usually "textured" onto the head, notice how the her left eye looks narrower then her right. of course i try to make sure her bangs sit along the curve of the sphere and her ears look like they sit on opposite sides of the head. its easy to forget that part, making the head look unsymmetrical. the particular masses of leica's head would be her snout, which is just a curve extended slightly outside the diameter of the ball, and her hair, which are two strange organic shapes that are quite hard to draw, two hair sprig anime antennae things (forgive me, i forgot the word for them,) and the back of the head, which i usually need to extend slightly. its a little too extended here, needs more on the top, i fix this in the final pass. this was a quick sketch, so i didnt focus too hard on the forms of the head beyond the most essential ones for her design, but i sometimes highlight the form of cheeks with curved hatching, or try to make the eyes appear more sunken-in as they are on human faces. i dont know how to proportion the neck and torso correctly until i draw the head, so i always do it first. next, i did the torso.

so heres why i said that you probably wont be able to replicate this approach. you do kind of just have to practice anatomy, i cant just make it make sense because im not very good at explaining this stuff, but ill try to go through what i did here. so, i generally use simplified bone shapes to find proportions and reference points, as well as more complicated shapes like those of elbows and knees. i try to study fairly often because im not satisfied with here im at with this stuff yet. of course, i dont think i'll ever be. so i'll usually start with the ribcage, add a shoulderblade out the back to find the shoulder, the armbones come out of that, the bone in the upper arm connects to the ulna with a sort of three-pronged attachment, one big knurl in the middle, which forms the thrust of the elbow, two little ones on the side. i think those are part of the ulna but i dont remember. see, you dont really have to know what exactly they do as long as you know what they look like. the ulna does some goofy rotation shit i dont understand, connects to the wrist, and then we have a hand, which, i mean, im not good enough at hands to even be telling you how to do it, but i just have a big squarish mass and some little hotdog fingers coming out of that. you can see on her left hand that ill have a big circle forming the the area on the hand where the thumb attaches... theres more depth to the hands, i think you can easily find better tutorials then i could offer. anyway, under the ribcage theres the pelvis, represented with a box. ill get into that when i talk about the legs. i wanna briefly talk about the way i add the flesh and fat to the bones.

so, i really can't give a comprehensive crash course on anatomy, but i can point you towards the morpho series, which is where i get most of this stuff from. you can get very far with the volumes Simplified Forms, Fat and Skin, and Skeleton and Bone Reference Points. moving on, i just kind of have a feel for where the masses attach by now. the important thing to remember when drawing fat characters like this is that the fat should "hang" from the bones and flesh, drooping down slightly. leicas fat hangs substantially, so she's not very wide despite her weight. this is important to her character design i feel. i almost always draw characters naked first when doing serious drawings because it will come in handy knowing where the forms of the body are when i add the clothing. by focusing on the way her body looks naked, i can modify the impression of those forms when adding clothes, and when i add them later on in this drawing, leica will take on the distinctive boxy look i try to draw her with.

if you look at the arm, youll see that the place the line of bone sits is very high compared to the whole mass of the arm, the flesh and fat of the arm "hang" from the bone, and then the upper arm squishes against the bent forearm too. even if the anatomy in the arm is indistinct, it can still look convincing when the forms act realistically against one another. the elbow has much less fat connected to it, so its more bony then the rest. this isnt actually consistent on all people so like, think about that kind of thing when designing characters, like i was talking about before, fat can sit in infinite different ways. maybe if i was doing a more objective anatomy lesson i'd draw cath, because i do have a sort of vague understanding of muscle placement that doesnt come through here, but probably would if i was drawing a scrawnier character. let me know if you want that.

a word on the breasts too: they hang a bit lower then you'd expect, keep that in mind. the attachment point is also angled, as the line shows. the line starts roughly in the middle of the torso and ends around the armpit, but the form of the breast can go underneath the armpit or even connect around the fold of fat in the back. many things to think about. i love boob shapes. ok lets finally get on with it and talk about the legs.

so, the really specific shape of the pelvis doesnt matter that much unless youre drawing a really thin character, so its just a box here. out from the sides of the pelvis, extending out more then you'd expect, is the femur, which ends in a similar joint to the arm. this shape helps me figure out the form of the knee. two masses on each side with a bunch of complex and weirdly shaped bones forming the kneecap, which i have omitted because i dont yet know shit enough to include them. i am learning though. so, obviously the feet are just scribbles here because im just gonna put her feet in socks anyway. you really dont have to do more then you have to. a few tips i can offer here, the butt should hang a bit too when drawing fat characters, i think the butt is supposed to start just below the pelvis if i remember, but take that with a grain of salt. i also didnt really do that here but its hard to tell because she's facing mostly forward. again, i dont think i can really communicate what's going on here. morpho has a lot of great drawings explaining the shapes and muscles of the legs, all things i might focus on more when drawing a scrawnier character. for this case, i regrettably don't go too hard on the legs. also i should note that legs would usually be much longer, leica is really short so ive exaggerated the proportions to communicate that. i may change my mind on that front in the future and give her more grounded proportions. the important thing to remember with legs is just getting a nice hierarchy of forms going. bigger thigh going into smaller calf going into smaller foot. it mostly comes automatically now.

i added the clothing, shaped up her head a bit, added a bit of fur. i put her in her classic outfit, just a sweater and jeans. i enjoy the big thick folds that come out of these clothes, and big areas of white space too. its nice. i try my best to form all the folds around the forms of the body i drew earlier. thats one case where i really really have no idea what im doing and could never explain it in words. its just some fun intuitive play with loops and lines. this is at around the stage for a sketch where i'd do inks, or if it was going to be a finished pencil drawing i'd erase out parts piece by piece and replace them with nicer and more defined lines and tones.

i guess that's all i can offer , i hope that halped.

#leica #artworks

[ebonytails]

Nobody askd but like i hate the “need” to be “consistant”. Like i have DID and ADHD so my art style is going to be different oftn and i love to explore different styles. Im thinking about when i finally get my hands on a booth/table for artist alleys or at markets and . Im sorry! But my art style will NIT be consistant like MOST brand/other artists out there! And it kind of makes me sad or stressed bc what if it will make ppl not want to follow my art market journey? What if theyll find me unprofessionl just bc i dont have 1 single art style? Im silly boy! I cn only hope tht ppl wll not thnk im not professional jst bc i have 5 different styles on my booth lol

And then i would rather have one youtube channel/tiktok/account for all my ventures too. Like its knda frustrating bc you look up “artist alley” youtube videos and every channel is always Consistantly ONLY posting artist alley. Or you look up othr artists and they always Stick to one Content. Well wht if i wnt 2 post animation memes, atist alley, skits, tutorials, and video essays on ONE channel?? Art is a crazy BROAD genre, y r we also boxing artists n content creators into ONE thing just 2 pleas what. An algorithm??? Every business advice is “pick one niche!” “pick one content to do 4ever!” “if you lack consistancy, customers wont stick to u/ the algorithm will ignore you”

Art is CRAZY! art is anything u WANT it 2 be!! Im going to post animations, artist alley vlogs, and tutorials on my YT/Tiktok, im gnna post anim8ions and digital illustrations 2 tumblr + twitter, and no one can stop me!! (but i only hope that people pass by anyway ;_;)

#CAPITALISM dare I say???? #sorry i jst fronted n immedi8ly hav 2 rant JDBEJHDJ #b does any1 get me. does any1 feel angry w me abt ‘’consistancy’’ #im so angry @ the BOXING IN 2 be ‘successful’ #let me b a jack of all trades #i was put here on earth to try everything n crea8 everything my heart desires!!!! #mod stuff #from kris #ignore me b also hear me out??

[xephia]

Hi, i hope this question doesn't bothers you, do you have any videos of your process?, im currently starting to learn how to do digital art and have trouble knowing where to start and what to do (im always like, should i start drawing this part first?, is it better to do clean lineart or just paint over the sketch?, do i work on the lights first or the shadows?, etc)

I can probs make you a video on this at some point based on something I'm currently working on, although I have a few on my tiktok already (@ xephia) if that helps!

My process is a bit messier than many other artists - I alternate between stages of sketch and colour before I even think about ‘final colour’. I’ll start with a sketch like the ones below, then slap some rough colour on. This is because IMO colour is an important part of the composition so I want to see what works before I line. They’re not meant to be pretty or social media ready. This stage can look super messy or tidy depending on how I feel or how complicated it is. And they can look wildly different; here’s some examples:

That stage also helps me decide if I want to finish the piece or if I should abandon it (I abandon a lot). Sometimes this stage takes 15min, sometimes 2 hours, it really depends on the piece. But for me personally, it’s crucial because otherwise I find it very hard to envision how it will look later, or forget what I was planning.

Then, I do at least one more layer of ‘sketch line art’, which is basically a first layer of line art to see what works and what needs changing. I colour the important bits relatively cleanly (usually character/s) and add might some subtle shadows/gradients and/or lighting to get a feel of what it will look like finished. Sometimes I repeat this process a couple of times if I’m not happy with how the first iteration looked. This stage usually looks a little like this character sheet I’m working on, and this slice from a Kiki delivery service sketch:

It’s usually not until I’ve done all that, that I go over and do the final lineart, making it thicker, colouring the lines, redoing the flat colours, tidying it up, and adjusting where needed. Essentially I don’t start ‘finishing’ a piece until I’m happy with where everything sits and what colours I’ve picked. It’s only at this point I feel like the sketch is ready to line, and lining and final colouring can actually take less time for me than all those layers of planning somehow haha.

At this point I keep tidying, cleaning, lining, colouring, until the piece feels complete. Sometimes complete for one piece is tidier than complete for another, it really depends.

I’ll also use Procreate’s push tool to adjust things as I go in all steps - it saves a lot of time and isn’t cheating.

Although as you can probably tell from my examples, I do change this procress up a lot depending on the piece! Sometimes I’ll even paint over parts of my final piece like I did in this magical girl street. I think find whatever works for you, everyone will work differently and things like mood, energy levels, how patient you feel, how stressed you are, if you have any hand pain or shaking, and how much free time you have that day to draw can all affect your process day to day, week to week.

Some days it will be easier and more comfortable to sketch messily, other days tidier. Some days you will draw well, other days not well at all. At least for me, I find consistency almost impossible.

So I think there's no right or wrong order to do things and it's great to switch it up and keep things interesting for yourself, and different processes work for different people. Hope this helps!

#faq #art process #art advice #art tips #drawing guide #sketch progress #digital art #procreate #human artist

[burinazar]

[warning: post about my ‘personal’ ‘romantic’ ‘life’, got a little mopey and oversharey. This Is Tumblr, So Im Posting It Anyway]

I sometimes conceptualize of myself as getting online crushes at the drop of a hat, but in fact that is not true. i develop a vague attraction to some online acquaintance about once every one to two years (and then do nothing about this since the idea of such a thing being mutual is…i mean, i’m not delusional, i’m aware it’s zero. stats irl bear this sort of thing out as far as anyone ever “liking me back.” I also can’t bear the humiliation and indignity of expressing such a thing and how pathetic and presumptuous I’d feel doing so, like a crawling worm that thinks it’s a human. Anyway,)

once every couple years …objectively isn’t “often”! most probably the reason I think “oh that happens so often” is that it, uh, does happen ‘often’ compared to the frequency with which I fall for people in real life. crushes number in the single digits and falling in love happened once, ever, catastrophically and extremely badly, for about four years, pathetically and unrequitedly, until it was finally snuffed out by lack of proximity, like suffocating a fire for lack of oxygen.

I’m slightly afraid it never ended and mostly try not to think about it. I accidentally did something really strange to myself a couple weeks ago by (hilariously, it was thru finding my old homestuck art and then thinking about my life at the time) remembering the wrong memories — Like, it was…trigger-adjacent? Idk I don’t like to use that word about myself I’ve never felt like I had a right — Anyway it was really bad I was in bed like shaking and crying and thinking, it never ended, it never ended, it will never end, I just achieve denial, that’s all I can do, I just wrap myself up in the comfort of imagining A&N or B&V and filling my heart with imagining their love but you idiot it’s all just lying to yourself and forgetting that I’ll never again know the peace and happiness I felt at [redacted]’s side and how that was so much better than nothing even if it would never be returned and ten years going by proves that, just like I knew then, it was once in a lifetime

…this was supposed to be a lighthearted post. Oops! Aaanyway, yes, your local Ebil develops some kind of vague online attraction every so often and then does not do anything about it ever. I think the part of my brain that does that kind of refocuses onto fictional love in a weird way? we’re going to go down a really weird path if i try to explore that further though and I didn’t like the way my mind went there when I —let’s say Mentally Stepped On a Rake as described above

tangent: one of the reasons i can get irrationally hurt over people being dicks about my handful of treasured ships is that part of me is like “you won’t even let me have THAT????” yeah yes i know that doesn’t make any fucking sense. christ. no i swear this post was meant to be lighthearted. oh man

#anyway. net crushes. can think of four examples in the 10yrs since the ((gestures)) ended. so it might be even less than every 1-2 years #ive resigned myself to a life without relationships bc the process of seeking them is simply not something i can bear #that’s a conscious trade off i know i am making.maybe one wil magically happen someday anyway. idk where I was going with this #interestingly none of my online crushes have ever been men??? but the brain destroying love thing was a man. make of that what you will #my feelings towards a healthy variety of fictional men keep me convinced of my persisting bisexuality ((thumbs up))

[iraprince]

Hey, can I ask you a lightbox question? Idk how much use you've had of it, but it seems really useful! I'd love to trace my sketches, but im worried about blaring light right in my eyes because I'm super sensitive to light and get migraines even from doing digital art. How hard is it on your eyes?

so, i've only been using it for an afternoon, but i think i would immediately say my main concern on the lightbox is more about ergonomics than eye strain (and my concerns about eye strain are more about struggling to see through the paper than about the light itself). for reference the model i'm using is this one, it's about €20.

the light itself is not actually that blinding — instead of being direct it's like a sheet of LEDs covered in tiny holes, and the light from all those holes together combines to be bright enough to see through the paper. also, you're always going to have paper on top of it, so unless the paper you're working on is much smaller than the pad itself, you're not going to spend much time staring directly into the light anyway. i can definitely imagine that seeing the little strip of it on the sides out of the corner of your eye as you work could eventually cause a headache, though.

^ like that.

also, it has three different brightness settings; i've quickly found that all three of them are useful in different contexts, even within the same drawing! the brightest doesn't hurt my eyes so far (it'll depend on what kind of paper you're using; in these pics my sketch is on regular printer paper, and the final is on bristol, which blocks out more of the light than two sheets of printer paper would).

here's where my concern about eye strain comes in: on the brightest setting, it's easy to see the sketch (the paper underneath), but hard to see what you're doing on the final (the paper on top). on the lowest setting, i can see more detail in what i'm actually drawing, but it's harder to make out the sketch underneath. i can easily see these different types of strain taking a toll on your eyes over time, especially if you really get in the zone and stop remembering to adjust the brightness based on what your eyes need.

^ my solution so far has been like this! you can fuss with the positioning of a regular lamp until it bounces off the top paper enough that u can see what ur doing, but it's not so direct that it cancels out the light from below. if i need to see more detail from the undersketch, i can quickly cup my hand to throw some shadow on it or set up a barrier (like my pencil bag).

besides that the main issue im foreseeing is the ergonomics thing i mentioned, the pad is so flat and thin that i'm really folding over my desk to see what im doing — but that's a bad habit i have when working on paper anyway. the cord is long enough that u could pick it up to work in your lap etc, i just find that awkward so i'd rather work flat.

#ira answers #oh one more note on this. #i used cello tape to secure both papers to the pad and i was like 'boy i sure hope this doesnt leave residue on the glass!' #i can already see that it is absolutely going to leave residue on the glass. not a huge deal but.... #not sure what other reasonable/easy solutions there are for keeping the papers firmly fixed

[bbbeowulf]

YIPPEE I HOPE EVERYONE HAD A GREAT HOLIDAY SEASON AND HAS A HAPPY NEW YEARRRRR!!!!

I have a lot of art resolutions that I wanna get through this year so I figured I would share them with all of you… VIA BINGO CARD!!

Bingo card inspired by AlmaKRowan on Twitter/X!!

List and explanations below the cut!!

Architecture: I want to learn how to draw buildings, rooms, etc.!!

Adopts: I want to make adopts!!

KOI character refs: Reference sheets for the characters in my story “Knights of Irene”!!

ArtFight: I’m gonna aim for 20 attacks/revenges, but we’ll see!!

GraVT piece: a group picture of the indie VTuber group I’m in, GraVT!!

Animated Illustration: I’VE BEEN WANTING TO DO THIS FOR YEARS MY TIME IS NOW

Animal studies: learn how to draw animals better

PNGtuber+ comm: I made one for myself (see it HERE) but I want someone to commission me for one >:,(

VTuber redesign: potentially maybe redesign my VTuber (even tho I literally just killed myself making the PNG+ model but WHATEVER IM ON DRUGS IG)

Leo TOTIKFR animatic: animatic for my OC Leo to the song “The Only Thing I Know For Real” by Tyson Yen

Digital painting: IVE BEEN WANTING TO LEARN HOW TO DIGITALLY PAINT/RENDER BUT I CANNOT WRAP MY HEAD AROUND IT BUT I WANNA TRYYY

Holiday YCH: YCH comms for major holidays!!

Snow Fairy MAP: I have a part in @jurygarroth’s Snow Fairy MAP so I need to get that done :D

Art Prints: I WANNA SELL ART PRINTS RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Bug studies: I wanna learn how to draw bugs :3c

OC sticker sheets: I wanna make (AND SELL) sticker sheets of my OCs (and maybe other fandom characters like MLP and stuff!! We’ll see.)

RP movie posters: movie poster style illustrations of my active role plays!!

DTIYS: I WANNA MAKE ONE AND PEOPLE PARTICIPATE PLZZZZ 😭😭 JUST ONE PERSON PLZ I BEG

Emotes: re-do my twitch/discord emotes

Sell canvases @ gallery: I have an art gallery in my town that I wanna apply for and sell some irl artwork!!

YCH comms: more YCH comms!!

Lobelia lore animatic: lore animatic for my VTuber

Pose studies: learn how to draw poses better

KOI cover: book cover for “Knights of Irene”

Abaddon Webcomic: this is a HARD maybe, but I’ve tried to make this webcomic happen 2 or 3 different times and I always got sick and tired of it before I got ANYWHERE with it. I think if I take it in more of a mini comic approach like Shen or Merryweather!!

There are a few more ideas I had that I didn’t put on my bingo!!

Leo’s Final Form: conceptualize Leo’s final form and draw the finalized version

Backgrounds: get better at drawing backgrounds

Foliage: get better at drawing foliage

Color Theory: learn color theory

Interesting shading: play around with colors and shade with different colors perhaps to make it pop?

Aphmau art: draw more Aphmau art

KOI: Finish planning out KOI and potentially start writing it? It’s not art in the sense of it being written not drawn but whatever I wanna do this

Commissions: keep doing commissions! I wanna try to do at least 20 this year 👉👈

Art trades: do some art trades with people outside of ArtFight!!

Art raffle: do an art raffle 🧍

Draw my FRIENDSSS: I WANNA DRAW MY FRIENDS WAHHHHHHHHHH

GET HIRED BY YORUNOMACHI: *on my hands and knees sobbing, begging, throwing up*

Do Aphtober/Cringetober/some form of tober AND FINISH: I doubt I’ll finish lmfao

Make OC profiles on UnVale: it’s like toyhouse but it doesn’t make me want to kms when using it

Learn VTuber Rigging: I just wanna know how to do it :3

Anyways I’m sure there’s more but this is just a list of everything I can think of off the top of my head! A week from now I might decide to not do any of this LMFAO! But we’ll see how much I actually do this year!! Yippee!!

Happy new year everyone!!

#anyways yeah I totally recommend that anyone does this bc I think it’ll be fun!! #if I don’t know what to draw I can just check my bingo card and pick my poison :3c #art #2024 resolutions #art bingo #bingo card #text post

[worldofgoo]

yayayay yippee (≧◡≦) i love how vibrant & lively your art is, i think my fav pieces are Horse Surgery & hanyuu (even tho i have no idea who that is) but that one wip with the rainbow is also v ery special 2me because it reminds me of my fav kind of weather ^_^ generic Which Program Do You Use question & also which programs have you tried so far? which one would you recommend for someone whose only experience so far wiht digital art has been scribbling in ms paint -_-? on topic, what do you draw with (mouse, phone, drawing tablet, ??) & was it easy for you to get used to digital art? i always get overwhelmed by the amound of different functions available so im not sure where to even start, any advice? which physical art forms do you like / would you like to learn (anything at all, i personally have been getting into air dry clay... well actually ive been using my sisters playdoh but maybe ill purchase smthn fancier :3) & final question how do you come up with poses to draw? your characters (+creatures) seem very animated and i really like that :)

HI okay i guess ill answer these in a list. actually will put it under the cut since i ended up saying a lot (and dw i enjoy being able to talk a lot so thank you!)

-THANK YOU im glad some of my more recent works (in my more current style) are appealing 2 people! like i wanna draw my own way even though i think it gets less notes... the higurashi fanarts (hanyuu and shion) r very memorable pieces to me because its when i started doing the loose sketches with the thin lines and block colors and thats the direction i reallyreally wanted to take my style in. also the rainbow is rian my friend rian

-i draw in paint tool sai! the only program i used before that was sketchbook pro, which i didnt like because the brushes were kind of... blurry/smudgy? sai allows you to zoom in and draw pixel by pixel which is something i like, and i like the way it does its blending. its also just easier for me to understand. i didnt pay for it i think i found some deviantart page that had the link, id have to find it again

-i draw with a wacom intuos tablet! its lasted me... almost 10 years now. ive heard newer ones are poorer quality in terms of at least the nibs needing to be replaced constantly, so idk what the most recommended tablet these days is. ive drawn with my mouse and tbh it caused awful hand pain so i would not recommend this. i draw on my phone with my finger sometimes but i find doing it on my laptop easier, however it is doable once you get used to it

-the way i got into digital art... well. i still have an archive of my earliest art if you wanna see! i was 14 n just drew random shit, often lining over doodles i did on paper and coloring them in. i think esp if youre overwhelmed start with making like throwaway experimental pieces, scribble around, doodle stupid things and color them in with different brushes and see what you enjoy. and then you can just keep the files to yourself if they dont look too good or maybe itll look interesting, it depends i guess haha. the other thing that ive always found helped me was telling myself id draw every day even if it was a little scribble or the tiniest amount of work on a wip bc getting a habit going helped my art a Lot beause it helped me spend more time thinking n focusing on it

more specific advice for sai that i found useful- using clipping groups & the preserve opacity functions are both lifesavers in terms of not spending so much time trying to color in the lines. if you color in a base layer you can just put everything above it as a clipping group and just not worry about it anymore. i also really like using the filters (like multiply) to mess around with the colors a drawing has, though sometimes its more effective to just select a layer/individual color and fuck with the hue/saturation/etc until it looks good. when i color, esp when its not turning out how i wanted to, i rely on shifting colors A LOT. n also mixing colors together using a blending brush and then colorpicking the intermediate color. very useful

-for the most part i stick to uncolored pencil doodles on like, notebook paper (even though i have some fancy supplies X[ one day) but i LOVE making things with clay, wish it was more accessible to do at home. i have a handful of clay animal statues and stuff that i made in my ceramics class in high school. would looove to do more

-because my poses tend to be very pushed/cartoony using references of real people isnt always useful (though obv knowing the basics of anatomy always helps) so in those cases ill use other cartoony art i like as inspiration, i try to see what i like about their poses nd emulate that with my own. sometimes when im struggling ill just do a bunch of studies where i copy art i like to try to get a feel for what im missing. mostly ive realized i like when the pose conveys some level of like, volume and taking up a 3D space (which im still definitely not a master of but bullshitting it can be fun). and i also like to have a balance of curved and angular shapes. sometimes i try to just do a pose that conveys a specific emotion or i just make shit up lol

alsooooo i cant reccomend aimless doodling enough! just random shapes, turning the random shapes into creatures, trying and trying and trying different ways to draw something until you like it, i feel like the things my hand makes when i shut my brain off and just scribble can inspire me as well, and i try to emulate whatever i made by chance while doodling. and if your doodles turn out better in traditional i tend to consider using a photo of a drawing as a way to skip the "preliminary sketch" phase nd drawing a rough sketch over that which i then use for my drawing (or just directly color since i draw very fast/lazy...)

#long answer but i wanted to give good answers to everything!!! #thank you again!!! #and i hope i helped #yayyy talking about art #ask

[mariska]

got my income for the month the other day and after 6+ months of not being able to make digital art the way i'm used to with my specific accessibility needs because of physical health symptoms with my hands, i was finally able to buy myself a new Paint Tool Sai license today, since a little while back i successfully installed an optional Windows 10 operating system on my Macbook (Sai doesn't run on Mac, at least not Version 1 which is what i need and have been using for over a decade) that i can switch back and forth between whenever and i am so so so so happy and relieved about it and so fucking excited to get to draw digital lines the way im used to drawing them after trying so many other similar programs and failing to find anything that worked exactly the same as Sai's basic built-in pen stabilizer 😭😭😭😭😭😭

i was able to quickly test out my (also ancient lol) art tablet with it and make sure everything works and it doesnt lag or anything like that and its perfect its exactly like i've always used it, i remembered which pen stabilization number setting i've been using for years and like.

dude. i know i sound dramatic right now LMAO but i CANNOT sketch or draw properly on traditional paper or sketchpads anywhere near what i can do in Sai because of all my tremors and shakiness and sudden muscle movements that make accidental lines and all that. and when i drew just one regular brush stroke in Sai and felt it move like im used to and got that super smooth sensation of 'pretty much just drawing like im holding a pencil/pen but with the shakiness of my lines improved'....almost cried a lil not gonna lie fjsgdgsgdhsgshf its been so many months and i've put so much mental energy into researching how to do that whole windows installation on my 2012 era macbook and somehow did that without completely messing it up and then having to wait until a month where i have enough extra money to buy the official version (Sai is so important 2 me and the most accessible digital art program i've ever used for my specific hand problems and i've used it for so long that i am only comfortable using the officially licensed version of it, yknow?) and also theres just something so nice about finally being able to use it again a few days before my birthday even though that timing wasn't on purpose...

AHHHHH im just so relieved. i feel like im free to just be able to make sketch pages and draw stuff whenever i have free time to and i have an idea in my head again and i havent felt that in so long and it was making my depression so much worse....and also because i've been doing my best to adapt to the similar but different settings in Clip Studio Paint, i have 2 really nice digital art programs with a lot of cool and useful features between the both of them now that i can use to like, mix and match with my art!! which is awesome!! i think Clip will mostly be used by me now for more graphic design type projects since Sai's always been my core art program, but i'd love to experiment with drawing/sketching/painting pieces in Sai and then plopping them into Clip and adding some extra fun effects or background elements or even just easier to repeat patterns with its' huge free-to-use resource library for like stamps and texture effects and more photoshop-y things like that.

ANYWAYS!! im just rambling to myself because im so happy and relieved to have My Art Program back so i thought i would share since its rare for me to feel as happy and excited and get some sense of normalcy back in any capacity these days, being immunocompromised and stuck in my house as long as i have been the past 3 years and counting. it has been a good amount of time since i've felt like i have A Victory To Celebrate and i hope that feeling lingers as long as it can 🥹✌️

[toxooz]

You're an amazing artist, and I look up to you. And I just wanna say that I can't wait till you post more art!!

Your style is amazing, and I'm just starting to do digital art, is there any tips you can offer? ^^

Also- have an amazing day/night!!

THANK YOUUU!!!!!! uuuh i dont think i rlly have any super special tips as far as digital art goes- with me it was more so getting used to the hand eye coordination since I'm not looking directly at what my hand is drawing and also unless ur some big super fancy Digital Artist as a profession or something i personally say dont pay a damn CENT for any art programs or w/e if you want to that's cool no problem but as far as the weird pressure of ''o i need a fancy art program with all these expensive brushes in order to make anything gOoD'' its horse shit tbh!!!! I just use Fire Alpaca its totally free with a bunch of cool little features that also lets you make your own brushes n stuff plus its virus free as far as I can see I'm sure my dad would've beat my ass over it yeeears ago when i first downloaded it if it did have any 😂 so from downloading it on the family computer to my shitty 2006 laptop to my "PC" now it seems to be doin fine 👍 SAME GOES 4 TABELTS I had my first tablet that i assume was like 70 bucks back then and I had it for like over a decade and the only reason I finally recently got a new one was my 1st tablet's wire was getting bent and i almost drew a hole it it and it had blind spots and reaaally having trouble with pen pressure lmfao(still works tho so it's now a backup):

and it seems like the no screen tablets are getting waaay cheaper bc my new one feels like im living the luxury and it was 70 bucks too but with may more pen sensor things and a little mini touch screen thing:

so yeah u aint gotta have the newest coolest tablet neither 😤 uuuuh another one is be patient ig?? as in u dont gotta do a whole ass illustration with shading and background n all that at first, I think for a good couple years I had my tablet I just colored over scanned drawings i did on paper bc I just didn't like actually drawing with my tablet pffft so i mean easing into it worked for me. I suppose, with anything, just trust the process and an unfinished digital piece may look different than an unfinished piece done traditionally so don't discouraged aaand yeah i think thats all I got hOPE U HAVE AN AMAZING DAY/NIGHT TOO!!!

#plus hell u see people making fukkin masterpeices on paint so if theres a will theres a way by god #probably not the best answer comin from just a simple hoe who draws afer work for free and hardly thinks bUT #i tried ppffft #idk man if u want something more specific lemme kno cause my ass rambles #and i just checked the new tablet price and apparaent its on sale for only like 50 bucks so my point furthurs sksksk

[lemon-sugarcoats-nothing]

14. 🍋 and 🐝

Question 14 of the artist asks (Im sorry ive been sitting on this one for so long aaa): How has your art changed over the years?

My art hasnt changed much honestly! i've gotten better at watercolor painting, and acrylic paints, and i'm getting the hang of digital too! - 🍋

🐝 - ...Oh boy, another long history lesson today, Strap in. To keep things a little easier on me to keep condensed, I'm only going over my traditional pony art and NOT digital art. (Im not sure how much of the digital art i could even recover anymore)

TL;DR I've gone through many phases in my art, both pony and otherwise. I started out drawing ponies in 3rd of 4th grade in a very cartoon style, then trying to copy the show style, then with anime eyes to varying success, and finally to where i am now.

Alright so long ass history lesson:

This is my earliest attempt at making my own ponysona; i was really into applejack and wanted my pony to be in the apple family! This oc didnt really go anywhere though, and i dont think i drew her again. This was also early on, before i started following tutorials for drawing ponies.

A bit later, after drawing ponies while following tutorials for a while, I started trying to draw them in my own style. At the time, I was mostly trying to draw in an anime style with my humanoid drawings, and so the big eyes transferred over. During this time, most of my drawings were in blue ballpoint pen on notebook paper or printer paper. I was drawing a lot during my (online) classes and I would fill out pages and pages like this.

While i wasnt using tutorials as often anymore, i still watched a LOT of pony drawing content. At some point, i discovered some videos that inspired me to expand how i drew even more, and i started adding more graphite and colored pencil into final drawings.

Videos in question:

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSmSN3VtdD0

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTyMx2H-nuI

A bit later, i also got into creepypasta drawings for mlp and some of the songs (specifically for rainbow factory), but i didnt ever read or listen to MLP creepypastas on their own until much much later. I did however, write my own two page creepypasta comic for pinkie that i never kept up. I think i intended to but after 24 hrs i forgot and dropped the project. Ironically, I tried to redraw it a few years ago as a humanoid comic, stretching it out into i think...10 pages? until my hand got tired and I never actually got to the creepypasta part of the original first comic page. (If you'd like to see, let me know! I still have them, but there would be too many images to post in this already really long post)

Oddly enough, i noticed that around this time i was also mostly drawing either creepypasta, psychotic ponies, or drawing ponies sad and crying. Just a weird little note.

I had a short phase where i drew ponies with more boxy muzzles too, but most notable here is that i finally remade a ponysona! I would keep this sona until I would stop engaging with MLP content and go through my "Ew, mlp weird" phase.

This was also from my time of boxy nosed ponies, and I think the first image was inspired off of a drawing that came up on a google search but i dont remember. I redrew it a while later, after practicing with colored pencils more. The redraw happened sometime during my "Ew mlp" phase.

And now we enter more current stuff. all these drawings are still old but are more in line with what i draw now, and were while i was starting to come out of my "Ew mlp" phase.

First image, you can see this is one of the first times I drew Lucious as a pony. At the time, in the main rp he's from he was still just straight up a demon. And in the second image is a sketch dump of the mlp characters, where i was jut getting more comfortable drawing them again. Still held onto those boxy noses though.

No style change here, but there was a time in my humanoid art where i would draw my and Mocha's characters as royalty. Then i went and drew them as ponies in those outfits! the first image you can see Cinna as an alicorn, and an early version of Lemon was just a unicorn. In the second image, was one of my first attempts to draw Jaysir! I guess its not too far off.

Last is just this pencil drawing of Lemon when their name was still Lemon Sugar-Moon! After this point, i think i took another break from drawing ponies until we come to current day where my style of drawing ponies has less boxy noses, and more pointy, less realistic and just a bit more fun for me personally :D

Who knows where my pony art will go next! Thank you for your ask and I'm sorry again that this has taken so long for me to finally just sit down and type out lol

#mlp oc #mlp art #mlp fim #my little pony friendship is magic #my little pony fanart #art progress #redraw #creepypasta #mlp creepypasta #old art #art dump #mlp ask blog #ask blog

[jocosejoni]

HI ok I love ur stuff and ur stories and ur style of making comics and im looking to start making comics in the near future, do you have any advice or tips???? I hope u have a good day :] !!

!!! Ooo!! Get ready this is gonna be a lot! Maybe I'll put in random art???? to separate it????

So for advice:

Before you draw any pages or anything, have the story written! It doesn't have to be a book it can even just be a word doc w/ bullet points of what you want to happen. For CoD I have a general 5 point story thing (beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending) with big things I want to happen under them that I end up building the chapters around.

Have your characters fully fleshed out too. Maybe your story doesn't have anyone get ice cream, but we all need to know what their favorite flavor is and why.

Find a style you like that's fast and easy and ideally doesn't do too much damage to your hands/wrists cause with comics you're gonna be drawing A LOT. Remember to take breaks to stretch your wrists/fingers/shoulders and to not look at a screen for a bit. And mental health breaks, they say "Comics will Break your Heart" and they mean it.

Lots of people say to start with short projects first and I think that's a good idea!!! you can always build on short stories if your heart desires, but also if you have a giant magnum opus idea that you think is perfect, just start it now! ALSO, also, if something happens and you gotta end it early its okay too, you can always reboot it! IF CARTOONS CAN HAVE A BILLION REBOOTS so can your comics.

Vintage 2013 Conner (technically CoD is a reboot of a comic I started in hs/early college that I had to end because a character I had based on a real person died in the comic and a few weeks after that page went up the real person died irl and I got SCARED.)

For Tips:

I love using all mediums. Sometimes its fun to experiment and use mediums specific to your story. Maybe you wanna do a mermaid comic, maybe try it in a watercolor style??? I normally use like a heavy ink style, but with CoD I wanted something sharper so I've been trying that.

Usually the flow with comics is Script, Thumbnails, Pencils at page size, inks, colors, and finally lettering. But after Scripting and Thumbnailing It can go in whatever order.

For lettering font choice is important! You want it to be legible and fit well with the tone of the story/dialogue. There's lots of good lettering info and free fonts for personal/self publishing use here: https://blambot.com/ They also have a scripting guide but there's been a newer guide floating around too that's trying to standardize scripts (cause if you start working with writers you'll find that EVERYONE is so different when they send you a script) https://www.oheysteenz.com/scs-template

I am inhumanly fast at comics usually, and that's because I like to cheat. I don't always do pencils. on digitally drawn comics I'll take a photo of the thumbnail and draw over it cause its just a general idea of where things need to go. On traditionally inked ones I do the same thing but I end up printing the thumbnail onto the Bristol paper.

Following sample is from apoppy chapter 2 and features traditional penciling which allows you to make fun notes like "less dick shapes" very accurate inks and to flesh out any drawing problems you might have.

For Drawing Print Comics:

In Clip Studio/photoshop/procreate, You want a canvas that's 300 DPI or higher sized appropriately for what size book you want to make. Regular size comics I make at 11x17 inches and size down for books to like 10 something by 6 something. Different printers have slightly different requirements and they all should have templates available. If you're coloring it export your image in CMYK, its gonna look weird on the webpage but don't worry.

For traditional drawing: 11x17 Bristol Board and ink. Some people swear by certain brands, I'm cheap and use a giant bottle of Speedball Ink and a brush or a set of fine tip pens like Faber Castell Pitt Pens or Microns. I like those because they're waterproof and I like to paint at random. Scanning should be done in full color at 300+ DPI but, that size is a challenge, I've had to scan in sections and piece it together digitally. It Sucks, but large flatbed scanners are hard to find. I haven't tried one of those kind that feeds the paper through tho.

I don't know much about the mobile format comics as far as pacing goes. I'm in the grandpa zone and think mobile format is making you do more work for nothin cause if a "normal" episode has like 60 panels you could equate that to print comics and say that it's 10, 6 panel pages or 6, 10 panel pages (which is a lot of panels you sorta don't wanna go over 10 if you don't have to but that's all up to you) and over the course of history webcomics have only ever posted like 1 page a week or more. anyone posting a page every day is wildin.

Oh oh oh also! Coloring!! everyone colors differently but i swear by making your own color palette. CoD started with a limited color palette and has been building over the years, and Apoppytheosis has a very very limited color palette and a rule for that comic was to not use any other colors. (any other colors seen were from another palette color doing something weird over the top of that layer) (This is the apoppytheosis color palette. Apoppy 2 is similar but more vibrant.)

Anyway I'm going rambly!! feel free to reach out if you got specific questions on pages or approaches to stuff!! I went to college for comics and I could talk about this all night.

#origamiyoda #ask response #my art #webcomic #how to webcomic

[tizzymcwizzy]

wip game!! :D

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips. (You can make your own post or reblog this one!)  I have deemed that this isn’t just for writing either. Sketch titles? Comics? Dnd campaigns? If you have an unfinished project, it counts!!

thanks @zivazivc @anna-scribbles and @carpisuns for tagging me! this is really good timing cause i have SO fucking many wips that im working on rn hddhhd

also! im gonna be leaving for vacation today! so! i may answer your ask tomorrow and not rn cause i need to get on a plane! dhdhhdJDJDHFG please feel free to send lots of asks about multiple tho, there's too many of these

(some date back to around 2019 some are very recent as of like, yesterday)

DIVIDED BY FANDOM AND TYPE:

miraculous ladybug

ART WIPS:

adrinette cuddle hours

horror

jumpscare

recognized

marichat cuddles

rings (on makeup file)

marichat painting nails

dump and stuff

digital redraws

chat noir comic

DUMP (sketches)

DUMP (memora)

whose woods these are marichat

tizzy's wips

disguise

more dump

letters

fashion kids

thinking of family

trapped

ladymonk designs

marichat romeo juliet

ghost of your past

don't ask me what this means

nightgown adrien

mlb x toh crossover

FICS:

asnyr (a stranger's new years resolution)

FINALLY THE LIBRARY AU

plus one

memora

the whisps decide her fate

villain au 2.0

when i wake there you are, just for me

it's you

of flowers and feathers

he could handle this

"we're not like everyone else," felix said

adrien bitching at his dad blurb

"god, and the fact that I would let her,"

ladymonk

POETRY:

oh to the truest love of things

how i knew it was over

ladynoir kissing poetry

she says i love you

oh dear god what is it to be a man in love

the owl house

ART WIPS:

hollow mind

hunter sketchdump

get yo girl bitch

outfits

lumity kiss

mlb x toh crossover

toh and at dumps

hunter redraw doodle

waffle house

(the following are from the past week)

truama talk

sandwich

give me your hand

makeover

makeover dump

hit him in a heartbeat now

something that you once where

white boy wednesday

he's a hunter

leave him alone

FICS/CONCEPTS:

late night walks through a green wood

memories of most exquisite anguish

"oh my goodness, Philip? Is that you?"

hexsquad motorcycle

hunters journey down the knee notes

POETRY:

there's this string that ties us together

is this what it's like to be loved without condition?

personal/other

skid and mari

untitled

snales

ocs

class 3

him

SNAIL WIP

last girl

the seamstress

weird

danny testing

class 5

stuff

GUY

whatever the fuck

marcie

dilves

CHRIST that was long,, anyway there's no way in hell i can tag enough people so ill abstain dfghhhff feel free to do this if you want to tho!

#when i tell you there are so many of these i meant there are SO many of these dhdhhdjdjf #tizzy talks #ask game #wip ask game #and i also mean it when i say ask for multiple cause for some of these i wouldn't post otherwise #go apeshit my friends

[bloodsbane]

ive been thinking about my ~resolutions~ wrt my art for 2023, and i think the main thing is i want to re-learn how to let myself sink into a picture and do stuff just for fun

mainly, i want to develop the patience it takes to put a lot of work into something that i know won't be perfect, because being too scared to start holds me back. in particular i want to make more detailed pictures. not in terms of realism, but like... STUFF. draw more objects, more small details, flavor, personality. i want to try drawing more interior settings, get used to furniture and walls and ceilings and everyday objects. learn to fill in spaces in ways that convey a lot of personality and/or story

i also wanna make more comics!! but newspaper myself when it comes to longer-form projects. excluding MOIRA, which i hope to pick back up again this year, i am going to try limiting myself to short story comics that are only a handful of pages. my problem is that i like slow development of concepts and dialogue-heavy stuff. i want to train myself to be better at just having fun with a simple concept that i can play around with in like, 2-3 pages max. it's going to be tough, but im hoping this will help make me even more proficient in drawing comics and sand down some of the rough edges i feel grating on me still

i also want to make more merch! ever since getting a book specifically for the stickers i collect, i've gotten even more into stickers and want to make more of them. i hope to re-open my etsy store this year, though i may also try to FINALLY do what it takes to set up my own website. i think that would be a good Main Goal for this year - a site to make a porfolio out of, even if i'm not personally interested in securing, like, Professional Art Jobs... I did do some work as a colorist for someone else's comic and I think I'd love the chance to do something like that again? maybe!

a site would also be good for setting up a way to buy merch from me more directly, though there are some perks that come with doing things through etsy... no pay cuts would be pretty sexy though, especially because something as small as stickers or A5 prints are really easy to package on my own. i'll have to look into it and see.

OH AND THE LAST THING IS THAT I WANNA MAKE ZINES! little ones that I can send to friends, and then less-little ones that I can put for sale digitally and physically, maybe for limited runs. gotta research that a bit but i've already got a couple of fun ideas and I'm super excited to find the time to work on stuff like that.

so... here's to hoping, i guess, for a productive year. im hoping my move and major restructure of my life/schedule, and not living with family anymore, is going to give me the space to be more myself irl in ways that will benefit my energy levels and creativity... so here's to hoping i guess!

#banebabbles #ref

[kerykomo]

so i got my drawing tablet back after coming home from college...

comic explaination and transcription under the cut

not to get super into it like i did in a previous post, but as i mentioned in said previous post, i was struggling a lot both in different aspects of my life and creatively. which sucks, because art has been both an enjoyment and an outlet, so not even being able to use it for purposes like venting- or feeling like that i couldn't make art AT ALL was just.. so difficult. not to mention having to convince myself that it was temporary and the storm of artblock couldn't last forever.

not to say that im fully through the storm yet- but this is the biggest, longest break in my fight with artblock that i've had in a long time. all because i switched up a drawing method. normally i draw either on paper or on my ipad (used as an on-screen drawing tablet) so when i got sick of/stuck with one, i would often switch to the other. but not too long ago BOTH mediums became impossible for me to create with. i tried new pens, new colors, new styles- nothing stuck, and nothing seemed to work.

all until i finally came home from my semester away at uni, and reunited with my off-screen drawing tablet. little tiny wacom intuos comic edition from 2016 that STILL WORKS despite how many years ive used it. so i decided to make this post :)

-+-

comic transcription: i got my drawing tablet back! /pos

i'll be the first to admit it- going back to the hand-eye disconnect was WEIRD. but it was nice to go "back to my roots" in a sense- and after a few minutes of drawing the muscle memory started kicking in. it was fun. drawing was FUN.

drawing was FUN- creating was FUN. for the first time in months- YEARS of depressive art block, thinking i was just "bad" at digital art- i felt FREE. i didn't feel like i HAD to make things or else it invalidated me as an artist- i just... DID. / i came back with new skills and drawing techniques from years away and started being able to apply them and make my art look good. i was finally satisfied with what i was creating.

"I MISSED YOU LIL BUDDY!! UEUEUEUE"

#komo’s art #kerykomo #komocaws #komocállate #komo comic #art #digital art #art block