#I do need to do more portraiture though like my own style always improves whenever I do | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qnqura · 6 years

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Art resources and how to improve!

One year ago I started out with digital painting and made some decent progress (I think). Many people ask me, how I learned on my own painting in Photoshop in that time. For this reason, I’d like to share with you all my art resources, that I had been using and still often take a look into for repetition. If you have any other tips for us, let me know in the comments! If you don’t want to read all, just click the links! The Basics There is a ton of good tutorials on Youtube for the first easy steps in Photoshop. I started out with some, that I don’t consider good right now, so I want to recommend you another one, that I found much later. The tutorials of CTRL+Paint cover pretty much everything that you need to know about basic painting. They are easy to understand and follow. And they are completely free! https://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/ For the next step one should probably decide whether to go for a realistic look or going directly into manga/comic style. I recommend learning first the fundamentals of realism, before getting into styles. This way also your manga/anime art will look much more convincing. Starting with painting realistically The first tutorials I watched to paint humans (full body/ portraiture) were from Ahmed Aldoori (also having a great tutorial for blending!) and Jesus Conde (great skin tutorial and also environments covered!).

Ahmed: https://www.youtube.com/user/revolutions34/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/JesusCondeArtStudio

Other great basic tutorials (but also some more advanced ones) you can find in Draw with Jazza, KNKL and Xia Taptara and Sycra. But be cautious: They are not realistic (some paintings come close though).

Xia: https://www.youtube.com/user/idrawgirls/videos

https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

In addition, I must say that some content is contradictory between these artists and I can just recommend to either try them out yourself and pick one or rely on only one source, that is most attracting you. I decided to rely more on Istebrak, I want to introduce as follows.

My main source for realistic painting though is Istebrak. She is doing some great tutorials, critiques and also has a google community where you can post your (realistically attempted) artwork to get critiques by her and the community. She might sound harsh sometimes, but her content is really professional and helpful. It is a great resource for beginners and advanced people likewise! I was mostly relying on her content to improve in painting and it helped me a lot! Try always to critique the paintings she is showing yourself and watch her suggestions after and you will learn a ton and also be able to train your eyes to actually SEE. Google: https://plus.google.com/communities/106157483273509078501 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Istebrak Comic Style For a more comic oriented approach I recommend Draw with Jazza and for a mixture of comic/anime styles KNKL. But I didn’t use their tutorials often.

https://www.youtube.com/user/KienanLafferty

https://www.youtube.com/user/DrawWithJazza

Istebrak also has one tutorial for a realistic approach for anime styled painting. Go and check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF05uz5fd90

I also like the art of Sara Tepes, but it is much stylistic, so I don’t recommend try out that style as a beginner. You can learn a lot from her but please stick with fundamentals first. Other than these I didn’t watch any tutorials on how to do anime style. If you have any suggestions, let me know!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWgMcluGLnaVpCWmscaFs_Q

Landscape For my first paintings I needed some information about painting landscapes. I didn’t get too much into it, but I was mainly watching Istebrak’s videos on this matter or Walid Feghali, whose environments look insanely good! And also Jesus Conde, of course. I also got a glimpse on Noah Badleys Landscapes tutorials, but you will need time for these!

https://www.youtube.com/user/Feroyn

https://www.youtube.com/user/noahbradley

Animals For one piece I had to get into painting a tiger. For this I used mainly the tutorials of Aaron Blaise. He works for Disney and can do both- realistic and also stylistic painting. He is a must to check out. https://www.youtube.com/user/AaronBlaiseArt

General (advanced) tutorials you should also watch as beginner

I LOVE Marco Bucci, but he dumped me unfortunately when I asked him to marry me (LUL). But his videos are SO much into depth, entertaining, short but really really informative. You must go check out his tutorials, like NOW.

https://www.youtube.com/user/marcobucci/videos

I also liked the tutorial on how to plan lighting by Tyler Edlin. And the Tutorial series from Swatches is just LOVE (especially the one on values is really valuable… Get it? :D) It is usually for 3D modeling in Blender, but here and there are really good videos also for us painting artists on the channel Blender Guru.

https://www.youtube.com/user/TylerE2284

https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewPPrice

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiU1-5VronbfeScuABAJC4A/videos

If you are already more advanced it might be interesting for you to have a look at the levelup series on youtube. They have amazing content and feature many professional artists as well. https://www.youtube.com/user/levelupsessions/videos If you have the money and you want to get good at art really seriously, then you should consider paying for personal mentorship that many artists offer (Istebrak, Swatches, Bucci …) or to buy also purchasable tutorials. Tutorials you need to pay for

By now I only bought tutorials from Sakimichan and Ross Draws. I recommend Sakimichan, as soon as you got the fundamentals done. I don’t recommend starting with these tutorials, if you never ever painted before. It might take you longer to get things like anatomy, lighting and so on done correctly. RossDraws tutorials are more or less commented videos on his painting process, which is also really interesting to see of course. I am considering buying also Bucci tutorials and the artbook from swatches. I will update as soon as I worked with these! Getting critiques First of all I recommend joining Istebraks Community, because you can get critiques there quickly and all for free. Also, some other youtubers give critiques on Portfolios for free, but you must be really lucky to be “chosen”, e.g. Swatches (but these critiques are sooo good!). Getting critiques is really fundamental for improvement. So, you really should consider to get them, whenever you can. Depending on what you are aiming for I recommend getting one of the mentorships I talked about earlier.

Another way is to join an online class. I found some great looking ones on https://2d.cgmasteracademy.com/ where also my idol teaches. The prices are really tough though. I did not take part in these classes yet, but they look really promising. Resources that are not video tutorials

Another website I can recommend (to train many poses) is Posemaniacs. It will give you many random poses that you quickly need to jot down. http://www.posemaniacs.com/

I will also drop some links here of pages with tutorials that I looked through as well.

https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/the-secret-to-realistic-painting-how-to-master-value--cms-23457

https://www.creativebloq.com/illustration/13-ways-improve-your-card-art-41619873

https://www.pinterest.de/characterdesigh/

https://www.daz3d.com/animation-and-poses#p=7 (for getting some pose ideas)

PortraitStudio by Istebrak (MUST GET) http://istebrak.com/store/portraitstudio General tips on how to improve (fast) First of all- ART NEEDS TIME. Stop looking for “how to improve fast” videos! And of course, you only learn how to ride a bike, by riding a bike and not watching others riding it. So, get on your bikes now! Painting every day is a must! But to my opinion there is no use to paint everyday only out of one’s head. So, my first tip is: 1. GET REFERENCE This is a lesson I had to learn much too late in my life. It always felt wrong to use references as if I was copying or stealing from others. But fact is: You need to learn seeing first and you need to see things before you can paint them. A dog without reference will never reach realism. Of course, you somehow can improve without referencing BUT it could take you years and years. Take the shortcut, look at references when painting. 2. STUDY It sounds obvious but studying (especially anatomy when painting humans and also doing form studies) is the only way to learn. Try to study everyday (by using references! GOD!), scribble and paint until your fingers start to burn! 3. GET (REAL) CRITIQUES Yes, you can show your painting to your mommy or best friend and they will tell you how amazing you are. But this won’t lead to anything. You need people to tell you what is wrong, what you need to improve. Not friends, artists. Go and ask them. I gave some suggestions in the text above. 4. SETTING GOALS You need to know why you are doing all this. What are you aiming for? Only with the right motivation you can get yourself into painting daily. Also pick some artists that you can set as your personal goal (Melanie Delon for portraiture in my case). 5. KEEP YOUR OLD ARTWORK Sometimes motivation can be a tricky thing so keep your old paintings so that you can see your progress! I even keep steps of each painting to see the progress within that painting! 6. DON’T COMPARE Motivation gets even harder, when you always compare your work to those of great or famous artists. You can get some inspiration from these or just enjoy them. Just stay on your track and focus on your art. Every great artist was a beginner once. 7. DO IT #NOEXCUSES #BECONSISTENT Last but not least, just paint, sketch and draw. Remember that bike thing I was talking earlier about? Yeah. EXTRA: Speedpaints As a general tip: Don’t waste too much time watching speedpaints. They give a REALLY fast insight in how a piece started out and developed, but you won’t know HOW they did it and WHY they made these choices. If you are liking one special artist, consider getting their more in-depth stuff from their patreon or gumroad. I know it is mesmerizing to watch, but you won’t learn much from it. And because they are so addictive, you might lose a whole day without realizing it. It is often good to watch a tutorial instead, but it is even better to just spend your time painting by yourself. Wow! You read the whole thread! GG! Thank you, for making it here. If you liked the content and want to connect with me, feel free to join me either on twitch or follow me on Instagram! https://www.twitch.tv/qnqura https://www.instagram.com/qnqura

#art improvement #art #resources #tips #howtoimprove #twitch #qnqura #rules #instagram #twitchcreative

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