#i really like the way i colored the lineart here :') i gotta experiment more with that

[fexiled]

@stanuary Week Three: Fantasy & Memories

"hey kids i think i'm remembering something! i was... tenderly nursing waddles with only the richest of creams? that can't be right."

#gravity falls #stanley pines #stan pines #waddles #stanuary #fex draws #i really like the way i colored the lineart here :') i gotta experiment more with that

[u3pxx]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S 2024?!?!

next, you're gonna tell me it's gonna be some made-up year like "2025" next. tch, imagine that.

anyways, whoo! 2023! compared to both 2022 and 2021, i gotta say, my art style took a hard swerve in some direction this year. i mean, look at that klavier from january and that butch kim from just this december! (granted, i heavily referenced the portrait of butch kim but still, i didn't use to paint! mama mia!)

---

the way i drew faces has definitely changed, that's what i get for getting into something that's live-action and into smth that has realistically proportioned art lol

OH! OH! HOW COULD I FORGET!!! IT WAS (and still will be) THE YEAR OF THE OLD MAN!! i really learned how to draw aged faces this year! ach fraulein, i have not stopped drawing people in their 40's-50's! i would say "send help" but i'm actually having a lot of fun ASKSKS

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i think a funny thing about these art summaries i've done is that they're mostly ace attorney but then there's just a month where i become a different type of ill LMAO this year it was four months for the price of two new interests!

cheers! here's to 2024!!! hope y'all have a fun art year!!!!

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i'm gonna ramble more below about like, other art things i did this year but i'm gonna put it under 'keep reading' bc this baby is getting way too wordy now WHEEZES

1. FAVORITE THINGS I'VE DRAWN THIS YEAR (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

⚖️ mea culpa comic [x]

drawing this one was so time-consuming and ambitious but boy, do i love the end result! i had fun doing the inks for this one but was it a lot! i usually color in lineart and render everything but i had to stop myself from doing it for this one bc man, i'll die asksks

this also has some of my favorite apollos i've drawn, definitely

also! the part about the lineart not being colored and no rendering ended up being a deliberate stylistic choice for this one bc i had like more freedom to do just shadows with inks without it looking too out of place.

💐 my lawfully wedded zine spread [x]

now this one isn't out yet but take my word for when i say that this is one of the most craxy things i've ever drawn for this year, on account of drawing a comic AND group shot all in one!

also literally one of the prettiest things i've rendered this year, lookit that klav...

🎉 aa4 redraw - 2022 anniversary [x]

kind of like my wedding zine piece, group photos are insane, and rendering like uhhh [looks at drawing] 11 CHARACTERS IS ALSO INSANE if i try and draw a group photo again you have to stop me DFGHDJ

🎨 my art fight stuff [x] [x]

was possessed in the month of july or smth bc i pumped out like how many drawings so quickly (before i got burnt out that is pftt)

pace yourselves and don't be like me pls ajshgdghhjk

💥 people park day [x]

my friend told me that it was very obvious i watched across the spiderverse when they saw this FDFGHJD

but yea! this is when i started getting really into like, thought bubbles or just like, panels or drawings within a drawing when coming up with layouts

i still love the colors on this one...

🪩 fem disco portraits

ok so i haven't uploaded these yet but you have to trust me when i say that something was in the water DFGHDJ

who knew that all it took for me to learn how to paint was butches

2. ALSO DID YOU KNOW THAT I SOLD STICKERS THIS YEAR IN OUR UNI'S ART MART?

THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THAT SCHOOL I SWEAR PFTTT this experience has also awaken the merch beast in me and i need to make more physical things for my brain to be happy, that's just how it be pfttt

hopefully next year i can actually start like a shopee shop or whatever lmao

3. ART FIGHT

i'm actually quite happy i got to participate in art fight this year! very delighted for all the art i've gotten and very fun to have drawn for others too!!

4. ZINES

i got invited and joined so many zines from 2022 continuing to 2023 that i kind of got burnt out from participating for now ngl ASKSKSKS not gonna be joining much this year oopsiessss! (unless i lose self-control [very likely])

5. SCHOOL

i don't actually like a lot of the stuff i draw for art school bc i tend to cram and not have fun pftt <- adhd moment, tragic! but here are some that i actually kind of like lol

6. THAT'S IT!

i think that's it! thanks for reading all the way down here!! o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

#art summary #art summary 2023 #sunnysidedraws #sunnysiderambles

[ladybugkisses]

Hi! I am in desperate need of some art advice if you’re generous to spare some- how do you improve art efficiency? I really need to draw faster. Ultimately I know that the more I practice the faster I’ll be, but its a lil discouraging when one full body lineart takes me like two and a half hours ;-;

i’m sorry but i gotta start off by saying sLOW DOWN DUDE, where’s the fire why do you need to draw faster?? because unless you’re doing it for work and there’s a deadline, you don’t need to worry about it- even artists who draw seemingly simple designs can be slow!

and honestly, i might take even longer than you when it comes to lineart, even when i use the brush that allows me to work faster. so maybe i’m not the right person to come to this because i think this really depends on person to person, but

with that being said, here’s my two cents anyway:

i think while it’s true that constant practicing gets you a long way, you might wanna experiment a bit too

you probably want your art to look consistent and would rather keep doing the same thing yet somehow faster, but to improve your art and technique you’ll have to try new things until you find what works better

figure out shortcuts and don’t worry about being too precise, i promise you nobody is going to notice nearly as much as you, if at all. i’m constantly told my lineart is super clean and smooth and yet it always looks imperfect to me because i’m the one working on it the whole time

try a different brush: i have two different brushes i like to use for lineart, the smooth one and the textured one- the textured’s the one that takes less time to work with because i can get away with the imperfection of it, but it still looks nice in the end

i personally don’t like it, but the linework tool might help you get things done faster too

no shame in trying something new and not enjoying the end result, even if you might come out of it not really figuring out something you like, at least you’re learning what you don’t want to do

speaking from my own experience here, lineart can be the most tedious part of drawing but that doesn’t mean the rest has to be! coloring is usually a breeze for me- nothing wrong with using the magic wand, lasso, selection and bucket tool. i’ve seen people claim those are lazy shortcuts but if it doesn’t look bad because you’re using them correctly then wHO CARES

that’s about all the advice i can think of, sorry if it’s not enough but i hope you get at least a little something out of it 👍🌟

#i use paint tool SAI btw so i don't know how much of what i say here can apply to other programs #also i apologize for having no visual examples whatsoever- maybe try checking out some tutorials?? ? i have none to recommend but #surely something useful would come up. maybe #i'M SO HELPFUL i kNOW #asks #anonymous #how to tag #kinda i guess

[zzazztrainer]

my acetate cel materials test sheet. took 3 hours to paint the colors on, so hopefully that gets faster (granted, it does have 4 faces on it) but i definitely wish i'd put more time into making the test drawings be a little more... on model.

i used grafix 8.5 x 11 acetate sheets (about 25 cents a sheet where i bought it) (i went for printer sheet sized cause it's the size of my scanner's scanning bed.) All the actual lineart is done with a technical pen with koh-i-noor acetate ink in it. i tested all my regular liners and stuff (pentel pocket brush pen, sakura pigma microns and brush version, white gel pens, sharpies) just to see if i was going overkill by buying a 22$ pen and 7$ ink i'll use Only For This and nope, everything else wipes off readily except regular sharpie, which is unfortunately just not opaque enough for lineart. (weirdly, the sharpie liner wiped off so completely it's just a smudge) Although i did the white highlights in gel pen anyway, cause it's easy and a little bit more stable than some of the regular liner's inks

Even the special acetate ink is a little fragile and takes a while to dry. Note the smudges on the upper-left drawing, which i inked first. the acrylic is just cheap-ish DecoArt brand i got in a set because it had close-enough colors for most of ragged's design, but if i continue Seriously i might invest in 10$ a pot to get vinyl paints, cause although only one brand out there now still labels it as specifically animation paint (toon tones) afaict most vinyl paint should be the same thing. at least for painting cels in western animation

here are some things i've learned about the medium from this:

it's freaky how much it looks like digital art in person. the colors are so impossibly flat and smooth, which you don't think about much when looking at old animation because it has the texture of the film grain on it

harder to color in the lines than you think. especially when your colors cover up the lines. probably gonna have to try to draw a little bigger. a good reason for that stylistic choice of having thicker outlines just for the outer edges though, i couldn't afford a second technical pen right now sooooo i'll just have to git gud

you Really gotta blob on the paint. this could be from getting cheap acrylics but footage i've seen of old production suggests that's just how it is. a softer brush was better for it (i think it was a cheapo watercolor brush?) but i could only use that for fairly big areas cause it splayed out wider

it seems like the acrylic faintly warped the acetate, i think from the acrylic shrinking as it dries. in general, the cel got pretty wibbly from just handling it. Later productions did use polyester instead of acetate and perhaps that is less affected, but i don't think i feel a need to have archival quality materials, at least not when i'm just experimenting and am going to digitally composite my animation anyway. (and acetate was cheaper than Dura-Lar)

gonna have to solve the shadows it casts in the scanner, even when the lid is pressing it down. it's a pretty cool-looking effect for just an image, but it's gonna be annoying in the video editing stage (and the smooth flat colors make it super obvious to me that my scanner's colors are really off, i still had to edit this but didn't bother making it totally irl accurate)

taking out the light table for this was a pretty good idea even though i wasn't animating, cause it made it real easy to check for missed or thin spots on the paint

cotton gloves to avoid fingerprints made me feel like a Cool Serious Artist, and then i didn't have to scrub paint off my fingers afterwards

i feel like i really Get something about why old animation looked A Certain Way that i didn't understand just from reading about it, but can't put it succinctly into words. aside from that and the fun of Nerdiness, research and bragging rights i'm not sure i'd suggest animating like this when digital tools are available, cause once you put it on a screen it just looks like digital art anyway

#traditional animation #animation cel #cel animation #raven sketches.png

[hollowsart]

Can you give us a tutorial on how you get the glasses loom so HOT and shiny,,,

...I actually made a tutorial on how I color glasses once, but it wasn't really that great and is outdated. However, I'll make you a far better one just for this ask!

Pics and explanations and more under the cut cuz this got long:

I always start with some kind of lineart base for the glasses. Sometimes I could simplify the piece and not give the glasses frames and just apply color for the lenses, skipping a whole step, but it really depends on whether I can get away with that or not for the piece I'm doing. For this example, however, the colors would blend too much into the skin, so a nice little colored lineart for the frames will be used!

You can get creative with the colors for the lenses themselves, it's the layer effect that will be applied to this layer that will determine whether they're regular glasses or sunglasses. or you can just leave it opaque to hide the eyes entirely. You can even give the lenses a transitioning color, fading from one to the other vertically for a neat look! For this step I usually go for a nice "hard light" effect and adjust the opacity accordingly. Just like step one, though, I gotta

Here I basically copy the lens layer and fill it entirely white, copy that and make it black or give it a dark purple color. This is important.

Taking the copied lens layers, the white lens layer will have the top half of the lens erased with a very soft edged brush. Likewise you do the same to the dark lens layer but instead you erase the bottom half of it.

Apply 'overlay' to the white layer and if needed, adjust the opacity so it's not so harsh and hiding any details. For the dark layer, 'multiply' is usually the effect I use, but I have to adjust the opacity so it's not as dark/harsh, but still visible. This creates a very flat but effective show if lighting!

For this step there are a few different ways you can do the catch light/shine/glare on the lenses. The one shown in the example is just one way. Doing what we did in step 3, we just take 1 copy of the lens layer and make it white, then with a soft-ish brush we erase some of it away like shown. Apply the 'overlay' effect to the layer, copy the layer cuz usually the 1 layer isn't enough to show the light very well.

Here 2 extra examples of how you can do step 6's presentation, I'm using black here to make it easier to see as well as what it looks like with the correct color and effects applied:

And that's pretty much how I do the coloring of glasses!

you can get creative with these easy steps and just experiment around to get many different looks to it. Heck, you can even use the lighting/shading method for other things besides just glasses! Although that's usually all I use it for.

Here's some examples from things I've drawn before:

You don't even have to do all the steps either. Just experiment around and see what you think looks or feels best for what you're working with!

Sometimes even the programs you use can have different looks for the layer effects available so it's best to try out everything and see what works!

#tutorial #art tutorial #//long post

[silima]

Do you have any tips for small artists?

i have no idea what level of technical skill u have so these are some pretty general tips but here u go! these are also mostly focused on fanart lol cuz that's what i like to make.

number 1 rule of art is that people like art that is interesting!!! it's gotta make them feel something or they will ignore it!! i used to draw so much art that was just like, a character standing there doing nothing. and i would try very hard to have nice lineart and pretty shading and all that good stuff but in the end a character standing there doing nothing is boring. if you have really good technical skills, then some people will still be like "wow pretty art!!" or "so photorealistic! how cool!" but generally speaking it's gonna take soooooo long to actually reach that level of technical skill if every drawing u make looks like this 🧍. if you wanna improve fast, you're much better off experimenting with all sorts of types of art.

so, what do people find interesting? lots of things!

ship art is an easy way to make an "interesting" drawing, b/c people like ships and b/c you've got a character interaction happening there. even if they're just leaning on each other or holding hands or something, there's personality in that. even when i was really shitty at art i always noticed that my ship art got more notes than art of just 1 character.

in general, character interactions always make things more interesting. u certainly don't have to only draw romantic ships--draw some characters who are friends hanging out and having fun, or draw characters who are family hugging each other, or something. or draw people fighting!!! if you're not yet used to drawing characters interacting, it can be a bit of a pain at first, but it opens up so many fun possibilities (and reference photos can always help you!! google images is honestly the best of all resources for that lmao although more specific stuff like adorkastock is great too).

even without character interactions, u can make drawings that try to evoke an emotion of some sort. dark and angsty? lonely? happy and cute? this is one of my favorite drawings ever and i think it's super, super visually interesting and tells a story without the need for more than one character or any sort of words/dialogue, just from the pose and the background and the whole vibe of it. it feels so peaceful and lovely. of course, it makes a difference that this artist clearly has a lot of technical skill, but if this same artist drew a picture of aang looking like 🧍 on a boring white background i would definitely not love this art nearly as much lol.

screenshot redraws are also pretty popular!! personally i would strongly advise that if ur gonna redraw a screenshot, you should be adding something interesting to your version. if you colorpick the exact same colors from the drawing and try to copy the style as closely as possible, it's a little boring, right? why would i want to see the exact same picture twice? one artist who does screenshot redraws really well is viorie (who i think has removed/deactivated a lot of her stuff, thus the repost, sorry):

like this is very clearly an artist that had something of her own to bring to the screenshot she was redrawing!! that's what makes it cool, appealing art, even though it's "just" a redraw.

and of course my absolute favorite thing to make drawings "interesting" is to make comics. comics are the best!! u get to draw a whole story!!! lots of types of comics that you can make, too. a lot of the comics that i've made lately are my own writing and tend to be more serious, but if you're looking for something easy, fun, and simple, try drawing incorrect quotes or make art/comics that are based off of other people's posts, fics, or ideas that you thought were really cool (w/ appropriate credit obviously).

on that note, drawing fanart for other people is especially effective for putting yourself out there because it's often hard to get your foot in the door on social media when you literally have 0 followers and no one is seeing your stuff. you draw something for a popular fic writer or a humor blog, they're happy because they've gotten fanart and they reblog your art, you're happy because now all their followers are seeing ur stuff. lol this sounds so transactional but it's really a lot more fun than it sounds. make art for other ppl! make some friends! join discord servers, join group chats, comment nice things on other peoples' work, & check out fandom events, like big bangs or ship weeks or whatever. it's good stuff.

also, use different social media. it might seem like what tends to be popular in one corner of the internet is gonna be pretty well-received everywhere else but that's not always the case lol. tumblr, for example, usually puts a lot of emphasis on consuming content "from a fandom" rather than consuming content "from an artist"--it's hard to build an individual brand, people just want More Insert Popular Fandom Content and don't really care who it comes from so long as it fits a certain type of art; in my case, atla is a way more popular show than lok, so my atla art gets significantly more attention than my lok art does, despite the fact that i don't make that much of it. on the other hand, on instagram, people really like my lok/red lotus art because that's sort of my "brand" and my atla art tends to get less attention. (this works out for me because i like lok way better and i also have way more followers on instagram than i do here.)

& ofc when you talk about becoming a "popular" artist... i mean, i'm not gonna be the person who tells u "oh you should ONLY be doing this for yourself!! if you're doing it for attention you're doing it all wrong!" because obviously i love attention and i love making art that people like. i would not draw nearly as much if i didn't have fun sharing it! but if you let yourself get too sucked into the idea of making "popular" art, you're gonna feel super drained and fucked up and you eventually will burn out hard (ahaha.............). there's a balance to strike between "i'm making this art because it's fun" and "i'm making this art because i know people will like it." on tumblr, my atla art is way more popular than my lok art, but i don't care abt atla nearly as much as i care abt lok, so i'm never gonna like, make an in-depth comic about the atla main cast the way i have for the red lotus, the lok main cast, and kyoshi. what a waste of time! even when you're looking for advice about how to become a "big" artist, ultimately, you've gotta make the art that's fun for you, and with luck you'll eventually find an audience that also enjoys that type of art.

#ask #anon #art advice

[sunbruiser]

18, 25, 27! (and if 25 is a yes, drop some recs king 👀👀👀)

18. What are you currently trying to improve on? // artist asks

the way i render/paint is something i'm trying to work on. like. not over-blending if that makes sense. also color choice. i wanna experiment with color more. i should (Should) work on backgrounds and environments but aha. ha. maybe :)

this next answer got a lil long so uh. here's a read more <3

25. Do you like to draw in silence, or with music?

i gotta have Something playing, i only draw in silence when i've plugged my earbuds in and forgot to put something on lmao. i found i focus a lot better if i have some podcast or video essay playing moreso than music. cannot tell you how much of a saving grace those like. 6 hour icarly/victorious videos are. AND DISNEY FAST PASS.

as for podcasts, it's Usually welcome to nightvale lmao but others i like are death in the afternoon, stuff you should know, and ted radio hour.

i Do listen to music when i draw sometimes and usually it's hozier, lord huron, the orion experience, paramore, and the oh hellos. i am basic :^)

sometimes it's video game osts like stardew valley or ocarina of time but Mostly it's the hyrule warriors ost bc it kicks ass and keeps me awake. silent guardians is a great track 100/10 i really like it and i cant explain why but. those guitars man.

27. For digital artists: how many layers does a typical piece require?

usually might have 1-2 for the sketch layer, i don't typically do lineart i just clean up my sketch or i paint over it. another layer for a base color, another layer for flat colors, and then a final layer for rendering. so, at the very least, i have 5 layers? might have more if i add effects but usually not that much. i try to keep it simple bc im lazy lmao

#answered #thanks for askin bro!!! <3333 #IM SORRY MY RECS R BASIC. those r honestly just my top artists that i Know are on my art playlist #theres a lotta. hm. odd artists on my art playlist but like. i only rlly know one or two songs by them lmaoooo #if u want the playlist tho i can dm u a link :eyes:

[seyaryminamoto]

Do you have any advice on how to draw clothing? I’ve been trying to get into making my own art and all my characters look like they are walking around in socks 😂. Idk how you do it so well

... that the day has come when someone has asked me how I draw ANYTHING is genuinely mindblowing to me xD I know I've upped my game in fabrics lately but this is surreal xD Am I really gonna do an art tutorial, for the first time ever in my whole life?!

Well, for you, Anon, I shall try xD

First off, you're going to want to doodle a basic body shape. I am not going to pretend I am good at doodling body shapes. Nope. But what matters there is getting the position of your character, figuring out what goes where. Once you have that, you go to stage two, and that is putting clothes on 'em!

You can start with basic clothes, the way I did. I simply draw them atop the body outline, then erase whatever bits of the body the fabric will cover up. Depending on what kind of clothes you're drawing, the fabric behaves differently. But what you need to keep in mind is that fabric usually has its own volume, weight, and is affected by a body's movements and positioning. As this body is in a general, simple standing position, the fabric doesn't need to move around MUCH... but it does need to move around a bit if we want it to feel legit.

For the sake of making it look more real, you have to account for where the folds show up more often in clothes. My typical choices for that are locations where fabrics overlap, or where there are joints. Feel free to add a few extra folds here and there, of course, especially if the clothes are meant to be baggy and with a lot of air! The clothes that aren't baggy, however, like (in this case) the gloves or the arm bandages, as they're meant to be tight on the body, won't need folds unless you're drawing something highly detailed with a very peculiar hand shape.

After that, it's base color time! Base color is very very important, as the shades and lighting will be derived from that initial hue. Gotta pick each color right!

Now... SHADING! This is something I used to do with air brush tools. Currently, as I'm working on Clip Studio Paint, I use this fabrics' brush and it has really improved my fabrics' game, so if you can find a good brush that gives your fabrics more texture, it'll help heaps :D if you can't, however, the basic air brush tool, on any art software I've used, can achieve good results on its own.

Normally, when I color, I select the fabric's color, all of it, to avoid unwanted accidents with color bleeding out all over the place. I believe some people just make different layers for everything, but I like pain (?) So, believe it or not, the most important part here is selecting the right color: I leveled up big time in art on the day I started choosing more saturated colors for shadows. I typically went for gray-ish shadow tones, back in the day... but in my humble opinion, it does not hit the same way as more saturated shadows do.

The first one there is the base color, the second one the shading color and the last one is the lighting color. As you can see, I'm not that far inside the black area of the color wheel in the shading one, but I'm choosing a much more intense shade of blue, and that results in a contrast that doesn't require a lot of darkness to feel right.

As for where to apply your shading? That's in fact what the folds are for! :D they serve as guidelines, pretty much, for how you'll shift the color across the fabric. At the shading stage you can even add extra folds you didn't place in your lineart too, if you want, but what matters most is that they will give your clothing volume and texture.

Just as it is with the shading, lighting will lean on the folds as well!

(don't fret, we ain't done yet xD gotta soften that lighting later, naturally...)

I picked a much brighter color for the lighting, and far closer to white. This can work fairly well, but you can also choose a more saturated color if you want to, in some clothes. Makes them feel extra luxurious in my experience xD One of my tricks here is that there will be parts touched by the light that will be brighter than others. Hence why you can see that, while I applied my brush all over the folds, some parts are softer than others. This as well provides texture to the piece, and a dynamic feel that offers it extra volume.

With my base color once again, I've softened the lighting by brushing the base color over it veeeery lightly, and lo and behold! Looks a lot more normal now, right? :D and the colors blend well into each other (if you can't achieve this with a simple airbrush, the blending tool, applied carefully, can result in a similar outcome).

You can use the lighting and shadows to highlight some body shapes too: see how there's shading on that thigh, but instead of flowing right back into the base color, it shifts into the lighting color directly? That helps in giving the fabrics some shape too, therefore, the lineart isn't the only bit that matters in giving fabrics the behavior you may be looking for.

And as I wasn't even sure what number we were at anymore, here we go, step number ?, finish up lighting and shading everything XD I left it with very basic lighting and shading because Tumblr won't let me add any more images to a single post *shakes fist* but usually I play with layer modes, namely Multiply, Glow Dodge, or Color Dodge, to get some extra volume and feeling in clothes. Still, the bulk of the work is what you've seen here :D

Alright, some last tricks I want to share: if you take the lighting shades and brush them veeeeeeeery softly over the edges of each element in the artwork, you can get a really nice contrast that makes the clothes more realistic, to a fault. And one last important thing to point out is... commit to your shadows and lights xD if one area of the shirt is bright and, say, there's another layer of fabric right below it, you have to try your best to follow the pattern of lighting and shading that you set up in the first clothing item you shaded and lit up (?) if that makes sense xD if it doesn't, I'll try to explain it better in another ask, if you send one :D

Anyway! I hope this has been helpful, if it's not thorough enough then I'll have to think of some other way to pack up a proper tutorial that Tumblr won't attempt to destroy x'D but good luck with your next art ventures, and may all the fabrics be on your side in the future! :D

#anon #sokka #I kinda had to #I thought of using Azula but her clothes are... not just more complicated but very armor-y #whenever I draw her :'D #so Sokka felt like a more natural choice for this xD #thanks for the interest in my wonky techniques! #I am by no means a professional but if my amateur ramblings and tricks help anyone I'll be thrilled! #:D

[elstreem]

I thought it would be fun to do a comparison art of how I’ve been drawing my OC Raine - so here is my first ever drawing of her, all the way back in 2012, versus my most recent drawing of her in 2020! 

Back during 2012, I was obsessed with Adventure Time and giving bird companions to my characters. Also, 2012 me felt like a genius drawing this in MS paint. Simple times.

Everything that happened in between (with significant art every two years) is below if you want to check it out! This post is a little long, so I’ll put the rest under the cut.

This one is 2014 - I used the default drawing app on the iPhone I think. She was still an Adventure Time OC at the time so I pretty much stole the Ice Queen’s gown and gave it to her. Also I see you, younger me, hiding hands in long sleeves AND behind the back. 

2016!  This was drawn on my phone using Sketchbook (the old version with a blue icon). Not entirely sure where this gown design came from, but at this point I was starting to think about drawing less stylized bodies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just wanted to move away from purely copying something else’s art style, which is what I was doing at the time. 

Things were getting somewhere in 2018 - Raine was no longer an Adventure Time OC, she was my own character, a spirit of the rain with a dress and hair of storm clouds. Also lol, tried to draw her original look but the outfit and colors are all wrong. This was also drawn on my phone using Sketchbook.

Also 2018, but on a brand new phone and a new app! Trying out Medibang Paint is one of the best decisions I ever made, and it’s still what I use on my mobile devices. This mer-Raine design isn’t entirely original since I was drawing from Legend of Mana (Specifically I used Flameshe’s design), but this is still a huge step up from what I was able to do with Sketchbook. Also yay, drawing more hands!

2019!!! By this time I know for sure what I want Raine to look like, and it was also in 2019 that I stepped up my backgrounds. Which lead to...

This monster artwork in December of 2019! I was on a kick to draw characters as detailed as possible with fantasy inspirations, so Raine became a merperson with an Aquarius look going on. The water took so long to paint but I’m glad for it! Also I got a Samsung Galaxy tablet in 2019, and having a stylus makes for cleaner, quicker lineart. I still prefer to draw on that instead of my Wacom tbh, but I just gotta adapt to it!

And here are my other 2020 drawings for Raine (with a bonus Alexandra and Destiny)!

It’s been a long journey since I started out with MS Paint, and it’s good to remember how far I’ve come and what else I’m looking forward to achieving. I’m still working on drawing Raine consistently (kinda still have the tendency to draw characters with long, model-like legs and I want to move away from that). I’ve been trying to draw Raine to look more Filipino over time, and maybe sometime I can make a story for her set in or using mythologies of the Philippines, so I have that to work towards to. 

Also, some other lessons I’ve learned: 

A good art app can make a difference! Medibang is my current go-to and I’m adapting to Clip Studio Paint as well. Experiment, try to find out which is comfortable to use. I’m only using Medibang’s default settings but it’s taken me quite far because I’ve been using it for quite some time now.

When you want to develop drawing something - in my case it was hands, draw it over and over and over again! It’ll look bad and awkward but you should rinse and repeat until you get the look you want. 

Don’t be scared to go back to basics. I started drawing Raine exclusively in an art style mimicking Adventure Time, and over time my inspiration shifted to anime, so I drew Raine with that kind of visuals in mind. But when I wanted to draw her in a style I really wanted, I looked up drawing in a more realistic style. I still don’t draw realistically, but that helped me find the look I want for my art.

Addition and subtraction - when it comes to character details, some stuff gets left behind, and new stuff gets added in. Like with anything, just go on and try out what works! Raine lost her earrings (though I might return that now lol) and she used to have a feather in her ponytail, but she got this look with the cloud hair and clothing, and I think that will be staying. It’s a design I love - I love how it looks and it’s fun to draw!

Well, that should be enough rambling. I hope this is fun to read for other people as fun as it was for me to gather everything up!

#my oc #my character #art #my art #art progress

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Simple Melody

For our final AMA of Resbang 2017, @alliope, @bbbutterfingers & @daciafu stopped in to answer questions about their Resbang, Simple Melody! Here’s some of what went down:

Q: My first question for Allie is what inspired you to do this AU?

Allie: Well I've generally had the idea for an Over the Garden Wall AU for a while, not necessarily for SE, but as the first check-ins deadline was approaching I ended up rewatching bits of Over the Garden Wall and it just kinda clicked? Mainly I think it came from Crona's betrayal and Beatrice's betrayal and everything fell into place from there. I thought the eerie atmospheres would work well together! So I ended up scrapping my previous idea and wrote 3k plus a summary like three days before the first check-ins, rip.

Q: For butter/dacia, what went into how you decided which scene(s) to art?

butterfingers: HM well there was some chitchat when we started about what kind of work we wanted to do and I said that I loved the Boom comics covers, and then I shouted WHAT IF I MADE  COMIC BOOK COVERS! and I think Dacia went WHAT IF I DID BACKGROUNDS and I guess we just approached it as if we were doing something comic-y haha!

Allie: You two were the power duo.

daciafu: I've always been in love with the style of the backgrounds of OTGW since that's where all those cozy and spooky feelings of fall and the Unknown really shine and I'm honestly HORRIBLE at designing backgrounds so I wanted to take the challenge and push myself to get better! Mimicking other people's styles really helps me break down how they make their choices and teaches me how to make things look Decent so I was super hyped to pick up the OTGW style! And then when Butters and I were trying to figure out What Do and she said she wanted to tackle covers, I decided to do background-heavy scenes. 😊

Q: What is generally your guys’ process (writing for Allie and arting for butters and dacia)?

Allie: Well, I wrote in little scenes, like I would get an idea for a scene and just go for it, the fic wasn't at all coherent until maybe a few days before posting. This actually posed a problem since linking scenes took longer than I thought it would. Because I had most of my scenes written, I thought I had more finished than I really did. By the end of Resbang, I had 56k written but only 20k remotely post-able. I'm a super obsessive planner though, so my whole fic was outlined in detail early on, which was nice cause I knew what I was doing lol

butterfingers: I loved going through Allie's notes, I was always excited to see how they'd connect the dots! My art process is as follows: scribble something, put it aside, look at it a lot throughout the day with the thought that maybe I can surprise myself into seeing something new, find something I hate, fix it, rinse and repeat. For this project I actually... have a friend who works with Boom Comics and she was able to hook me up with a nice little gallery of illustrations for the OTGW comic so I got to go through and put together my mood board for it 😊

daciafu: I read over the gloriousness that was Allie's draft and immediately picked out some neat scenes or wanted to reimagine the classic OTWG ones. I spent a lot of time studying first! Looking at the art books, and poring over the show’s scenes and kind of getting a feel for the color palettes, textures and compositions. Then I watched a tutorial on Youtube where someone just deadass uploaded their painting process on a piece of official art that made it into the show. So that was EXTREMELY helpful to watch the way they painted back-to-front and kind of blended the planes without like, losing depth?? The internet is so, so wonderful. And then I got to work! Started with a soft brush for lineart so it wouldn't be too prevalent, moved onto base colors, then shading, and then really trying to establish textures and make the atmosphere Just Right(tm).

butterfingers: Genius!! Oh damn that sounds like such great advice vis à vis backgrounds. /takes notes

Q: You sound like the dream art partner Allie, I weep for my artists and my last minute HERE IS 10K I JUST TYPED UP BC IM A MESS.

Allie: Ahh geez, these two were the dream partners honestly, like I'm so glad they could gather stuff from my notes, cause I've always got everything together in my head, but then it gets out there and it's a mess, these two deserve all the love.

butterfingers: There was one thing I regret that I didn't have the chance to draw and it was like a throwaway line somewhere in your notes about Maka presenting Soul with a praying mantis and him freaking out. I resonated with that so hard hahaha.

Q: What was the hardest scene for you to write?

Allie: The hardest scene to write that's actually posted was anything with Justin really, I don't get his character and it was tough to write him. There were a few scenes that were hard to write because I rushed them, but I wouldn't say they were genuinely difficult scenes, I just gotta rewrite 'em! But overall the ending scene I'm still struggling to write and there's a dream scene that occurs which has been difficult to write just for making it dream-like enough?

Q: And what was the hardest to art? :o

butterfingers: I had a hard time with Maka's expressions. I had many scribbles designing a Ragnarok lantern, too, but it was very fun!!

Allie: Your design for the Ragnarok lantern was so good, I still cry over it.

butterfingers: Ahaha thank you! He was very Calcifer inspired ;)

daciafu: I struggled quite a bit with the first one I painted, just because it was all so new to me. I had to base color 3 different times because the soft lineart bothered me if something extended too far, or there was white background peeking through. And then reimagining the texture in the leaves and the ground to try to separate the planes there but also wanting them to be cohesive was a bit of a headache. If I had to go back and do that one over again I think I'd be more prepared to deal with the foliage lmao.

butterfingers: Your textures were very excellent, that was a quality I struggled with as well!

daciafu: The first one I painted was the Golden Light scene where Maka and Soul are leaving the woods and entering the fields.

butterfingers: Trees r hard.

Allie: They all came out so incredible though, I'm in awe of how you were able to create those leaves.

daciafu: Omg ;;;;; At the same time trees are so organic and flowy and the chances of getting them wrong are pretty slim considering they can get janked as hell lol they're super fun to just zone out to. "I’ll just put a happy little leaf here, ooh and how’s about another one right next to it. They can be happy friends. Oh look, the squad showed up!!" Channeling my inner Bob Ross... but yeah you can just do whatever with them and they somehow come together.

Q: Daciafu how do u.....background, like you did so well and all I hear from art friends is various levels of pterodactyl screeching when the word background is mentioned.

daciafu: I heavily based the Leafing the Forest scene and the church scene after stills from the show so I don't get composition points there, but I built the pumpkin fields just based off of the environment’s design elements. I really wanted to push the depth of that scene but also give it that same never-ending quality to it, and I'm super happy with the results. Another note is that I omitted the characters entirely while building the backgrounds. Since I'm usually a pretty character-heavy artist, I wanted to tackle it like I was preparing the scene for an animator later. And then once they were done, I added in our sweet kids. Doing it that way first really helped to cement the characters in the space rather than my usual "character is done, how can I put them in an interesting physical space?" struggle lmao.

Q: Did you guys feel like your writing/arting changed at all or that you learned anything/picked up new skills/honed old ones etc. etc. during Resbang?

Allie: Gosh yeah, it changed a lot. In hindsight a bad idea, but this was the first fic I'd ever written with intention of posting and the longest piece I'd ever written. Before this I had written very little and my longest piece was maybe 10k. Throughout Resbang I've learned most of everything from the ground up, it's taught me a lot about my limits, how I work and writing in general. I've definitely improved a lot from the experience!

butterfingers: Let me tell you all about the airbrush tool that I discovered during Resbang. Amazing. Incredible.

daciafu: I learned how to paint backgrounds!!! Which is something I've always wanted to get better at. And I got super comfortable in Clip Studio (I'd just gotten it) as well as using texture brushes, so overall it was a very helpful and wonderful experience as a Resbang participant and as an arteest.

Q: Oh that reminds me butters, what program do you use?

butterfingers: Paint Tool SAI for the most part, and then Photoshop for color correction, borders, and, like, finesse things! :)

Q: Did you guys listen to any music that inspired you or helped you create?

Allie: Ah, yeah! I had a playlist actually! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjTCaFkFU6rkD1edJwCZmHvJiUwlSUeGZ

If you want I can explain some bits of it? I use music a lot when writing aha. I like to associate certain songs with characters and character relationships, so most of the songs are connected to a particular part of the story. The Monroe Transfer, Wayfaring Stranger, and Mountains were all more general atmosphere stuff. Blame was very much related to Maka, which may not be apparent now, but yeah. Ragnarok I actually connected a lot with Willow Tree March. Soul was probably closest with A Lady. Crona had a lot of songs, but Neptune was most specific to them, as was probably Ghost Towns. Some character relationships I associated with certain songs, Crona-Ragnarok and Soul-Maka were both pretty connected to Always Gold, especially that dang last line "there were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend" oh man. Crona-Maka was definitely We Could Be Friends, Bloom, and Spell. Meet Me in The Woods I thought was a pretty good group song! Those are just some general bits of my thinking with the music aha.

daciafu: Definitely checked out Allie's dope playlist. For most of my working time, tho, I was either listening to TAZ: Commitment or MBMBaM oddly enough lol. I will forever think of Justin's uproarious laughter whenever I look at them lmao.

Q: Were any of the relationships difficult to characterize?

Allie: Mmm this may sound weird but early Maka-Crona was weird for me, cause they were kinda at that point where they want to (or at least Maka wants to) like each other, but they don’t like or trust each other at all and it's a weird spot for them. I'm used to writing them as at least interested by one another, if not enemies or already fond of one another, so this felt like a very odd place to start with them.

Q: Do you guys have future plans for writing/drawing? Aside from polishing and posting the rest of the fic!

Allie: I have,,, too many plans,, I need less plans,, someone please take them away from me, I can't be trusted with them,,,, I do want to do a sequel for this when I get it finished, playing on the detail about crows memory lasting five years so. Beyond that I have a SoMa fic to finish for the prompt challenge!! I'm working on a gift for Crescentcrona, which is a fantasy Kirona fic called Eat The Rich. I have polyam week fics that I'm cleaning up, I think my favorite so far is a Azusa/Naigus/Sid/Mifune one for Through The Seasons. And God I have so many CroMa fics I want to write, I gotta fill the AO3 tag. I think the biggest one right now is a wings-related soulmates au that I've been working on on the side since October I think?

daciafu: Yo there's one scene that I'm like sUPER hyped to do if Allie does the sequel because I already know exactly how I wanna draw it but I wasn't able to fit that in near the end, and it didn't end up in the first part. But there are a couple of other scenes Allie and I workshopped that would be super fun to do and I would love to draw them. Other than that, my drawing plans are pretty much working on commissions as they come in. Surprisingly my queue has been maxed out and I just got a full time job so of course now I'm like.... hm.... I'll get 'em done eventually!!

----

That’s the end of the AMAs for the 2017 season! Thanks again for reading along with us, and see you next year! :)

#AMA transcripts #resbang book club #rbbc #simple melody

[dramarising-replacement]

A Rant On How To Actually Run A Pet Sim.

DISCLAIMER: I love Flight Rising, it’s been one of, and still is a favorite game of mine. This rant is simply trying to bring light that the staff could be doing much better in running the site that they are. With recent issues such as the long ban appeal process, and that one time that Unicorn admin said “nothing is wrong with our gem paypal stuff” when everyone was CLEARLY having issues, I wanted to voice my opinion.

I’ve played a LOT of pet sims. Most recently, Flight Rising, Novilar (not really gonna talk about this one, it’s meh, it only recently started up, it’s definitely unique), and Lioden.

I’ve been on FR since 2014 and I thought it was the SHIT. Little 13 year old me was piss pants excited to keep a crapton of pretty dragons (who actually weren’t that pretty) and expand my clan into the stars!

Now I’m a bit more bitter about FR after seeing what other sites have to offer in terms of a unique experience.

RANT PART ONE: The wait for new breeds on Flight Rising.

At first, I completely understood the reasoning for why breeds took so long to come out. They had to do all the genes, color, and apparel for both genders of dragon!!

I’m not denying that FR has a wide, wide list of apparels (Upon checking the Flight rising database, it’s around 2000 pieces of apparel) I’m saying that other sites do it much better.

The site I’m comparing Flight Rising to is Lioden. Here is a small sample of some of the decor items they have on site, keep in mind that list hasn’t been updated since 2015.

ALSO! BACKGROUNDS! ANOTHER WONDERFUL THING FR DOESN’T HAVE.

My point here is that the Lioden staff drew apparel for the regular male pose, the regular female pose, 6 other female poses, and 4 cub poses.

However, this point runs dry when you realize that the mutations don’t get fitted apparel (sad trombone noise) (Lioden has mutations where occasionally, giving birth to a cub will result in a mutation, this can be anything from blindness, to the 3 primal mutations, all of which have separate linearts)

There are two types of apparel, in both Lioden and Flight rising: Universal and Fitted. 

Universal apparel on Flight rising are things like the Emblems, The Flowerfalls, the ugly crowns, something you can copypaste onto another pose. Fitted apparel is something that’s drawn SPECIFICALLY on, such as the lace apparel. On Lioden, while the primal mutations can’t wear fitted decor, they can wear universal decor.

So point for Flight Rising, right? They draw all of the apparel onto all of the breeds!

No fucking excuse for me, in the 2 years from nocturne to bogsneak, they had every chance to perfect making all of the apparel.

When Bogsneak comes out? HALF OF THE APPAREL IS FUCKING BROKEN FOR THE BREED. AND A LOT OF IT STILL ISN’T FIXED TODAY.

Bullshit to the excuse of “eeeuughg we gotta do every apparel for both dragon poses uwu” when a shit ton of the apparel doesn’t even work.

At least on Lioden, they’re honest. They say “we’re not going to be drawing fitted apparel for the mutations.”

BUT, GUESS WHAT? If you have an apparel for a mutation you want? YOU CAN DRAW IT YOURSELF. Even better? IT’S HALF THE PRICE OF A SKIN BLUEPRINT ON FLIGHT RISING.

EVEN BETTER? IF IT GETS REJECTED, YOU GET THE ITEM BACK TO GIVE IT ANOTHER SHOT!!!

Alright, so, how about markings/genes?

Well considering that Lioden has 900+ markings, I think they win just a little bit. And guess what? 

Lioden doesn’t always have all the markings for their mutations done either.

But they’re transparent!

https://static.lioden.com/images/arttutorials/mutationstatus.html

this is literally a link to their current progress with the markings.

They released two new mutations (With new, complete linearts to a total of 3) WITHIN FUCKING MONTHS OF EACH OTHER.

FLIGHT RISING TOOK TWO YEARS TO RELEASE ONE BREED WITH HALF THE SHIT BEING BROKEN FOR IT! 

IT’S FINE IF YOU TAKE A LONG TIME TO RELEASE SOMETHING, JUST DON’T SHOVE THAT “We’re perfecting everything” BULLSHIT DOWN OUR THROATS. And if I recall, some of the genes were broken as well on bogs but lol let’s not get into that.

Some of the comparisons might seem a bit odd since the two pet sims I’m comparing have completely different systems/art styles, but I’m just saying that if they were honest about taking so much time releasing a half broken breed, it shines a light on how shoddy their site management is. Hire more artists, artists that don’t leave a good chunk of the apparel glitched.

And now, for the second part of this absurdly long rant.

PART TWO: THE STAFF.

On Flight Rising, the staff is often solid and machine like, half of the updates feel fucking soulless because they’re all formatted the same way. Aside from the ‘ask the team’ segments, which barely fucking happen anymore, we rarely interact with the staff.

Maybe not for other people, but for me SPECIFICALLY this makes it really hard to sympathize with the FR staff (particularly I’m referring to the admins with this). They feel distant, and a lot of the times they respond to comments (particularly backlash and criticism) is to be snarky. While this would be funny normally, when you literally never interact with your audience, don’t listen to them, and don’t RESPOND to them, when you act like a snarky shit it’s gonna make you look condescending.

Again, on Lioden, the admins, frequently, FREQUENTLY come into the chat to mingle with the players. While there they answer questions, share experiences, and are genuinely pleasant to be around, it makes you feel a lot more sympathy for them when shit goes down the drain.

Back to the custom decor/apparel again, there was a forum post where people would post their in progress pictures, and one of the admins would respond with how to improve/ change it. When staff goes out of their way to do something they don’t have to it makes a really big impression on the player base.

For those of you holding on still, god bless you, have a kitten.

PART THREE: USER INTERACTION 

So, one of Flight Rising’s biggest flops is how they interact with users, and how users interact with them.

The three big separate issues here are mainly:

Ban appeals.

User suggestions.

And helping users.

The ban appeals, or really contacting staff about fucking anything is a ridiculous process. We’ve heard the stories on here about how long some users have been waiting for someone to address the issue, let alone solve it. 

I shouldn’t even need to compare this to anything, in my opinion the wait times are just stupid. If I can walk to FR headquarters in wherever the hell they are faster then they can respond to an issue online? THAT’S BAD.

User suggestions are rarely implemented or looked at, and if they are implemented, we have no fucking clue. It doesn’t matter how much support a topic gets, the staff rarely ever listens.

Back to Lioden, almost WEEKLY people are credited for new suggestions that are implemented into the game, and while the changes are noticeable, it’s gradual enough to that it doesn’t feel jarring. It’s fucking awesome!

Also on Lioden, there’s a 'support/no support’ button that you can click to easily, quantifiably see what users want and don’t want.

Lastly, helping users.

FR staff follows HARD RULES, there is no room for improvement. Accidentally exalt a dragon? You’re fucked. A lot of FR’s rules boil down to 'we won’t help you if you mess up’ which, if you think about it, is what incites a lot of begging onsite (oh no i accidentally transmuted my light sprite some1 pls help ;n;)

On Lioden, if you make an honest mistake, they will help you

I’m not saying that Lioden is better than Flight Rising, all I’m saying is that Flight Rising has a lot of improvement it could be doing; Giving us transparency, honesty, treating us like people instead of a cashgrab.

A lot of these problems would be fixed by one thing:

Better communication.

I wouldn’t mind if Bogsneak took two years if instead of saying “We need to do EVERYTHING on this breed” and releasing it half broken, they instead said “It isn’t a priority for us right now” and actually taken their time.

I wouldn’t mind the cut/paste updates if the staff weren’t so distant.

And the user interaction could be a lot better, if Flight Rising acted less like a company, and more like a person.

Not to say that structure is bad, everything has to, and will have rules.

But if Flight Rising cared a little more, or ACTED like it, it would make the site magnitudes better.

#drama #shady #rant #flight rising #cursing #undel #art #genes #long post #submission

[askguyslikeus]

oh shit yall send lots of questions hoo nelly answering almost all of them under the cut ,,, im gunan try and answer more technical ones first then fun ones and ones about the mod later so u dont gotta scroll all the way to the bottom for the good deets

Hi! I'm still kinda new to the blog and I was wondering what are the 'do and do-not' kind question I should do? Because im sure theres always that one ask thats just Innapropiated, like that one of Michael 'taking advantage og high Jeremy' that was just not cool.  i got this ask a lot so ill be clear with yall. im just not a big angst fan? so sending michael asks about his anxiety nonstop and about how he had a panic attack in the bathroom over and over again wasnt that fun. usually if it pertains the musical though you should be find sending an ask about it? but sometimes i get asks that are like “jeremy ur nothing and how does it feel knowing u fucked everything up” like homie how i think its feels? how u think hes gunna react to that? i made this blog to negate a lot of negativity in my own life so i can promise u im going to be answering asks mostly positive always forever. that being said tho i sometimes get asks pertaining to a few things that ive dealt with in the past and these topics make me very very uncomfortable. dont send asks about these topics please. this is the no no list

-self harm, cancer, suicide, rape, parent death, car accidents, sudden death.

What was your inspiration for this blog? hoo boy well,,, ultimately i thought of them rooming together and got emotional and made a huge list of headcanons and was like ,,, why not run an askblog for a bit ill just abandon it after three asks lets have some fun. but somehow im still here and i got sucked in by the complexity of michael and jeremy. i know that sounds kinda silly but just, as someone who is dealing with a lot of similar things, like dependency issues and abandonment issues and depression and anxiety, having these fun functioning character to explore was such a gift for me. i believe honestly thats why im still here and doing this. being able to try and portray a healthy relationship and a healthy way of coping and growing has helped me a lot this past month and given me an outlet i didnt have before. TBH THO the main reason i made this blog if imma be real with u guys id because i didnt like the treatment of a lot of these issues in the fandom. it made me very upset to see depression used as an plot device and michaels dependency issues treated as romantic so i wanted to make a blog that had little to no angst. ANYWAYS somehow im still here ,,, gvrkjvrnkjfd sorry i rambled

honestly I just wanna say first that I love his blog and your art and you're so cool and kind!! a question would be (I'm not sure if you've answered this before or not) but is there like an on going story here, or is it mostly just answering questions with the characters set in this universe? (if that makes sense I'm sorry!) thank you, you're super awesome! ❤️  djrnjg first off thank u so much aaaa,, ive kind of answered this before but its ok its been a while since then! but um i do kinda have a story but how howdy i sure am dragging my feet. the story isn a hUGE OVERARCHING EPIC OF WOE AND THIS PERSON IS UPSET AND THIS PERSON IS MAD AT THIS PERSON its just michael and jeremy getting together. i have a plan and ive talked to a few people on how i want it to happen but ive gained like ,,,, 6,000 followers since then and im kinda nervous BUT ILL DO MY BEST but also please understand that i do this for fun for myself and if i dont get to it im so so so sorry woops

i know this has been said before but i'm really really happy w how you're handling so many aspects of their characters. i.e. michael being trans, michael and jeremy's anxiety, michael's dependency issues, and other stuff i'm too tired to think of. you made the characters have even more depth than they did in the play and i'm rly grateful for the way you're dealing w my favorite boys. (also your richjake is suuuper adorable) ahhhhhh thank u so much? i talked a bit about this on my main but im really glad people are happy with my decision on this blog because im suPER SUPER NERvous anytime i post an ask dealing with these things. (ask hachi or nate i always message them like freaking out and send them my scripts and asks and wait for them to tell me its ok before i post it omg) also like i talked about before i love,,, having these fun stoner gamer boys to explore these issues with. im honestly shocked by how many people also deal with dependency issues because when i first listened to the musical i was so overwhlemed by the song michael int he bathroom because i had never heard someone basically write “dependency issue: the song” and it felt so so so good to realize i wasnt alone in this pit of despair i fall into so easily aha. but im!! glad everyone is ok with this wild ride im on right now (also thank u so much i struggle writing rich and jake but i get so emotional cause they would TOTES call each other babe)

how come you just use sketch form for most of your drawing (sketches and uses sketch for the final result)? im ,,, not really sure what this is asking but i thnk its along the lines of why do i only sketch my answers?? and i do that because dude do u see how often i post and how lONG some of them are. i made this blog for fun and i love doing comics but i hate lineart and coloring and if i tried to churn out finished pics for every post id defs have given up a few asks in,, shrugs

I want to say I love your little comics they're so funny! How long does it take you to make a comic? Are any of them based on your experiences? Ok have a nice day!  thank you! i love my little comics too! it usually takes me anywhere from an hour to five hours if im dragging my ass or talking on discord while im drawing. it can be kinda exhausting but since i took my break ive also been like, starting long comics one day and finishing them another day which, before i would do it all in one sitting then post it hahha. AS FOR EXPERIENCE the first half of the lifeguard comic was based on real life! we were stuck stoned up there for like an hour or two? but we didnt have anyone to help us but we got down eventually!! the wendys comic is also something i did because man!! i need to compliment food workers if they do a good job!! ummmmm just like jenna i also have a friend that said HAHA BYE and moved to cali and she is also lIVING IT UP and doing really well for herself and shes very independent and shes very inspiring to me! hmm i think thats it besides i used to have movie nights with my dad all the time too except we would watch my fave animated movies and sometimes lord of the rings cause my dad loved that

What kinds of things can we NOT ask ? What kinds of things do you WANT us to ask ? i covered the what not to ask in the first question so!!! um if my askbox is open and u want to respond to previous asks ive answered for the boys that would be so so so rad. sometimes im done with a certain ask and i have nothing to add but sometimes ive got more to say but am looking for an opportunity! that being said it made me really happy that i got a lot of asks about pj? shes not going to the main focus of any more asks but!!! i was nervous to introduce her and im glad u guys like her shes fun to write. but overall just general asks i can make a big ol fun story out of so!! dont worry too much about what to ask, if its something ud ask a real person and not like “lol what if ur dad died” ur gunna be fine probably

Hi! Not a question but your blog is so sweet and refreshing! I actually really appreciate that you refuse angst, that stuff tends to rub me the wrong way in fandoms... Keep taking good care of these boys ! gggg thank u!!! it means a lot to me that a lot of people are backing me up on this! i mean if u are an angst fan there are a lot of askblogs that explore that!! so its not in short supply bmc askblog fandoms got something for everyone

Which drawing program do you use?? i use paint tool sai and my tablet is a cintiq !!

this isn't really related to the faq but that bakunawa boy reference was great I LOVE THAT FIC MAN!!! the line was originally a little diff in that ask but i changed it cause ,,,, i could,,,,

an art style question. how do you keep the design of characters consistent from frame to frame? my characters they look a lil different every time I draw em (or a lot different) and it tends to disrupt the flow of my comics/animations ohh boy hoo wee props for doing animations im too scared to give that a whirl but!! it helps that i draw all the panels for an ask on one canvas! so if my next panel is going to be the same character in the same spot just in a diff pose i keep the lower layer on just at low opacity so i can use it as a ref! that helps me a lot!

Sorry if I'm nosy or rude, but are you reflecting Micheal Anxiety, Panic attacks and depence? iii think this is asking if i reflect my own issues onto them boys? and if so then yes i do. i dont place any of my own personality or anything on the boys but i do use them as a way to help me learn how to cope with my own shit and i try to deal with their issues in the healthiest way possible while also keeping in mind they are flawed individuals aaa

what are your pronouns??? and maybe your main blog??  im a cis girl so she/her is good! and my main is squigglegigs! also that being said IF YOU SEE THE USERNAME SQUIGGLEGIGS ANYWHERE JUST?? ASSUME ITS ME?? i have a twitter and an instagram and my tumblr account 

((Hello mod will Michael and Jeremy eventually someday get together. I love them.)) if all goes according to plan yes! if i get overwhelmed and stop having fun on this blog then no! sorry thems the breaks but! i do want them to get together so HOPEFULLY

going off on that confrience on pornogrefy for birds, Im geussing jeremy has played Hatoful Boyfriend. am I wrong? well it wasnt intended as that ref and i dont know anything about hatoful boyfriend but i can see jerm finding it and playing it so, sure homie! the pornography for birds thing is a my brother my brother and me reference! i love that show and them boys so give it a scope!

I'm crying bcuz Michael said he's in love with Jeremy and it's beautiful yeah that boy is DEEP IN love with his bro bro

Any advice for running an ask blog?? (Ps i love this blog keep it up) personally whats worked for me so far is doing just sketches for art. honestly ive been able to work so much more and post so much more often while also trying to work on my expressions and poses! also taking my own experiences and shaping them to fit the characters has been SO MUCH FUN. th most important thing tho is,,, dont overwork urself dude. if ur having a fun time it shows. if ur just forcing urself to churn out material and its not fun? like shit we doing this for free dont push urself? idk idk overall being looser with my art and writing the dialogue before hand has been the most helpful for me for this askblog! ive run a bunch before including @ask-maz and ive run that sporadically for ,, three or four years? its so funny cause u can see my art style juMP AROUND SO MUCH but i love that blog and i only update it like every other month or so but?? i still like doing it and no on likes those posts but it makes me smile so ANYWAYS

~ok from here on its mostly just me replying to nice messages or people asking me personal questions that dont pertain to askguyslikeus so!!~

I just wanted to say I really really love your blog and just your art in general!! Keep up the good work and hope you're having fun! thank u!!! i am having fun and im glad u enjoy it!!

What other musicals do you like? :0  i really like heathers A LOT. i also like doctor horrible i know thats not technically a musical but i just relistened to it and im emotional. i like dear evan hansen but it makes me really sad so i can only take it in moderation! ummm rent? chicago?? music man? now im just naming musicals i was in rip. being in a musical fandom is a new thing to me? i was really into heathers last year but didnt really interract with the fandom at SO THIS IS SUPER NEW?? ive never been into a musical as much as im into bmc and heathers tho

tell us a little bit about urself!! u seem v cool i am squigs or fork!! im 24 and work fulltime as a barista at starbucks! i get high on the beach with my friend gwen a lot and drink wayy to many slushies, my tv shows are brooklyn nine nine and bobs burgers right now! i table at conventions sometimes and sell my art as merch and whatnot and i cosplay as a hobby as well. im pretty boring but i draw a lot and always carry my big sketchbook with me and im pretty sure its given me back issues BUT OH WELL HAHA also i am very not cool THE TRUTH COMES OUT

Who do you most relate to from bmc and why? like ,,, a mix of michael and christine with a sprinkle of jeremy i guess ahaha i relate to michaels dependency issues and overarching positive attitude and love of music, i relate to christines bright disposition and the need to not stick to one set thing? like she loves theater cause she can be sO MANY PEOPLE and like same homie thats why i cosplay. and jeremys need to be likes while also ability to put himself out there is very relatable. i also identify strongly with his dad issues idk idk whats good

Also -- just thank you for how you handled all the panic attack and anxiety attack asks. I used to deal with anxiety attacks multiple times a day and it just was really nice that it was positive and not them having one. Thank you, sincerely. ahhhhhh ur so welcome i,,, have anxiety and it sucks and i deal with panic attacks like everyday at work so i dont really wanna come home and draw someone having one i guess? im glad its helping other people too tho!

Dude- I love your art? Actually so much? It's... I love it. The whole sketch-ish way your art style is, and the way you color, and the expressions! I'm so glad I found your work - you've given me so much inspiration. Keep doin what you're doin and I hope you have a good day! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ANytime any one compliments my expressions i die cause i legit made this blog to help with that as well ,,, like dam

im lvoe ur art style b o i :0 !!!!!!

Mod, I love you so much I love you you have my soul and my love and my eternal gratitude thank you and I love you (This is the guy who was excited about PJ on your ig live stream a while ago and I love you) !!!!!!!!! im so happy u like my content omg and that u like pj im so glad!! shes a good bean

I just wanna say... I'm crying over that post about Michael and his anxiety? cuz I know how it can feel that you're only your flaws and weaknesses, but Michael just tells that to screw off in the most wonderful way and I'm?? thank you so much for that post, I bookmarked it for future times when I can't look past my depression... honestly, that post made my day (along with every other post on this blog), thank you for being such a lovely part of this fandom ,,,, im,,,, im scared of a lot of this fandom tbh but if i can be something good that come out of it and my love of these boys and desire to show them functioning together in a healthy way can help other people its so much more than i ever thought id ever be able to do. i am blown away everyday by the support ive been given on this blog and i might be crying right now because i never thought id be able to touch other people like this and i just. im really glad yall are here with me for all this.

(To the mod: You are a beautiful person that I highly respect. I love this blog and what you set out to do. thanks for giving something that makes me smile and gives me something to look forward to everyday, keep up the good work! ❤ ) hey im still crying from the previous ask aaaaa im honestly so emotional

what are ur true feelings for wendy's??? i fucking love wendys man thats some top tier fast food right there

what fast food restaurant do you think has the best nuggets WENDYS HANDS DOWN

do you have a favorite movie? paranorman makes me very nostalgic and ive seen it like eighty times and used to watch it with my dad a lot and i love it

I would just like you to know that your Wendy's comic prompted me to pull the same thing with a bakery in the town I'm visiting and the baker got so excited and happy, so thank you for making that comic because I made that woman's day. GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD GOOD I LOVE WHEN PEOPLE COMPLIMENT ME WHEN IM WORKING DUDE LIKE IM SO GLAD IT MADE U DO THIS!!! IM SMILING REALLY BIG!!

chocolate milk or strawberry milk? or plain? woops i hate milk im so sorry

do u love michael mell with all of ur heart, mod?  i really truly do man what a fucking good ass character

hi squigs i love you! i love your content too and i hope u have a good day pal :>  WHAT A SWEET BEAN!!! THANK YOU?? OMG

I'm just saying that recent ask you did with Michael really hit me hard because I really related to it and I started crying because it made me realize that I've been pining my self worth on everything my anxiety causes and I'm so much more than that. Thank you, so much for that I really needed it because I'm in a really bad place right now. <3 -for the mod i legit cry everytime i get asks or dms like this cause once again the idea that im helping other people is so ovwehelming i love you??? i let myself just be”depressed” for ahwile and by that i mean i just,, let my sadness consume me and i was scared of getting better cause the sadness was all i knew for so long and just. its so easy to think u are ur illness but you are so much more. soooo much more man.

I relate A Lot to Michael so the way you portray him in the blog is really good, and I think it's really awesome you refuse to like?? do terrible stuff and answer bad questions just bc people wanna see that. You run this blog really well 👌  AHHHH THis is the biggest compliment thank u so much ,,, i get real anxious bout this blog soemtiems but then yall send me sweet things like this and its worth it man

Hey mod, just know you're a really cool person. Thanks for running this blog in the first place. Keep doing the great work.  thank you!!!! for ur support!!!! 

not really a question!! i just wanted to say your posts on this blog always brighten my day and you're really an incredible artist and person, keep rockin on my dude!! *clutching my heart* the fuck this is so sweet

1 .I just wanted to say your blog is really awesome! It's very lovely. I also like how you made michael trans and like handled it? (just with how all the characters treat him and stuff its v nice). Your art is super duper! Thanks for running this awesome blog! 2. Hey! This isn't a question but I wanted to say that I appreciate michael being trans!! As a trans boy it's just rly awesome to see something like that casually thrown into an ask blog without making it a huge weird deal :D immm,,, i kinda really love the idea of michael being trans cause a lot of my trans male friends are actually pretty confident in their skin and michael is a very confident character? and u rarely see that with trans representation and its so refreshing to see it portrayed well. im trying to do that here but again if! i do anything wrong let me know!

how did you first get into art? (also i really love your blog, it's amazing!) ive been drawing as long as i remember! ive got mad adhd and wasnt diagnosed until late in ym life so i would just draw nonstop in my classes ahaha i used to read the sunday comics a lot and they really inspired me to try and make comics of my own too!! (and omg thank u) 

someone also asked me if i went to church or was religious but tumblr ate the ask but i used to go to church a lot as a kid but im currently not religious at all aaa

ok holy shit that was a lot but thanks again to everyone i legit cry a lot about how supportive u all are thank u so much aaaa

#modpost #holy fuck that was so much

[the-space-case]

Also!! (It's the Bill's jumper slut here) I recently got into digital art but I am,,, really bad. Can I get any advice for it? Like with colours and shininess and backgrounds because ugh background and stuff? Idk what exactly I want advice on but please help because I am,, really bad and you are definitely the opposite of that

Yo!!! Thats a lot. Digitial art? Just as hard as traditional; it has its own rules. I can give you some tips but the most important thing out there is ehhhh TWO things.

1.) USE REFERENCES, DRAW FROM REAL LIFE. I hate doing this because I feel like a cheap printer, but think of it this way if you do too; if you use references and draw inspiration from real life, you’re making a base for what you make later one. Practice drawing one thing often enough and you have it memorized so you never have to look at it again/can warp it to your own exaggerated devices. You can’t draw anatomy if you don’t understand it! You can’t draw perspective if you don’t observe it critically! You can’t walk until you crawl yadda yadda yadda do as i say not as i do lmfao

--this is helpful for basically everything, including backgrounds and colors and shininess

2.) LEARN FROM EXAMPLE. There’s tons of artists from around the world who put their portfolios online. There’s tons of youtube videos based on learning art! Check out art throughout history, even! Check out your favorite styles, be it traditional or cartoon, and observe what you like about them specifically. Test it loads of them yourself; after awhile of trying style after style your personal preferences will develop.

Aside from those two, here’s some of my personal tips. They might not work for you! I’m not a professional here, these are just some things I enjoy doing with my art.

COLORS:

-if you use a color once in a picture, use it again to balance it out.

-made a character and colored it in but having trouble deciding on the bg colors? Use the ones already on your canvas/in the character. unite that canvas under one palette. Even just an abstract shape in the bg of one color is better than a blank; make it the least used color in the character if thats the case, or at least one not near the edges.

-try analogous color schemes or monochrome schemes to get a feel for colors you dont normally use. 

- try coloring without lineart too, thats a fun exercise. 

-sometimes if you put yellow next to blue it looks green. either decrease the intensity of said blue or adjust the yellow; same with other odd pairings. your brain is weird just go around it.

-if two colors of the same intensity are right next to eachother your brain might blend the line between them; again depends on if you want it but it happens with painting so i mean have at it i guess. 

SHININESS:

-make sure you know the direction where light is coming from; that dictates where lightspots go

-putting lightspots against areas of intense color makes em pop

-try making them not just white, but also pastels or just intense color. It’s good to experiment! 

-A hard lightspot gives an area a smoother, almost rubber like or wet texture. making it jagged makes it look a bit more leathered? Again, experiment as to what you like best. I enjoy putting a hard blot of white on a darker bg and then airbrushing around it to make a nice glow effect. 

-if the lightsource is anything but white, make lightspots that color. 

-BACKGROUNDS:

-I prefer to use references for backgrounds. rough out a few examples of various angles or object placements if you need to. I actually made a sort of room scheme for the parlor in Recovery, as seen below:

(its ok they can be shitty and still be useful)

-know that for bgs there’s the foreground, mid-ground and background, and it makes more sense to have all of them haha

-also good: make your characters interact with the bg/environment! Really brings the whole thing together. 

-most digital art programs have grids available; use those for making buildings and such, much easier than dragging over a bent-out-of-shape ruler and hoping for the best. 

MISC:

-if you know you’re bad at something in particular don’t shy away from it. Don’t avoid drawing hands bc you feel like you’re bad at drawing them! You gotta practice that shit, even if its hard/you dont like it. 

-generally if you’re going to draw something hard just do it with enthusiasm; a sort of fuck-you to despair. 

-if your wrist hurts stop until it doesn’t, Repetitive Strain Injuries are Bad and so is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. 

-flipping the canvas after drawing one eye lets you draw the other one without making it crooked, but if you’re lazy like me you can just...copy-paste it and reverse the layer and also maybe transform it to fit LMFAO. Still though flip the canvas just in case. 

-for some reason if you’re drawing a stack of objects start in the middle or do the contour first it helps with sizing. 

-draw at least once a day unless in pain lmfao

-Praaactice makes Peeeeerfect

-tbh anything goes in art, i’ve seen cheese with hair stapled to it in a museum just do what you want just get the basics down first makes things easier haha

#art ref #tips and tricks #art tutorial #sort of #references #das all for today folks #Anonymous