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zulivaris · 3 years

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Art Block tips that helped me

I’ve recently experienced art block after 3 or so months of overcoming my last one. Thankfully this block only lasted a few days thanks to some things I’ve observed and noted down from the previous time. So I’m sharing these few tips in hopes that it might help someone get unstuck :D!

First and foremost if you’re tired, sad or anxious don’t be surprised that you can’t make art, go and take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness and patience, the sketchbooks and canvases will wait for you :)

The tips are under here:

Separate art studies from the creative time: When you do art studies you’re there to focus on specific things, learn and understand how things work so you can apply them later in your art. Studies take a lot of energy and focus and are the opposite of the creative "flow” of making your own pieces. If you combine the two the results are either unfocused studies or stiff drawings. When you sit down at your desk ask yourself “Do I want to learn something new or do I want to create something of my own?”

When you have an idea don’t be afraid of being messy: Let’s say you want to make a picture of several cats kolo dancing in the moonlight. How do you go about doing this? Well since you came up with the idea you already have a vague image in your mind, sketch it out with simple shapes, stick figures, circle and spheres etc Don’t worry about cat anatomy, or the dancer’s moves, sketch out the essence of it. This method removes the need to be perfect or accurate.

Ok after the messy sketch then what? Well now that you have sketched out the essence of your idea (and hopefully had fun doing so) now you go on to look for references! You put the creative process on pause and you can do a few brief studies if you need to: anatomy, color schemes, values, poses. Pick out a few of your favorites but don't obsess over them, they are a guide, a tool.

You know much more than you think. You’ve probably been drawing for a few years now. You’ve probably done some studies and drawn more than one type of subject. Then you have already internalized some of that information. I used to be obsessed with capturing the minute detail of the subject, and not be able to draw ANYTHING without reference. Instead of a useful tool, references became another obstacle to my creativity. That’s perfectionism my friend, and that’s no good. Here is an exercise a good friend of mine offered: Draw a few characters, animals and objects from imagination. Make sure that the subjects have no personal value to you (no ocs for example) so that if you make a mistake you won’t feel bad about it. Make the process relaxed and comfortable, pour a nice cup of joe, listen to your favorite music ... You will notice that you do indeed know how to draw some things without reference, and it’ll help with your confidence.

The more you do studies the more you understand This seems evident but the more you understand your subject the freer you can be and the easier it’ll be to draw it from imagination in the future. If you really struggle with something to the point of frustration (as in you can’t get it right even with reference) It means you have to study it. Have a study list, for example: hands, perspective, color theory etc. And one of those days you want to study pick something from the list, and look for videos on youtube or useful sites like line of action etc. Only study one thing at the time. You can go from studying hands to studying arms since they’re more immediately connected, but you can’t study hands and then jump to learning perspective right after. Trust me you can learn perfectly fine with the resources online, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to do it :D

Mistakes don’t mean you “suck” I’ve noticed that the two most common causes for art block are perfectionism and lack of self-confidence. The two can often go in tandem which is worse :’D But let me remind you of something, you can fix your piece along the whole process. Use erasers, lasso tools, liquify , select, paint it all over etc If something looks off to you then you also know deep inside how to fix it. Useful ways to see what clunks: flip canvas horizontally (helps with placement, proportions), turn the image to grayscale (helps to check values and where your eye tends to look), look at your image in thumbnail size and ask yourself if it’s clear, see the pose’s silhouette and ask yourself if you can tell what the character is doing etc. Don’t fret, everything can always be fixed :)

Perfectionism, sometimes it stops you before you begin Perfectionism causes you to overwork a piece, it makes you draw less, it makes art stressful, it brings insecurity. Let’s remove it with a simple exercise. It can be combined with the “draw things from imagination” once you’ve drawn something you like: dont do line art, don’t shade it, keep it as simple and crude as possible and then...post it. Yes, post it. You’re not at your best? You’re only human, this will help you embrace that very human side of you. You make mistakes. So what? The more mistakes you make the more you know what you need to study and the better at art you become. Mistakes are there to show us what we need to learn. See them as another tool and not a sign of failure.

Make the process as enjoyable as possible: You like art. You love drawing. Never forget this. Otherwise why are you drawing if you don’t enjoy it? It’s easy to fall prey to the mentality of those relatable memes that “art= suffering” or “I can’t even draw the other eye”. No no no my friends, these messages are fueling your insecurities instead of overcoming them. Let me tell you what, art is fun. It is. Art is fun, because I decided to make it fun again. And you should decide on that too. Personally I adore lineart but my hand-eye coordination is lacking to do it digitally, so....I just skipped it. Yes. I skipped it. I do the sketch, I clean it up a bit and then jump onto color which I adore. It allowed me to draw more and more freely. When I draw I listen to music, make strokes with the rhythm, I take breaks often and I drink my favorite iced teas. If you don’t like coloring do it in grayscale, if you love lineart then do that etc It doesn’t mean you won’t learn your weak points in the future with studies and practice, but you won’t let your weaknesses prevent you from drawing at all. No no, you won’t let them. You draw because you want to, despite of them.

Don’t wait for inspiration, provoke it Inspiration is not a divine and capricious muse. You make inspiration. It’s easy just collect all the things you like, music, artists, objects, characters, animals, patterns, plants etc Make boards on pinterest or similar sites, combine things you like. You like suits? You like birds? You can draw a bird in a suit, or a bird-inspired suit design, there is frankly a lot of ideas that can spring up from little things like these.

When a project stops being enjoyable either pause it for now or move on to the next thing. Pieces aren’t precious. They’re not “the one time I got x right” they are one of many. This advice goes mainly to hobbyists who can afford the luxury of passing to a new project. I have a WIP of a character who is overly complicated (I enjoy a challenge from time to time) sitting for half a month. I sometimes come back to it and add something... but as soon as it starts to create discomfort and insecurity instead of enjoyment I move onto something else. In the meantime I created 3 or 4 new pieces. If I had waited on finishing that piece I would have been severely creatively and physically exhausted. The art comes from you, not inspiration. The more art you make the better you become.

That’s about it :D I know it’s long but I prefer to be thorough and cover all the possibilities. If you have read of this: Thank you so much I hope this helps you at least a bit, if it helps only 1 other person I’d still be very happy. Have a nice one, and kick art block’s butt!

#art block #art block tips #art block advice #art advice #art help #BloggityDiary #art reference #I hope this will help someone out #This will also help me remember my own advice sksksk

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groundramon · 6 years

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Homph I finished tri and I wrote down my thoughts as I was watching because I had too many funny shitposts and nobody to share them with bc charlie hasn’t watched tri yet

PS i wont be reblogging tri spoilers (besides MINOR stuff like, digivolutions of already confirmed digivolution lines or non-spoilery shitposts, but I’ll try to tag shitposts as #tri spoilers anyways [digivolutions specific to tri ill tag as well but not ones that were already basically confirmed]) for a while so ur safe here! I’m just gonna like everything/most things because then I can rb em to hisyaryumon lmao (also u should check out hisyaryumon....its me n charlie’s digimon blog)

EP 1:

- ok. alright. ok. good. they’re dealing with kari’s emotions now instead of just. nothing. ok. alright. cool. Still dont like how obscure/”artsy” they’re being with it, this is digimon not kagerou project, but ok.

- Also. I stand by tk and kari being one of the few good straight ships in digimon. just saying.

- kari: this is my fault... me: god damn it shut up you little brat also me: god relatable ALSO me: ill take whatever display of emotions i can get

- I love how nobody believes tai is dead like. They’re upset and worried but they’re also like “nah. he cant be. that fucking asshole just left us in our time of need” (actually only matt is the last one)

- Gabumon i would die for you also im crying and I think that’s the first time tri managed to make me fucking CRY

EP 2:

- I had thoughts but then the 02 kids happened and I entered another plane of reality. I don’t feel real right now

- the only one I can remember is evil!gennai being a dumbass and being like “SUFFER AND SQUIRM YOU PATHETIC HUMANS AS YOU FIGHT OVER THE LAST SEAT” 1. humans are KNOWN for their ability to care for others you dumb obvious fuck and 2. is. is the entire tube going? because that tube can fit too people if they squish. This isn’t a joke I’m serious it can.

- oh yeah also when i saw whomstever the fuck his name is (adult guy who i love but fuck names) and he was all bloodied i was like “its a cold day in hell when i see blood in digimon” (I think there was blood in an earlier ep but shh idc)

EP 3:

- didn’t nishijima start off as a fucking life coach to these kids. What the fuck he was supposed to help them find a career not emotionally scar them by bloodily dying in front of one of them

- im realizing that the reason hackmon was always in his cloak, in the shadows, standing still is that they cannot animate him in any normal position for the life of him. I drew him with better anatomy when i was 14 and didn’t have a tablet. No seriously, look:

I didn’t say it wasn’t bad, you guys are just underestimating how bad the anatomy on this poor creature is. Why cant ppl draw dracomon or hackmon correctly imma cry

- ordinemon has the best reaction faces

the best part about these two screenshots is that they literally cut one to the other, first the first one to the second one and then it cuts back to the first one. They were really proud of these stupid ass expressions.

- I started overcoming my dissociation shock from the second episode and my hypercritical mind was analyzing the shit out of everything that happened (it is Not happy) but then evil!gennai called kari and evil goddess and idk if he’s exaggerating to make her feel bad or if she’s literally a fucking god of chaos and destruction and either way im like

she did kinda like. Watch wizardmon die, watch tai die, watch gatomon get absorbed. The dark ocean is just a metaphor for depression and honestly if 02 wasn’t all over the fucking place I think Kari would’ve had some pretty decent development in it. Actually you know what, I’m using that as an angle to approach Tri at now, wish me luck bc i might actually give it more leeway now

EP 4:

- I’m not dissociating but I forgot to say anything again and I already forgot what happened

- Cant believe mei is fucking dead

EP 5:

- I like to imagine that Tai got there like a few minutes ago, but he was like “well damn guess yall figured it out without me. alright ill just. see if I need to do anything” and then meicoomon was Still Bad so he waited for when she struck just to make the most badass entrance possible. Fucking extra ass bitch

- I forgot to write anything again but uhhh I wasn’t satisfied so anyways lets just get into the Juicy Details

Originally I was actually planning to be kinder to Tri than I expected. Was very invested during it. ‘Round the end of the last ep I realized hmmm no this isn’t working out. Where are the 02 kids. You should’ve brought them in to save the day. That would’ve been SO cool and SO fun. Fucking cowards.

god I’m kinda tired so I’m going to address a couple things I still had problems with, note that this isn’t everything it’s just everything I felt comfortable yelling about without rewatching past eps. Like I forgot nishijima was all bloodied and presumably died in the last part until they brought it up and I was like “????” ALSO DID THE LADY WHO WAS HIS PARTNER OR W/E KILL HERSELF WITH THE GUN SHE FOUND, I JUST REALIZED LITERALLY AS I WAS TYPING THIS THAT SHE FOUND A GUN AND THEN I THINK IT CUT TO BLACK AND I’M

DID SHE FUCKING KILL HERSELF WHAT THE FUCK

anyways my problems:

1. They did joe. really dirty. I’ll write a more proper rant on this sometime later (mostly bc charlie is MUCH better at talking about joe than I am) but basically I can tell you that his character development in the movies squandered his OG character development. He’s basically an entirely different person. Like Tri joe isn’t bad, besides being largely neglected (yes he has a whole half a movie to himself, no that doesn’t make up for it all), its just...not OG joe. He’s a fine character just not the same character, and its NOT fine when you put the two together.

2. THEY DID THE 02 KIDS EVEN DIRTIER IM SO BITTER sorry you nostalgia-blind, money-hungry fucks at bandai, but the 02 cast is PART OF THE ADVENTURES UNIVERSE. The only people who hate 02 are ones who like the characters but hate the mess of the storyline at the end, or are completely irrational and elitist about their love of the digimon series and would greatly re-evaluate their opinions if they watched the original series and 02 back to back. They couldn’t even show them in some kind of group montage at the end??? Standing in the background when they call Mei??? Why couldn’t they call mei from a home phone also, but that’s a less important problem idc that much. It was a cute scene besides the lack of 02 characters. Whatever. AND THE PROBLEM IS LIKE kari and tk? This entire time??? Were like “oh they disappeared. oops” instead of being frantically searching for their lost friends??? Like i get tk and kari probably have fucking ptsd and can’t express any emotions because they watched important people die in front of their eyes at an incredibly young age but also 1. they didn’t address the ramifications of ptsd, so fuck that theory/excuse and 2. THAT??? WOULD ONLY MAKE THEM LOOK HARDER??? and put on a brave face as they look, but inside they’re so scared and so worried. Not just “oh sweet, they were found/saved, theyre in the hospital but that’s fine” like WHAT theyre fucking assholes if that’s what they’d canonically do lmao. God I am SO bitter over the ENTIRE thing with the 02 kids, it would’ve been BETTER if they were deleted from the fucking canon entirely. Would I have still been bitter? Yes. But at least I wouldn’t be madder at TK and Kari too.

3. I stand 100% by the notion that Digimon is not and will never be cut out to be an adults’ franchise. It wasn’t designed for adults, and it can’t be skewered towards adults. These particular characters were designed for kids to relate to and find entertaining. They do not work when placed into an adult setting. Like, can you imagine a character like Ed from FMA going to the Digimon world? I guess in a way that’s just Marcus but like. Just imagine the FMA cast in Digimon Adventure. It doesn’t work. Digimon Tri is basically that except real. Also Data Squad was darker than Adventure so my joke doesn’t even work.

I guess my primary point is that Tri isn’t mature enough of a setup for an adult audience. It puts a focus on being “complex” and “philosophical” instead of working within Digimon’s constraints and making something good and adult out of that. Like! Digimon is a fucking TOY COMMERCIAL. Don’t give me messages about the futility of human life. I want bad puns and emotional characters. That’s what Digimon has ALWAYS been, and ideally always will be. Tri could’ve made itself more mature by dealing with the ramifications of the Digital World’s events, how it affected the kids psychologically and dealing with healing old scars. It would’ve been a more mature take on a story we loved and would use things we loved about the story already - the fact that it took so much time exploring characters’ emotions and was surprisingly mature for the time - to make itself better. You need to take the aspects that drew adults to the show and amplify them, not just slap on a complex story and unfunny dialogue and be like “oh this is fine, right?”

It’s not that Digimon can’t exist as an adult property, its just that if it repeats what Tri did, it’s got no merit and in my eyes the franchise is dead. If it survives I guess I’ll be happy that people can still enjoy it but I find it unsustainable and unsatisfying to fans of the older series. Tri is just a fuckfest of highly specific nostalgia that tries too hard to appeal to old fans without capturing what made the original series so magical, and in part thats because the original series WASN’T FOR ADULTS. I don’t know about the Digimon Story games, bc they’re T-rated so perhaps they’re a better take on an adult Digimon story than Tri? But you either need to make your own characters and lore specifically for an adult-oriented Digimon season, or perish. Also, please make it a series and not a group of movies. Getting four eps every 6-9 months was hell.

I stand by saying Appmon is a more faithful Digimon season than Tri to Digimon’s original spirit. I believe it holds more potential for success than Tri and better embodies the spirit of the older Digimon seasons. It’s dumb, its corny, it has horrible puns, but I LOVE it because it also has a deep dark story and emotional moments. If you dislike Tri and you agree with things I said that make it unlikeable, I highly recommend giving Appmon a chance - if you watch a few episodes and think “oh yeah, I guess this is decent” you’re going to like it. It’s everything Digimon has always been and hopefully always will be, just with a different concept. And hopefully the end of the series doesn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth and I have to redact this statement haha since I’m not done with it yet, but I’ve heard good things about it so I’m hoping not so.

Overall, if you watch Tri, don’t get your hopes up. It resolves everything okay-ish but it’s a pretty forgettable anime on its own and simply doesn’t work as part of the Digimon franchise.

I am, however, pretty interested in what evil!gennai said at the end about Diaboromon and Daemon. It raises interesting questions about the timeline too. We know Daemon is in the dark ocean, so perhaps that’s a hint at a future project? (They did confirm a future project btw, in conjunction with tri being over) But what about Diaboromon? I dont believe that Our War Game (I think thats what its called?) took place after Tri, based on the outfits and ages and stuff, but I also don’t remember the movies that well. Could Diaboromon still be out there too? It’s interesting.

However, because of the lackluster performance of Tri, I don’t have my hopes up and I really hope that this “next project” goes in a different direction. Although I guess if they include the 02 kids, I’ll be somewhat less salty...

Side note, did they ever explain why the gennais went evil? Like ? That’s a pretty important thing. The gennais helped SAVE the human world in 02. And I get that apparently Tri is ignoring 02′s ending but still. It’s shitty, because Gennai was still a good guy in the original too (and also they cant just keep is younger look and act like 02 never happened) MAYBE its something I missed but I dont think so. God there’s just. So much wrong with Tri. I’m very displeased and very bitter and I wanna get back to Appmon asap.

It’s got good moments, its got bad moments, I dont know, I don’t care. There’s nothing wrong with you if you like it, there’s nothing wrong with you if you don’t, and there’s nothing wrong with you if you flip flop and are split like me. I just wish Tri fulfilled its potential instead of becoming a boring mess.

#stormy speaks #digimon

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tuxiie · 7 years

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I hope this is okay but I have a few questions! I've been really down on myself lately because I don't see any improvement in my art. I've noticed how your art has grown and evolved (I've been reading your comics since the very beginning) and I was wondering if making comics had anything to do with how your art had evolved? Do you take classes or have you just practiced a lot on your own? I'm sorry if this is offensive in any way, by the way! I'm just curious. I adore your comics and characters!

Ohhhh no this isn’t offensive at all!! We all start some where and you should never be down on your self about that, honestly if you’re down on your art (to me) that means you are seeing the mistakes you are making and that’s what’s making you frustrated,, oh man i’ve been there and I still am!! Lungs has been over the course of 2 and a half years so I didnt improve overnight at all and I’m still learning. I think making pages to my webcomic has helped me a lot because its drawing a page or two almost every day, and thats probably the biggest part about drawing; you need to do it every day because that’s how you improve. When it comes to classes I took some in middle school (like the basic shading and coloring stuff) but got kicked out of art in high school, and my mom kinda frowned on most of my art but never told me to stop doing it cause it was a coping mechanism, so i’m pretty much self taught but i have had ALOT of support from my friends, who can joke freely when i do fuck up on anatomy or something. I think that’s another big thing when it comes to art, stick to the style you want but be open to people saying something looks off (now for me I dont really admire when random people do this just close friends, you dont need to accept criticism from people who dont care about you on a personal level unless you really want to, and there are always going to be those kinds of people its unavoidable to come across some one like that) also, I know you didnt ask about it but I always see people talking about it is references, I dont use them I think its fine to look at them as a last resort or if you dont know what a butt hole looks like?? (bad example pfft) but I tend to tell people to get better at drawing have a picture of what it is in your mind not what you see (yes you will be more accurate if you look at a reference but thats just teaching you how to copy not how to draw) really art for me is imagination to drawing.I’m really not good at giving advice, and i’m not a great artist at all, I just do it for fun. but i’ll let you in on a secret; every one thinks their art looks like shit regardless of how good they are, but instead of saying it looks like shit try to use nicer words like “spicy” or “vintage” for old art c; be positive to your art because you’ve worked hard on it even if it came out spicyok I dont know what else to write here I hope I answered your question (and thank you so much for reading my gays :’o ) !! I would love to see your art!! im sure its not bad like you think it is

#ask #not art #Anonymous

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