#despite using solid colors with no blending i always think of these as digital paintings | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sickaede · 6 years

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Art and Writing Q & A

Ok so my askbox has gotten crazy amounts of people asking me questions about my art, writing, etc. and I figured instead of replying individually (since most are anons) I would just throw up a Q & A to get everyone’s questions all at once. As an added bonus, since I am terrible with explaining things in writing I made a little time-lapse to show the art process as well. Hopefully this satisfies everyone’s questions, but if something you wanted to know was not answered here feel free to send me an ask, they are always welcome!

The video is at the bottom of the Q/A, click read more and scroll down to see it please!

Questions about comissions, other social media, etc. Q: Do you take commissions? A: Yes! All my comission info can be found on webiste commissions page. If you’d like to donate as well, I also have a Ko-Fi page, and offer (optional) doodle rewards for donors. Q: You don’t post on tumblr frequently anymore, are there other websites I can find your art on? A: Yes! I don’t post as frequently as I used to anywhere anymore due to my projects taking up the majority of my time, HOWEVER...there are other wesites I post on. TMVIX.NET - My website will remain the most up-to-date with all recent art, writing, videos, projects, etc. Twitter - I like to post doodles, WIPs, and updates on my twitter as much as possible. NSFW Twitter - The good shit. 👌 🌶️ 🔥 I rarely post here, and it is a private account, but no need to ask just click the follow button and I will accept ASAP. Deviantart - Again, rarely post here it’s mostly reposts from tumblr, but it is where the majority of my original content (OC’s, and stuff of that nature) is posted. Questions about my art process. Q: What programs do you use for your art? A: Paint Tool Sai for almost everything, Photoshop CS4 for editing and transparency.

Q: What brushes do you use, and what are your brush settings? A: I pretty much only use the Brush tool, Pen tool, Marker tool, and Watercolor tool for drawing, painting, etc. Here are screenshots of their settings. (The size varies, I chage it a lot.)

Q: What canvas size do you use when you draw? A: As much as SAI and my computer hate me for it, I typically draw on a 4,000x4,000PX canvas. Once I finish my artwork I shrink it down to 50%-75%, this helps get rid of small mistakes in the piece. Q: Do you use a tablet, if so what kind? A: Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. I use a Wacom Intuos USB Graphics Tablet - 8.5" x 5.3" Q: What kind of pens, markers, paper, etc. do you use on traditional work? A: My art classes have beaten brand loyalty into me, so I am spoiled with the types of pens, markers, pencils, etc. I use. Graphite pencils - Ticonderoga Colored pencils - Prismacolor Markers - Prismacolor Inking pens - Faber Castell Paper - I don’t have a specific brand I draw on, but I like drawing on big paper, usually A2 or A3. Q: How long does a digital drawing usually take. A: Its dependent on how complex and how I'm feeling when I'm drawing it but on average (cutting out time I spend doing other things).

Simple drawings/doodles take me about an hour a pop or less.

Flat colored and shaded drawings with line art usually take me about 2-3 hours.

Paintings and other complex art usually takes 5-6 hours or more.

Comics can take anywhere from 3-7 hours depending on how much detail goes into them.

Q: How long does a traditional drawing usually take? A: Again, depending on complexity about 5-10 hours. Colored pencils are a difficult medium to get right and blending is very touch-and go. Markers usually take a bit less time. Don’t even get me started on graphite and painting... Q: How do you make your line art so clean? A: Erasing/cleaning as you go instead of doing it all at the end usually helps me a bit...and I keep SAI’s stabalizer on S2 most of the time, but if there is a long line I need to make I crank it up to S7. If you want to see the exact process you can watch the video at the bottom of this post.

Q: How do you do your shading? A: I do multiple types of shading, painted, cell, gradient, etc. but the most popular seems to be the painted so I will assume you mean that.

You can watch the video below to see how it's done exactly, but to explain it simply I paint with white on a layer of solid color above my coloring layer, set it to multiply, and bam. Shading.

Q: How you do highlights, lowlights, etc.? A: Those are a bit trickier, and I didn't show them in the video but I will do my best to explain.

I like to treat lowlights like cell shading for the most part, think of them as a place where the darkest shadows would fall. Don't get carried away, lowlights are supposed to be subtle, and extenuate the depth of where those shadows fall. I use multiply for this shading layer too, and typically use a darker shade of the same color I did for the base shading.

Highlights are easier, just think of where the light falling would be the brightest on your piece. I like to do more than one set of highlights - usually two or three - but make sure if you do multiple sets to make the secondary highlights smaller and subtler than the primary ones or you will end up with a big shiny blob. I also typically use a brighter color than the one I used for shading (for example if purple is the shading color try pastel pink or orange for the highlight color) or sometimes I just use white. I switch between the 'screen' and 'overlay' blending options for them.

Q: What fonts do you use for your art, comics, etc.? A: Honestly, I usually just write out my own text, my handwriting is terrible but it's easier than opening photoshop and hunting for a good font... When I do use fonts, I HATE the factory ones for the most part, so I use stuff from Dafont.com.

Q: How do you clean your traditional art and digitalize it? A: I don’t do much traditional anymore, but I actually made an in-depth tutorial awhile back about it and I still use the same method. It can be found here.

Q: What are your inspirations for your art? A: My friends are my biggest inspiration, I am lucky enough to know a lot of talented artists that always inspire and encourage me to improve and keep drawing what I love.

Questions about my writing process.

Q:Can you give some writing tips? (There we a lot of these.) A: Well, i’m not sure what you mean specifically but I will do my best! Sorry this is a bit long-winded, but hopefully it will be helpful.

The most helpful thing you can do for your writing is to read other people’s work, of course that does not mean you need to copy their writing style...however, seeing the way other people put words together is very helpful to get out of your own head. It is easy to get stuck in a sort of ‘writing loop’ and end up writing similar things over and over again in different contexts. Taking a look at other’s view on things can help get you out of that loop.

Make sure you change up your wording! It’s easy to end up using the same descriptive terminology over and over again without meaning to. What I like to do when I write is to just get a big chunk done without worrying about grammar, repetition, etc. Then when I finish I go back and look over it, change up the words to sound fresh and different, and fix any grammar mistakes. Don’t be afraid to look up synonyms for stuff too if you can’t think of a different word, it isn’t a crime. Getting someone else's opinion on your writing after you’ve finished is also helpful! Proof readers are the best way to help you see your work in the eyes of your readers and make it exciting and interesting to them.

Get in the mood of the scene you are trying to set, be descriptive in what your characters are feeling and seeing. Often times people forget that even in simply scenes there is a whole world around your character that the reader cannot see. It’s your job as the writer to describe that world, so that the reader can see it in their head as clearly as you did when you were writing it. Listening to music while I'm writing really helps me with this, for example if you are writing an action scene listen to some high energy music. Get pumped up for that fight scene!

Build your world, even if it's not an original work. Fanfiction authors tend to forget that despite their fandom’s world being pre-built, it’s still YOUR writing! Leave hints, foreshadow, throw in some background characters to fill up your world and make it unique. Make your readers think about how the world around your characters work, what might happen next, etc.

Keep the rules and timeline of your world consistent and understandable. Yes, I know, it sounds boring, but it’s very helpful to make your writing sound more interesting and easy to comprehend. Is there magic in your story, how does that magic work, can everyone use it, are there different types? Apply simple rules like this to your world that apply consistently throughout your writing. Your readers will thank you for it.

Do your research, yes again, boring I know. It's easy to project yourself and how you view the world on your own characters, making their personalities similar or identical. Think about how someone in their circumstances would act, if they’ve been through a traumatic experience how might that affect the way things work in their head? The way they interact with others and the world around them? Make sure to diversify your cast, not everyone in the world is alike, and your characters shouldn’t be either.

Give yourself time, formulate ideas on how your storyline will connect and where it will go. You don’t have to crank out an entire book in a day, think everything over before you go through like a whirlwind and post stuff that you may not like. However, don’t take forever either. (I tend to do this a lot...) Overthinking your story can also hurt, don’t fret over every single tiny little detail. Making a timeframe for yourself and sticking to it can be helpful to keeping yourself on track and posting chapters regularly.

Lastly, never get discouraged. This goes for both artists and writers. Just because you aren’t entirely happy with how your art or writing looks or sounds at the moment, or you see someone doing it better than you does not mean you should give up. Use those that you look up to as inspiration to improve your own work. Keep going, keep practicing, you will get better! Keep doing what you love doing.

Q: What has your experience been with writing? A: I will try to keep this shorter than the last one, but here goes...

I honestly don’t have that much experience with writing, but I've always enjoyed it. I’ve been writing about my OC’s for MUCH, MUCH longer than I've been writing fics, in fact I can’t remember a time when I didn’t make up little stories for my various characters. Pretty much every drawing you see of mine has some storyline behind it. However, my fanfiction writing was more recent, I didn’t write anything fan-related until a few years ago, and I didn’t post any of it until I put OSR up. The majority of my experience comes from original content, role playing, etc. but I am so happy to be writing fics that people enjoy and hope to continue and eventually adapt OSR into a comic.

Q: Do you have original stories, can we read any of them? A: Yes, and no. I do have original stories, but I have not published them anywhere and they are still very much works in progress. Eventually I would love to share them with everyone, but it won’t be for a long time. For now, I hope you can enjoy the small amount of content I post about my OCs, and I will keep everyone updated when I do decide to share my own personal stories.

Enjoy the video, hope this helped! ✨

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