#fun fact! i use photos of myself as a reference for most of my drawings

[crocopiru]

I ain't drawing all that

#i hate his clothes so much #he gave me the brainrot for good #he's all I've drawn for the past week #fun fact! i use photos of myself as a reference for most of my drawings #it's easier #work smarter not harder #dislyte #dislyte yamato #yamato dislyte #dislyte fanart #fanart #my art #artists on tumblr #artistsupport #:3

[spdrvyn]

Hello, dear. I hope you are doing well. Might I make a Miguel x fem!reader request?

So, for context.

I had this idea today when I was sketching out someone's spidersona to practice anatomy and I couldn't find any good references for the poses I wanted to do. I just so happen to also be an aerialist so I immediately changed into some work out clothes and hung up my aerial silks onto my rig.

I was able to film myself doing the exact poses I wanted to draw on the silks to use as a reference.

This all kinda made me realize how similar aerial silks is to web swinging. And it gave me this juicy idea.

Scenario where the reader is the charismatic, flirtatious, and quippy owner of a popular, high-class nightclub in universe 2099. She is a bit more hands on than normal owners because she actually performs at her own club. The theme for the night is "superhero nite". She is the final performer of the night and is in a skin tight feminized outfit of Miguel's spiderman costume. She gives a sultry aerial silks performance on stage that includes both aerial silks and interacting with the audience (think Jessica Rabbit). Taking photos, walking across tables, giving men a run for their money. Paired with displays of extreme strength and flexibility as she weaves between the fabric silks effortlessly and gracefully.

It also just so happens that Miguel himself is there for that performance either scouting out the location or tracing a lead on a series of crimes that seem to center around this night club. So he gets to personally witness this hedonistic performance in his image. Idk I just think his reaction to it all would be juicy 🤣. Especially if the reader spots him in the crowd mid performance or after the fact and decides to approach and make a spectacle out of it.

Thank you for your time! You're really good at keeping Miguel in character and I really appreciate it.

sacred silk — MIGUEL O'HARA

☆ you're a quaint little owner on your own little stage, unfortunately your club has drawn some attention from nueva york's #1 vigilante.

tension packed. romantic. miguel is miguel. i loved this request sm! i added my own little spin to it so i hope that's okay ^_^ dividers by @/cafekitsune

Kingpin's lackeys have been scattered all around the city, not much of a problem for Miguel. The only issue being that they're planted in the most densely packed areas, markets, malls, sometimes churches when you thought he couldn't get any worse. It caused Miguel's frustrations to deepen with every single case.

At least, there was some sort of pattern in the locations of these agents. All up until this very night where Miguel found himself crouching over the glass roof of a tranquil night club.

His sharp eyes wandered over what he could find. The crowd looked young, nobody over the age of 27 in sight, there was a bartender hastily serving drinks, but the most eyecatching of them all was a rather suspicious looking old man enjoying himself a martini.

It looked... almost pathetic at this rate, however his suspicioums grew higher. This was too easy for a catch, there had to be something that he was missing in this.

"Lyla," Miguel muttered, holding his watch up close to his mouth. "What is this place exactly?"

"Can't find any records on it, I don't think that it's a registered establishment. How fun!"

Not fun. Not fun at all! The small crowd, the shady guy sitting alone at that table, the fact that this building wasn't even registered in the first place?! Crime bells were ringing in Miguel's ears.

He skittered along the edges of the roof, making sure that he isn't noticeable despite the dim lights. Soon enough, he's able to find an open panel to slip into. He digs his talons into one of the ceiling beams, which what even is the point of having a glass roof if the view is going to be obscured by these things anyway.

Miguel keeps his weight steady atop the structure, his gaze locks onto the creepy gentleman before he's blinded by the sudden flicker of the stage lights. What in the world?

When he thought that events couldn't get any weirder, you come flying down from a secret compartment in the ceiling, silk stringing your body up as you manuever and fly across the stage and club. The crowd cheers and livens up, raising their hands to which you respond by high fiving as many people as you can.

That's when he noticed something familiar about what you were wearing. The sharp geometric shapes carefully stitched into your suit, that recognizable navy blue, that straining bright red. You were wearing his colors, designed in his suit.

It's only when your feet hit the floor of stage with a resounding thud does Miguel remember why he's here in the first place, he's gotten used to seeing his face (well, his masked one) on all different kinds of merchandise. From regular to disgusting, but he's never seen something of this caliber before. He couldn't deny that he wasn't at all intrigued by your display of talent and costume.

"Thank you all for coming tonight," the breathlessness in your voice is prominent, a sign of your draining yet enamoring performance. "Do any of you want to guess who I'm dressed as?"

The crowd rallies and cheers.

"Spider-Man! Obviously!"

"Is there anyone stupid enough to not get it?"

"It's Spider-Man!"

Miguel rolls his eyes, don't get him wrong, he does want to appreciate the praise but everyone sounds like an overenthusiatic toddler. Depsite that, you feed into their firey spirits. Not before shushing them with a slight raise of your hand.

"I know you're all thinking why I decided to dress up as our beloved spider tonight," you reach for one of the silks hanging from the ceiling, resting your body atop it as you're slowly lifted from the stage again.

"Well, it's simple really. He's the hero of our city, the face of crime fighting, the face of justice." the crowd's heads follow your hanging body, your arm droops down to brush against the many hands that wish to touch yours. "He's made so many sacrifices for us, the least we could do is put on a show. All for him."

Miguel freezes for the nearly the entire duration of your heartfelt speech, he's overheard a lot of those whether it's a drunkard's rambling as he's swinging back home or on a podium and recited by a government official.

From the corner of his eye, the man that he was slowly inching towards rises from his seat and begins to slyly move through the crowd, bumping and slipping past people. When he enters through the backstage doors, all kinds of red flags are waving through the air.

The sudden blast of music nearly deafens him, but gives him a good distraction as he crawls with more fervor across the ceiling beam. He notices the small crevice to an entrance in the ceiling, presumably the one that you entered through.

It's dark and a little dusty, Miguel has to fight back a sneeze before finding yet another latch to enter through and behold, he's successfully infiltrated the backstage area!

"Lyla," he huffs. "Scan."

Bright yellow lights emerge in his vision, behind each room there's a bountiful amount of props and some people chatting with a drink in hand, it seemed like you weren't the only performer in this establishment. The thermal energy spikes when he catches sight of a man hunched behind one of the doors, supposedly with a crowbar in hand. Miguel rolls his eyes, "How dumb does he think I am?"

"Want me to run an IQ test?"

"I was being— ugh, nevermind."

Miguel shies over right next to the door, the blades hidden in his suit release with an audible shing. It cuts into the drywall without a struggle, Miguel can hear the man fall back onto the floor with a thud and a scream. He kicks his way into the room, before pouncing onto him and knocking him out cold.

"That was fast," Lyla chimes, illuminating the darkness. Miguel digs through the pockets of his coat, there's no sign of an ID, but he was carrying a shiv and a small revolver. How was this guy let in?

Miguel ties him up and makes a swift exit, before anyone could notice. This mission felt a little too easy for his liking, like a twist was going to sneak up on him at any minute now, but he wasn't going to complain about having an easy target this time.

His never ending train of thought brings him towards a building's edge later on, even deeper into the night. Waiting, thinking, contemplating. Miguel had no such thing as a spider sense, but he did have a gut and it was practically screaming at him that something was wrong.

He doesn't get any more time to let that thought marinate any further when his ears pick up on the latch of the door to the roof clicking, his head turns immediately he thinks he might strain it until he sees—

You.

Just you.

Though, you weren't wearing the same get-up when you had your show. No, you were in simply nightwear along with a flimsy pair of slippers and fuzzy socks to complete the look. That nonchalant attitude that you held during the show faded for a split second, before a small smile creeps onto your features as you raise a brow.

"Spider-Man? On my roofdeck?"

"I'll leave–"

"No!" you say it a little too loudly, reaching a hand out to him but never actually touching. You scold yourself internally for being too abrupt, before clearing your throat. "No, it's okay. Please stay."

Miguel sighs, as usual, he's going to make a decision that's going to kick him in the ass later. He gives in and decides to indulge your need for company, but the look on his face tells you to keep a distance.

You slowly walk over to the ledge that he's sitting on, leaning your body on the railing but still far enough to be comfortable.

Silence stretches out the distance between the two of you, that for once Miguel feels compelled to say something.

"There was someone suspicious at your club," he explains bluntly. "I took them out. You're welcome."

"Ah, yeah, I could tell from the webs and you know..."

"Oh."

Now, it's back to silence.

Miguel normally isn't disturbed by it, but this just made him uncomfortable. He thought that maybe you'd carry some bravado even outside your profession as a stage performer, he couldn't imagine that he'd end up talking that was so timid.

"I liked your performance," it's soft-spoken, his words fast and deliberate. "Your costume, too. It was... nice."

Even if the praise sounds like a 5th grader complimenting a painting, you found your face red and heart beating fast. Your grin returned with a "thank you". It's hard to tell exactly what Miguel's thinking under that mask, you can't even read his facial expression, but you hope that now it's less awkward.

It falls to silence again, the only difference being that there's no obligation for conversation. You and Miguel stare at the overhead view of the city from your penthouse, it gets so quiet that you swear you can hear him breathing.

He has to leave soon enough, he wished he could've stayed with you for longer because believe it or not, that's the only taste of peace he's had in a while. Your goodbyes are bittersweet, you don't know if you'll ever see him again.

When you're back on the stage again a few days later, hopping off of the platform and holding onto your silks, you're more than happy to that faint red glow coming from the glass panes on your roof.

#spiderman: across the spiderverse #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #atsv #miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x you #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara x fem!reader #x fem reader #x f!reader #x reader

[ren-from-mars]

I’ve been doing some reflecting on this past year, and I really truly think it is the most artistic improvement I have made in any span of time. Of course, I’m going to be completely insufferable about it and have collected my best piece from each month with a few personal notes, so why don’t we go on a sprint down memory highway together?

January

At the start of the year, I was both adrift between fandoms and art styles. I was mostly aiming to find which style I could keep using, finish pieces quickly yet still feel proud of. It certainly worked in the moment, but as I pushed my boundaries more it didn't stick. Still, I look back on this style fondly! also proper throwback to my old username that i had for far too long

February

This was the start of me working on colour palettes. I lay down my main colour in the background and fit the rest of my colours around that. It was a good way to start experimenting!

March

Then the shift back to finding my style- I particularly like how the hair turned out in this piece! I also started trying more interesting poses here, and actually properly attempting hands.

April

I didn't finish any pieces in april as I had started working more hours and didn't quite know how to balance myself creatively at that point. I did lean into this style of sketch much more, which was good fun while it stuck around but ive leant away from it in more recent times.

May

Not much to say about may in particular, lots of the same things as the past few months with improvements here and there! just some steady progress :)

June

Cue the crunch of getting character refs done before artfight, and then only actually finishing one (which isn't actually complete, even to this day). But hey, more solid reference for My Guy ! I also leaned into drawing furries a lot more and have improved heaps in the difference of proportions!

July

artfight baybee!! no artistic differences, but it was a lot of fun scouting out other peoples character designs! I do hope to participate more this year :3

August

back to colours, though this month felt like a bit of a backtrack. Don't get me wrong, I do quite like this piece, but contrast-wise it doesn't have as much visual clarity as I would like. Regardless, a good learning opportunity!

September

Fun fact, I rendered this one entirely in greyscale! This was the start of me getting back into hatchetfield after being reminded of NPMDs release, and lets be real this part of black friday was chilling so I had to do something about it! I consider this piece a landmark in terms of my art journey.

October

Once again no real finished pieces, I was too busy watching nightmare time while waiting for the group watch of npmd. I did do a lot of studies of star wars characters from their live-action shows though, which was a fun learning experience!

November

This was the piece where I applied pretty much everything I had learnt throughout the year. contrast, colour themes, interactive environments and poses, the lot! and also. its them. how could i not

December

A perfect piece to wrap up the year with! Another step up from november, this applied lots of what I had learnt and pushed my boundaries even more. I have been aiming for more realism to actor's faces and body types, not out of it-has-to-be-canon-sake, but rather learning how to accurately depict someone's likeness from a few photo references. good practice for both live-action and animated characters!

Overall last year was absolutely wild. I can't wait to share my journey with you all as we go into 2024 strong!

#art #my art #art journey #art progress #the owl house #nerdy prudes must die #black friday #hatchetfield #artfight #fnaf sb #furry #oc art

[frodo-with-glasses]

Well, well... let's start a new ask game with something PAINFUL! https://www.tumblr.com/frodo-with-glasses/699931081844162562/oh-no-details-are-under-the-cut-not-samfro No. 4, 15, 16 and 20, if that's not too much

Ohoho, you were always the one for angst, weren’t you, Maggie? ;-) Nice choice!

(Read the whole comic here!)

4. What part of this piece was the most difficult to draw?

Definitely Frodo’s pose in the first panel. I wanted to create this feeling that Frodo was towering over Sam—sort of hunched over him with this greedy, demanding, frightening presence—but it was really difficult to get that across and also keep him, ahem, decent. I ended up taking a lot of reference photos of myself in the mirror to try to get it right.

A close second is the pose where Frodo is snatching the Ring from Sam. I’m still not 100% happy with that one, but it works for what it is.

15. If you drew in color, what color would [x] be?

You didn’t specify which part of the drawing you’re curious about here, so I guess I’ll just describe the whole thing: Sam’s hair and vest are brown, his trousers tan, his cloak grey, and his skin slightly tanner than Frodo’s; Frodo’s hair is of course blonde with brown roots, but rather dirtied up at the moment, and his skin would be pale except for the red whiplash on his back and the greenish wound on his neck. The Ring, of course, is gold and shiny, and its chain is grey.

But since we’re in the Tower, and it’s dark, and the only light is the lantern overhead, we might actually get a color scheme that looks very similar to the one in Scarlet; all harsh blacks and reds. Very dramatic. Very bright red glint on the Ring when Frodo snatches it. And Frodo’s eyes might possibly look bloodshot in the last two panels.

16. If there is a song or quote associated with this drawing, why did you choose that song/quote?

The only quote associated with this drawing is its caption, “oh no”. I chose that caption because…well, I feel it’s a proper response. X-D Oftentimes I use the caption to add a second joke or something, but with the dramatic moments, I try to be a bit more frugal with my words so as not to undercut the emotions of the scene.

Now, if you’re trying to ask why I chose to draw this scene in particular—well. Because pain, that’s why. >:-D

20. Quick! Random fun fact!

Okay so the reason this took me so long to answer is because I couldn’t think of a fun fact to put here—but finally, I think I’ve got something!

In many other comics, I use nice neat squares and rectangles as the panel shapes. It’s just easy to work with. Here, however, the comic is structured as four large triangles, with tinier trapezoids in sort of a pyramid shape within the second big triangle.

This definitely made the comic a huge pain to plan (lol), but it serves a purpose: the slanted lines and irregular shapes makes everything feel “off-kilter”, slightly “wrong”, a reflection of how Frodo isn’t quite himself in this moment because of the Ring (and in a way, the same is true for Sam!). Everything from the shape and size of the panels to the way they’re battling for real estate on the page reflects the confusion and conflict of this moment.

I especially like the contrast between Sam’s quiet, tiny, “I could share it with you, maybe?” versus the huge visual BANG! of Frodo tearing the Ring away from him in that enormous panel. It’s like a sucker-punch in the gut, which is exactly how I imagine it would’ve felt for Sam >:-3

ARTIST COMMENTARY ASK GAME!

#frodo baggins #samwise gamgee #my art #my writing #artist commentary ask game

[cherokeegal1975]

Okay, so I cheated a lot as far as the drawing. But, I sometimes have difficulties drawing what's in my head, so getting references helps a lot. This image just showed up in my head and I was lucky to get all the help I needed to put it together.

Originally just a random picture that showed up in my mind with no meaning, my imagination got to work and The Grey is a judge of truth and is very aware of the fact there are few if any strict black and whites. There are shades of grey and at least two sides to every story.

I think she'd make a good board game character. Something involving dice and cards like D&D. The design of the drawing looks like a card to me anyway. It wasn't intentional, but I'm going with it.

I'm hoping I can actually finish it, because there are people in my life that don't care if I have any time for myself. Drawing is not just fun, but a need. I need it to keep me sane in this shitty life of mine. It's not the worst that can happen to anyone, but I hate it. I hate it with a passion and wish dearly that I could fix it.

Anyway, I'll post the finished drawing here and other places online. If you want to put this protagonist character into a game, go ahead, just ask me first and give me credit for the design. I'd be surprised if any will use her, because everyone ignores my offers to share my works and photos. But if you do, please wait until the finished work is posted! This thing is a mess and I'm the only one who has any idea of the final design details...which won't be all black, white and shades of grey. There'll be some splashes of color and that frame is going to be in solid gold relief. That mask will remain as is, but part of the hood will be covering it. Skin tones for exposed areas, I'm thinking brown, like Mexican or Native American. Black hair. The robe will be grey. The flame on the right will be a black light color and the one on the right a white flame...or a blueish one closely resembling the one already referenced here. The wing in the white field will be black and the wing in the black field will be white. There's a half gold and half silver halo. I can see that clearly in my mind with no trouble. The one I got sketched there is too thin and there's some simple line designs I want to put on the halo. I can draw that with no references myself.

I can draw with only visual reference to look at or just images in my mind and do it totally freehand just fine. It's just easier this way. I do draw things freehand most of the time...half of the time lately. But, I have made a mental note to push myself into doing more purely freehand artwork so I can continue to improve in every way I can in my drawing.

(I often look though my posts to proof them and frequently wince. I see my grammar. Well, I was in a hurry and I'm too lazy at the moment to fix it now. Shit, I can write volumes without meaning too. Oh well.)

#cherokeegal1975 #digital art #fantasy #d&d original character #work in progreess

[amayensis]

How to learn drawing MH monsters

Hey Anon! First of all I'm very honored, thanks a lot!!

You're asking a very interesting question in my opinion, so I hope you will find a long response interesting as well c:

When I want to learn how to draw a new Monster, I base myself on the Monster's design (ofc) but also on general knowledge, especially anatomy. Anatomy is crucially important even when drawing creatures that do not exist, simply in order to make them believable!

So if you struggle to draw MH Monsters, that are famous for their 'realism' and believability, first ask yourself what level you have in basic anatomy: if you know how skeleton works, muscles work, transcribing it into proportions and joints, things like that.

(Art I made for fun for my RP blog)

I sadly can't offer you much advice on how to learn it, because anatomy is partly intuitive to me; and lots of my artistic anatomy studies were more centered around human anatomy (however, a lot of muscle groups are similar to animals, so even my knowledge of humans is useful when drawing monsters). I also have to mention I'm a vet student, and we had medical anatomy classes in the first year, which helped a lot as well; but I'm sure you can find online resources that will teach you the basics for art!

To learn drawing in general, you also need to have a good sense of observation. That's also something I get mostly from intuition so I'm not sure how to teach it; but basically, a sentence I often hear is learn to draw what you see (from a photo, for example) and not what you THINK you see. The difference lies in the fact that people may tend to draw an eye like what they imagine an eye looks like (stylized, oblong, with a round pupil), instead of studying the reference picture that will force them to think in shapes, strokes, and proportions, and not in terms of objects they're trying to represent. That's when you realize that depending on the angle, an eye can show extremely varying shapes, isn't symmetrical, and even the pupil doesn't always look round on a picture. I hope it makes sense, if not let me know. XD

Now applied to monster drawing: get some reliable references from different angles, HD screenshots are the best (unless you can access a ripped-off 3D model). If possible avoid non-official art of monsters because they may have mistakes.

(Small part of a reference board in my reference software, VizRef for iPad)

When studying a reference, you must be able to guess where the skeleton is, and that knowledge will help you fix the proportions of the creature (relative sizes of the body parts, distance between different points on the body, joint placements...). When you draw the monster from different angles, the legs shouldn't get weirdly far from the head, the shoulders shouldn't be too caudal, the eyes shouldn't get too far or too close from the tip of the nose, etc.

Most of the time when learning to draw a new monster, I observe/study lots of screenshots, copy from screenshots (I'm not a fan of tracing but some people say it can help learning), using simple shapes at first then more and more complex; and then after a bit of practice, I try to draw without a reference a couple times. If it looks wrong, I go back to screenshots to search where my mistake is, and usually that's enough to find it and fix it for the next times. Do not fixate on details at first, especially if you can't get the proportions of the monster right! Try to figure out what makes a monster’s design so recognizable, and insist on that.

Let me show you an example of how I learnt to draw Rathian on paper back in the days (2015):

1. My first sketches of Rathian, from memory and without reference.

2. Studies of Rathian references (screenshots, renders...).

3. New drawings of Rathian without reference, using the knowledge I learnt from the references.

(Link to higher resolution)

Also, link to more Rathian sketches I made with references back then.

Even now, I rarely draw monsters without references, but having learnt to draw them like this helps a lot to understand how they work; and usually this knowledge is visible in your final art.

In conclusion, what you need in order to learn drawing MH monsters is: anatomy basics, sense of observation, decent references, and patience! If you think you have all that, persevere!

I hope this post will help you figure out what's holding you back from improving your monster art. If not, I don't mind discussing it further based on what you can draw, even by private messaging if you want. :3

#tutorial #answer #tips #drawing #monster hunter #rathian #draw #art #anatomy #amayensis art #if this helps other people I'd love to hear your feedback! <3 #anon #ask

[corpsentry]

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

#my stuff

[piduai]

Interview with Noda Satoru from the Golden Kamuy fanbook

sharing anywhere is fine, but please credit me.

Q: Tell me how you feel about passing 6 years of serialization. Noda: I was already serializing at the time of my debut, so I guess I’d be able to give a summary when I’m finished. I don’t really think about how many years it’s been, it’s merely a checkpoint.

Q: What made you decide to become a mangaka? Noda: I feel like I wrote it down as my goal in my yearbook back in middle school. I also wanted to become a movie director, but as a mangaka you can create the entire thing by yourself. 

When Golden Kamuy just took off I was living in a tiny apartment and the postman, a young fellow and a reader of Young Jump, realized that I’m Noda Satoru. The magazine was sending me a lot of things, so it was rather obvious. “Are you the author of Golden Kamuy?”, he asked in a surprised tone while looking around the cramped entryway. I could feel feel his confusion regarding the fact that that vast Hokkaido world of the manga was being created in this modest apartment. Or maybe he just expected me to be making more money and afford a better place. Anyhow, I just thought again about how a manga can be created in even the smallest room in the universe.

Q: Who is your favorite character and why? Noda: As always, it’s Tanigaki. But well, I love all of them. I want to showcase only the best parts of them, and it hurts when I fail. For example I’m very happy that there’s a character who stirs the pot as well as Usami. He’d be Katsuo in the world of Sazae-san.  

Q: Which characters are the easiest to draw, and which ones are the most difficult? Noda: Characters like Shiraishi, Tsukishima and Nagakura, they don’t have a lot of hair and even if they turn out a little ugly their faces are well-defined so it’s easy to draw. In general faces that are strongly distorted and resemble caricatures are easy. Meanwhile Asirpa, Kiroranke and Inkarmat have neat facial structures on top of wearing Ainu clothing, so they are a very high-calorie effort for me. Ogata and Kikuta are difficult too. Their faces are distinctive and I have to make them look cool too, which is wearing me out the most.

Q: Have you decided on all 24 convicts at the very start of the story? Noda: Wouldn’t I sound like a badass if I said that that I have? Anyway. There were the ones that were based off real-life Meiji era criminals, such as Shiraishi, Kumagishi Chouan or the lightning couple, and of course there was Hijikata.

Q: Tell me of a funny thing from the manga that you are fond of. Noda: Gansoku’s “Hah! ☆”. And also when Koito Jr. Was flapping his arms and legs around trying to keep himself in mid-air.

Q: Why did you decide on Otaru as the starting point? Noda: I am from Hokkaido, so I’m familiar with Otaru and Sapporo. Otaru is close to both the mountains and the sea. Sapporo used to be a swampland, it’s wide and flat and there is no sea. Otaru is a place where foreigners come and go, there are many criminals roaming around creating danger, and money is found. There aren’t many big cities in Hokkaido. There were Ainu living in Otaru but sources are scarce, however Nakagawa-sensei, the supervisor over the Ainu language, told me not to worry too much about the difference of location, so I figured it would be best to make it Otaru.

Q: Was there any real life experience you had while growing up in Hokkaido that you turned into a scenario? Noda: When I was about 19 someone I knew told me that there is a locust graveyard on a nearby mountain, which sounded so ridiculous I had to laugh in their face. Turns out it indeed was a heap of locusts and their eggs left after a locust plague, that place was the Teineyamaguchi locust mound (a real historical site). I realized I ended up using this in my story. I owe that person an apology.

Q: Was there any scene that was particularly difficult to draw? Could you elaborate on it? Noda: The time Sugimoto went against Nihei and Tanigaki. It gave me a very hard time. Who goes where and does what, how does Nihei carry Asirpa, stuff like this. I had no time to waste either, I just remember that sequence overall driving me insane. 

There was also the sequence with Wilk, Sofia and Kiroranke being at Hasegawa’s photo studio. It’s really frustrating to draw something that you know will bore the readers, the story flow becomes less exciting too. I was praying for everyone to have a little more patience and keep reading, because the twist was so good.

Q: If you were to take part in the gold hunt, which group would you like to belong to? Noda: It seems that Hijikata’s group doesn’t have funding problems, and because Kadokura is there the atmosphere is relaxed too. I’d go there.

Q: If you were to find all that gold, how would you use it? Noda: No idea. Had a couple when I was younger, though.

Q: Were you planning to eventually transfer the action to Sakhalin from the very beginning of the series? Noda: Asirpa and Kiroranke have roots there, so I anticipated that the story will eventually move to Sakhalin. I also expected to have to travel to Amur river myself, but couldn’t go after all, only went as far as Khabarovsk. 

I was thinking of making Sugimoto eat permafrost mammoth. There was talk of a research team or an ivory excavation team’s dog eating mammoth. However there was no reason to make Sugimoto and Co go as up north as needed for permafrost, so I scrapped the idea.

Q: Tell me something about the hardships you experienced while doing research is Sakhalin. Noda: It was tough, but fun. I was only able to understand the clear differences between Nivkh and Orok people by going there; I couldn't by only looking at records and materials while in Japan. 

Complete unrelated, but I was surprised by how many stray dogs wander around there. One time my cameraman and I ended up being chased by one while looking for a factory and we had to run for it. The beast was big, about the size of a German Shepherd. The guide also warned us about junkies, it was really scary.

I also went to the Japanese military pillbox over 50th parallel north and prayed at a cenotaph deep in the mountains. I met a group of Japanese people in the hotel by the place where it's said you can still find remains of Japanese soldiers and their driver, a Russian, seemed to help with collection of the remains on the regular. He said that he's doing it out of reverence, even as a former enemy. As a Japanese, I felt gratitude. The 7th Division are villains in my story, but I don't have any personal bias against either side.

Q: What were the biggest differences between drawing Hokkaido and Sakhalin? Noda: Well... it's Russia. Even though Sakhalin is so close, it's already Europe. The structure of houses is strikingly different. There's also the differences between Hokkaido Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu, and differences between Orok and Nivkh people. There is no manga that will conveniently lay the differences of those down for you. 

It seems that the Orok and Nivkh's relation with Japan only got more difficult by the beginning of Showa era, there is only one person in the whole of Japan who can supervise on the Orok language. The professors in cultural studies I consult for Golden Kamuy are truly top-level; not only are they tremendously knowledgeable, they also understand how important to me is to stay impartial.

The wildlife, as well. There's a biogeographical boundary between Hokkaido and Sakhalin, observing animals I would never be able to see in Hokkaido was riveting. 

Q: Did Sugimoto really have a hidden plan during the whole stenka business? Noda: No idea. Even if he used it as a pretext to get everyone involved, though... cut him some slack. He's only a man. Sometimes he just wants to fight and win. Not for Ume-chan or Asirpa-san, just for the sake of proving to himself that he's strong.

Q: Your art is dynamic and detailed. I think your style changed quite a bit with time, though. How would you describe yourself as an artist? Noda: I want to preface this by saying that in no way do I think of myself as more skilled than other mangaka, but if you're drawing everyday for more than 10 hours you're going to improve a lot eventually, whether you want it or not. People who are able to keep the same style for years without change are the ones who are impressive, because it means that they achieved the peak of their potential. Ageing and health problems influence your art a lot, you know. I try to draw by observing. I use a lot of references. Drawing by memory alone is not a good thing.

Speaking of other artists, I once had one of the assistants I had working for me for years draw me a door knob from memory, and the result was a truncated cone resembling pre-packaged pudding. The actual shape of a door knob has an intricately angular circular shape. It's the result of being unobservant in everyday life. Good art requires constant observation.

Q: What was the foundation for your style? Is there an artist you were influenced or inspired by? Noda: Araki Hirohiko-sensei, for sure. During my time as an assistant, many authors told me to not even try to be original when it comes to battle abilities, it's already been done in JoJo, it has it all. He's kind of the Beatles of this industry, isn't he? 

By the way, I usually have no intention of parodying JoJo in Golden Kamuy, but my friends will tell me that they identified this or that reference from time to time. I read Part 1 about 30 years ago but I was obsessed, so maybe some things were just left in my subconscious. I only did one obvious parody, during the stenka fight. Funnily enough that trope started in Fist of the North Star, though, not JoJo.

Q: What's one thing that gives you the most motivation to write? Noda: Fan letters. I know how straining it is to write long and neat sentences by hand, and am thankful for them. I'm happy that people go that far to share their thoughts about my work with me. I'm really grateful to the people who keep reading and supporting Golden Kamuy.

Q: Did you have an interest in Ainu culture before starting the series? Noda: I did not. I'll be glad if my work makes people interested in the Ainu. Prejudice is born out of ignorance, so if you want to learn about the Ainu, don't limit yourself to Hokkaido only; there are museums all around Japan, and they have knowledgeable curators. It's important to remember to take into account the time period and the occupation of the person on which the research materials are based when you're trying to learn about the subject.

Q: You showed us a lot of aspects of life during Meiji and Taisho eras. Tell us about what surprised or impressed you in the process of research. Noda: It's not that I was particularly knowledgeable, so having to check every single thing was quite exhausting. The Ainu, the military, katanas - all of these needed research on my part. 

There are more regulations and rules set for things out there than one could assume, and mangaka who base their works on real life need to be especially careful about this. You have to take into account things like the size of the buttons on a military uniform, how a tea cup is held, and and how different people talk in different ways. For movies there's staff working on costumes and props, there's the cast, there are screenwriters, but in a manga you are the one responsible for every single detail. I wish I had a time machine and travel back to those eras. There are things I couldn't get right here and there that I keep having regrets about.

Q: Golden Kamuy was the main visual in the British Museum manga exhibition between May and August in 2019. I know you went there in person. How was it? Noda: The trip felt like a reward for all of my efforts. The exhibition is jam-packed by opening time, but I got special treatment and they let me inside early in the morning so I could walk around the vast British Museum in solitude. I also travelled between Jack the Ripper's crime scenes at night by taxi.

The driver in a taxi I caught by chance was wonderful, she looked up photos of the crime scenes and surroundings taken at the time of investigation on her smartphone and showed them to me one by one, saying things like "the third victim was found here!". 

I've always had a soft spot for Jack the Ripper, back in middle school I even wrote a screenplay for a school festival stage and played him in it myself. It was done in very poor taste, like that one scene in the Addams Family movie where there are arms blown away and fountains of blood gushing out. The audience loved it. 

Q: Please leave a message for the readers. Or maybe some advice for the troubled youth. Noda: I want people to say that everyone in Golden Kamuy had a satisfying ending, and I want that for everyone involved more than anything. As for advice for the troubled youth, there's none. Life is survival of the fittest. The weak ones get eaten.

#golden kamuy #noda satoru #translation #i feel burnt out

[dusksmote]

How do you ink and color? Any tips? I love your art! 💜🖤

oh shit i got this ask months ago and forgot to answer

inking: god i hate lineart so much. the trick is to not do it 😂 unfortunately, i still find myself spending hours on lineart all the time @_@ 

the biggest thing i’ve found is making your lines varied in thickness. it adds to the interest. i also try to make my outside line thicker than my inside ones to break up the figure from the background. don’t be afraid to skips some lines and imply them with shading instead. i will color over my lines at the end to make them not as strong, but i’ve learned to still keep some lines black for extra emphasis. 

^ here’s one of my older pieces that i’ve been considering redoing. it has very little line variation, ALL the lines are colored so there’s no solid black, and there’s very little hard contrast in shading values. overall, it looks flat and uninteresting and if i had the time i’d redraw this one.

this is a more recent example of lineart that i think works a lot better. the characters are really well defined with a strong outline, but the inside lines aren’t harsh and distracting. you can see i recolored the lineart in kyle’s hair to be a dark red, and in some places it blends with the shadows to imply areas with more highlights. stan’s pants don’t have and lines in them, just the outside shape and pockets. 

you can see in this wip what the lineart looks like before i do all the shading and fancy stuff. stan’s pants look totally flat and straight until i start shading.

a lot of the time though i won’t even do lineart, especially if it’s a big scenic piece. the more zoomed out less detail you can convey, and lineart takes up a lot of space. 

^ this piece is an example where i do both, lineart and no lineart. the mirror image of kyle isn’t the focus, and i honestly didn’t feel like going in and drawing exact lines because they’d probably look fucked up anyway. i typically don’t put hard lines in backgrounds because it would take FOREVER and just be distracting.

the one thing you do have to be careful of with lineless art is contrast. hard lines are good contrast that show you what you’re looking at, and without them your image can blend together. 

here’s part of a painting i did last august, when i was first experimenting with lineless styles (full image on my NSFW twitter). can you tell what’s going on here? i sure as fuck can’t. there’s no contrast, and it makes all the skin tones blend together in an unintelligible mush.

contrast has always been one of my biggest weaknesses as an artist, so i’ve been trying to improve over time. here’s a more recent lineless drawing:

this one works because it had high contrast. the highlights are really bright and the shadows are really deep. you can still make out the facial features too, but there’s no ‘lineart’ layer’. everything was painted on in the same layer.

-

-

coloring: oh my god i love coloring. it’s my favorite part of drawing and the reason why shit takes forever. a lot of the same stuff from before comes into play, like contrast. you can also portray some really interesting moods based on colors if you’re being stylistic, but also pay in mind to your environment.

i always color my background first. in fact, a lot of the time i’ll do the entire background before coloring a piece. the environment establishes your light levels and light source, and it’s typically easier for me to tweak colors on a figure than the ones in the background. in the above example with kenny, the background is a mostly solid black with a beam of light from the left. i picked kenny’s colors to fit in this environment. 

it’s also important to use references.  

you can see in this wip i’ve got a reference image for how light from a TV looks against figures and the way their shadows are cast across the wall. it also helped me figure out what colors to use in this situation.

a lot of coloring is just trial and error to see what works. i usually start with a flat base color and add value to it. if you put all your colors on different layers it’s really easy to change them quickly. 

here’s an example:

i got my base colors down and here i can see the skin tone is blending with the background, so i lightened it up for better contrast

i typically shade the skin first, then clothes. you can see here i did a dull skin tone with a bright colored shadow. this adds more contrast and interest. i always try to avoid doing dull shadows where you shift toward black. black shadows are really uninteresting and they can make your piece look muddy. i’ll typically shade with an orange, red, blue, or purple.

the final piece has a really bright highlight on it coming from behind. this just adds more visual interest and contrast. you can also see i’ve gone back into the pink shadows and added an even lighter, brighter peach value in places to show reflected light. this also gives the darker pink shadow an added outline effect, because it touches the base skin tone but looks lighter within. 

^ this one’s a good example of light and shadow (full image on my NSFW twitter lmao). there’s not a lot of color because it’s dark out, so everything had to be conveyed in values. there’s hard light across the stomach and then a shadow over the chest, but there’s still light being reflected up into stan’s face that lets us make him out. the rest is deep shadow and unimportant, so it’s all black.

that’s the other part, color and value determine where your eye is gonna look, so consider that when drawing. 

^ consider this piece i drew like a year ago. it has a lot of blues and reds, and originally i was going to make stan’s guitar blue. i don’t have the wips anymore, but it didn’t stand out and it didn’t look right with the image. after a lot of playing around i went with yellow because it’s bright, it breaks up the image, and it adds another color to the piece to balance it out.

the same thing happened when i was working on the cover image for What They Say About Us. 

you can see in this really early wip that i’d blocked in the colors and butters is totally naked. for one, i was like “damn that kid is WAY too naked in this image” and he also blended in with stan and cartman. additionally, there was a lot of warm colors on the left, a lack of color on the right, and an overall lack of blue.

first change i made was throwing a shirt on him and it made a huge improvement. the image looks much more balanced now and he’s not super distracting with his naked-ness.

other than that, coloring is just picking your base colors, blocking in shadows, adding highlight, and cleaning it up. if you wanna improve, look at photo references. look at other people’s art and examine how they use color and value. practice practice practice. have fun with it. the most fun i have coloring comes from figuring out interesting textures like the pharaoh headdress or kenny’s leather jacket. 

i find stock photos like this and study them to see how the light works

other than that, the rest is just playing around, seeing what works, and making things up as i go!

#ask #long post #lol

[070897sims]

I’m happy I was tagged and I’m going to do this (on my phone cause I’m stubborn and don’t want to get out of bed lol) thank you for the tag @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy

~Rules~

Show us a rendition of yourself in your own art! Can be anything! Sims render? Random stick figure? Picrew? Go nuts! (Just be sure to tag the artist if you use someone else's picrew!!!!) Tag the blogs you want to know, and don't be a dick that's it! Also, feel free to answer as vague or in-depth as you want. And if you don't want to answer a question for any reason just don't vibe with it! Skip it if you wanna!

Uh I have nothing of myself on my phone O.o I have my fluffy hair selfie when I woke up from 10 hours sleep? (Don’t care about sharing my face, most of my friends see me in discord lol)

Do you prefer to be referred to by your name or blog name?

Honestly my blog name. Bolo 😅

Where are you from?

Canada 🇨🇦

Do you have pets? 👀

My sweet bby Bologna 🥰

Tell us about your “dream”.

O.o is this serious or not? Either way I have no heckin clue lol

Aside from art, what are your hobbies?

I read a lot of manga, watch a lot of YouTube, been listening to a lot of Kpop (Stray kids at the moment) and I love to paint irl

Does anyone irl know about your blog?

I’ve talked about it but no one around me is into sims ;-;

Do you know anyone from your blog irl?

Nah~

What are some fun facts about you?

Uh O.o; I have a deathhawk, was a major weeb, I had a nail tech license, uumm and I have major back issues? xD

What’s your day job?

Stocking shelves at a grocery store~

Do you have a celebrity look alike?

no? I was told when I was 14 that I looked like the icarly girl lol

What’s your aesthetic?

dark

What kind of artist are you?

Hmm not sure. I don’t really think of myself in that way I guess??

How did you get into your form of art?

For photography: took a lot of depressy walks around my lil town in the country. A friend and I used to walk around taking pictures during our high school breaks too.

For painting/drawing: was always into it tbh. Would draw or find any reason to pick up a thing that can leave a mark and just doodle. Got into painting a lil later in middle school.

Nail art: teeny canvas and it made my man hands look pretty every now and then lol

What do you watch/listen/read/anything else you create?

Hmmm sometimes complete silence tbh. Especially when I paint. I can’t be jamming to songs or I muck up and cry xD mmm but if it’s for simbs or photography I have music 24/7. YouTube videos sometimes if I’m editing something.

What is your favourite of your own creations so far?

Omg uh I don’t think I have a favourite? I love a lot of things I do. My main passion is photography, so I’d probably show off all the photos I’ve taken xD now that I think of it, it’d probably be the pics from a train track bridge at my favourite depressy spot. The amount of pictures of train tracks with the sun setting I have is ridiculous pft.

How would you describe your art style?

dark

What is more satisfying to you, colouring or outlining?

… the sketch hehe

What meme would you describe use to describe yourself?

What character from any media form do you most identify with?

uh

If you were on the run, what would you change your name to?

Peter.

Have you ever or do you want to change blog names?

mmmm probably not. I thought I was pretty cool thinking of Lonely_Bologna for discord xD making a blog wasn’t for posting my stuff it was mainly to find friends with the same interest.

God forbid tumblr decides to pull a MySpace and let’s us have page songs, what song would you choose?

I thought you can do it? I’d just link it to my current playlist on Spotify. My “favourite song” changes once a week lol

Oh yeah, I’m still on the MySpace train and I’m starting discourse! Who’s your top 8?

O.o

Did you understand those references or did you have to look them up? (I’m fully aware I’m ancient, but are you?)

I was sort of there for the MySpace days. So I have no clue pft

One last question; why are you like that?

It’s called “being awkward”, I need help xD

Dag dag?

Dag dag~

Now tag tag!!!

Oh lord, who and what and uh I guess anybody who sees this >.>

#dagdagtheartisttag #bolo rambles

[liketheinferno2]

Do you have any types for new artist with aphantasia? You're the first ever artist i've met who has it like me and i find myself struggling a lot ):

Tips? Mostly just use a lot of reference and don’t be afraid to work through a sketch a lot to get it to look the way it’s supposed to, I’ll often grab a whole limb and rotate it with the transform tool then draw over again. Drawing like this feels like... you get better at packing on the pieces and finding the combinations that work instead of trying to realise an idea that was already formed, at least for me.

I only have digital tips but it might be worth learning to photobash your references -- photobashing is taking prexisting photos, textures and stock, then putting it together and painting over to get the image you want. It’s used a lot in concept art but I’ll use it to make location references for my stories because I can’t visualise the locations at all. Like this, and after I’ve done this I can just reference the final image instead of bashing my official art (never posted this pic btw, only refer back to it) --

Another thing to try is I know that it’s very hard to think in 3D when you can’t think visually at all so it might be worth trying to stylistically lean into the flatness and make use of the fact that you’re drawing on a 2D plane. One of my favourites I’ve done is this (below) where there’s not REALLY an in-front or behind in a fully realised way but I tried to stack/overlap different features like I was laying thin slices over each other, then differentiated it through values instead of perspective. 

It might be good to put some extra attention into the light and dark balance of your stuff because Things Being Different Colours (Or Textures) is usually something the aphantasic brain can grasp better when it comes to differentiating parts of your piece.

The other thing with this particular piece is I couldn’t grasp the composition so I ASKED FOR HELP. @xxtrashcatxx​ and I share these characters so I simply asked her for direction and she sent stained glass windows and a pose she’d drawn of two people hands clasped. When we work on the official Dies Irae illustrations she outright draws the thumbnails for me because collab powers with someone who can make mental images. So connecting with artist friends can be a great help. 

Scaling down a bit, it also um might take longer than average to grasp art basics because you’re basically training your hands to think for you instead of just drawing. Finding your Aesthetic might be more a conscious choice you have to make, I know when my visualisation skills were GOING (because I used to have them, just a little bit, when I was younger, then developed brain issues lol) I spent a while artistically lost because the idea of drawing cool things didn’t occur to me when I could no longer see the cool things in my head. Sometimes you need to look at other art to be reminded of what you’re allowed to DO. Or maybe I’m just boring inside LOL

Now I very intentionally keep reference folders, pinterest boards, inspiration hoard, got my reblog sideblog, just as much intentional guidance as possible. Running theme here is if you need the help, use it. Look at to tutorials. Do studies or appropriations when the original idea just won’t come, there’s a reason my therapy art is highly-referenced adaptations of classical art or just a plain portrait sometimes. Original Idea Original Pose Original Composition is what I consider a high effort piece, but to chill out and draw for fun I’ll often just reference stock photo poses or magazine covers instead, it’s lower stress that way and I still get the practice in.

I don’t know a lot of artists with aphantasia besides @iliothermia who does the most delicately and lovingly detailed transmasc art I’ve seen and is a massive inspiration to me, in part BECAUSE of his aphantasia; the fact that someone with the same kinda brain as me is already making the kind of art I love the most and doing it such a tender and well-realised way gives me ARTISTIC HOPE FOR THE FUTURE WOOOOO

Thanks for the ask, keep at it, I hope this was ANY? Help? Good luck too.

#asks #my art #Anonymous

[dianapocalypse]

Hi! I just found your art through Youtube from a Gideon the Ninth search and I'm so freaking happy! I've watched a bunch of your videos and I'm about to subscribe to your Patreon. I love your art and I love your videos.

In one of your videos you mentioned having ADHD so I there's you might understand a dilemma that I have:

See, I'm 22 years old and I'm just now starting to learn how to draw. I know that I am creative and I do have some talent, but clay and yarn have always been my preferred medium.

I'm really proud of myself for sticking to my goal of doing some sort of drawing in the last few days that I've been quarantined, but I'm worried that I'm going to burn out because my drawings don't look the way I want them to; they're not very good. I know I can't be immediately good at it, but I'm not getting that "finished task dopamine rush" if you know what I mean, and I can already feel it starting to wear my attention down.

I really want to be able to draw people from The Locked Tomb and Star Trek and TAZ and actually have it look good. I know it's gonna take a lot of practice. Do you have any tips for staying with art (specifically drawing people) in the beginning when I'm not getting the results I want?

omg hello!!!! thank you so much for watching my channel and the kind words and aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAA you have made my day!!! WELCOME TO DRAWING! something I have noticed with ppl who start art (or any skill) Later In Life is that they start in stage 2 of Learning Stuff. this is a highly scientific term. but basically, the four stages go "being not good but not realizing it at a thing", "being not good but knowing it", "being good and knowing it" and "being good without thinking about it". again, I am explaining this Highly Scientifically. but that's good news, because that means you're already on stage 2! that's one whole stage closer to being good at things!

but that is not your question! the question is how to avoid burnout, and I can help with that too!

the way forward is DRAW VERY SELF INDULGENT THINGS! if you're not getting the dopamine from the finished product itself, you can get it from WHAT you're drawing. example! i have three entire 100+ page photo albums full of art from one of my D&D games because I fell in love with my OC. I wasn't very good at art for most of that game, but by the end of it, I was PRETTY DECENT! it didn't bother me that much that my art was just OK at the beginning because I was just having so much fun drawing that character. over and over again. hundreds of times. maybe more even. doing lots of things. like smoochin her boyfriend. but in a distinctly bisexual way.

where was I. YES. avoiding burnout. so I recommend starting there! draw what you like! draw what brings you dopamine anyway!

i also recommend trying to embrace your mistakes! the fact that you're NOTICING them means you're at the step right before learning how to fix them! and then when you DO learn how to fix them??? the DOPAMINE will FLOW. the way to do that? when you draw something wrong, go find a reference of it! if it's a pose you're struggling with and you can't figure it out, take a picture of yourself doing it or look at yourself doing it in a mirror! (or, if you start from a reference, you'll already have one ready to go! I recommend Adorkastock on DA/Tiktok or https://doll-a.net/. That second one even has an app you can use to download a 3D mannequin that you can pose however you like! It's a little clunky but it's FREE!) references will make you get good so much faster than not references. this reminds me I wanted to make a video about references. I will write that down!

you have also inspired me to make a video with more just How To Draw Stuff advice! I have been batting an idea around but knowing someone would actually GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT is motivating! i will try to make that next week's video!

in the meantime, keep drawing stuff you love!! make more TLT content! or TAZ or D&D or Star Trek! lifehack, you can do figure studies and then just make them into your OCs or characters you like from those things. no one can stop you. what if they were ALL gideon nav???

#asks #diana draws sometimes #omg i got an ASK about my ART #this makes me so very happy in my heart #i hope this helps!!!!

[fosterscribbles]

You draw canids/quadrupedal animals in general so well I am so inspired by your works. Do you have any suggestions or tips on how to get better at wolf/dog etc anatomy? I've always leaned towards anthro/humanoids BC they're easier for me to draw but I really wanna start getting better at drawing my 4 legged ocs

Thank you so much!! As for tips and suggestions I do have some! This ended up a little long but I hope these are helpful in some way!

For wolves and dogs in particular (bc I have most experience with them) they have a similar structure, things just sit slightly different sometimes depending on dog breed. For example, wolves hold their neck level with their back quite often, while dogs necks stand upright typically. When looking at your animal of choice you can take notes on aspects you are interested in or want to express in your art! You can do this for any animals, looking at the way they typically hold themselves and how things are placed, taking notes on the aspects you find important or read as the animal best to you. This is not to say anyone who doesn't follow these structure 'rules' is wrong or bad at art. I fully belive there is no wrong way to make art, and I myself don't follow these rules 100% all the time (this goes for all my tips). But if you want to include these things in your work for any reason, thats something I like to look into and take notes on!

Look at photos! You don't always have to trace photos, if you want to work off them just by sight you can! But tracing photos of the animal you are trying to draw can be a good way to explore the shapes and placement of things as well. My favourite method of this is less tracing and more finding the structure to use as a framework. For this you place circles for the head, shoulders, hips, and all the joints and use lines to connect them together. This shows where things are and gives a skeleton to build on or learn from! I don't condone stealing other people's art or images, but tracing photos can be very helpful for some people to learn (and of course proper credit should be given if you post it online).

Practise drawing the basic shapes of the animal in a variety of poses. This can give a good idea of how the basic shapes of the animal move and change depending on the pose, and if you can get a good idea of simple poses and how those shapes look you can build on top of those with other details!

Do a full page (or more if you're up for it) of quick gesture drawings/sketches! I use reference images for these as well. Get your references out where you can see them and begin doing quick and loose sketches! You can choose to focus on pose, movement, shapes, etc.. The trick to these is to not worry or get hung up on them looking 'good' or presentable. These are meant for practise and understanding certain elements of your subject matter! You can do these timed if you'd like, 1min/5min/10min intervals to challenge yourself depending on whats most comfortable for you. But you don't have to of course!

This one isn't always everyone's favourite but is very true: Practice a bunch! Its cliche but I got to drawing canines the way I do in large part by drawing them constantly. Even a bit of practise can help, you don't need to work yourself into the ground, in fact please don't! Doing some practice when you can is good no matter how much you do in one sitting, day, week, and so on.

As a final note, I know its hard to give yourself a hard time with art, especially when trying to do things you aren't used to or have never tried before. Patience is hard, but it does take time! Everyone's ability is different, so take it at your own pace, theres no wrong way to learn/paractise. Don't be afraid to make something you think isn't the best or you don't like, you're learning and what you made is still art in its own right! And if you find you want to try these tips, you're free to try them in a different way, use your own take on them, or change them up however you see fit. Not every method works for everyone so play around and see what suits you best! They aren't super specific, so I do hope they are still helpful in some way! I could always try doing a post more in depth about how I work on these things one day, but you are free to ask more questions too if needed! Good luck and have fun!!

#asks #max text #im not an expert so this is the best ive got but i hope it helps! #also my tablet is still fkd so i dont have any examples to include but i can add them at a later date mayb #theres some that dont require one i could do too so may rb in the future with examples bc i am bad at explaining sometimes lol #srry its so long btw lol #long post #just in case

[noperopesaredope]

So I found an old animatic I made from about a year ago

And I decided to put the part of it that I finished out! I’m probably gonna make a redraw of this someday, but I’m just showing it off for fun. Note, I was an absolute noob back then who was making this mainly for myself, and I still did some tracing/heavy pose referencing (to the point it’s basically tracing). I can’t find the original pics I used (and some parts I may have forgotten about completely), so sorry about that, but I will timestamp which parts are referenced/possibly used a bit of tracing, what I traced, and what sections are completely original. Note: all traced parts were pose references or material from the original show. Some things I call traced her were basically me taking the bases and giving them outfits while only actually tracing a few parts.

So from 0:00 to 0:39, everything is original artwork. Don’t ask how I managed to pull all that off.

It’s pretty obvious which part of the next to frames weren’t mine.

At the lingering shot at 0:41, some of the art on the wall is traced since I couldn’t draw certain things.

The Horde propaganda poster in the shot of the locker room is traced from the show.

The shot with the hexagons is original.

The shot afterwards is clearly traced from the show.

0:49 to 1:09 is completely original if you don’t count the horde symbol (basically every time that’s used, you can assume it’s traced) and maybe(???) the shot of the one girl crouching (though I might have actually drawn that myself). I was really proud of this part at the time, especially the framed team photos, since they felt like original fanart.

1:10 to 1:13 however…while the designs are original, most if not all of the poses are certainly not.

Surprisingly, I’m pretty sure the Horde soldiers at 1:14 to 1:15 are original. Good for me.

Ahsoka might not be traced (idk for sure, but there’s a chance). Rex on the other hand…holy fuck is his head traced. The rest of him, I actually realized was most likely original, I just referenced him well.

From then on, everything is original except for the chess piece and Catra’s face. For the hands, I actually made my own references, so if you are wondering why they’re so good, it was because I actually tried for once in my life.

Now that I finished pointing all this out, it feels less like I’m showing off one of my first animatics, and more like a callout post.

At least the editing is good as hell in my opinion. At least I learned how to edit. That’s the thing I most proud of. The fact that I learned how to storyboard an animatic, and I learned how to edit an animatic so the images matched the beat (30% of the time I spent on this part of the animatic was just editing)

Btw this was for a She-ra fic. Which I will put out someday. After i finish my meticulous planning. And all my other fics.

Imma put most of the characters in the tags and y’all can guess who’s who.

#she ra #she ra and the princess of power #she ra reboot #she ra animatic #fan animatic #fanimatic #she ra netflix #netflix she-ra #fanfic animatic #i made an animatic for my fucking fanfic #tracing #i traced some stuff #self callout #this is a straight up callout post #tts varian #he’s pretty prominent in this #pidge holt #the horde #catra

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the latest Farin&Bela pencil drawing.

Aka the one that’s also my icon, even when that was a big risk to take because normally I start hating the photos I have once drawn, especially if I have failed miserably. This is how the drawing itself turned out:

ATTENTION: The original post about that drawing, with better image, behind this link.

This post is solely about the process itself with lots of pictures and also plenty of gifs, because I promised to do one if people would like to see that and I got some comments saying that they’re looking forward for that. So, here’s now that post!

For starters I have to apologize for the terrible quality that is the photos. I used my phone camera only and never thought about posting them, I just took them as a reference for myself and to show the progress to a friend and only after finishing the drawing I noticed that the angle of the camera causes a huge impact on the perspective of the drawing, so I sometimes might have done useless work when I thought some perspective was wrong when it was actually the photo that was wrong and not my work! I mean, take a look at these photos of the finished piece:

You see that? I realized this when I took maybe the second photo of the Farin sheet and looked at it and couldn’t believe my eyes because I didn’t remember drawing his torsto THAT small! And then I looked at the drawing and was like “wtf???” because it looked nothing like in the photo and then it hit me...

Also, another thing that I learn was that I might need to pay more attention to the perspective of the whole thing also because when I draw, I sit at the table so I am constantly seeing the drawing from my perspective instead of looking at it from above so that’s probably also going to affect the way I draw. I try to keep that in mind in the future so I can avoid redrawing things again and again just because my perspective is different than the reference photo’s.

Also the giant forehead of Farin’s in the photo on the right might have caused me to laugh a bit too much but anyway, let’s continue~ Or more like: let’s start for real this time.

Here’s the reference photo to y’all:

What I did in photoshop was to draw a line between them to see how I can divide the photo on two A4 papers. I had been thinking about this photo for some time already because it’s one of my favorites (but now I just feel cringy looking at it after I have drawn it... goddamnit!), and I got this idea that I could try drawing it on two papers in case I fuck up so I can start over or try again without having to do twice the work! Which was actually a good decision because this was the first version of Farin:

And it was awful. I also realized I had never drawn Farin’s face from he front. I have drawn him before from the side a few times but maybe once it came out actually good so that was why I decided to do the 2 paper method - because I knew it was not going to be an easy job! Bela is relatively easy to draw so I knew already that I would not have too many problems with that one.

I struggled with Farin’s eyes the most, at first.

It took me a while to figure out how to do that white line in his lower lid. Keep in mind that this was my first face portrait in over 10 years so I was very, very rusty and I just didn’t remember how to draw like anything anymore. (The photo is tilted because Bela’s face is a bit tilted and my hand can’t draw anything that is not straight [lol] so I have to rotate the photo in order to even draw the sketch of Bela’s eyes.)

So I took my sketchbook and tried to do some eyes...

I was still struggling so much here until I remembered about blending. And I didn’t have my hopes high but grabbed the eyeshadow applicators (my fave tool for blending) anyway, and switched to my other sketchbook in case the paper was the issue and:

Blending. It was all about blending! So with that in mind, I realized I can continue and I don’t need to do these in my old way, everything doesn’t have to have a lineart done but some of the job is done not with the pencils but with the eraser.

Anyhow, the previous Farin looked really bad and was too big as well so I just discarded that and started a new sheet because the old lines were not coming off properly anymore. I don’t remember if this is the old face or new but I think this might still be the old one:

Yes it definitely is the old because look at those lines! This is the new sheet:

And in the photo you can see one of my pencils - I use Derwent Graphic pencils, it’s a 12 pencil set with very soft pencils, starting with H, F and HB and ending to 9B. With this one I used F, HB, B, 2B, 5B, 7B and 9B. The white pencil is actually my new love aka the eraser pencil Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth. It’s amazing, I recommend! I just didn’t order 10 new ones this other day. I actually used about 1,5 full eraser pencils on this drawing alone so that’s why 10.

Here’s a “little” gif of the process on Farin:

I felt crazy when I went for the shirt, and I felt like I was going crazy MEANWHILE drawing it but in the end I did it and I’m super proud of it!

Below is the reference photo, it was pain in the ass to follow all those lines with my eyes and try to find what was I drawing and where was I but I think I did good. That was a fun challenge.

Okay so, when I was done with the new lineart, I decided to go for the shading and blending because that’s what really makes the drawings to pop. I started with the left (his right, my left) side of Farin’s face because I’m right-handed, and in the first photo I had done just the left (right) eye and mouth and nose, but in the second there’s also the other eye done already:

Keep in mind this was not the last time I drew the eyes. Not even close.

Something was off with the right (left) eye so I had to do that one again and I noticed that when you blend but haven’t erased and cleaned it yet, it looks like a black eye :DDD So here’s the before and after images of that cleaning. (Cleaning = I draw, blend, erase, draw and blend more when needed and then erase again, and repeat this as many times as I need until it starts to look ready to my eye.)

So here Farin was “finished” but if you still remember the final piece or compare it to it, you might notice it looks quite different. And you’re right. But more about that later, because at this point I started to work on Bela.

It actually started really well - I also had to do the whole lineart again because it did not match the size of “finished” Farin. I don’t remember if this is the first or second eye but when I had drawn his eye for the first time, I noticed it was not in line with Farin so I had to redraw it. A gif of the progress:

What’s that brown paper I’m using, you may ask? Well I noticed that people have some sort of paper on top of their art to keep it from smudging and I have no clue what that is so here’s my poor artist recommendation: baking paper! I tested it and it works (if you just remember to keep it under your hand, that is...) so that is, in fact, baking paper! :DD

I have drawn Bela’s face a few times before and he’s just so much easier to draw. In fact I used 4-5 days on Farin but I managed to start and finish (this version of) Bela just in one day. And that means that out of 12 hours (because I literally used the whole day for drawing) I used maybe like... 5h or something on Bela. That’s how much easier he really is to draw.

I don’t know wtf is wrong with Farin’s face but he’s extremely difficult to draw and I’m not the only one who has been saying this. I guess he just looks so regular but still unique enough to be difficult to draw. Bela then again has features that are very unique and very... caricature-like? I mean that just by drawing his nose or chin you can make a comic book Bela look exactly like himself, and with more realistic style his eyes already do a lot, but Farin’s really the opposite. My comic book version of Farin is literally the most basic version I can draw, it’s how I draw those characters and the only thing that makes him look himself is the hair, and his nose in a side profile. So I think that’s why it’s so difficult to draw him because he doesn’t look too regular but still regular enough to make is a very challenging task to do properly.

So yeah, the same day as I started working on Bela, I was also “finished” with the drawing:

Also look at how different it looks like from this perspective:

With the reference photo open in photoshop and I don’t understand how Bela looks more like himself in my drawing than in the photo. Also when I showed the WIP to my brother, he said that I somehow had succeeded at making Farin look more like Farin than what he does in the photo even. It’s weird.

But we were still far from finished. I was going to use the fixative on this soon but it just kept snowing the whole week so I couldn’t so every time I walked past the drawings, I stopped to fix this and that. For days I kept telling myself “I’m done, I can’t do more than this, I can’t do better than this.” and considered the drawing finished but still kept fixing things. Every time I was “done” with the other drawing, I saw something to fix in the other one and once that was done, I felt like the first one wasn’t as good and had to fix something from it too. And that led to a cycle where the other drawing was always better than the other and the worse one needed to be fixed. In the end I was hating the whole process and myself and my skills and I was already ready to abandon this whole thing and call it a day and never ever show it to anyone “because I cannot draw”. The photo above, here’s a list of things I redrew after that:

Bela’s eyes, the right (left) one at least twice.

Bela’s nose.

Bela’s mouth a couple of times.

Farin’s eyes x588045028520

And a list of things I kept fixing and fixing:

Bela’s chin.

Bela’s neck shadows.

Bela’s hairline.

Farin’s whole face was tilted so I tried to fix that.

Farin’s face was too wide, which meant also partially redrawing the ear.

Farin’s hair was too long and wide too.

Farin’s nose.

Farin’s mouth might be the only thing I drew only once and I’m actually still extremely proud of how it came to be. I did the lips solely with blending so that was super exciting to notice how I can use it for drawing and don’t need the pencils for everything!

During Bela’s eyes and nose and mouth especially I was hating myself so much and I felt like I was taking the risk of ruining the whole thing and a few times I was certain that was what I had just done too, until I somehow was able to save it again. But because of that, I wasn’t able to make Bela’s mouth any lighter anymore, the color wasn’t just coming off the paper so had to use what was there and make it look like it’s how it’s supposed to be, too.

Here’s a gif about those changes on Bela - the first one has the old eyes and nose, the others have minor changed on the nose and mouth:

(The blacks probably don’t get any blacker in reality, I did add more color to it all the time but mainly it’s just the lighting and my phone camera changing the brightness.)

I did the final details on his nose without even using the reference photo anymore. The photo didn’t seem to make any sense anymore at all so I was just using my mechanical pencil and the blending tool and eraser to make is look better. To my eye it looked more like a very flat nose with a big tip of the nose and he doesn’t have a flat nose and I tried to get rid of that illusion. I still feel like it makes him look bit weird but I’m not entirely sure how. Maybe it was because of my improvisation, idk...

So, Bela was then finally finished for the last time. In the Farin piece his left (right) eye had been bugging me the whole time and I didn’t want to touch it but still I felt like I have to do something about it because it was bugging me way too much. I then figured I could draw the eye line by line and take a photo of it each time to see if it looks right already or not, maybe I could then avoid doing all the phases before I was sure what to think about it. I mean, now the only way to see if it was correct was to draw e.g. an eye from start to finish, I couldn’t see from just the lineart or unblended eye if it was in the right spot etc. And here’s that progress on a gif:

The gif about only the eye would look so nice if Tumblr didn’t make the gifs so HUGE - this one is actually only 300px or 400px or something:

Apparently I also wasn’t happy with the other eye because:

But good thing is: I really enjoy drawing eyes. I love seeing them to “come alive”, my favorite part was to eraser a bit of the color on the iris to make them look like they are actually shiny! It feels like something so small to do and yet it makes a huge impact on the drawing!

And here’s yet another gif of the whole Farin sheet with all of the changes, including the last changes that made his head narrower, and less tilted and more in line. Look at the left side of his head especially to see that:

I can also see his nose changing between the first few photos. I keep forgetting about that but yeah, I also fixed that a little at some point.

And last but not least, the whole drawing in some sort of a timelapse gif:

Last two are the same but just a photo and the scan of the finished drawing. I still keep seeing things I would do differently but no can do, I already used fixative on it, also to keep myself from obsessing with it any more :D And to use it as a study of some sort. I have never been able to draw a perfect pencil drawing and this isn’t one either. I probably never can draw perfect drawings from references.

I do enjoy the whole shading and blending process, so much so that when I was editing these photos, I just wanted to start drawing something so bad but I also figured that I start to lose motivation when I get to the point where everything should be finished but I just can’t make it perfect. Like the current WIP I have, all I should do is to get the proportions and perspective and the lines of their faces correctly and I would be ready but it feels more like a superpower some people possess and I’m not one of those. I don’t know what is it but I just feel that I cannot see. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can’t see what I try to do and somehow keep drawing everything the wrong way. Just like in this post’s drawing too. There’s still things that are wrong and I know what it is but I don’t know how to solve it. My hands just don’t listen to me and they can’t do what I think they should. I also think the reason I cannot draw perfect copies of photos is because you can always see my “handprint” in them. If I copy a photo, it will look like a photo and not like a drawing made by me. So I believe that in my drawing there’s always a part of me visible and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a good thing or not. On bad days it’s not a good thing, obviously. On good days? Well I guess it’s good then because it just means I have my own style which I really should appreciate. But I wish I had my style only when I want it to be visible, but I can’t control it. Just like I cannot write text by hand that would look like it was written with a computer, so I guess I should just try to get used to it, no matter how much it’d bug me sometimes.

#mcrmadness draws #mcrmadness draws: behind the scenes #dä fanart #die ärzte

[tm87lord]

hii first i love love love your art, 2nd may i ask how you picked up anatomy? ive been trying a lot but i cant seem to get it right, any tips?? thank you have a nice day!!! stay safe :)

hellloooo thank you so much for sending me this aaaa!!!! thank you for the support always!!! hope you don’t mind me publishing this since i publish all my non-anon asks that have any tips and tricks in case it helps more people 

also!!!! sorry this took a while to answer, it took a while for me to find the words and the doodles :( again also! this ended up being longer than expected...so i’ll put it under a read more just to avoid cluttering timelines! i’m not the best of teachers, but i really hope it helps! (if not, you can always send another message! i’m always happy to chat!) stay safe and have a great day too!!!!!

so the only ‘formal’ anatomy studies i’ve done (and still use) were from highschool where we learn the standard body proportions using heads, where the elbows rest, where hands rest and so on. the fundamentals so to speak—i won’t go too into this since this only provides the very basics of knowing whether something looks “off” or not (but you can read more (and see visual examples) about this here!).

i think what’s more effectively helped me improve anatomy lately is going out of my comfort zone and trying more dynamic poses? to me, when you try those, the fact that something looks kinda strange is easier to notice (since the mistakes aren’t very subtle), and from there it’s a matter of tweaking things here and there until it looks good enough to you!

at first i did this by of course looking up free poses like stock photos, but after a while i started taking my own reference photos! since it’s my own body, it felt easier to know what should go where to me? of course this still has its problems, namely, i draw a lotta big tall buff (the list goes on) jojo men, and i am but a puny woman next to their big ole anime physiques. but at least when i take photos of myself i can estimate what muscles should be bulked up for the character and adjust accordingly!

of course i can also understand if it might be uncomfortable for some to use their own body as reference, in which case using editorial photoshoots and magazines can also help out with more outlandish posing (to take a page straight outta Araki’s book), and of course you can always ask pals, use those little figurine dolls, or use some posing software (personally i’ve got no grasp of any of those, so posing for myself is the easiest for me!)  i also think simplifying the body into standard shapes helps a lot! i tried to find and doodle on my wip sketches of art i’ve posted that best showcases my process, so i hope these help! i think the most important thing to note is how even the more difficult things like hands and fingers can be simplified into basic shapes that make lining them easier!

(also disclaimer: i really do not know how muscles work, usually i just put something on the page and it looks wonky, i look at my own arm for a bit just to see where a muscle should go, then i simplify it as much as possible into ovals and so on!)

after i’ve done a nicer looking sketch, i usually overlay a quick stick figure so i can see the most bare skeleton almost of my work, just to see if it looks proportionate enough in accordance to the whole basic proportion method i linked earlier! i also flip the canvas, like, a lot. i think it’s easier to spot mistakes like that! i think that’s the gist of how i managed to get better with anatomy since starting my jjba fanart! i think it also helps that the nature of the series includes all this wild posing anyway, so i felt the need to emulate that fun nature in my work! at the end of the day, it’s just lotsa practice and having fun just producing anything, really. i know i said this already but i seriously hoped this help wuugghggh if you made it this far thank you for reading hope you have a great day!!!!

tldr: try dynamic or outlandish poses just for fun! make your own reference photos! simplify shapes! draw stick figures! also flip the canvas to check for mistakes i suppose?

#ukiiyosage #mailbox #SERIOUSLY I HOPE THIS HELPED IM NOT THE BEST TEACHER OR TIP-GIVER REALLY