#secretsivekept

[alkalinefrog]

Hey Alka, I had a quick question for you (whenever you have the time to answer or even if you have the time), I've been taking some storyboard classes and with my illustration background, it's been hard to really find a good shorthand for characters to really get that anatomy/gesture looking right without it being too sketchy and unreadable.

How long did it take you to find your storyboard shorthand, and what exercises would you recommend to try to find it? I'm sure it just takes time and practice, I've been doing a lot more studies and gesture drawings (currently following along all the free Glenn Vilppu videos I can find on youtube) but I wanted to ask you as well because I am in love with how fluid your anatomy is, and how clear your storyboards read. And those hands my god you're a wizard!!!

Thanks a bunch, have a wonderful day!

Heya Secret, great to hear from ya! Well, what you don’t see online is how gross the rough stage of my boards can get LMFAO. Most of the boards I post are actually overly cleaned up because I'm just doing them for fun and can afford the time! I'm not really sure how long it took to develop my shorthand, I've never really enjoyed drawing detail to begin with, so when I decided to go into boarding I kinda just leaned into it!

I’ve covered a bunch of gesture drawing exercises already if you scroll through my advice tag, but ***once you have a good foundation*** here's some stuff you can try!

First you'll want to build up an arsenal of anatomy hacks you can always fallback on, particularly for complex parts of the body. The less time you spend on details, the more time you have to focus on the overall pose and storytelling. Aim to find ways to draw with as FEW lines as possible. If I had to make a list to streamline what to practice:

Head shapes - find the most efficient way to draw the front + 3/4 + side view in as few lines as possible (the challenge is still making them look structured with dimension)

Eyes - are SO important for expressions! Unless your project has characters with dot eyes, you're going to need to find a quick way to do the circle and iris in as few lines as possible. Make sure you can convey where they're looking

Hands - fists (you'll be drawing a lot of people holding poles), open palms at various angles, foreshortened fingers pointing at viewer, fingers making grabby motions----protips: 1) half the time all you need is a vague triangle/rectangle plus thumb sticking up and that's a hand 2) if the hand is relaxed, you probably don't need to draw the knuckles. Save some time!

Feet - just learn how to make sure they look like they're standing on the ground, and do some studies of what they look like when you're running. Otherwise you can usually get away with a vague shoe or boot shape (just add toe lines if they're not wearing any)

----everything else you'll practice as you go!

Jump from SUPER rough straight into clean boards to really force yourself to be economic. I've done each of these methods for work before:

Before you start boarding with a character, sketch them a few times with the intention of simplifying their design while keeping them recognizable:

You'd be surprised how little you need to recognize a character:

Depending on the scene, you can adjust how much detail you want to include:

Stay loose/more generalized with action, especially for the "inbetweens" between key poses. Clean up enough to communicate movement and make the character recognizable.

If the character's small on screen in a wide shot, edit out most details and focus on the silhouette

Save the detail work for character acting, when you really want to be specific with their expressions and gestures.

But outside of all that, be bold and fearless!! Everyone has that stage where their boards look like spaghetti! Boarding is like handwriting; you could have really shitty chicken scratch, but if you're writing beautiful poetry, who cares!

god I love drawing hands you don’t even know thank you so much!! Good luck dude!! You’ve more than got this!!

#my art #advice #ask #secretsivekept #you got this! #sorry this took a while! my mental health was in the pits for a solid couple weeks #getting better now though! #storyboards

[sboochi]

11! :)

11. Artist(s) that influenced/inspired your art style

I lovelovelove those expression sheets for animation and I strive to be that good with shapes and faces, my faves are the ones from the Tangled, Frozen and Spiderverse artbooks!

So basically the artists who made those :D

But to be honest, I also get inspiration from all the wonderful Hijack artists here on tumblr, everyone makes me want to draw whenever I see a new gorgeous fanart!!!

#not to be cheesy but I love yall #ask game #asks #secretsivekept

[twiafom]

@secretsivekept we talked about not saying until later + keeping it under my hat might encourage me to actually draw it instead of just talk about it BUT i am also completely incapable of not saying bc i hate surprises and keeping spoilers. sorry to alka you know this already

the venn diagram between hyper light drifter fans and hijack shippers probably has only me and recent convert alka in its overlap but my god am i going to make it happen

#reply #secretsivekept #still didn't see my bday present early yesterday bc we were too busy yelling #i just have to assign the rest of the cast with them and then beat the last boss and cry for 4 hours

[bignostalgias]

@secretsivekept thank you for the prompt, this is SUCH an underutilized dynamic!! Had too much fun with the idea, as you can see ❄️

Messy overworked comic under the cut, every time I experiment with new brushes I feel like a kid let loose in the sand pit flinging mud around, so sorry for the inconsistency ^^;

#mine #requests #frostcup #hijack #httyd #rotbtd #rotg #jackycup #jaccup

[cookietastic]

I always loved your style too @secretsivekept 😭!!! I still love and cherish that collab from 7 years ago me, you and @marighoul did!

#Love both your styles so much and amazing to see you two be amazing artist #OG ASTRO BOY SQUAD ROLL OUT

[secretsivekept]

COMMISSIONS OPEN AGAIN! I'm finally free enough to do some more commissions :)

DM me or shoot me an email if you're interested!

#my art #commission #commission page

[kira-ani-mcgrath]

"Finally regulating himself, he studied the damage. It didn’t appear particularly devastating and would likely heal in less than a week."

A fabulous commission by the wonderful @secretsivekept featuring Hans in a scene from Chapter 24 of Frozen: Sacrifice and Forgiveness!

Longer excerpt below the cut.

Returning to the table, he sat in the chair and propped the mirror up against the front of the wash bowl. He glanced at his reflection as he moistened his hands. Pale from illness and a lack of sun, his freckles and scar stood out more than usual. His appearance was even more gaunt than he’d envisioned, and the dark half-circles beneath his eyes would make one think he’d just spent three days wide-awake rather than languishing in a sickly stupor.

I look utterly exhausted.

He lathered his face, then perched the razor at the base of the foam under his jaw and swiped up. Carefully, bottom-to-top, meticulously, right-to-left.

The methodical habit did little to soothe his suffering. Everything was making him queasy: the sight of the books that poked out from behind the mirror no matter his angle; the smell of the clothes which somehow clung to his nostrils even though the garments were stored in tightly-cinched sacks; the recollections that repeated without permission, taunting him with a way of life long gone.

He paused part-way through the procedure as a section of skin began to tingle. Did I irritate it? However, he had only finished half of the affected area. He briefly considered the soap as the source, but dismissed that notion — it was the same soap he’d used for months, and the rest of his face was all right. He shrugged off the annoyance and resumed his routine.

‘I know your heart.’

His arm involuntarily jerked and pressed far too harshly in the midst of his pass. He bit down a curse word as he dropped the razor. Snatching up his small towel, he applied pressure to the wound, wordlessly berating himself for his carelessness.

For some moments, there was only a suffocating stillness occasionally interrupted by a rustling page. Finally regulating himself, he studied the damage. It didn’t appear particularly devastating and would likely heal in less than a week. He dabbed the cut, the stinging subsiding. Even if it left a scar, it would blend into his old one anyway.

#Frozen #Hans #Prince Hans #Frozen Hans #Hans Westergaard #others' art #commission #F:SaF #Frozen: Sacrifice and Forgiveness

[astroboyart]

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2023.

_______________

Artist: atomicbandit03

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Artist: atomoo (jukeboxx21)

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Artist: canisbeanz

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Artist: dni-003

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Artist: irregularsweater

_______________ 

Artist: mrsnaildood

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Artist: omegasmileyface

_______________ 

Artist: secretsivekept

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Artist: snaileo

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Thank you to each and every artist who submitted artwork for these New Year’s art prompts from 2018 to 2023. You are all wonderful and very appreciated!

#Astro Boy

[alabasterpickles]

My half of an art trade with my fabulously talented and sweet friend @secretsivekept !! ✨

#this was a BLAST #my art #fanart #Hiccelsa #art trades #friend artists #sketch #art #character design #drawing #animation #drawings #illustration #disney #cartoon

[kirinda-ondo]

@secretsivekept I CAN'T EDIT THE POST TO PROPERLY THANK YOU BUT THIS IS SO CUTE THANK YOU SO MUCH AAAH

[thetalesofthereneverwood]

Artist Credit to @secretsivekept

A Sunny Afternoon

Theren found himself under the shade of the counterculture of the urban spires of the city, the foliage of one of the groves of the Precinct Three. He and Marcel were relaxing in its embrace, Theren mindlessly strumming his lute while. He rested his head in Marcel’s lap. Ever since their jaunt to Kaladesh they’d been dating, for a few months now. Really, since Theren first met Marcel, when Marcel saved him from being drugged at a Simic bar, that he had been pining for the healer. Marcel was so kind and sweet to Theren and he was happy that they were together.

Laying with his head on Marcel, he began to reminisce over the past few months with Marcel. He thought about how they both didn’t realize how close they lived to one another until Marcel visited the farmer’s market being held in the Fauna Square. Marcel was there to find the ingredients for a recipe called “ratatouille” that Theren had heard of before. Theren was just playing outside of the Oak Street Inn. From there, the two often would have dates in Precincts Two and Three. Hearing the joyous bellow of a brushstrider shook Theren out of his reminiscing.

He looked up at the eyes of his boyfriend and smiled saying, “This has been a wonderful day, hasn’t it?” @reds-ocs-rps

[alkalinefrog]

PLEASE tell me what kind of hat Bunny is wearing, you describe the hats as large-brimmed with a feather in it, i wanted to know if you had something specific in mind because when you described him as "Basically Hugh Jackman in a bard outfit" i laughed SO HARD and immediately had to draw it

LKSLASDKJFLASDKJFLS OMG I'm so flattered that you'd want to draw something from the fic but I didn't think that would be the first thing someone would go for LMFAO

These lookin' things were what I had in mind while writing!

Then for Tooth's I was thinking of this fancy thing from the bard in Final Fantasy in her colour scheme lol.

It's ultimately up to your interpretation! I haven't drawn any of the designs other than Hiccup and Jack after his costume change, but even then, I don't wanna limit you!

I'm so happy you like the fic so far bweeeehhhhhhh, this genuinely made me so happy to see! (Also again, stellar job on your Swan Lake AU comic!! That was an insane amount of work and the expressions were A++++)

#I'm so blown away by the positive reception it's getting asldfkjlaskdfjlkfasdj thank u guys so much :'''''''D #ask #secretsivekept #the lights of avalon #tloa

[youmaycallmeyourhighness]

Where does your avi come from? I like it

Avi? Sorry I'm not super up to date on lingo. If you meant my profile picture that was done by the wonderful @secretsivekept I've kept.

It's a commission of Paulina Sanchez a minor character from the show Danny Phantom, she's my favorite and I've adopted her.

I hope that's what you meant, if not feel free to hit me up again

#thanks for the ask also #i like people asking me random stuff it doesn't have to be about my stuff #asks

[twiafom]

Happy birthday!!! :D

thank you secrets! ❤️🎉‼️

#ask #secretsivekept

[shiyonasan]

Source post

secretsivekept commented:

me: wym there’s still a few days of february left——— me: had completely forgotten that there’s only 28 days in february Me: well fuck

XD

No February 29th this year

#secretsivekept

[cookietastic]

3, 9 and 21 for the Ask Game :)

3.What ideas come from when you were little?

My parents would take us out and before my mom started letting me listen her ipod I was bored out of my mind so I would just make up stories in my head to think about like a movie when I was little and just walk around the store thinking about them and when I was in school I would draw them in my notebooks fhdfgh so like the front of the notebook has what we were doing in class but the back was just drawings

9.What are your file name conventions?

oh there is no method anymore I just slam my hand on the keyboard and hope I remember what it was

21.Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

I'm putting in my friends fhfhf

@secretsivekept @snaileo @aniuskie

I don't wanna just post their art cause it totally should be faved and reblogged but gooood spare some talent please and whatever you put in your style- Like it's different from mine but I love it so much