tipofthedigitalbrush

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Disclaimer: Though I have been using a cane for 6 years, I am not a doctor, nor am I by any means an expert. This guide is true to my experience, but there are as many ways to use a cane as there are cane users!

This guide will not include: White canes for blindness, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs as I have no personal experience with these.

This is meant to be a general guide to get you started and avoid some common mishaps/misconceptions in your writing, but you absolutely should continue to do your own research outside of this guide!

This is NOT a medical resource!!! And never tell a real person you think they're using a cane wrong!

The biggest recurring problem I've seen is using the cane on the wrong side. The cane goes on the opposite side of the pain! If your character has even-sided pain or needs it for balance/weakness, then use the cane in the non-dominant hand to keep the dominant hand free. Some cane users also switch sides to give their arm a rest!

A cane takes about 20% of your weight off the opposite leg. It should fit within your natural gait and become something of an extension of your body. If you need more weight off than 20%, then crutches, a walker, or a wheelchair is needed.

Putting more pressure on the cane, using it on the wrong side, or having it at the wrong height can make it less effective, and can cause long term damage to your body from improper pressure and posture. (Hugh Laurie genuinely hurt his body from years of using a cane wrong on House!)

(some people elect to use a cane wrong for their personal situation despite this, everyone is different!)

(an animated GIF of a cane matching the natural walking gait. It turns red when pressure is placed on it.)

When going up and down stairs, there is an ideal standard: You want to use the handrail and the cane at the same time, or prioritize the handrail if it's only on one side. When going up stairs you lead with your good leg and follow with the cane and hurt leg together. When going down stairs you lead with the cane and the bad leg and follow with the good leg!

Realistically though, many people don't move out of the way for cane users to access the railing, many stairs don't have railings, and many are wet, rusty, or generally not ideal to grip.

In these cases, if you have a friend nearby, holding on to them is a good idea. Or, take it one step at a time carefully if you're alone.

Now we come to a very common mistake I see... Using fashion canes for medical use!

(These are 4 broad shapes, but there is INCREDIBLE variation in cane handles. Research heavily what will be best for your character's specific needs!)

The handle is the contact point for all the weight you're putting on your cane, and that pressure is being put onto your hand, wrist, and shoulder. So the shape is very important for long term use!

Knob handles (and very decorative handles) are not used for medical use for this reason. It adds extra stress to the body and can damage your hand to put constant pressure onto these painful shapes.

The weight of a cane is also incredibly important, as a heavier cane will cause wear on your body much faster. When you're using it all day, it gets heavy fast! If your character struggles with weakness, then they won't want a heavy cane if they can help it!

This is also part of why sword canes aren't usually very viable for medical use (along with them usually being knob handles) is that swords are extra weight!

However, a small knife or perhaps a retractable blade hidden within the base might be viable even for weak characters.

Bases have a lot of variability as well, and the modern standard is generally adjustable bases. Adjustable canes are very handy if your character regularly changes shoe height, for instance (gotta keep the height at your hip!)

Canes help on most terrain with their standard base and structure. But for some terrain, you might want a different base, or to forego the cane entirely! This article covers it pretty well.

Many cane users decorate their canes! Stickers are incredibly common, and painting canes is relatively common as well! You'll also see people replacing the standard wrist strap with a personalized one, or even adding a small charm to the ring the strap connects to. (nothing too large, or it gets annoying as the cane is swinging around everywhere)

(my canes, for reference)

If your character uses a cane full time, then they might also have multiple canes that look different aesthetically to match their outfits!

When it comes to practical things outside of the cane, you reasonably only have one hand available while it's being used. Many people will hook their cane onto their arm or let it dangle on the strap (if they have one) while using their cane arm, but it's often significantly less convenient than 2 hands. But, if you need 2 hands, then it's either setting the cane down or letting it hang!

For this reason, optimizing one handed use is ideal! Keeping bags/items on the side of your free hand helps keep your items accessible.

When sitting, the cane either leans against a wall or table, goes under the chair, or hooks onto the back of the chair. (It often falls when hanging off of a chair, in my experience)

When getting up, the user will either use their cane to help them balance/support as they stand, or get up and then grab their cane. This depends on what it's being used for (balance vs pain when walking, for instance!)

That's everything I can think of for now. Thank you for reading my long-but-absolutely-not-comprehensive list of things to keep in mind when writing or drawing a cane user!

Happy disability pride month! Go forth and make more characters use canes!!!

#disability ref

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A guide to designing wheelchair using characters!

I hope this helps anyone who's trying to design their oc using a wheelchair, it's not a complete guide but I tried my best! deffo do more research if you're writing them as a character

#disability ref

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Here's some notes on some of the upper body muscles so you, artist, don't need to look them up

They are not medically accurate, just enough for artists to know the necessary muscles and how they work together

I 100% recommend doing the last exercise I did to be able to actually place the muscles

#muscles

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A little tutorial about how to draw pecs! 

Many asked me in the past so I hope it can help many! 

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

Hey! i like how you draw hands, can you do a guide on how you do it???????

I looove drawing hands, but they're as fun to draw as they are difficult 👌👏

Usually when I draw, I don't go for perfect realism/anatomically correct, I mostly follow whatever makes the drawing look good, with exaggerated shapes, sharp angles, etc.

Drawing with references is the best advice I can give you!

When I struggle to draw hands I usually just look at my own hand and try to copy it (I have a small mirror next to my computer to make it easier), it works, but it's not always the best option. If you want to improve quickly, find some pictures and practice by drawing them!

A lot of websites have a built-in timer for studies, here is the one I used for this one for example:

So yeah, practice practice practice! The more you draw, the better you'll get!

#hands

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HOW I ANIMATE 🤌

I couldn’t make individual gifs of this whole this so MADE A VIDJEW FOR YEW GOIS ! I didn’t know what else to make of my animation, so I decided to make it into a little quick tutorial. Hope it helps!

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shading colour tips

hey yall its me the Art Mom™ to help you shade pretty

rule 1: DO NOT SHADE WITH BLACK. EVER. IT NEVER LOOKS GOOD. 

red- shade with a slightly darker shade of purple

orange- slightly darker and more saturated shade of red

yellow- i think like..a peach could work but make it a really light peach

green- shade with darker and less saturated shade of blue or teal

blue- shade with purple

purple- a shade thats darker than the purple you’re using and maybe a little pink (MAYBE blue)

pink- darker shade of red

white- a really light lavender or blue..or i guess any really light colour??

black- okay listen dont use pure black to colour anything unless you want to leave it with flat colours because you cant really shade black lol

grey- a slightly darker shade of purple or blue (less saturated)

brown- slightly darker and less saturated shade of purple or red

aaaaand thats all i got lol. let me know if there is anything i should add to this list!!

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Fire Tutorial by msfrizzleart

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Art Tip!!

3 steps to filling up that blank page:

cry

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random sites that are extremely helpful

animation screencaps

body visualizer

create infographics

desktop goose

help with writers block

boil the frog

professions based on your personality

best dictionary ever

fighters block

writing tool

slides go

slides carnival

online library

free movies and tv shows

free movies and tv shows #2

worldbuilding website

make music online

human pose reference

email signature

cool design templates

animation tool

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

hey this might seem random but do you know of any resources for figuring out how to draw short men? I have an male oc who’s 5 ft tall and I can’t find any pics of men that height who aren’t Danny devito?? help please thank u

X

Okay! These photos should give you a general picture of what you can use to help you. In the first reference, it shows different heights/proportions of a guy’s lifetime. Short people usually stop growing in height in their early teens but that doesn’t mean they stop growing, so when you’re drawing short people make sure not to make them look like children. Give them definition in their arms shoulders and legs, and depending on the body type you can use any height reference to add fat/muscle.

X

Other thing to keep in mind is the 8 heads rule. You’ve probably heard of this, but it’s the average height for drawing proportions of the human body. This really is an oversimplified base learning technique- as you understand proportions, you can move to 9 or 7 or 6 head heights. The photos above will show you how you can manipulate the rule to proportion someone taller or shorter.

Hope this helps!

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

You bored, or feeling artsy but don’t have any inspiration...? *updated!*

Do you need to distract yourself? Or are you simply bored? Here are some great websites to make the time pass.

create pixel art

Awesome photo editor and art program, all free…!

Totally free transparent textures

make a cute chibi

draw some cool generative art

be a graffiti creator

create a picassohead (you don’t need to be a picasso to do so)

paint online

another awsome site to create pixel art on

and another one

create your own mandala

or color one

create an avatar

or you can try creating your own superhero

here you can interact with organisms in different environments to see how to music changes

here’s a website that translates the time into hexidecimal colours,

Here is a website where you can travel along a 3D line into the infinite unkown

here is a website where you can listen to rain with or without music

Need a model in a certain pose for drawing? here

Want to build your own planet

here is a website where you can create your own galaxies

make your own pattern (very useful if you need a new background)

create next hit comic

make a city which looks like something from 90′s games

draw a mandala like design

jig saw puzzles

more jig saw puzzles to solve

create a stunning HTML5 animation - no coding!

make a movie

create and dress up dolls

play a piano

you can also play a guitar

create sounds

another sound creator

create a logo

design your dream home

sketch rooms

explore fashion trends and create your own sets

build a website

try this app for building a website

Or maybe start learning how to code!

design your own t-shirt or a beanie or sweatpants and order them

design your own phone case

pretend to be a graphic designer with this cool online tool

Make your own Glitch art

Here’s another glitch art maker

And another!

Holy hell, here’s a third!

make an image look like it was created by a commodore 64

freaking cool text generator!

Easy to use word processor

Make up really cool patterns or run your photos through it :)

Write an essay on anything with no hassle

Wanna see how something you write would look like if it was on JacksFilms YGS((Your Grammar Sucks videos on YouTube))?

Make pictures out of text

ASCII word generator

Need an idea for some fanart-here :D

Still haven’t found something that would float your boat? Try these:

watch a documentary

learn to code

do something yourself

workout with the help of this great youtube channels

learn things

play pokemon or zelda or other awesome old school games

waste your time on miniclip

play games at additing games

or try games at agame

calm your thoughts

the quiet place

it will be okay

vent or listen to someone

pour out your soul

explore the sky

look at art from around the world

virtually visit museum of iraq

explore world with arounder

create a music playlist

list through rare books

scroll useful science website

create sand art

brain games

try out tastekid and discover new favorite band or movie or book

interactive 3D anatomy

random street view

post a secret

create a family tree

find our what’s the difference between x and y

help scientists and become volunteer researcher

create your own font

read a classic short story

In the mood to read, but not sure exactly what book to go for?

scribble on maps

listen to letters

play with acrobots

listen to podcasts

make a bucket list

Ever want to see the most truly useless websites in creation?

Prank a friend with this blue screen of death!

Zone out watching the colors drip down

Maybe none of these peeked your interest-maybe you’ve been wanting to create an o.c, but never really knew how to start-or you just enjoy making O.C’s….

This masterlist is to help you in making your own OCs��.it can also apply to developing RP characters i suppose! (´ヮ`)!

How to Write Better OCs:

basic tips on how to make your oc even better

tragic backstory? learn how to write one/make yours great

writing specific characters

a wordier, great guide on how to develop your character

kick out those vague descriptions and make them AWESOME

Character Development:

how to actually make an OC

Q&A (to develop characters)

more Q&As

giving your character a backstory

how to write an attractive character

Need an Appearance idea?

Humanoid generator? check

Here’s another one

and maybe if you didn’t like those this’ll work

Need Monsterpeople?

Well, then here ya’ go

Maybe you need Cats?

Diversity

adding more racial diversity

avoiding tokenism, AKA, how to add diversity to your cast not just because you “need” it

writing sexuality and gender expression (doesnt include non binary, if you have a good ref to that, please add on!)

masterpost on writing more diversity into your story

cultures of the world

guides to drawing different ethnicities (not just a great art reference, but also really helpful in appearance descriptions!)

Mary Sue/Gary Stu

Test to see if your character is a Sue

Explains subdivisions of Sues/Stus

Powerful Characters Don’t Have to Be Sues

Villains

villain generator

need an evil sounding name for your evil character? bam

villain archetypes

what’s your villain’s motive for being a villain?

Relationships

character perceptions (What your character thinks of themselves and what others think of them)

how to write strong relationships between two characters

8 ways to write better characters and develop their relationships with others

OCxLove Interest Handbook

develop your couple with good ol’ Q&A!

how to write realistic relationships

how to write relatives for your characters (this is more OC related to a canon character, but will help in writing family members in general)

ARCHETYPES

12 common archetypes

8 archetypes for male/female characters

female archetypes (goes pretty indepth from two main categories)

a list of archetypes

NAMES

how to name your character

random name generator

most common surnames

surnames by ethnicity

APPEARANCE

tips for better design

basic appearance generator

pinterest board for character design (includes NSFW and images of skeletons/exposed muscle (?) so tread carefully!)

clothing ref masterpost

Clothing generator

Another clothing generator

More clothing generator

Aaaand even more

Steam punk clothing

Char Style preference

Dress Generator

DETAILS

give your character better powers

a list of professions

proactive vs reactive characters

positive and negative traits

interest generator

skills generator

motivation generator

123 ideas for character flaws

list of phobias

Oh shit someone died

Backgrounds and stuff? yep

Quirks

Personality. you need that shit

Need something fandom related?

City generator hell yeah

location? got ya

World-building?

make your own god damn laws

Landscape.

Need Item names?

Fantasy/sci-fi/etc. medicine names

Stuff to make things more interesting.Weapons, clothes, treasures… whatever your characters need.

Item & Artifact Generators

Other stuffs!

Genre, Plot, & Story Prompt Generators

How did your characters meet?

Fanfic plots. you bet your ass.

#long post

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

The tutorial of how I achieve watercolor effect in Sai! :) I highly recommend using real watercolor paintings (your own or ones found on the internet) as reference.

And here you can find a few useful links: 

You can download the Sai file of this picture here: link 

Video process of painting another picture: link

The old watercolor tutorial: link

Sai brushes (none of them is made by me) link + file you need to open them in Sai: link

Awesome watercolor brushes made by Kyle T Webster: link

Here’s the finished painting: link

#ref: pts #ref: digital art

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I just want to say that I really appreciate you helping us woeful artists with our struggles. I really want to see the admin’s art, so 👀

👀 first of all, np!! I relied on accounts like these through the beginning of my art career so I decided to start one. 1.5k struggling artists strong!

Also, no, because this is an account purely for help and resources and I don’t want people surfing this tumblr to see my art and compare theirs or whatever. This makes more sense in my head; I’m very tired. I don’t plan on showing my art on here anytime soon. <3

You can see my stuff from photoshop class this morning though! It’s p simple lol

#admin #inbox #anon #nice messages

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I’ve seen you draw amazing fire many times, and I wanted to ask how do you draw fire?

ooooooh it’s tutorial time again, eh?

aight, this is a Sai tutorial, so if you use another program, uh idk it might be the same :/

anyway!

first, i just drew the outline for the fire. the lines should be sharp, yet flexibly flowing at the same time. idk how else to describe them—

then i filled it in with the flat colors! this time i opted for a yellow-orange color (and orange for the outline), but fire can be any color you like if it’s magical!

now for the glow. i added a new layer, set its blending mode to Luminosity, and just went ham on the Airbrush to make it glowy. since the airbrush i used is textured, i then Blurred the light-colored Airbrush stuff to make it seem more natural.

(i also made the bg gray in the process so that the glow can be seen easily)

to make it look more like fire, i added another Normal layer and did the same, except i mostly put the Airbrush (now in a darker color) inside the flame.

normally i’d be done at this point, but i thought, ‘why don’t i do more?’

so i added yet another Normal layer and repeated the process one more time, with a lighter color inside the darker Airbrush layer.

annnnnd i’m done!

i also did another tutorial on this, but that one’s outdated by now—

#ref: fire #ref: tutorial #ref: digital art

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

ok how the HELL do you draw an open mouth from the side. whenever i try to draw one i end up making the chin super tiny and i have to re-adjust and it makes the jaw all weird. i've looked at other tutorials on drawing mouths in general but they don't usually draw mouths from the side *open*

BRO ME 2 okay here u go

Videos:

X - very cartoony but a good simple visualization of how it looks without much detail. Also useful if you’re looking for a super realistic style.

X - Very detailed explanation of how to draw an adult male’s head

X - !!!! SHADING!!!!!! Shading for side portraits really is half of the battle. This is of a young woman.

X - a TikTok that summarizes everything really nicely

X - another TikTok, this didn’t help me much but I’m still putting it on here because I learn really oddly and it was packed full of info.

Photos:

Chellexey | unknown |

References:

Articles:

F - This one is super easy to understand and focuses on proportional distance

F - Not much explanation but it is very step by step so you can follow every stroke

X - I LOVE how they explained the cheek and how that works into playing with the mouth and jaw.

#ref: minilist #inbox #anon #ref: profile view #ref: tutorial #ref: photo #ref: sketch #ref: article #art tutorial #anatomy #art help #art reference #resources #digital tutorial #traditional art #art

[tipofthedigitalbrush]

From where? What economic standing? What age? Here are some links that will help narrow it down for you. Most of these, if unspecified, are western.

Western fashion

Russian fashion

Harlem Renaissance fashion

20s Fashion Timeline

20s Fashion Timeline- more photos

History of 20s Fashion

More History of 20s Fashion

The REAL 20s fashion: poverty

DOES ANYONE HAVE A GOOD REFERENCE FOR 1920s WOMENS ATTIRE???

#ref: fashion #ref: historic #reblog