Artistic References and Tutorials

Welcome to this collection of art tutorials, how-to's, motivation and more for all artists! If you have a piece you feel should be on here, please submit it! :) Tag links Art references Art tutorials Art tips Motivation Clothing Face Body Pose Hands and feet Palette Crafts Photography Writing Animals

[tahthetrickster]

Attention non-artists who commission artists: don’t fuckin do this???

[cursedcharley]

Actually had someone do this to me too. Was doing a art stream, it took me over 2 hours to do his inked commission, he got a refund cause ‘it took too long’ that he figured I wasn’t going to do it after I gave him the file.

Don’t do this. Do not.

[littlegreendorito]

I’ve had this happen to me with a $350 comic :/ I had already finished it, it was full color, 6 panels and had a full bg in every panel. I was lucky in that I didn’t spend him money yet, but it left me without funds. I’ve also had the above happen to me as well.

Don’t do this shit to artists. We’re people too. Drawing for you is more than a hobby. It’s a job.

[aroyalmoon-deactivated20211014]

Use Paypal Invoices. 

I cannot stress this enough. That shit helps A LOT when it comes down to Paypal refunds/disputes. There’s a description box that let’s you put in what the product is/how long it’ll take/yadda yadda, and then there’s another little memo box that only you and paypal can see where you can say it’s a digital commission and doesn’t require shipping (So Donald Mcfuck can’t say that they never got their commission). And there’s also a box for your Terms & Conditions where you can say, if you have any conflicts/want a refund - email me, or you can actually tell the user that this is a digital commission and they won’t be getting a hard copy of it.

ARTISTS. PLEASE USE PAYPAL INVOICES. it will SAVE you. And to: the people who do this to artists – Fuck you. It’s okay if you change your mind and want a refund. But freaking TALK to us and let us know what’s going on. Let us WORK with you.

[thelilnan]

ALSO A HUGE TIP: Invoices paid will automatically set up a shipping notice which, if not fulfilled, can land you in SERIOUS hot water with PayPal. Since a lot of artists don’t print and ship the commissions, this is a huge problem.

However! Totally manageable. Just go to your PayPal, scroll down to find Seller Preferences

>> Shipping Preferences

>> Display Ship Button. Make sure all the boxes are unchecked. Then you’re all set!

[samswritingtips-deactivated2016]

A breakdown of medieval armor, since a lot of pieces are required to create a full suit.

[kuropii]

Ref

[tahthetrickster]

Attention non-artists who commission artists: don’t fuckin do this???

[cursedcharley]

Actually had someone do this to me too. Was doing a art stream, it took me over 2 hours to do his inked commission, he got a refund cause ‘it took too long’ that he figured I wasn’t going to do it after I gave him the file.

Don’t do this. Do not.

[littlegreendorito]

I’ve had this happen to me with a $350 comic :/ I had already finished it, it was full color, 6 panels and had a full bg in every panel. I was lucky in that I didn’t spend him money yet, but it left me without funds. I’ve also had the above happen to me as well.

Don’t do this shit to artists. We’re people too. Drawing for you is more than a hobby. It’s a job.

[aroyalmoon-deactivated20211014]

Use Paypal Invoices. 

I cannot stress this enough. That shit helps A LOT when it comes down to Paypal refunds/disputes. There’s a description box that let’s you put in what the product is/how long it’ll take/yadda yadda, and then there’s another little memo box that only you and paypal can see where you can say it’s a digital commission and doesn’t require shipping (So Donald Mcfuck can’t say that they never got their commission). And there’s also a box for your Terms & Conditions where you can say, if you have any conflicts/want a refund - email me, or you can actually tell the user that this is a digital commission and they won’t be getting a hard copy of it.

ARTISTS. PLEASE USE PAYPAL INVOICES. it will SAVE you. And to: the people who do this to artists – Fuck you. It’s okay if you change your mind and want a refund. But freaking TALK to us and let us know what’s going on. Let us WORK with you.

[thelilnan]

ALSO A HUGE TIP: Invoices paid will automatically set up a shipping notice which, if not fulfilled, can land you in SERIOUS hot water with PayPal. Since a lot of artists don’t print and ship the commissions, this is a huge problem.

However! Totally manageable. Just go to your PayPal, scroll down to find Seller Preferences

>> Shipping Preferences

>> Display Ship Button. Make sure all the boxes are unchecked. Then you’re all set!

[anatoref]

More How To Draw Manga - Vol. 4: Mastering Bishoujo Characters

[bocodamond0]

this might be useful for me later

[iavenjqasdf-deactivated20240911]

[graylish]

art is pretty cool. you know what else is cool? not getting burned out or sick. take breaks

[silvermoon424]

List of coloring tips thus far (for using colored pencils)

1. Sometimes when coloring the skin, the lines can get streaky. To fix this, simply take an eraser (make sure it’s clean) and erase the lines. The color will remain but the streaks will disappear!

2. When coloring, it’s best to move the pencil in a circular motion. This will help smooth and blend the colors. With darker colors, it’s okay to press down harder and not follow the circular pattern, but with lighter areas (in particular the skin), it’s best to stick with the pattern and not press very hard (if you make a mistake and it comes out streaky, follow tip #1).

3. When you get pencil shavings on your coloring (it WILL happen, the pressure put on the pencil will cause it to crumble) blow them away instead of wiping them. When you wipe, the color from the shavings can smear across the rest of your coloring!

4. If you do not have any colors to shade with (let’s say, for example, you’re using maroon but don’t have a darker color to shade with), color in black LIGHTLY in the desired area then go over it with the main color. You’ll get the desired effect!

5. If the pencil’s tip becomes lopsided (meaning, the wooden part rides up and covers the part of the tip), use nail clippers to gently snip away the wood.

[piraticoctopus]

For anyone who wants a free pose-able human reference for drawing

The other day I came across this awesome program by accident (I don’t even remember what I was actually searching for, but on the several times I’ve looked for a program like this I’ve had no luck). It’s cool enough that I wanted to share it.

It’s called DesignDoll (website here) and it’s a program that lets you shape and pose a human figure pretty much however you want.

There’s a trial version with no expiration date that can be downloaded for free, as well as the “pro license” version priced at $79. I’ve only had the free version for two days so far, so I’m not an expert and I haven’t figured out all of the features yet, but I’ve got the basics down. The website’s tutorials are actually pretty helpful for the basics, as well. 

Here’s the page for download, which has a list of the features available in both versions.

There are three features the free version doesn’t have:

Can’t save OBJ files for export

Can’t download models and poses from Doll Atelier (a sharing site for users; note that the site is in Japanese, though)

It can’t load saved files

The third one means that if you make a pose, save it, and close the program, you can’t load that pose/modified model later. You have to start with the default model. I found that out when I tried to load a file from the day before (this is why reading is important…). Whether saving your modifications (and downloading models and poses) is worth $80 is up to you. 

But, the default model is pretty nice and honestly if all you’re looking for is a basic pose reference it should work fairly well as it is. Here’s what it looks like:

There’s a pose tag that lets you drag each joint into place and rotate body parts. The torso and waist can be twisted separately, and it seems like everything pretty much follows the range of movement it would have on an actual human.

Even the entire shoulder area is actually movable along with the joint! See, like how the scapular area of the back raises with the arm:

The morphing tag is one of the coolest features, in my opinion. It lets you pick and choose from a library of pre-set forms for the head, chest, arms, legs, etc. It has some more realistic body shapes in addition to more anime-like ones. Don’t like the options there? Mix a few to get what you want! Each option has a slider that lets you blend as much or as little as you want into the design. 

So you, too, can create beautiful things like kawaii Muscle-chan!!

The scale tag lets you mess with the proportions and connection points of different joints. This feature combined with the morphing feature not only allows more body shape variations, but it also means that you can do things like make a more digitigrade model if you want. (The feet only have an ankle joint, but for regular human poses that’s all that you really need, so whatever.)

Or you can make a weird chubby alien-like thing with giant hands and balloon tiddies if that’s more your thing.

The ability to pose hands to the extent it allows is far more than I could have hoped for from a free program. Seriously, you can change the position of each finger joint individually, as well as how spread out the fingers are from each other. Each crease on the diagram below is a point of movement, and the circles are for spread between fingers. 

And to make it a bit more convenient, there’s a library of pre-set hand poses you can pick from as well, and then change the pose from that if you like. 

In both versions, you can also import OBJ files from other places for the model to hold, like if you wanted to have them hold a sword or something.

Basically, this program is awesome and free and you should totally check it out if you want a good program for creating pose references.

[thebookskeeper]

I just wanted to add a little more to this. If you have trouble figuring out how light sources work in your drawings this also allows you to choose where to have a light source.

That shaded ball on the left is your light source. You can see how moving the point changed the shadow cast.

Oh and all those other nifty looking things in that bottom bar there, yeah it’s what you think. You can change the model color to one of these presets or even customize your own palette.

Plus for all you lovely people who want something a little more simplified to use as a pose reference

You can turn your model into the classic wire frame.

[nick-nocturne]

Why reblog this? Because for more visual creators, this will be like the lumberjack discovering chainsaws. “Reblog to save lives” as the saying goes.

[princesscupcakecarnage]

@ravesinthesky

[ravesinthesky]

Yesssssssss thank you @ravesinthesky

[sirensmaw]

gOD BLESS THIS

[nedoiko]

For the purpose of reliably finding it if lost xvx

[askjonfreeman]

Passing  this info along to the artists out there.  I’ve  been using this program a bit recently (free version) and there’s a couple areas where this REALLY helps out

- Understanding the more complicated poses that involve torso twisting

- HANDS

- FEET

The parts involving the flanges are VERY useful, since looking through hand references are a royal pain and require extrapolation anyway … or you can just zoom in and pose the hand/arm how  you need it to for your drawing.

I’ll probably get the full version when my budget clears it.  Definitely gonna rely on the free version until then.

[cosmicspacezombie]

@ravesinthesky

[winterbramble]

Thanks so much for your ask! I’ve meant to do a tutorial like this for a long time. This is the way that I draw big girls, though it’s quite a short and basic tutorial. I hope it helps!

the “area of gain” part was pretty much taken directly from -here-, a VERY informative and helpful tutorial. Here’s a couple of tutorials that I think are pretty good: link and link.

[electricalice]

while this is mostly about facts, there are a lot of opinions in this tutorial (namely my distrust on several brands marketing strategies, and my opinion that’s better to start with cheap student quality stuff. LOTS of people disagree on that point) as well that you should take as what they are: personal opinions.

here is slightly more readable than on tumblr

this is the result of several years of research on creating a cheap but high quality palette that would help me.

other things to be aware of: pigments are generally more resistant in oil and acrylics than they are in watercolor. but there are a couple of pigments that work well in watercolor but really badly in oil.

resources pigments through the ages a comprehensive guide to watercolor pigments and a lot of tests on popular brands about van gogh’s bedroom Blue and Yellow don’t make green by Michael Wilcox

[noelarthurian]

Very good infographic!

I would like to add the Daniel Smith brand to that tiny chart in the third image. They can be a little hard to find save ordering them from Daniel Smith, but they have a lot of really unusual and unique pigments in their artist quality watercolor collection, including interference paints and other cool shit. These are what I use, save a few W&N Cotman colors I haven’t replaced yet.

[hammpix]

The relaxed, semi-cupped hand: as an artist, you will draw this a billion, zillion times. Print these out for practice and reference.

[as-warm-as-choco]

[soledadcatalina]

Here it is, my long winded tutorial, complete with some step by step action. I see a lot of people talk about wanting to diversify their artwork but not knowing how. This is my help to you. You really should take the time to invest in learning diverse eye shapes as diverse artwork always makes you a better artist. And frankly I’m really tired of drawing tutorials that talk up character diversity but only have the stereotypical “one Asian eye”.

I did some step by steps for those three diagrams, but I actually got them from this blog which has 14 of those examples! (Bonus: it’s a makeup blog so if you need help with that or want some idea of how to shade these eyes, there ya go)

[drawingden]

How To Draw Hair 2 by wysoka

[my-artistic-revenge]

Nsio explains: Constructing and Analysing by Nsio

[popchartlab]

Who the Hell Is This Person Talking to Me and How Exactly Are They Related to Me: The Chart, just in time for your Thanksgiving gathering.

(Source: Apparently commenter “Platypus Man” from this Lifehacker post)

[genealogy-watercooler]

Oooh!  I really like that this chart gives (average) percentage of genetic similarity.

And confession: Despite my genealogy hobby, I can never remember what my cousins’ children are called in relation to me.  (First cousin once removed, apparently.) 

[madlori]

Protip: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc when referring to cousins refers to how many generations back you have to go to find a common grandparent. First cousins share a grandparent, second cousins share a great-grandparent, etc.

If you do NOT share a grandparent with the relative (for example, your grandparent is their great-grandparent) then there’s a remove involved.

[langwrites]

finally, a reference for this shit

[stanprokopenko]

Let’s learn the anatomy of the pecs so that you can draw an accurate chest. We’ll study the basic shape, anatomical structure, origin, and insertion of the Pectoralis Major. The folding fan pattern of the 3 parts of the pec is important to understand to draw the chest accurately, especially in the area of the armpit.

ASSIGNMENT IMAGES: http://www.proko.com/how-to-draw-pecs… SKELLY APP http://www.proko.com/skellyapp

[helpfulharrie]

Source: AuroraCarina-Chan