Referances for art & writing

[elvi-loci]

How I draw kisses!

A quick tutorial/cheat sheet on how I draw kisses!! I’m going to assume you already know how to draw a head and how to angle it, because that’s an entire procedure in itself. I’m going to focus on mainly the lips and also try and tackle some common mistakes when you’re first starting out. 

Pursing the lips

So this is boring but crucial. If you don’t purse, their is no real kiss (take notes) bc placing your lips on top of someone else’s is not how you kiss… The most important part are the corners of the mouth, especially from the side view, because that’s what changes the most. 

The actual kissing yeee

Let’s start do a basic side view kiss on the lips. And believe it or not, I think this one is the hardest!  

Think about which parts of the face are going to be in front of the other! This can take some time to get the hang of, but once you get that down it’s easy. Also, focus on getting the heads at the right distance and angle. A common mistake is drawing them too close. 

The Lightning Shape: 

Still keeping in mind which part of the line is “Red’s” upper lip and which part is “Blue’s” lower lip, play around with the shape of the lightning. Very subtle changes can have a very strong impact! I usually go by feel, so take your time, but here are some things to look out for: 

Details squishing etc.

So yeah once the lightning shape looks good, I usually add details and squish parts of the face that will touch. Which usually includes the noses, but from this angle they won’t squish unless you intend on making nice big noses <3. By now it should look something like this: 

You don’t have to add the corners of the mouth! I usually do when I want to show that the character is smiling. 

One technique used a lot in anime/manga + other cartoony art styles, is fading lines where two soft-ish objects press hard against each other. The picture above explains it. 

Common mistakes

Getting down the crucial kissing part of fanart is hard and you will mess upp SO MANY TIIIIIIMES, but you learn from your mistakes, so don’t be discouraged. There are some things though that I frequently see when people draw kisses that makes it look awkward and stale, many of which I used to do myself. Here are some examples:

Try your best to avoid these. Most of the mistakes have little to do with the lips and more to do with the angle of the head. So getting that down before you move on to the lips is important. 

¾ view Kissing

There are not a lot of angles where you actually see the lips meet (or at least not that I can draw…). Depending on how the heads are placed in relation to each other, you may or may not see the lips in a ¾ view. The way I have demonstrated is done in a way that the nose will bump into the other’s upper cheek. 

Aaand that’s about it! These things will make more and more sense the more you draw them. At first it can seem very hard with so many things to keep track of, and it is, but practice makes perfect! 

Rule of thumb: does the angle and position of the heads make sense? How are the lips going to align? What parts of the face are going to be in front of the other? How much will the lips purse? And finally, what is going to squish? 

Thank you for reading! 😘

(☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞ now draw kisses

[this-account-is-dead-fr-fr-deac]

@pineappleoracle

[idahlrillion]

And this is how I nose.

[sarahtastic-cake]

art tips post

for all the artist following me

Have two sketchbooks: One for finished and high-quality art (stuff made with Prismacolor or Copic if you use that or art for your portfolio) and the other sketchbook for more messy doodles. This way you have a place to try new things and mess up as much as you need. When I only had one sketchbook I was scared to draw in it because I didn't want to mess it up

Do studies. I cant tell you how much I've improved just by doing studies of shoes, hands, noses, and all that. This works for when you have art block too since you’re not really making stuff up and just learning how real things work.

Learn from others. I’ve never taken a real art class because 1. I can’t afford it and 2. there’s no good art classes/programs at my school. I’ve been following several artists and learning from them over the years and they’ve helped me tremendously. Just please do not steal art because that is never okay.

Break down concepts. If you notice there’s something wrong with your piece then figure out why. You can’t get better if you leave mistakes and don't try to understand whats going on. If the color is weird figure out if the values look right or maybe its the saturation of the color.

Watch youtube tutorials. Here are some youtubers I think are pretty good art teaching all things art: Draw with Jazza |  DrawingWiffWaffles |  Proko |  Baylee Jae

Have an inspiration folder/blog. Sometimes you just need a collection of starry nights or a misty forest or even a French bakery. All of those things can help you get inspired to draw. It could even be completely unrelated to what you plan to draw.

There are no dumb ideas in the creative process. If you want to draw a lizard in a dress go for it! If you want to draw various pastries with faces do it! Don’t let the thought of it being too dumb stop you because if I’ve learned anything in my several years of drawing it’s that an idea can lead to another and another and another and you may get a really good idea just from doodling dumb things.

Here’s a few things that can get you started on drawing better:

Dynamic poses | Dynamic clothes | Dynamic figure drawing

COMPOSITION | PERSPECTIVE | CONSTRUCTION

Anatomy:

Legs

Arms

Hands

Heads

Body (Female) (Male

Color Theory

Improving your sketchbook

Most importantly, don’t give up! You may not immediately get notes or followers but it’s more important you get better than to have popularity. How do you think those popular artists got to where they are now? To be good you’ve got to work at it.

[bileshroom]

someone asked how I did the tears in that Aoyama pic so here we go

get ur lil crying anime face ready

use a bright blue

lower that shit

do the same with a darker blue but UNDER the lineart layer 

duplicate the layer and use the aitbrush to kinda hollow it out mostly the middle section so u get smt like this

use white to outline uuuhhh all of the tears

use pink and kinda scribble on them with water color on a new layer

add it and lower the opacity

do the same with these colors

then add a saturation layer and u got it

[popculturebrain]

Watch: Prop builder Odin makes Hellboy’s Right Hand of Doom

[bonehandledknife]

@dog-of-ulthar

[as-warm-as-choco]

A master post of Thomas Romain’s art tutorials.

There’s not enough space to post all of them, SO here’s links to everything he has posted (on twitter) so far : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. 

Now that new semesters have started, I thought people might need these. Enjoy your lessons!

[elvi-loci]

How to show expression with the mouth!

This was a request and at first I wasn’t sure if I had anything to provide with, but as it turn out it got a little longer than I expected because there were actually things I had to say!! Wow!! 

Anyway, this is some guidelines I follow when I try to make the face expressfull, more specifically the mouth! It is often neglected, since it’s actually pretty hard, I’ll admit. But I’m here to help (hopefully…)! A mouth expression tutorial as per request. Enjoy and hopefully it will help some a little. ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Draw the teeth at the right angle. 

This is super important. The upper jaw follows the angle of the head, and the lower jaw will depend on how open it is. Make sure you have a rough estimate of where the teeth are, and how much of them you’re going to see!

The lips will VERY roughly follow the same angle as the teeth. It really depends on the character, but it gives you a sense at least. 

If you DON’T do this, you’re going to lose so much volume and the mouth is going to end up looking unrelatable. I showed this example in this tutorial:

It’s not just the lips! 

The cheeks, chin, and tongue play a role too! 

Try look at your own mouth or references! I have a very pliable and large mouth, so that’s one reason why my characters have it too lmao.

ASYMMETRYYYYY (ง ͠° ͟ل͜ ͡°)ง

I cannot emphasize how important asymmetry is when drawing expressions. It applies not only to the eyebrows to achieve the Dreamwork Face™, but also the mouth. Seriously if you draw a symmetric mouth I will deliver myself to your mailbox and then shout at you until you fix it. 

Look at the difference between these two for example: which one has more “life”? 

I think you get the idea.

Push and squish - give it flow

Here’s an old drawing I have but it illustrates how I think when I squish the mouth, and use folding and wrinkles to my advantage.

Look at your own face and see where skin bundles up, where it creases the most and when bumps appear on your chin. Subtle details makes all the difference! 

One VERY effective detail is illustrated in the first sketch, where I pull upwards on one side, and downwards on the other. That’s a good detail to use when the character is making a skewed expression, or is extremely frustrated. I encourage you to play around with that concept bc it’s ~super effective~!

EXAMPLES:

Happy: Your entire mouth is pushed upwards, not just the corners of your mouth!

I tend to draw a :3 mouth bc I’ve been drawing Lance too much….. You don’t have to but it’s basically imprinted in my motor memory by now. 

Pouting/frowning: corners are pushed down, middle pushed slightly up. Sometimes, there’s a slight dip in the middle too. It can give a sense that the character is biting their lips.

Showing frustration/intimidating/is intimidated: basically showing a lot of teeth. The corners are as open as possible and the middle sorta more squished. An extremely important detail here is showing some of the gums, and open space between the cheeks and teeth. That way it looks like the mouth it open to it’s full potential. Here is also where you basically MUST add folds and bumps, or else it’s not going to look relatable. 

(Here I am again with the pulling upwards on one side and downwards on the other, as illustrated on the last sketch)

And then again, here’s just another doodle showing how important it is to show the gums. It’s the same face twice, but the second one looks slightly more frustrated doesn’t it?

(from my other tutorial on how to draw facial expressions)

As you can see, this last one is very versatile and I draw it a lot. Play around with the basic shape and see how much subtle details makes a lot of difference! 

That’s it! 

I hope that cleared some things up and was somewhat helpful! Enjoy drawing ✨

[maxkirin]

So, let me guess— you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.

It’s called Havocscope. It’s got information and prices for all sorts of edgy information. Ever wondered how much cocaine costs by the gram, or how much a kidney sells for, or (worst of all) how much it costs to hire an assassin?

I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.

((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))

Want more writerly content? Follow maxkirin.tumblr.com!

[rifa]

HELLO

[blackwoolncrown]

BLESS YOU GOD OH MY WORD

[elfvenomm]

oh heavens yes

[kingofooo]

by storyboard supervisor Erik Fountain

A few years ago, Erik put together these updated AT storyboard guidelines for new board artists and revisionists.

[chgreenblatt]

These are excellent notes for tv boarding.

[atelierheidi]

Zelda’s Tabard Sewing Guide

Here’s a detailed look at what went into making Zelda’s tabard for my Twilight Princess costume. There are plenty of other ways to approach this project, but this is my take on the design! 

My pattern for this tabard is available in my shop! If you’re working on your own Zelda cosplay, check it out and save yourself some time. 

I decided to work with leather and silk, which are some of my favorite materials. The purple, gold, and green are all pigskin leather, while the blue is silk dupioni. My supplies come from Silk Baron and Hide House.

Although I started with plain light blue silk (in the color “windswept”) I needed to apply a gradient leading into a darker blue. I did this with regular RIT dye, dipping continuously between a dye pot and clean water to create an ombre effect. I found that a low concentration of dye allowed me more control over how much pigment the fabric would absorb. I made several attempts before I ended up with the more subtle effect I was going for (far right in the above image). Trial and error is all a part of the process.

My tabard layers were assembled in this order:

a backing layer of white vinyl (to prevent any colors from rubbing off on the white dress below)

blue ombre silk background

green suede background (solid underneath the gold designs)

gold applique/binding

green suede binding

purple applique design

the brass triforce

All of the fabric/leather layers were held in place with basting spray and/or a fabric glue stick, which are both designed to temporarily hold fabric in place while you stitch it. This prevents the applique from shifting around, and it’s especially useful for materials you can’t put pins through, like leather.

The gold applique presented the biggest challenge. It is depicted as continuous – simultaneously a border and a complex inset design – with no seams from top to bottom. To accomplish this, I added a seam allowance around the border portion so that it could wrap around the body of the tabard like a binding. I treated the rest of the gold piece as a normal leather applique, top-stitching the edges. 

The pattern in my store contains two versions of the gold piece – both with and without the border seam allowance – to accommodate other methods or materials you might choose instead.

Unlike the gold, the green binding is separate from the green background piece. I cut the green binding flush against the gold where they meet. 

Wonderclips (the little red clips) are another excellent tool for sewing leather. They are a great substitute for fabric pins because they do not make holes in the material and they create less distortion as you feed your fabric through a sewing machine.

The finishing touch on this tabard is a decorative Triforce shape. I decided to use brass for this instead of leather so that it would stand out from everything else. It’s also a warmer gold than the applique/border color, which is consistent with the reference image.

My Triforce is made up of three triangular brass stampings I found on Etsy. I used a small jewelry hole punch to make holes at each corner, then riveted them through all layers of the tabard with tiny jewelry rivets.

Finally, my finished tabard vs the design it is based on:

Ultimately, this was my favorite piece to make out of the entire Zelda costume. Although topstitching everything neatly was rather tedious, I absolutely love the final look.

You can see more finished photos and tutorials by browsing my blog’s Zelda tutorial tag or visiting my website AtelierHeidi.com!

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have questions and I’ll try to answer accordingly. <3

[anatoref]

African-American Hair Styles in Depth Row 1 & 2 Row 3, 4, & 6 Row 5

[nuclearlemons]

Hello!! This may be a weird question but I too am heavily interested in birds but unlike you, I cannot draw them as well. :,^( If it's not too much work (if it is just ignore this, i don't mind), do you know of any good references or sources to learn more about birds from facts to anatomy? I know this is a pretty wide range so again, I totally understand if you can't! I just thought it was worth an ask. Thank you so much!!

i don’t really have any specific reference places but here’s some things i do. 

 drawing birds is arguably one of the hardest animals because of their feathers. unlike fat and fur that folds to the body in a way that’s usually readable to whats underneath, feathers sort of create a ‘bubble’ around the body which makes a lot of body parts indistinguishable to where one ends and another begins. so its important to always think in terms of skeletal anatomy:

birds are dinosaurs and therefore reptiles. looking at birds this way, it’s a lot easier to see their evolution.

with that in mind, say we wanna draw this dude. owls are pretty tough because their outward appearances are so deceiving.

we’ve got a neutral pose, feathers are generously surrounding most of the body so its no sweat, we don’t really know whats going on. but we can hide it. but now we want to make him move and look cool. without really knowing whats going on we might get stuck on something like this:

its always kind of stiff and frustratingly unrealistic. mostly this is because we just don’t have enough knowledge of the skeletal structure to work with. eyeballing anatomy on our first drawing might get something like the left, more than anything people aren’t generous enough with leginess of birds:

 owls do indeed have regular proportioned necks with the rest of their bodies. and their skulls are like that of any other stereotypical raptor under their mask of feathers (minus their freaky eye sockets and ears)) they can open their mouths wide just like a hawk or eagle can. it’s important to remember that birds with large wingspans do not magically lose their length when hidden. they are just conveniently folded in against their bodies.

knowing this we can try again. suddenly things seem to click in place more and have a believable-ness to them.

the rule of thumb for most birds is they have less body mass and more leg/neck than one thinks. they are lanky dinosaurs.

when we are looking at this:

we are seeing this:

with that rule, drawing birds becomes a lot less confusing. with practice you might just eyeball their feathered appearances but if not, going back to skeletal/muscle structure gives the base you need to draw convincing birds.

when it comes to specific body parts, the most challenging part for me personally have always been feet. birds with super twiggy feet are easier because one line per toe is easy to get away with. but when you get to birds with meatier feet, especially raptors, it gets difficult. my way of getting around this is to think of the actual ‘feet’ last. drawing each separate toe first gets confusing because you just find yourself trying to get them to each fit evenly together at the base of the foot. one always seems kind of skinnier or fatter than the others in my experiences, and by the time you correct it the gesture gets muddled and lost.

so i just skip that part until later, i draw talon first.

perhaps this is very unorthodox, but just like artists might square in the hands first on a human before working out the arms, i square in the talons to know where i want them before worrying how they go on exactly.

that way we have a clear gesture captured, and in my experience it is much more readable.

thats’ really all i can think of now in terms of my techniques, i hope this helps :V

[havinghorns]

Spandex Applique Process

This is my personal technique for appliqueing on stretch fabrics. It’s a little different than what I might recommend for everyone–I have to work ‘upside down’ or from the back of my pattern because my machine just loves to drag the spandex around if I stitch on the right side of the work. But, I find this way does give nice clean results, so try it out, maybe! The biggest con would be that it does waste a little fabric when your cutting things away, but spandex patterns generally use pretty small yardages anyway.

So first thing is to transfer your design to the interfacing. I’m using Pellon Stick-and-Washaway 542 interfacing and it’s pretty much the best thing I’ve discovered recently. It’s water soluble, so you’re not tearing away interfacing and causing ripples in your spandex. Don’t forget to mirror your design!

Roughly cut out the interfacing, then peel of the backing and attach to your base fabric. Now that it’s nice and firm with the interfacing, you can cut out the pattern piece more precisely, with none of the shifting that often happens with spandex. I’ve then gone ahead and used temporary spray adhesive to attach a layer of red to the right side of my work (you can see it sticking out in the armhole of the bottom piece. Because there is a lot of red, I just covered the whole piece. The excess will be cut away later.

This is on a different piece, but here me zig-zagging on the wrong side of the work, following the lines drawn on the interfacing. I got pretty good at circles and curves on this one, and the biggest advice I can give is ‘Pivot. A Lot.’ You’re going to have to put the needle down and pivot every couple of stitches on a circle or other tight curve. Don’t try and just swing the stiching around as you go, it doesn’t work well. 

Okay, so I forgot to take a picture of me cutting away the extra fabric on the red layer, but as you can see here, I’ve added and stitched a green layer and am starting to cut it away. Just use sharp little embroidery scissors and gently tug the fabric, getting as close to the zig-zagged edge as you can. It takes a little practice, but I’ve gotten pretty good at getting nice clean edges this way. As you can see with the green fabric, if that color’s design is not all over the piece, you can attach smaller pieces of fabric, just making sure it covers  the whole area where it is needed. 

Here’s the back after all the green and red stitching is done. Now time for pink! As you can see, I attached the red centers to the pink flowers already. It’s easier to put them on first with the rest of the red, then cut out the pink center of the flower (like reverse applique) then to go back and do another layer of red. Changing the bobbin and thread between each layer is a pain.

Here you can see the pink attached, it’s used in small areas so I can get away with using small pieces to reduce waste.

No pictures of this step, but once you’re all trimmed up, go ahead and rinse the work in cold water, and the interfacing will magically dissolve, leaving you with nice smooth applique.

This is all the pieces laid out after being washed out. Before I sewed them all together though, there was one more step.

To reduce bulk (especially where it will be serged together) I cut away the cream base fabric where there was large open areas of the red. In smaller areas I would say it’s not worth it. I did cut the center of the flower away too, just because I ended up with three layers of fabric there. 

Ta-Da! All sewn up (and lined and what not) More pictures HERE!

[pfeffersteak]

i rr like ur art and i was wonderin how you pick out your color schemes when you draw? like do u just kind of yolo it or do u have like a thing u do lol

thank u !!! actually i already tried to explain one way i pick colors here , tho thats pretty old and only refers to analogous color schemes so… im gonna try to update it a lil bit! (btw everything ill say from this point on is just based on my own experience, im no art student and im sry if anything i explain makes no sense….!! ANYWAY moving on)

1) probably the thing i use the most are analogous color schemes bc theyre easy to do and look very calm and harmonous:

the two colors i show on the color pick thing are the ones farthest to the left and right, every other color is somewhere between them! bc of this the drawing looks calm and natural. most of the different colors u can see are created by playing around with the saturation!

2a) something i only recently started using frequently is the analogous color scheme with a highlight:

the most part of the drawing is done in analogous colors, but i added a highlight to kinda of… “break open” the closed off feeling that analogous schemes usually have! for that highlight i tend to use a higher saturated color on the other side of the color wheel, or at least one that doesnt “match” the other colors.

2b) most of the time i do the highlight not like this tho, but in the lineart:

thats a lot more subtle !

3) and sometimes i just do…..whatever lmao

[reallyyouraskinganihilist-deact]

@pfeffersteak check out Adobe Kuler.

its a free web app that lets you pick the colors need

such as these 2 pictures, monochromatic and triad.

next to that there are multiple other options to choose colors.

you can upload a picture with this button and it will pic colors out from your photo, so if you ever lose or forget what color you where using, you can get it here

plus it gives you the RGB and HEX codes so you can plug those hotdogs into Autodesk Sketchbook, or Paint Tool Sai.

[chounut]

[gingercatsneeze]

1. Ah Fai was a chief animator for McDull’s animated features. He’s super cool. Ultimate senpai. 

2. Previous post on breakdowns right here 

Some thoughts on acceleration and force

I presented this in the order of how I slowly understood the trick of delivering force - first an abstract concept of impact taught by Ah Fai, then a more complicated discovery on the acceleration pattern, last back to a more abstract concept of breakdowns. 

Like I’ve previously stressed, 2D animation is everything but one single approach. There’s no one rule that rules them all, but interchangeable ideas with math, or physics, or music, etc. There’s no “perfect” animation either, but what is perceived as organic and dynamic. E.g., using the Fibonacci numbers to animate didn’t bring me a perfect animation! On the other hand, a tiny change in the pattern could already make the feeling of force so much more powerful. 

Not so much of a tutorial than a personal experience. I hope you find this interesting hahaha 

[nsfwbutts]

Thanks to the patrons who suggested this tutorial and to the support the made this possible! You’re awesome and I love you 💖

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