art | blog

An illustrator who's very enthusiastic about comics, cartoons, and non-sequiturs.

[drawingden]

A helpful list of models for anatomy and other drawing references (x)

Key: (nsfw) Nudity | (£) Not Free

Female Models 

MariaAmanda - Fantasy and fairy themed stock, mostly full body

Faestock -  Expressions, portraits and poses, many with dresses

RobynRose - 360 angle lighting and pose sets, including expressions

Mirish - Futuristic and action inspired poses, all full body

MiraNox - Gothic inspired model including pin-up poses

ImperialStarlet - Poses with props including weapons 

PrincessRowena (£) - Various poses with a fuller figured model

Liancar-art - Fantasy and medieval inspired poses

Male Models

BODYSTOCKS (nsfw) - Basic semi-nude athletic torso references 

BirdsistersStock - Various everyday poses and portraits

Mousiestock - A small collection of back anatomy references 

Justmeina (nsfw) - Nude anatomy reference portraits

Null-Entity - Different poses based on scenarios 

Anyman82 - Military and vintage themed stock

Both/Other Models

SenshiStock - Huge collection of various action and everyday poses 

Pyjamacake - Standard poses good for character bases

PhelanDavison - Futuristic and high-tech gear with action poses 

Mjranum-stock (nsfw) - Classical nude portraits, and also action poses

Auroradreams - Many poses with dresses, and others such as children

MajesticStock - A large amount of poses with different body types

Animals

HOTNStock - Mammals including large felines and canines

LuDa-Stock - Equestrian and domestic animals 

FurLined - Large and domestic felines 

EternalOcean - Mostly wolves along with other various animals  

Landkeks - All kinds of animals from a zoo

EdgedFeather - Close-ups of a wide range of birds

Other

Burtn - Natural landscapes and scenery 

ProREF (£) - Urban and rural places such as abandoned buildings

Clz - Skulls and other bones

Please remember to follow the stock owners rules, happy drawing!

[yesterdaysprint]

Albany Ledger, Missouri, June 17, 1898

[jovaline]

How can you draw so perfect? Can you teach me?

Thank you! I actually do teach a graphic novel workshop for teens and kids in Brooklyn. If you’re interested in that, feel free to email me for details.

Otherwise, I’m thinking of making some tutorials on Patreon or opening myself up for some private tutoring in the future. If you have any particular subjects you’d like me to touch on, let me know!

For now, here’s some free resources that have helped me over the years:

Master illustrator Bernie Fuchs’ Famous Artist Course

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels 

Every Frame a Painting

Rad How-To

And you can also browse my art related questions tag, where I’ve talked about art process in the past. Or check me out on twitter (@joviellety) – I’m much more vocal on there these days.

But also: the best free art lesson is breaking down your favorite piece of art (movies, books, comics, illustrations, etc.!) and analyzing what makes it tick and why it makes you feel the way it does. The more you do this, the sharper your eyes and brain becomes! Get fluent in visual literacy!

Good luck! :)

[saskiakeultjes]

tiny idea from today

[arquigraph]

Mario Tedeschi. Domus 275 November 1952: 26 | RNDRD

[legacy-game]

Wandered into an article with 140 iconic cinematic shots, the comments complained there was no explanation to their composition. Decided to give it a run down and keep it to myself. 

The compositions are mostly self explanatory but I wanted to see what patterns I could find. That’s just how you learn stuffs. 

[damian-algol-blog]

pietro pls

[destroyscythe-heck]

Gettin real tired of your shit Magneto

[nickroblesart]

I did some Iron Fist sketches based on Kris Anka and Paulina Ganucheau’s designs. 

[refinery29]

Watch: Serena Williams just masterfully defended herself against a manipulative reporter and gave us all a world class lesson in self love at the same time

There are 101 ways this exchange could’ve gone differently. However, Williams’ concise directive, “You should apologize,” did more than demand kindness. It demanded accountability for rudeness. Well done. This is truly the perfect lesson in “How to respond to respond rude people in 2017.”

Gifs: Australian Open TV

WATCH THE VIDEO

[mattforsythe]

Notes for a young character designer

Dear E. 

Thanks for your email.

I don’t work at Cartoon Network any more. But I’m going to give you a very quick portfolio review in hopes that you find it helpful! Here are some things I noticed when looking at your stuff - lessons I learned from brilliant people while working on AT for two years: 

 1) AVOID SYMMETRY. Humans are organic, randomly shaped animals. Perfect symmetry rarely exists in nature and if it does, it’s conspicuous - it’s the exception rather than the rule. Find interesting ways to throw your characters off-balance. 

Don’t repeat objects in twos - (buttons or rips or whatever) - it feels prescribed - cluster things in threes or fives if necessary. 

 2) AVOID CONCAVITY - I don’t know what else to call this. But it’s those lines that go “in” rather than “out”. You are using inward sloping lines to describe many of your characters. As an exercise, try using outward, rounded, voluminous lines to draw EVERYTHING. Humans are fleshy lumps connected together by other fleshy lumps. Each mass is either in front of or behind other masses and as a designer, it’s your job to tell the animator where it is. As a designer, you are providing a technical blueprint for the location of masses. 

Only occasionally allow a concavity to connect two convexities. Look at the work of Robert Ryan Cory (spongebob), Tom Herpich (Adventure Time) or Phil Rynda (AT / Gravity Falls) - master character designers - for examples of this. If you need to, trace a couple of their drawings and you will see what I mean. 

 3) AVOID GRAPHIC DETAILS - Some shows use a graphic style; it’s very appealing and looks clever when done right. But in animation, everything needs to move in space - so if you use a graphic element - it needs to correspond with an actual 3D thing that can move. Therefore it is better to start with a voluminous style and then revert to graphic elements where appropriate. Art directors will look for this. Do not jump straight to graphic representation if you do not yet know what you are representing.

Look at the work of Tiffany Ford and Jasmin Lai for amazing examples of volume expressed graphically.

 4) STUDY JAMES MCMULLEN - To truly understand volume, and fully respect your subject, you should read very carefully High Focus Figure Drawing by James McMullen. Slow down and think about drawing “around” your subjects. It’s a truly meditative experience when you get there. Think about the weight and mass that your characters, props and effects are experiencing. Many students from SVA - Tomer Hanuka, Becky Cloonan, Rebecca Sugar, James Jean - studied under McMullen’s philosophy and you can see this common richness in their work. 

Jeffrey Smith, a top student of McMullen’s now teaches life drawing at Art Center. These are two of the best illustration schools in North America - anyone who is interested in drawing living things, should probably read his book. Also look at the work of Andy Ristaino or Danny Hynes - two other character designers’ whose work is seething with volume. 

I hope this is useful and I hope you have a wonderful career. 

Warmest,

Matt

[marcusto]

I never could understand why there are people out there that just want to tear someone else down. I have always believed, even when doing art professionally that it should be fun or to learn. What many people don’t see behind the polish and finish of a piece of work is the many hours, years honing their skills to get to this point. Art is never about just the vanity of showing off, it’s sharing what we’ve learned and to express the story we want to tell without the words that are hard to find. All artists put in this time and effort for the love of the craft and wish to share it in hopes that others might find some joy in it.

No one should ever fault you for work that you love doing, fanart or not. creativity is not filled out by a checklist of what others find acceptable. You do cause you enjoy, you create cause it gives you a sense of accomplishment. And NEVER tell someone they shouldn’t create.

-To

[theartgalaxies-blog]

Useful Art Related Websites

Forums/Communities (Many Links Courtesy Of Matt Kohr’s resources page)

Conceptart.org

CG Hub

The Crimson Daggers

Deviantart

Ctrl+ Paint Deviantart Group

Ctrl+ Paint Facebook Page

Wysp

Free Instruction/Tutorials (May at times be NSFW)

Ctrl+ Paint (Highly recommended)

Proko’s Youtube

Sycra’s Youtube 

Mark Crilley’s Youtube

Idrawgirls

Feng Zhu Design Cinema

Enlighten

Reference

Senshistock

(Suggest more of these, maybe? Please make sure they are stock reference, preferably free to use off of deviantart or the posters website.)

Free Figure/Gesture Drawing Tools (May be NSFW) (Many Links courtesy Sycra’s resource page.)

Pixelovely

Quickposes

Sketchdaily

Posemaniacs

Color Scheme Designers & Color Palettes

Adobe Kuler

Color Scheme Designer 3

Colorpod

Chromaa

Color Collective

Color Palettes Generator

Color Hunter

Design Seeds

Colllor

Free digital art programs

Mypaint 

Krita

FireAlpaca

Gimp

[austinkleon]

“What if Bob Kane had created Bat-Man Without Bill Finger?” by Ty Templeton

Templeton is the illustrator of the book Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman. From the book’s description:

Every Batman story is marked with the words “Batman created by Bob Kane.” But that isn’t the whole truth. A struggling writer named Bill Finger was involved from the beginning. Bill helped invent Batman, from concept to costume to character. He dreamed up Batman’s haunting origins and his colorful nemeses. Despite his brilliance, Bill worked in obscurity. It was only after his death that fans went to bat for Bill, calling for acknowledgment that he was co-creator of Batman.

Here’s more on Finger’s contributions from the book Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City:

When Bill Finger saw Kane’s sketch, he felt it looked too much like Superman and suggested a few changes…

I got Webster’s Dictionary off the shelf and was hoping they had a drawing of a bat, and sure enough it did. I said, “Notice the ears, why don’t we duplicate the ears?” I suggested he draw what looked like a cowl…. I had suggested he bring the nosepiece down and make him mysterious and not show any eyes at all…. I didn’t like the wings, so I suggested he make a cape and scallop the edges so it would flow out behind him when he ran and would look like bat wings. He didn’t have any gloves on. We gave him gloves because naturally he’d leave fingerprints.

Bill wrote that first story… and named all the major characters including Bruce Wayne and James Gordon. As part of the character development, it was Finger who decided to make Batman a detective…

Finger had transformed Kane’s derivative, uninspired design for a “bat-man” into the Batman as we know him… Unacknowledged, Finger continued to lay the foundations of the Batman mythos. In writing the early Batman stories, he not only named Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon, but Gotham City as well. He went on to create Catwoman, the Penguin, the Riddler, and Two-Face, and co-create Robin. Finger wrote the scripts that introduced many of the stapes of the series—the Batcave, the Batmobile, the Batplane, and the bat-signal.

The most insane part?

Legally, Finger can’t be credited as co-creating Batman — Bob Kane forced DC to sign a contract basically naming him the sole creator in perpetuity (which also meant that Finger never saw a dime from any of Batman’s movies, toys, merchandise, etc.). How did Kane force DC to do this when so many comic creators have gotten nothing? He lied about his age, claiming that he signed his first contract with DC when he was a minor. DC wanted the lawsuit to just go away, and caved on the new one…. So even if DC Comics wanted to credit Finger, they can’t.

See also: “Bob Kane is just the worst”

Really fascinating stuff. Exactly the sort of thing Josh Shenk wrote about in his book Powers of Two.

[gobblechopstv]

[thewritewire]

[hawkasss]

“Extremely detailed character sheet template”

Character Chart Character’s full name: Reason or meaning of name: Character’s nickname: Reason for nickname: Birth date: Physical appearance Age: How old does he/she appear: Weight: Height: Body build: Shape of face: Eye color: Glasses or contacts: Skin tone: Distinguishing marks: Predominant features: Hair color: Type of hair: Hairstyle: Voice: Overall attractiveness: Physical disabilities: Usual fashion of dress: Favorite outfit: Jewelry or accessories: Personality Good personality traits: Bad personality traits: Mood character is most often in: Sense of humor: Character’s greatest joy in life: Character’s greatest fear: Why? What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? Character is most at ease when: Most ill at ease when: Enraged when: Depressed or sad when: Priorities: Life philosophy: If granted one wish, it would be: Why? Character’s soft spot: Is this soft spot obvious to others? Greatest strength: Greatest vulnerability or weakness: Biggest regret: Minor regret: Biggest accomplishment: Minor accomplishment: Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: Why? Character’s darkest secret: Does anyone else know? Goals Drives and motivations: Immediate goals: Long term goals: How the character plans to accomplish these goals: How other characters will be affected: Past Hometown: Type of childhood: Pets: First memory: Most important childhood memory: Why: Childhood hero: Dream job: Education: Religion: Finances: Present Current location: Currently living with: Pets: Religion: Occupation: Finances: Family Mother: Relationship with her: Father: Relationship with him: Siblings: Relationship with them: Spouse: Relationship with him/her: Children: Relationship with them: Other important family members: Favorites Color: Least favorite color: Music: Food: Literature: Form of entertainment: Expressions: Mode of transportation: Most prized possession: Habits Hobbies: Plays a musical instrument? Plays a sport? How he/she would spend a rainy day: Spending habits: Smokes: Drinks: Other drugs: What does he/she do too much of? What does he/she do too little of? Extremely skilled at: Extremely unskilled at: Nervous tics: Usual body posture: Mannerisms: Peculiarities: Traits Optimist or pessimist? Introvert or extrovert? Daredevil or cautious? Logical or emotional? Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Prefers working or relaxing? Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Animal lover? Self-perception How he/she feels about himself/herself: One word the character would use to describe self: One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? How does the character think others perceive him/her: What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: Relationships with others Opinion of other people in general: Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? Person character most hates: Best friend(s): Love interest(s): Person character goes to for advice: Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Person character feels shy or awkward around: Person character openly admires: Person character secretly admires: Most important person in character’s life before story starts: After story starts:

found here

[comicbookartwork]