20s-She/Her-Dyslexic An Art Blog that I'll prolly' use the most during Art Fight to connect with homies, other usage include relogging cool art, helpful tips, rambling about OCs and all that jazz.Main Blog
Ya-ha-ha-HO! Welcome to my art blog, I'll be using this blog to connect w/peeps and showcase the art I make and receive from art fight, after art fight I'll probably using this blog just to post doodles from time to time, doing other art blog tings'....
Basic Info:
Cinderpeach/Ash
Currently in my 20s
Likes character design, fantasy, cartoons, anime, bunnies, pixel art, old web, fluff, mild angst, himbos, sweets and cute people
On this blog you'll find :
Art Fight Attacks
Art Fight Defensives (Reblogs)
OC art
Fanart
Platonic Self- Ship art...maybe
Reblogs Of Helpful Art tips/Tricks
OC rambles
Game dev stuff bc WHY NOT?!
Since this is a side blog, I'll be liking and interacting through my main soft nostalgic old web blog (where I like to post most of my fluff theme art work) : Main Blog
Hey! Your art tips are super helpful and I was wondering if you got anything on making comics? How do you come up with the storyboards and stuff? I get really stuck in that part even if I have the whole plot fleshed out so I just get scared and give up completely
I totally getcha! I run into the same problem all the time! The Change Comic is actually the first longer comic project I’ve followed through on (and it shows lol) I don’t really have much in the way of advice because I’ve been making it up as I go. Here’s a small text post about what I’ve figured out so far!
Ok, so a great place to start off would be to write out a script before going to draw it! I learned this in a screenwriting class in college! Scripts are 100% about plot. The writing style is super utilitarian; just dialogue and only enough direction to know what’s happening visually. It’s a great way to outline the events of your comic! One page of a script will roughly translate to 1 minute of film, or in this case 1 page of a comic (if your script is action-heavy then it’ll probably be closer to 2 min/pages). This might not work for people who work more visually, but it’s helped me a lot since I can’t write and board simultaneously.
I don’t have my old college scripts on hand (and they probably shouldn’t see the light of day anyway lol) so here’s one from the movie “Sideways” that I found and noted up!
What’s been great about working on Change is that the story had already been fully written, so I’ve been using the original text as my “script.” Here’s some notes on which parts of the prose I honed in on while planning the comic (writing cred goes to @translightyagami as always!)
Then, similar to boarding, I think of some key story beats that I want to hit, and try to connect the dots in between.
I don’t have any great advice about page layouts or final execution since I’m still figuring that out as well. There are plenty of great tutorials online that cover that much better than I can!
My best advice is to dive right in! Start small! Make a fun short! Draw simple scene! I started the Change Comic because I wanted comic making practice and to have fun doing it! Hopefully this helps you get started!
Oh almighty art master, teach me how to draw arms please? Mine always turn out so weird and misshapen.
I'm tempted to just say that all of my art takes place in a universe where humans don't have arms and we have to use our feet for everything, but that would mean so many cursed images of toes holding pencils and I don't think I can bring myself to impart that upon this broken world.
ART MASTER y'all really be out here boosting my ego 😂❤️ this is one of two art advice asks I gotta catch up on!
I can't name any muscles or bones, but I can try to show you the rhythm I use to hack it:
For larger arms, remember that joints (shoulders, elbows, wrists) don't store fat:
For muscle-y arms, uh, idk I kinda just wing it so any how-to’s I give you would be actively harming your studies lolol
Hopefully that gives you a bit of a foundation to build off of!
i struggle a loooottt with exaggerating emotion in my art. My style is a bit realistic and i sometimes find myself worrying more about anatomy over emotion….,, which makes my works look really stiff!!! (im more of an illustrator than an animator)
if i may- how does one exaggerate emotion in their figures without it straying too far from realism? Your figures look absolutely amazing and convey tons of feelings!!! (so pretty btw i love your art) but mine kinda look like ass 😔
anyway more on ranting about your art……, HOLY MOLY?? gosh i want to say so much but i have a huge headache and no thoughts. yknow?? but yeah everything you create makes me so so HAPPY and and and. sorry if i seem creepy i just dont know how to normally tell you that i adore your art and am extremely inspired by it
GOSH I’M BLUSHING, thank you so much!!! I’m always stunned when people tell me my art inspires them! This is gonna be a long post so let’s get into it!
Since you’re an illustrator, my best advice is to think of the poses themselves as shapes you have to design around.
It’s also helpful to take note of the specific mouth/eyebrow/general facial feature shapes that convey certain emotions. Here’s a couple notes off the top of my head:
You can also start with a more structured drawing first, then do another sketch layer over top to make it more expressive. The first examples that come to mind are those feature animation concept art drawings where they sketch over the CG models to refine expressions:
See where and how they specifically choose to break the mould to push for clearer emotions?
Now the challenge will be taking this new foundation with shapes and adding it to your structure!
Hopefully this can give you some new skills in your toolkit! You got this!!
i know you probably get a lot of asks asking for advice, but!! do you have any tips on,, legs in particular? specifically sizing them up compared to the rest of the character when doing full-bodies- it’s something i’ve always had a ton of trouble with, and i admire your art a whole lot :”]
No worries! Art advice asks are fun! I do have a couple tips, but I’m admittedly not too knowledgeable about legs. Just keep in mind that none of my tutorials are like "Anatomy 101." They're more-so like, "fake it until you eventually read a book on how to make it" LMAO.
For sizing them in relation to the rest of the body, there’s no hard rule to it as there are infinite different body types you could draw! Instead of focusing on making the legs “look right,” think of the body as a whole shape you have to design--- the silhouette, as it were.
Then you’d just have to make sure the legs look like they can support the rest of the body. A good rule of thumb is that making the pose have a believable center of gravity/balance makes it more convincing.
I hope that helps answer your question! Good luck!
Do you have any advice about drawing hair fluidly?
I love how dynamic your art always is! There's so much movement and life. I feel like hair probably helps a lot with making things feel more dynamic, but most tutorials or advice I've seen just show how to draw perfectly still hair. Are there are sort of tips or rules to figuring out the motions of how hair moves when a person is fighting or falling or standing dramatically on a cliff top in the wind?
Ooooo this is my first art advice ask in a hot minute!! Yeah dude, I love drawing hair, it adds SO MUCH personality than you might think to your drawings!
Let’s start with the basic mechanics.
It’s also important to keep in mind that different hair textures will respond very differently. A lot of it depends on the mass and weight.
With all that in mind, you can use hair to really emphasize emotion, or tell more of a story in your drawing. I’ll take your three prompts and do some sketches plus whatever else I can come up with rn!
i really would like to ask how you approach the head/face from different angles? i find myself worrying too much about staying on-model that it doesn't look natural and i can't grasp how the character would look in any direction other than the 3/4 angle because that's the angle i default to, so profiles especially scare me.
a lot of the characters i draw have very unique noses that might not have the simple button end which also makes me nervous because i'm afraid the nose will look completely different at another angle.
i ask you specifically because you do very well with unique angles as well as squash and stretch. i envy your art style and fluidity if i'm being brutally honest right now lol
Well unfortunately for you, I never stay on model LMAO. I'm flattered that you think so highly of my work, but don't sell yourself short! You can do it!
I think I answered a similar ask a while back about consistency where I suggested doing some model sheets and character turn arounds but I can’t seem to dig it up. The point was to try googling "character model sheets" and see how the pros ground their designs!
In regards to your question, I’m using Noble Girl as an example of the whole head. Her face is really round in contrast to North’s that’ll come later. It can be simplified to a shape that’s easier to rotate in space.
Don't be intimidated by the nose, it's one of your most useful tools to angle the face! I cracked the code with drawing North by starting with his nose and eyebrow ridge.
I’d say take some time to do some studies of your characters’ noses! It’ll really help down the line.
And honestly, if something's not looking right even if it's structured "correctly"... Just cheat it dawg, life's too short LMAO. If it looks right then it is right.
I think a good exercise would be to take a combo of features first, throw it on a specific face shape, and assemble your person! Start off really really simple with a flat sketch of your rough idea, then flesh them out:
Keep in mind how your individual features will look from every angle.
Adding visible signs of aging can help distinguish people a lot.
This is secondary, but think about how each character you draw would express the same emotions through their acting! It’ll go a long way to make them feel like their own people.
Doing studies from real life always helps. Find photos of completely different looking people and see if you can capture their likeness!
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!!
Compiled some basic information I know about drawing fat characters for beginners since I've been seeing more talk about absence of really basic traits in a lot of art lately.
Morpho Fat and Skin Folds on Archive.org (for free!)
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!
So you've learned the 12 principles of animation but don't know where to actually apply them? Fear not!! For here is my step-by-step process, very very condensed, into one singular giant GIF.
Hope it helps!
(You may need to open it in a new tab to read the text)
If you’re like me and you like to play around with your OCs a lot, here’s some things you can do with them!
ART & CRAFTS
Put your OCs in character scenario memes! Here’s some I found on Deviantart.
Do an art trade where you draw someone’s OC and they draw yours!
Use those "Draw The Squad" templates and draw your OCs.
Crochet/knit/sew/etc. a plushie of your OC.
You can also make a paper doll! You can find tons of tutorials on youtube.
You can also make a figure of them out of something like clay, cardboard, or another material.
You can build them out of Legos!
You can also create a hand or finger puppet of them.
Draw a comic featuring your characters!
Create an animation of your character.
Draw your characters as animals!
Create pixel art of your OC! Maybe even make it look like video game sprites.
Draw your characters as playing card designs.
Draw your characters as tarot card designs (Suggested by @ultragirl-parsley)
Create a coloring book full of your OCs!
Create a large cardboard cutout of your character. There are tons of tutorials online!
Put your OCs as designs on cookies, cakes, etc. (I kinda want to do this one but I know it won't turn out well for me 'cuz I suck at handling food T_T)
Design your OC's home.
Make a board game about your OCs and their story
Make Minecraft skins of your characters
INTERNET
Make your OCs in picrew or other dress-up things!
Create a character playlist on Spotify or other music site!
Create a Pinterest board with inspo for your OCs! Maybe outfits they’d wear, a moodboard, etc.
Reblog those “tag your OC as” blogs! They usually have a prompt and you can reblog it and tag which OC it describes. Here’s a few blogs which do this: Tag Your OC on Tumblr develop your oc on Tumblr Daily Asks for your OC (tumblr.com)
Take quizzes as your OC! You can find some on Quotev or IDRLabs.
Make a roleplay account as your OC.
Create a quiz on Quotev about your OC. Maybe something like, "Would my OC like you," "How similar are you to my OC," etc.
Put your OCs in the incorrect quote generator.
Find OC questionnaires and templates online.
Create a page on your Tumblr just for your OC! You can include things like a character sheet, general facts, your posts about them, etc.
WRITING
Do character exercises for them! You can find a lot of these on the internet, but here’s an example.
Write from your OC's perspective. It'll help you understand them better!
Create a list of media they enjoy. Maybe movies, video games, songs, etc.
Write a song (or just lyrics) about your OC or parts of their story.
Write a random story about their childhood!
Create an in-universe news report from your OC's world.
Write a poem about your OC.
OTHER
Put your OCs in character alignment memes! Here’s some from a search on Pinterest.
Create voice headcanons for your OCs. Here’s an example of Vivziepop’s for Hazbin Hotel..
Play as your character in video games! Like, maybe design your character in Miitopia or Sims.
Do some theatre improv games as if you were your OC.
Edit your OC on to pride flags.
Also, you could maybe make those like, Tiktok edits of your OC? (Y'know the ones I'm talking about?)
Create an AU version of your characters! (I’ll create a list of AU ideas soon! :D)
Have your characters solve the trolley problem and other moral conudruums.
Cosplay as your OC!
Create ship names for your characters!
You can also find baby names that your OC might like or something.
Create a visual novel/dating sim in Google Slides (or if you can code, you can do it like that!)
Create a crossword/word search relating to your characters and story.
Answer "Would you rather?"questions as your character.
Find poems that remind you of your OC.
Make family trees.
If anyone has anymore ideas, please tell me and I’ll add them to the list!!
