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@floatingloneartbog
You guys the art director has a hand ref sheet if anyone wants some good references
I'm kind of decent at simpler hands, I use my own for reference... it's body stances and proportions that are hell for me...
I recommend trying @adorkastock. I remember when they were getting started on Deviantart. Good pose refs.
here is a master list of great art tools that can make your workflow easier! 👇 (consistently updating)
How I Study Anatomy
Everyone says NEVER TRACE!! THAT'S ART THEFT! Ok but we can do a little crime in the name of Learning.
Trace to learn, not to earn.
I like to take my own photos, but you can study whatever you want. Link back to original photos, and don't post copied artwork unless the artist is dead, cool with it, or both.
As always with learning, start every sketch with the intent to throw it away (trash for paper, quitting without saving for digital) This takes the pressure off and lets you make Bad Art, which is very important.
So let's make Bad Art of a Deer because I happen to have one handy
Start with a photo of your subject in a nice/neutral pose with all four feet visible. (so not like me)
Freehand copy it. Try not to stylize, focusing instead of matching proportions and pose. Don't get too detailed!
It's ok if your art looks terrible and has broken legs. I've drawn LOTS of deer so I have a leg up. Everyone's art sucks in their own eyes and here's where mine went wrong:
Either lasso-distort (recommended for beginners) or redraw a copy of your first sketch with your reference behind it (scaled to match the main body of your sketch)
Put the original and modified sketches together and compare the differences. Write it down if you want. This shows you where your eyes saw things the wrong size, so you can correct for that next time.
After learning about both deer and yourself, try freehand copying again.
Marvel at your newfound knowledge and skill!
but there's always room for improvement
You can stop here and move on to your real drawing, Or do another freehand-fix-compare cycle. I actually overcorrected my "draws heads too big" and veered into "heads too small."
Another note on tracing: Learning HOW to trace is more important than anything you could learn By tracing. Draw the Anatomy, not the outline. In real life, things don't have outlines, they have bones.
These are from the same shoot which is extra useful for consistency. The lines are minimal and follow where the animals joints are, and only important parts are drawn.
You won't know what Important Parts means right off the bat, which is where in-depth study comes in. You need to do learn the hard parts to do the easy parts right.
Next up: how to study bones and muscles.
How to study Bones and Muscles
"Study the anatomy study the anatomy" but they never tell you HOW. It's not "read a book," It's more like flailing around wildly and crashing your browser from too many tabs.
This is going to be about How to Make a bones and muscle chart. Because even if your art sucks, you learn so much more by doing than by seeing.
References I gathered: X X X X X X X X
Get Set up. Get a photo, like above, but it doesn't have to be the same photo. And now... gather reference.
We'll start with bones. Search up "[animal] skeleton" and get photos or super scientific illustration. Add in things like "top view" to spice it up.
Next, search "[animal] skeleton sketchfab." This pulls up 3D models that you can rotate in your browser. Remember that these are art and the anatomy is only as good as the artist, so pick a good one.
Time for bone!
The spine is the most important, and in a lot of animals it will surprise you. Draw it in over your photo and then add spikes because skeletons are punk. These are not scientific and I didn't count them because their number doesn't matter to art. So you better be referencing from scientists and not me!
The rest of the bones and some notes. These are my notes to myself about things I want to remember. My personal discoveries in anatomy that made my art better. You can make the same notes but also make sure you have your own thoughts on there as well. that's how you help yourself the best. Be as detailed or vague as you want.
Same deal with muscle. Here are my personal notes to myself. Label stuff that is important to you. I actually grouped a bunch of muscles together based on what is visible from the outside. Muscles are way more complicated than this, but Baby's First Anatomy Chart gets to be simple.
This is good enough for me because I have intimate knowledge of the other muscles working under and over these ones. Feel free to add as many or as few muscles as you like. You chart your own course.
This is very VERY much not an anatomical chart. I'm sure there's nerds out there pulling their hair out looking at this. But listen, it works for art!
And you know the wildest part about this?
I don't need to look at it to use it. The act of making your own anatomy chart puts that knowledge in your brain. Like how you can make "cheat sheets" even for tests that don't allow them - the act of making the sheet helps you remember what you struggle with most.
And after all that complexity? Your simplification will be based on Real Knowledge and you'll put those random circles in the right spots.
Look at all this hard work you've done. Eventually this will be second nature to you.
Show me what you make! I'd love to see what creatures yall make anatomy charts of.
Photo Reference Packs
I put together some photo packs and uploaded them to my gumroad. You can use them and this guide to study! So far there's only a Doe and a Fawn pack, but if I get sales I will put in the effort to do more for deer, horses, cats, birds, and anything else I can point my camera at.
Doe Pack
Fawn Pack
Animal Photo Reference Repository
@animalphotorefs is a great place to get photo refs of many different animals and is in fact made for that purpose! You can freely download the photos, use them in art projects, and if you want to trace them to learn, or upload whatever you make with them, it’s usually fine! The site has its guidelines listed, and anything not stated, you can contact the owner about
Boosting because this is a great guide on learning to see and draw anatomy.
To clarify prev: if you’re making art or learning to do art or even vaguely thinking about art-like ideas, you can use the repository photos!
As long as you’re not using GenAI for it you can trace, sketch, scribble on, scrapbook, decoupage, satirize, collage, sticker over, sculpt, animate, make cartoons of, paper mache, finger paint, wood-burn, and anything else you can think of with the photos.
The only guideline is for your use to be transformative/derivative in some way: please don’t reproduce a copy of the images without using them in something or changing something or making your own version. An exception here is if you’re showing the references you used alongside a piece - just link back to the site alongside it. You can post your art and sell art you made using the reference site with no restrictions - it’s your art!
GenAI v. not GenAI round up.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
Support me on PATREON or Ko-fi 💕
Too many artists are held back by outdated and bad color theory rules, or even rules that are fine but have built in limitations that you should know and I want to set everyone free.
Tertiary Red and Secondary Blue could be in your color theory understanding and make paint mixing way easier but they played you
Also hot takes:
Learning color theory through oil painting is more difficult than learning it through gouache & watercolor, primarily because it takes way more time to find mass tone and mix everything and also it's much less obvious to easily and quickly discern if a paint pigment is highly staining or transparent.
Oil painters like to seem like they have the richest and most storied traditions in color theory to past down but also inevitably they are the most likely to retain an extremely limited chroma palette based on classical palettes for the sake of classicism and not always make that fact very apparent to a beginner aside from saying it's an "old masters palette" watercolor/gouache painters are bad at using paints that are not light-fast and clinging to them despite having better alternatives, but generally still understand chroma gamuts and pigment importance better or at least talk about them more.
When you're mixing paints, the earth colors (browns) don't need to handled and thought of as brown. Ask yourself if the brown is yellow, orange, red, or leaning towards a black (which would be treated as a violet or blue, depending on whether black is warmer or cooler).
Yes there are cool reds and warm blues
Any reference color wheel that places red on the very top hurts my feelings, stop doing this just because you learned "roygbiv". Yellow is at the top and the Indigo-Blue range is on the bottom because this also means the color with the lightest possible value is opposite the color with the darkest possible value, so you have the colors arranged with a value scale from top to bottom BUILT IN.
this is related to why ivory black is actually very dark blue.
@rizahawkeyesmuscles
This makes me think makeup artists have good color theory, having to understand undertones of skin, warm v neutral v cool toned red lipstick....
Yes!!! I mean first of all, makeup artists are artists.
and they are ALSO ultimately just blending pigments to produce certain colors and effects, so yeah professionally do study the basics of color theory and then necessarily have to adapt it to their medium. And they tend to generally add like, what you talked about with recognizing cool/warm/olive/neutral undertones and such as a big consideration to their canvas.
And that IS why people will say "this is a cooler red lipstick" (although even cooler than that would be magenta or fuschia!).
I think the only thing I've noticed wrt to honestly mostly beauty influencers and not actual professional MUAs is that too many people buy an eyeshadow palette of cool tones in the palette and then put it on and complain it pulls "too warm for their cool skin." And it "isn't actually a true cool tone palette."
I just want to grab all these people by the face and say:
"Shhhhhh. Color temperature is relative. Although you have cool skin undertones, you ALSO have blood under your skin which will inherently make your base skin-canvas slightly warm no matter your foundation shade. So when you put any kind of pigment that isn't fully opaque onto your skin, the transparency WILL be warmed by your skin because you're alive and have blood still. The eyeshadow palette IS a cool palette. You're just not a vampire, which is why that cool taupe shade suddenly looks different from the mass tone in the palette."
These influencers would understand this better if they did some watercolor painting on pre-tintedpaper and then compared it to painting on pure white.
But a MUA probably already figured this out yeah.
In case anyone is curious here are my top color recommendations
Handprint.com is hands down the most comprehensive scientific explanation of how different color wheels or palette choices work. It's big and dense and exceptionally thorough. I skim frequently and find myself always learning more. https://handprint.com/HP/WCL/water.html everything is done using watercolors as a reference point but a LOT of this translates to other mediums. For the record his CIECAM color wheel is what I consider to be the best (not 3 dimensional) color wheel for artists. Period.
He uses pigment numbers for some of the most common watercolors rather than specific paint brands or color names to place the pigments. It's also a case study in why yellow being at the top is the best because it also means you have a value scale from top to bottom (since black paints are just dark violets or blues, ultimately.)
When you look at this, you can start realizing more and more why the earth colors can be used as if they were like, straight red, or yellow, or orange. Like if you wanted to make a limited palette, you could use "burnt sienna" as your dark yellow (which will make the whole palette lean orange!) Or it could be your orange or you could use burnt sienna as your red. (Look at gamut masking links below)
Seriously it's good to try and swatch your medium (even really quickly!) Within a CIECAM Artist's color wheel. Below are two of my attempts:
From loose memory and then mapping pigments roughly.
He also discusses the difference between visual complements and mixing complements!
Anyways absolutely try to read bits and pieces. The whole site is amazing. Handprint is amazing.
Also:
https://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com and James Gurney's book: Color and Light: a guide for the realist painter. James Gurney is the dinotopia guy. That book is also amazing for painting fantasy with lots of fantastical examples. Here are two short videos on gamut mapping and gamut masking. Accompanying blog posts.
No surprises here! His book also charts pigments:
Actually these are my four favorite books hands down:
Color and Light: a Guide for the realist painter - James Gurney
Color for Painters: a guide to traditions & practice - Al Gury
The oil painters color handbook - Todd m casey
Artist's master series: Color & light - 3d total publishing. This one emphasizes digital!
The first two have been out for awhile now and you can more easily find them cheaper/used online than the latter two which are relatively newer and hefty hardbacks.
Also, from personal experience: al gury is a sweetheart angel who is a huge crazy cat man. I adore him, he's so kind and helpful. I think it's a little late to join the current session (although they did only start Jan 28, so you can always ask! Class videos are recorded), BUT he frequently offers a class on color that is fully online through PAFA continuing education, as well as other classes. I haven't taken it yet, but I HAVE taken other classes online with Al and he's really great.
Oh also online gamut masking tools:
In krita: https://docs.krita.org/en/user_manual/gamut_masks.html
https://claudiamatosa.com/resources/gamut-masking simple tool
https://mypaintingclub.com/blog/post/39-The-Gamut-Mask-Tool another tool with more complexity
The tl;Dr of a gamut mask is to show you the full range of possible colors you can mix within a given palette (choices of colors/pigments).
All you need in life is a color picker willing to expose you to the unbounded madness we call color vision.
me, absolutely clueless: "I want a color just like this one, but in red" color picker: Fuck you think you are, a Mantis Shrimp? Don't talk to me again until you can afford a wide gamut monitor.
what is even happening here 😨 wheres the circle with the triangle inside we all know and love..
The circle and triangle are a lie we tell ourselves to cope with the ugly reality... Now this-- this is the real deal!
In seriousness, this is oklch.com, a color picker for the OKLCH color model.
There are whole several hour lectures one could take in color science and theory, but to keep it short: the set of colors we can see, the set of colors monitors can display, and the set of colors computers can model are three circles that only somewhat overlap.
In this case, if I wanted this color
but in red, I could just go of Photoshop and move over the hue slider, getting this as a result:
Which is.. acceptable, but not as "bright" and "vibrant" as the green I had. Looking at the graphs in the OKLCH color picker, we can figure out why:
It tells us that a red with the same luminosity and chroma as this green is out of gamut—that is, it cannot be displayed by this monitor.
In this case, you can use the edges of the graph to find the color that is closest to what you want. You can, for example, keep the chroma but sacrifice lightness,
keep the lightness but drop the chroma,
or a bit of both, which is what the common HSV triangles already do.
But I like to know when it happens, y'know?
What if what *I* see as blue, *you* see as a slightly different blue because you're using Chrome instead of Firefox and despite a decade of messing with profiles we STILL can't get this right somehow.
some storyboarding techniques as a sequel to my storyboarding basics presentation. I focus specifically on tips for action and conversation scenes!
as always, these are general tips and tricks, but rules can always be broken. happy boarding! ✍️✨
I made a tutorial on how to draw masculine hips.
I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!
For those of you that like everything neatly organised, here’s links to EVERY ONE of my first 150 how to THINK when you draw TUTORIALS, in ALPHABETICAL ORDER for #SkillUpSunday! Enjoy, link, pin, share! Cheers! Lorenzo! How to draw ANGRY EXPRESSIONS How to draw BIRD HEADS How to draw BOOKS How to draw BOXES How to draw BREAKING GLASS How to draw BRICKWORK How to draw CABLES and WIRES How to draw CAR CHASES How to draw CATERPILLAR TRACKS How to draw CAVES How to draw CHARACTERS (3-SHAPES) How to draw CHARACTERS (FLIPPED-SHAPES) How to draw CHARACTER SHAPES How to draw COMIC COVERS How to draw COMPOSITION How to draw CROSS-CONTOURS How to draw EARS How to draw FABRIC How to draw FEET & SHOES How to draw FEMALE HANDS PART ONE How to draw FEMALE HANDS PART TWO How to draw FOREGROUND MIDGROUND BACKGROUND How to draw GAME BUILDINGS How to draw GEMS and CRYSTALS How to draw GIRL’S HAIR How to draw GRASS How to draw HAIR (1940s styles) How to draw HAPPY EXPRESSIONS How to draw HORNS How to draw HORSE HEADS How to draw IMPACT DEBRIS How to draw IN 3D How to draw INTEGRATING LOGOS How to draw INTERIOR BASICS How to draw IN-WORLD TYPOGRAPHY How to draw JUNGLE PLANT CLUSTERS How to draw JUNK HOUSES How to draw LAMP POSTS How to draw LAVA How to draw LIGHTNING and ELECTRICITY How to draw MECHANICAL DETAILS How to draw MUSHROOMS and FUNGUS How to draw MONSTER HEADS How to draw MONSTER TENTACLES How to draw MOUNTAINS How to draw NEGATIVE SPACE How to draw NEWSPAPERS How to draw NOSES How to draw PERSPECTIVE BOXES How to draw PIGS How to draw POD HOUSES How to draw POURING LIQUID How to draw ROBOT ARMS How to draw ROCK FORMATIONS How to draw RUNNING FIGURES How to draw SAUSAGE DOGS How to draw SEA WEED How to draw SHADOW COMPOSITION How to draw SHOULDER ARMOUR How to draw SIEGE WEAPONS How to draw SILHOUETTE THUMBNAILS How to draw SMOKE EFFECTS How to draw SNOW How to draw SPACE BIKES How to draw SQUIRRELS How to draw STICK FIGURES How to draw THE HORIZON How to draw TIKI STATUES How to draw TREASURE CHESTS How to draw TREE BARK How to draw TREE ROOTS How to draw VEHICLES How to draw VINTAGE PLANES How to draw WATER How to draw WOODEN HOUSES
Art advice 👀🎨
historically, pixel art was rendered on limited hardware, there were strict limits on how many colours could be displayed on screen at once and in a single sprite.
These limits no longer exist, so you are no longer beholden to any of them. Despite what you might hear in certain pixel art spaces, there aren’t really any rules anymore, because there’s no technical limitations forcing you to work a specific way. You can make your pixel art have as many colours as you want, be whatever size you like, and have as many frames as you want it to.
However! the smaller you make a sprite, the harder things will become to read unless you shrink down the number of colours in equal measure.
In a photo you might have. i dunno. 1,000,000 pixels in it or something like that. Thats like a really small photo but that’s still so many pixels that you don’t really notice any of them individually. They all blend together into one big mass to tell you what you’re looking at in groups of hundreds!
On the other hand, in a 16x16 sprite you’ll only have 256 of them. Every single individual pixel can have something to say!
But if every pixel is trying to say something at once, it muddies the sprite and makes it hard to read. However, if a group of pixels are all the same colour, they’re all saying the same thing, and it becomes a lot easier to understand what you’re looking at.
like, for example, take a look at this 16x16 crop of a random photo.
does that look like a whole lot of nothing? yeah . theres 256 pixels, and theres 256 colours. the pixels aren’t really working together to tell you anything, so instead it just becomes one big vague mass. if i reduce the colour count to just 6 colours and increase the contrast, though,
it starts to look less like visual noise, and more like water at sunset!
The contrast is important - part of why you want to keep your colour count low is to make groups of pixels distinct from each other.
But, how exactly do you keep your colour count low, anyway?
a colour ramp refers to the gradient of colours in your palette that are used to shade one particular colour, such as tempests hair or her skin
instinctively you’re probably going to want to make individual gradients of colour for each of these things.
however, if you connect these ramps together, you can greatly reduce the number of colours you’re using in your piece. This also helps create a cohesive palette!
when it comes to connecting ramps, value matters much more than individual hues. you want to have a good range of values to have a readable sprite!
I think actually a really good example of value mattering more than hue in sprites, is this guide to anti aliasing by pixeljoint user ptoing
also just generally good advice, but take a look at this bit in particular
despite the wildly varying hues, they work together just fine. by focusing on the value when you combine your ramps, you can create some really interesting colour palettes!
anyway. now for some vaguer notes on how i do lighting
anyway thems just some thoughts for you all
so a while back I made a “how-to” for how I render gold for shits-n-gigs. Recently, I had to reference this myself because I straight up FORGOT how I paint gold in the middle of working on a commission.
Figured it would be fun to share, if yall want to know my gold painting secrets (spoiler, im very lazy and just want the fastest and dirtiest way to get something done. and for me, this is it)
Here is my no-fail, 10 step (it sounds like a lot, i swear its not) method:
1) Draw thing
2) Ink thing. When inking I draw big “I” shaped black chunks on metal stuff. Usually I’ll put one thick and one thin next to each other. If I’m being especially lazy, I will literally just draw a black scribble in a vauge I-ish shape.
3) Flat color block. I usually go for a mid-tone yellow-ish color. Not super saturated.
4) Shading. Use a more saturated color several shades darker. I focus the shading around where I inked those black “I” shapes. I wrote to be mindful of a light source, and this is what you should do. But I’ll be honest, I usually just shade around the edges.
5) LIGHT. Use a bright saturated yellow color. I usually pick one and then color adjust as necessary once it’s blocked in. Catch the rims/edges of objects. I usually use more of those double “I” shapes in the middle.
6) SPECIAL EFFECTS BAYBEEE. Douplicate highlight layer. Set it to “Add.” Use gaussian blue until it glows to your liking. Adjust opacity as you like.
7) ONE MO ‘GAIN. Repeat step 6. Set to “Color Dodge.” Adjust hue/opacity as you like.
8) Futz around till you like it. I like to add more color dodge above the ink layer to brighten some spots. This is optional.
9) Corrections. Assuming you’re working on a non-white background, those Add and Dodge layers will show over the edges of your lineart. This is where I take a soft airbrush eraser and remove what I dont like.
10) Final futzing. Sometimes I’ll add a dark blue Overlay layer to reduce saturation and increase contrast. Added some “shinies.” To do this draw some thin cross-shaped lines that taper at the ends. Duplicate layer. Change layer mode to “Add.” Use Motion Blur in the same direction as the cross long-ways.
AND YER DONE CONGRATS. Are there better ways? Eehhhh probably. Do I use them? Nah. This is what works for me and my work-flow, so feel free to try it out if you want! ✨✨✨
I guess I should drop this here
if some of you didn't know
IN CSP YOU CAN MAKE THE WHITE IN A SCANNED DRAWING BECOME TRANSPARENT
HOOOOOOOLY SHIT
I FOUND THIS IN CLIP STUDIO PAINT BY ACCIDENT BUT OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS PROGRAM SO MUCH WOWOWOWOWOW OKAY
It’s under the Edit menu and is called “Convert brightness to opacity” and I didn’t even know it was an option until I was trying to edit a thing I was working on and hit it accidentally!!!!
Visual aid:
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