Claire Keane
Love Begins
h
wallacepolsom
No title available
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
roma★
ojovivo
trying on a metaphor
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Mike Driver
Acquired Stardust
d e v o n
No title available
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Keni
YOU ARE THE REASON
Game of Thrones Daily
art blog(derogatory)
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
seen from Germany
seen from Singapore
seen from Finland
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Mexico
seen from Singapore
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@fpacatuto
DEAR ARTISTS, PLEASE READ THIS POST I STUMBLED ACROSS
IF YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS ALREADY, YOU SHOULD TRY IT
I even tested it out myself, it works great
With the different dimensions colors and different lenses, this seems like a very handy trick!
@inky-kaleidascope-dimensions
psa for fellow formal wear enthusiasts
“small thread on drawing plus sized characters!”
Source: Ullaiin on Twitter
Catching up on the Shy Girl book news (the AI generated book that got cancelled from trad publication) and having so many mixed feelings about it. That comprehensive Frankie's Shelf video covered most of it (including the addendum pinned in the comments), but it's the very end of the video that I feel strongly for.
This post-AI-takeover notion that "if this art is bad, it must be made by AI!" or saying any kind of mediocre art "feels like AI" is so exhausting. There's this thing that Lauren Faust said that stuck with me for so long, where she said something like "You've got to make 100 crappy drawings before you make an OK drawing". All that means is that it takes a lot of trial and error before a creative gets a solid hold of their craft. Humans improve at their craft if they feel passionately for it. And this binary notion that humans will consistently make high quality art ignores all the creatives who are still making that journey through "100 crappy drawings", or even a creative having an off day. It's deeply human to make bad art.
Writing repetitive prose, nonsense similes, broken continuity, underwritten characterization, bad pacing, etc. are all things any human writer can make. I've seen all of these mistakes in juvenile writers before generative AI took over. But that kind of good faith alone just can't exist anymore, because this author very likely did have generative AI at least assist her in tons of those passages. It's frustrating that now we have to have this extra "but what if AI was involved in this" sense. Because it can, and has happened.
What does an inhuman error look like?
A lot of people on twitter wanted me to explain how I draw expressions, so here you go
Unless you're drawing explicit realism, in my opinion, expressions should be exaggerated to some degree. If you aren't doing a 1:1 recreation, the point is to get the FEELING across. Try making the expression you want to draw and feeling how your face pinches and stretches.
Skin doesn't just "disappear" when your face moves it around --- that's where wrinkles come from! Pay attention to where your skin creases when you emote, and use it to your benefit. It's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it -- find your own balance.
Ultimately, every expression has a little bit of push and pull, unless your face is completely neutral (and even then, there are still some wrinkles...). Learning to think of expressions as actions and reactions is VERY helpful in learning to draw them without needing a reference, and in learning how to stylize and push expressions based on references as well!
I think a lot of people end up with stiff or unexpressive emotions in their art because they're just trying to recreate a picture instead of understanding WHY and HOW the face is moving --- and it's a tough thing that takes a while to really pick up and learn. Hopefully is helpful in showing a way of thinking about it that can influence your process and approach to emotions!!!
Also, bonus: even without the lines, the planes alone still show a LOT of emotion.
Colour Tips by yuming_art
Support the artist and check out in their painting course!
I've been getting back into comics while I wait for more info from my concept job, and I thought I'd make a post about something very important to me, which is COMIC PANEL VARIATION and HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT.
Also, yes, before you ask, these rules can absolutely be broken. I strategically break them to create a noticeable shift or flow in the storytelling, like so:
You can also probably make your own set of 5 IN 5 rules! I like to draw facial expressions and backgrounds and hands (like a masochist), so my 5 in 5 is definitely geared towards that. If you like to make more quiet, introspective comics, you could throw in a panel with NO DIALOGUE every 5 pages, or a mood panel with no characters, for example!
A real artist doesn't need fancy, expensive fucking art programs. A real artist can make a masterpiece in the notes or sketchbook app. Like yours truly.
I've seen people draw the Mona Lisa on MS Paint.
But, if you're (not @ OP, 2nd person) desperate for a decent program that's easy to use and has almost all of the stuff you get with a fancy paid program:
I've been using FireAlpaca for years. Completely free and runs pretty well on even low-end PCs. I've gotten it to run on even the most awful, slow, buggy, old school computers. And it keeps updating with good and useful shit + fixes its bugs pretty dang quickly. You can make your own brushes, customize any brush, and the brush store is free. The thing can handle a billion layers, trust me, I'd know lmfao.
There are better options without having to spend a dime, I promise 🙏
Don't Call Me Superboy! The mysterious voice on the walkie talkie checks in on Paul Westfield, the runaway lab subject. Turns out the boy's got a bit of an attitude :/ bummer news for guy who seeks to manipulate a child with superpowers.
Really interesting conversation for two Black characters to be having!! There's the adult who isn't just the voice of caution and experience, but also the voice of respectability politics, of someone who has chosen to affiliate with the structures and systems of white supremacy to build his personal wealth. At this point in the story, we don't know that though: he could be genuinely concerned for Paul, and trying to give him a version of The Talk.
And then we have the teenager who, because of his "amnesia," is completely brand new to being racialized in the US. He gets that it's dangerous, but he wants to do what feels right to him! And he's not going to just accept things that he can change.
One of the things I really appreciate about this story is that it's on Paul's side here. This isn't a story about learning a lesson to be less reckless, to listen to the adults telling him to be less angry, less scary, less oriented to justice, less resistant to the violence and oppression the police represent. This story is saying, hey if a person tells you your feelings about justice and the right thing to do are inappropriate and you need to be quiet, that person might be exploiting you.
understanding the assignment-core!!
Firealpaca official backup instructions for brushes: https://firealpaca.net/material/easy-backup/ (Surprising recent Firealpaca ad screen link)
From their website:
"Starting from Ver. 2.13.17, backup and data restoration of “Brushes”, “Colors”, ‘Gradients’, and “Shortcut Settings” has become easier!"
Steps to backup and export your personalized Firealpaca data (brushes, colors, gradients and shortcut settings on your disk:
Open Help menu > click "Export Settins"
A new pop-up dialogue window "Do you want to back up your brushes, colors, gradients and shortcut settings?" > OK
Old way to back up all your personalized settings, brushes and materials (also it has been anofficial Firealpaca HUB tutorial for a while now):
How to transfer setting to another computer? https://hub.firealpaca.net/how-to-transfer-setting-to-another-computer/
Open Help Menu > click "Open Confiq Folder"
New window pops up. Copy-Paste everything to another disk, USB drive, zip it, upload it etc to back it up.
Entrégame tus labios rotos
this is lwk the first time I've drawn a kiss did I get it right *runs away*
Digital Art App Stamps #2 // Personal
Free to use, credit not required but appreciated. Reposts/Edits/Recolours/adding to Masterlists or hoards allowed.
People liked the last ones so I decided to make more with everyone’s requests!
Ver 1 | Ver 3
i caved... so behold,
Swatch designs based on my previously used drawing programs!!
FireAlpaca Ver 2.15.2 update ( 2026/02/12 )
Fixed an issue where multiple tools in the toolbar could be selected simultaneously.
Improved the tool options display for the Brush Tool and Lasso Fill Tool (unnecessary controls are hidden).
Now supports loading MDZ files (macOS).
FireAlpaca Ver 2.15.0 Update Log
( 2026/01/30 )
Fixed a bug in the canvas display during layer folder transformation operations.
Fixed a bug where the brush store was not displayed on macOS Tahoe (macOS).
Now supports Apple silicon natively (macOS).
Bugfix update:
FireAlpaca Ver 2.15.1 ( 2026/02/03 )
Minor bug fixes.
Firealpaca update archive: animation features (onion skin mode) from 2015 - 10 years of Firealpaca animation features
I was recently reminded of how old Firealpaca animation mode actually is, so I thought I would write about it!
This blog hasn't always archived all the updates from Firealpaca so I thought I would go looking if there were any posts about one of the biggest feature updates Firealpaca has had: animation mode
Animation mode released on 28th of October 2015. So it's already over 10 years old! Here's some fun animations done with it by the Ever-Blue webcomic author Ten. If you want to remember what it looked like, a tutorial was also posted by Obtusity on DeviantArt in 2015.
Animation mode was called "Onion Skin Display Mode" and came with 3 important features once you switched to it from the View menu: "Show Next/Prev Frame" as well as "Select Next (Upper) Frame" + "Select Previous (Lower) Frame" and "Autoplay". You could also export your frames when in Onionskin Mode. This feature works the same way as it did then: the PNG frames are numbered from 000 and you can select a folder to export them into.
The Onionskin Mode did not feature a "Export GIF" function however, so the makers of Firealpaca released a website just for that: AlpacaDouga. Obtusity posted a tutorial about this on October 12th, 2016.
In 2018, the "Always display the first frame" feature was added with version 1.9.1. This meant that if someone had a background or a non-animated graphic they wanted under the animated part, it would always be displayed as the bottom layer! An earlier update also added the “Import frames as Layers” feature.
With the update 2.3.11 released 2020-09-07, Onion Skin Mode was renamed into Animation Mode
Frrom 2020-10-12, it was possible now to export GIFs from Firealpaca directly with version 2.3.17 and onwards.
Starting from 2021-07-12 and version 2.5.7, all animation mode features were moved under their own menu. File exports were still handled from the File menu, but you could now export more than still frame PNG sequences. It also became possible to specify the display time of frames in auto-playback - change the fps. This meant the autoplay function now let you set the fps. A/N: Although I personally remember that changing the fps settings was always a feature, I might remember wrong - so if anyone has screenshots of that, reply in the comments!
In 2021, this update also meant that the AlpacaDouga service was discontinued:
But the Animation Mode itself got more quality updates, such as extra onion skin settings (changing the color of the onion skin frames) as well as onion skin numbering.
This is what the animation menu has looked like now from 2021 to now in version 2.14.1 (january 2026 update)
Now it is possible to export as frames, as GIF, APNG and even MP4.
For the sake of archiving this log, especially since it's not documented on this blog, here's the old update log from 2015, google translated from the japanese update log:
FireAlpaca version 1.5.0 released (2015-10-21)
Add pattern brush and bitmap watercolor brush
Allows free deformation of folders (applies to 1,8,32bpp layers)
Supports parsing correction during free deformation
Added Onion Skin Display Mode
Added layer sequential PNG output function (in onion skin mode)
Layer auto-play function (in Onion Skin mode)
Change UI color to blue base
Move the filter to an independent menu
Enables movement lock of color palette
Fixed some bugs
And that's it! I can't believe Animation mode in Firealpaca is already more than 10 years old! Thank you for reading this far and I hope this helps more people become interested in using this under-appreciated feature of Firealpaca!
Shout-out to a friend from discord for asking about the animation mode (they didn't know I run this blog), so I thought it would be nice to make a little overview of some of the history of animation mode :)
FireAlpaca Ver 2.14.1
( 2026/01/22 )
When multiple layers are selected, adding a layer folder now automatically groups the selected layers into that folder.
Fixed rasterization and onion skin generation issues in animation mode.
Fixed a bug that could cause the app to crash when moving a layer folder with only one layer selected.
