Graphic Narratives

Welcome to my writing/drawing blog! Here I will be documenting my journey as I work to gain a foundation in drawing and storytelling, with the eventual goal of creating comic-style art and graphic novels. I'll be sharing my progress, discussing techniques, and showcasing my work along the way. Join me as I strive to develop my skills in both art and writing. Let's create some cool stuff together!

[fsnowzombie]

Armored Lady Monday

Now that spooky month is over, im back on my bullshit of drawing my ffxiv character in all the classes, it doesnt matter how tiny of a lizard woman you are, when people are on the floor in pain they will look up at you

hope you like iiiiit

full res at patreon!

[souriatm]

[bbybluemochi]

[OC] a witch and the lovecraftian monster she summoned by accident 🔮🐙♡ (witch OC belongs to @ greenmoonie on twitter! and the eldritch moster girl is my new baby)

[souriatm]

[vashito]

obsessed with Karlach patreon

[souriatm]

[souriatm]

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-036

Took a little break from the blog again but we’re back up and running. Today we looked at establishing the center of gravity and its importance when drawing characters.

Establishing center of gravity is important in character drawing for many reasons. It can help create dynamic poses for our characters as well as establish visual flow. It can also make your character seem more grounded and realistic.

As you can see in the figure drawings, If the center line drawn from the head is anywhere between the two feet or on one of them, then the character will look fine. It doesn’t have to be dead center as it could be a character is placing more weight on one foot, but is still balanced.

If the line drawn from the head is not in between the feet then it will look as if the character is about to fall or will just generally look silly. This could be an intentional choice, say if a character is slipping or has been tripped up.

Good to know this little piece of information as it seems like one of those rules that seem insignificant but actually plays a huge role in creating realistic characters.

I’ve finished the current course I’m on so for now I’m going to post some practice work that I’ve been doing until I come across a more advanced course that will be suitable for me to establish my art style.

Stay tuned!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-035

Following up on yesterday, today I learned how to structure figure drawings. This helps to provide a solid foundation for the artwork you are producing.

Properly structured figure drawings allow you to capture the overall gesture or pose that you want to bring across in your figure. Getting good at this will make you better at drawing characters from your own head.

It’s been covered before, but it essentially comes down to breaking the body parts into their geometric shapes. I used the same pose as yesterday for a reference. For female figures, you want to break the torso and pelvis down into trapezoids of sorts, as females typically have rounder body shapes compared to men. With men you would use cube shapes to draw those features. The arms and legs can be broken down into cylinders and you can sketch the outlines of the hands and feet.

Parts of my sketch here need improvement as it’s important to initially keep the different appendages seperate, having them attached isn’t necessary at this stage as you would later just connect them in your more detailed drawing.

I’ve already gone over this before so it wasn’t to much trouble to learn. As an exercise, I’m going to find references on the internet and draw those poses out using shapes.

I really feel as though my drawing ability is coming together nicely. The more I learn and the more I practice, the more confident I am becoming in this field, which is really exciting!

Next I’ll be going over how to find the center of gravity in my drawings. See you tomorrow!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-034

Today’s focus was on learning how to sketch the human form which is an essential aspect of art and drawing.

Learning form helps you to understand and create realistic representations of objects, people and environments. It can also improve your observational skills allowing you to interpret things much better.

For a reference, I chose this woman’s pose (apologies for the low-res image). I initially was gonna do something a bit more complex, but you’ve got to learn to walk before you can run.

Initally I started with a quick rough sketch as a way of warming up before moving onto the “final draft” so to speak.

I feel as though it is pretty accurate in terms of the large shape of the body. The feet and hands are not too well done because I don’t know how to draw them well enough yet. It was also a challenge doing the left arm as I had to try and create the perspective of it partially being behind the woman. Its a bit bigger than the other arm but for a first try, I’m happy overall.

This is something I’m gonna dedicate quite a bit of time to practicing because it’s going to be an important aspect of my future drawings and work.

Tomorrow I’ll be looking at how better to structure figure drawings. Happy Monday!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-033

Today was focused on the drawing of hair. This was a very fun lesson and I feel the techniques shown came naturally to me.

To begin with, I had to outline the general shape of the hair. The important thing when doing this is using a reference, because this will make it easier as you aren’t trying to replicate a mental image. It’s also important to use references because this will mean you can build up a mental library of sorts, with different hairstyles that you can apply to characters in the future.

The next step is to add shading and highlights. You would apply shading to wherever locks of hair overlap (like in my female hairstyle) as well as applying dark tones to areas of hair that are not being hit by light. I’ve tried applying my highlights towards the top of the head on both styles.

To provide more detailing with the hair, I was shown a technique where you quickly draw lines onto the page, initially pressing down hard with the pencil and easing pressure as you go along. I attempted this on part of my female hairstyle and I was given specific exercises to improve this skill, however I feel as though it would be better for me to just work on the skill by drawing hair more often.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this lesson! Later I may post some of the practice work I’ve done over the week. Tomorrow I will be moving onto learning to draw human form.

Have a great week!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-032

The last feature of the human face, today I learned a great method for drawing the ear.

As you can see, drawing the ear from the side view initially starts out with a basic oval shape, a teardrop shape along the bottom, which will become the lobe and a curved Y shape which will become the detail within the ear.

Looking a the front view drawing now, it seems to be a bit too wide (unless a character with ears that really stick out is what you’re going for of course). The idea is that you take the same basic oval shape and squish it, so essentially you should only be able to see the parts of the ear that protrude out, the outer ear and inner cartilage etc. The concept is the same with the rear view of the ear, squishing the basic shape down even further and then adding much less detail.

These methods are really handy as the ears are one of those things in drawing that, on your own, you just can’t seem to get right and once again, it comes down to establishing the basic geometric shape.

I’m really excited to try drawing some more faces with the knowledge I have gained in the features now! I can’t wait to add more depth to my characters. I’ve been practicing a hell of a lot more this week as well, so tomorrow I’ll do a big post containing all the things I’ve been working on.

Getting closer to my goals! See you tomorrow!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-031

Today focused on drawing lips correctly, which went a lot smoother than yesterday’s lesson.

I already had a good idea on how to draw lips, but it was the shading that added another level to the drawings.

Drawing lips boils down to sketching a slightly curved line, and placing a small v shape on the top side, which will become the top lip. On the bottom side of the line, you draw a small oval which will help ensure the lips look full as well as create a highlight later. You then draw a curved line from each appendage of the v and across the bottom of the oval, and then shade everything in midtone, missing out the oval itself.

I really like the effect that the shading created, it really added a sense of realism to the lips.

Drawing lips at an angle turned out pretty easy as well, you basically apply the same method, but shorten the line a bit and add a vertical line three quarters across to give more space to one side of the lips. You also shade in a darker tone on the smaller side as that will be being hit by less light. There is not much to say on the profile lips because I’m pretty sure anyone could do that, a straight line to represent the upper lip and a bowed out one for the lower lip

I’m valuing the shading the most during these lessons because as I said before, they really add depth to the drawing and will help make my faces more interesting looking.

Another productive day! Tomorrow I’m moving onto drawing the ear which will be very interesting to learn.

Have a great weekend!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-030

Today was focusing on learning to draw the nose and boy, did I get frustrated at this…

Firstly, I went into this lesson feeling like I didn’t need to do it. I have a method for drawing noses that I’m pretty happy with. It consists of drawing a simple horseshoe shape, creating two nostrils either end of that and then drawing the outline and features of the nose around that. I went in with an open mind however, thinking that I may learn a technique that is more effective than mine when drawing the nose from a front facing angle.

That did not happen. You can see my failed attempts at the method the instructor was teaching me. The idea was to create three circles, one central one and two smaller ones which overlap. Then you would add the nostrils and shading for the underside of the nose and then create the outline using the circles. I did not like this method at all, it seemed like a lot of unnecessary steps for a nose that doesn’t even look that good.

There were some good things I learned of course. Learning to shade noses properly added a level of depth that mine have been lacking. As well as this, learning to draw a nose in profile was really simple and handy. It is basically drawing an upside down seven and then rounding it out to the shape and angle you want.

Overall I would say a positive lesson, even with some roadblocks. Excited to go more in depth with facial features!

See you tomorrow.

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-029

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, so its a good job I’m learning how to draw them properly. (I realise these drawings are kind of all over the place, so I’ve numbered and labeled the important aspects. Sorry about that!)

1. Firstly, a quick anatomy lesson for you. The structure of the eye consists of: The white of the eye, the Iris, which is responsible for pulling open and closing the pupil and the pupil is responsible for letting light into the cavernous part of the eye of the eyeball (pictured left).

2. Next, the different eye shapes:

Almond-eye shape: The almond eye shape has a slightly elongated oval shape. To draw this eye type, start with a basic oval shape and add the eyelids and details accordingly.

Round eye shape: Round eyes have a circular shape (Crazy, I know) with equal distance between the upper and lower eyelids.

Hooded eyes: hooded eyes have a fold of skin that partially covers the upper eyelid, making it less visible. To draw this eye, depict the fold of skin slightly drooping over the upper eyelid, giving the eye less shape.

Upturned eyes: Upturned eyes have a slight lift at the outer corner, giving them a cheerful appearance. Draw this by drawing the almond eye and angle the outer corners slightly upward without the usual crease.

Monolid eyes: Monolid eyes have an eyelid that has no crease, creating a smooth, flat appearance. To depict this, draw a continuous curve for the eyelid without the usual crease.

I then moved onto how the position of the eye features can concey different emotions. For example, the eye in the middle has no features, giving it a neutral look, but if we heighten the upper eyelid, we can convey a look of shock, fear or surprise. Likewise when the eyelid is drooped down, we see a tired or bored look.

The addition of the eyebrow can add even more complexity to the emotions we convey. Notice how when adding an eyebrow, suddenly the look of shock changes to a look of anger.

Eyes are something I have issues with so this something I’m definitely going to practice and really nail down. My eye skills currentky seem to be the main thing letting down my faces so this will eb very handy to nail down.

A very productive day of learning to draw, with a tiny science lesson added in!

More tomorrow!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-028

Sticking with faces, today was a look at drawing faces in a profile view.

This was much easier than drawing faces straight on but it did have its own challenges, namely making sure all the features of the face were aligned correctly.

In future I’m going to show a picture of the basic shape structure before going further into the drawing but right now I’ll describe how it looked before all the detail. Initially the head consisted of a circle with a horizontal line through the center, this line helps you to know where to position the eyes and top of the ears, then a curved line is drawn from the circle, with the nose and lips seperate from the eyes by about a thirds width for the nose and two thirds width for the lips.

Again, it seemed that drawing specific features were a roadblock for me. Initially the jaw was far lower so I had to adjust it. Then the issue of detailing the hair came up again (although I do think I’ve done better here than I did yesterday).

Another issue I seem to have when drawing faces is shading. It seems to me I don’t have the fine motor skills to apply shading correctly yet, as my midtone and shadow seem to look really jagged when I’m actually just trying to subtly add depth to the face.

My main issues at the moment seem to be my lack of time using a pencil so I’m going to up the ante in practicing throughout this week and I’ll do a weekly dump of all the practice drawings I’ve done.

See you tomorrow!

[graphic--narratives]

Laying The Foundation-027

It’s my birthday today, and I couldn’t think of a better present than learning to draw faces! Really excited to get to this portion of the course and very happy with the face I drew!

I’ve delved into drawing faces before because it’s something I’ve been eager to learn. I was pleased with how my first attempt came out (find that on my page!) and I’m even more happy with this one.

A recurring concept in drawing it seems, all it really comes down to is establishing the basic geometric shapes and then adding onto them. The top of the head began as a simple circle, the jaw and chin began as a triangle.

My last face was a male one so I decided to switch it up and go for a female face, also I wanted to challenge myself with a more complex hairstyle. Obviously it has flaws, the eyes are a bit basic, due to the fact that I forgot to incorporate the eyelids as well as the fact I’m not yet an expert at drawing eyes. The hair is also a bit messy, the basic shape I was going for is there, but the line work seems a bit all over the place.

I’m not frustrated at these flaws however because I think these things are something that will improve with time and consistency. I’ve noticed my instructor has a certain nuance when it comes to the finer details, but he’s clearly more experienced than me so I’ve learned to not compare what I’ve created to what he has created. Like Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy”.

Anyway, overall I’m very happy with the results of this lesson and I am definitely going to be practicing faces a lot so I can really get good at drawing them.

See you tomorrow!