Hey artists, C. Spike Trotman, founder of Iron Circus Comics, just posted an invaluable thread on depicting different types of black hair. I’d do the thing where you screencap the whole thread and post it but it’s just too long (which is great because it’s a whole lot of useful information!) Give her a follow while you’re there.
Anyway, go check it out. I just wanted to save it and share it because I didn’t know how much I didn’t know!
The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:
With the mention of Mewtwo’s broken ribs I wanna ask- how do you paint/color bruises like that? I admire how much they look like real bruising~ Do you have a color swatch by chance?
I forget what I used to be honest lol. Though I currently have better brushes to make bruises and skin blemishes. And I don't, but I do have a tutorial I found on Pinterest to look at in case I need it
"the curtains weren't blue on purpose. why should we care?"
my love! let me ask you this - did you eat breakfast today? this tiny moment in your life. just think about it. did you?
for some of you, the answer is yes and for some of you it is technically and for some of you it is does coffee count. some of you reached for cereal or gmo-free overnight oats or frozen waffles or 3-day-old pizza. sometimes we eat the same thing, every day, for weeks. i get tired of eggs randomly, only to go back to craving them desperately. i'm cuban; i take my coffee like my father showed me, very milky and sweet.
some of us ate in a hurry. some of us hate eating breakfast but if we don't we will get nauseous later. some of us took our meds first or took our meds after. some of us have a kitchen 5 feet wide and sometimes it's the biggest room in the house. some of us are confident there will be food in the pantry and some of us flinch and say well, the paycheck is coming. some of us turn on a podcast while we eat or we scroll our phones or write in our diaries.
some of us are choosing, specifically, not to eat breakfast. some of us are too busy. some of us are pretending we "just forgot," but we are ignoring the warning signs that everything feels too-heavy. some of us are so consumed with anxiety or grief that we can't eat. some of us can't stand up long enough to make our coffee. some of us have no table to sit down and eat.
i cannot tell you what an artist "meant" by their choices. but they did have to make a choice, conscious or otherwise, to give you information. to give you a little bit more light. each of these choices are little stars of data; connecting speckles for you to weave through, drawing a line.
you cannot use a mirror in a dark room. for some of us; we will not care that the curtains are blue, because that will just be a data point and not enough light to see by. for some of us, the blue curtains will be the same as our childhood bedroom. it will make us seasick. for some of us, blue will be the color of frostbite. it might look like a pixel up close; but from a distance, oh! the picture blooms.
i cannot tell you what will stick out for you. what will carry meaning. some of you will read the sentence "i didn't have breakfast today" and say "this means nothing." some of you will read that and say "oh, me neither." some of you will say "this means the character is probably a little grouchy." some of you will say "oh, i wonder if they're okay. why didn't they eat anything?" ... art is a mirror. i am holding hands with you, over space and time, and asking you to feel something with me.
i want you to read my work and find a blue pair of curtains. i want you to read my work and find things in it that i never imagined placing. i have no way of knowing what will resonate with you, that's true. and maybe i just was hungry while i wrote this, and thinking about the eggs in my fridge. but if you found meaning, that meaning is yours. it cannot be erased just because i didn't "intend" it. you created a different world by interpreting my work. it's collaborative! that's beautiful! that's stunning!
just! imagine looking at the night sky and saying - it's stupid to have a favorite constellation or a favorite star. they're just there.
because here's the thing - across centuries and cultures, we look up. we still find meaning in the stars. these beautiful, lovely scattered accidents. are you looking? they call. and we look back and say oh! of course we are!
Once, when I was still a very young writer, a friend of mine was doing me a favor and editing a piece for me. It was a short piece focused around the concepts of loss and re-connection, growth and separation and the pieces of yourself that are held inside of others.
When my friend had finished her first read-through and was gathering her thoughts she called me and, completely breathless with excitement, said, "I love the way you structured this! The seasons changing with each new movement, the fact that each passage initiates a new physical aspect of the reunion- I just love that." It was all she could talk about for fifteen minutes. What beautiful motion I had created, how circular it made the whole piece feel.
She was so excited that I couldn't bring myself to tell her that none of her favorite parts of the story were intentional. I didn't realize I'd done any of those things when I was writing it. But upon rereading for myself, I could see what she meant. The opening of a door, the crushed leaves of fall, the first step toward a new life. It was all lying in wait for me. I only needed another pair of eyes to show me the way.
All of that to say that nothing is created in a vacuum, and the choices that we make are, in fact, choices- whether we realize we're making them or not. Life is collaborative, which means that art is, too. By default. The things that my friend saw in my art and in me changed my perception of my own piece and in this way, we made something together.
That's how this is meant to go. All of us learning from one another collectively, changing each other on and on. Forever.
i think a lot of media makes the mistake of treating the child as a cardboard cutout of idealized childhood (state of purity, unfiltered joy, innocence) and its only thru corruption of that ideal that the past selves of adults are made complex. which is a very poor view of childhood and it makes child characters profoundly unsatisfactory at its lamest and borderline reactionary at its most egregious
a lot of writers are great at writing adults bc they see adults as people with 1. motivations 2. a past 3. a concrete ability to work towards a goal. all of these are things children are presumed to lack, for one reason or another - adults see children as impulsive, distracted by every shiny thing, when not all children are like that, and the impulsiveness of certain children still does not preclude underlying desires that are consistent to them; children have a way higher past:person ratio than the average adult! week for week, children are more profoundly affected by regular experiences because it is all new to them. everything sticks, and they remember. what they don't remember and what they do can be random at times and less random at others, but each child has (again) an underlying logic for what gets held onto harder than other things; children's lack of ability to work towards their goal is in large part why they are so prone to meltdowns. if you couldn't drink a glass of water when you're thirsty - if you had to get someone to help you each time, you'd end up pretty pissed every time they dragged their heels as well. and if that was true for everything you needed? [a/n: i'm aware this is reality for many disabled people! which is why adultism and ableism are so closely entwined as well]. but children ARE capable of working towards many of their goals in their own ways, whether those are emotional or physical goals.
but if you don't see children as people, though, all of those things fall apart, and you end up with the...idea of what role this creature is supposed to fill in the lives of people who look at her. this is inherently dehumanizing, make no mistake, it makes the child something that never appears to experience emotions that don't fill that idea or diverge strongly from that role, which in turn makes the character flat and uninteresting. there's no reason for us to care what happens to her, narratively, because the only thing we do have to care about is what happens to the people who care about her. she's not a character, she's an object that furthers the emotions of the other characters. she's a morality pet, or meaninglessly cute, or an aesop. there's nothing outside that for her. you could replace her with a puppy and literally nothing would change.
This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.
I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.
I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.
Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.
Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.
Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:
All selected?
Good.
Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.
You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.
Either way, let's add some color to the text.
Once that's finished,
You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect
You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.
Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.
This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.
Hooray, you've finished your watermark!
Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.
You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.
From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.
If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.
And for lots of black, you have Linear Light
Either way, you're in business!
As a note, I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still being effective.
There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!
This post pissed off an AI weeb who, with their multiple accounts, decided to whine about how copyrights for smalltime artists are tyranny or something.
That gives me a fair indication that I'm doing something right. ;V
Let me also restate that no anti-theft measure is foolproof. There are going to be ways around watermarks, always. A properly determined individual can always figure out methods of removing it.
However: add enough layers of frustration, and most will not see the point in bothering. Removing a speckled watermark from multiple images takes the kind of time and effort AI bros are, rather famously, unwilling to put in. If they have to do it for a whole gallery, most won't go through the trouble.
I am so serious when I say if you want to learn about light, you NEED to at least look at modeseven’s tutorials. even if you’re not pursuing a painterly style, this is all essential theory that can be easily adapted to different coloring styles. notice how none of these ever say ‘light with these colors and shade with these colors’? notice how this is teaching how light works on a mechanical level, and reminding the audience to adjust the actual colors they choose by context? THAT is good advice.
(if you’re thinking ‘wow I want to study more of this persons art!’ I encourage you to do so, but proceed with the knowledge that modeseven draws pretty much exclusively weird as hell kink art. sometimes wisdom comes from horny places)
This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.
I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.
I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.
Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.
Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.
Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:
All selected?
Good.
Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.
You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.
Either way, let's add some color to the text.
Once that's finished,
You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect
You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.
Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.
This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.
Hooray, you've finished your watermark!
Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.
You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.
From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.
If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.
And for lots of black, you have Linear Light
Either way, you're in business!
EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:
An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).
I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.
There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!
Some art posting tips for the artists migrating over here, as a Certified Tumblr Artist Veteran™️ who's never stopped posting here in a decade:
1. Don't add links under all of your posts
It means they won't show up in search results or tags, it's better to have the one pinned post with links at the top of your blog or links in your description. Alternatively like I do, you can keep links out of posts when you're just posting your art on its own, then only add them to posts that are specifically calling to visit another site (e.g. you're promoting a Kickstarter)
2. You don't need to use really specific tags like on Instagram, and the first 5 ones you use are the ones that count
I remember a few years back it was passed around that the key to getting attention on Instagram was using alternating niche tags, but now some artists just do it everywhere when it won't really do you any favours here.
The first 5 tags you use are the ones that appear in search results, the best general tags to use are #art and #artists on tumblr then after that use ones more specific to you such as say, #illustration or #digital art (also notice these have spaces between the words as tags mostly do on this website)
3. Keep your posts pretty and clean looking
A lot of users can be particular about what they have on their blog because they're trying to keep it clean and aesthetic looking, if your posts are overall pleasing to the eye including the description I've found people are more likely to reblog your posts. That means avoiding massive paragraphs with needless hashtags in the description, and uploading high-quality photosets of your work that shows off the pretty details of your artworks!
As a general rule if you have a bunch of sketches or similar images they'll do much better as a photo set than posting them all individually, unlike on other social media posts do better with quality over quantity, and your post won't "expire" after like 24 hours - people will keep reblogging a post for years here especially artworks.
4. Submit to blogs
One downside for a new artist posting here is there's no algorithm to show you to random strangers to get a momentum going, and it can be hard starting off from nothing because of this. However, if you search around you'll find that there are quite a few art curation blogs here who will be happy to either reblog your art or take submissions and post your art on your behalf with links back to your blog. Just be sure it's a blog that's actively looking for artists and not a random user that you're pestering to promote your work, they usually indicate in their description that they're accepting submissions.
Some examples: @artistalley @sosuperawesome @littlealienproducts @art @supersonicart
You may even find yourself drawing the attention of the Tumblr staff who run multiple art promotion blogs and often feature artists on the Tumblr Radar (it's a little spotlight section visible both on mobile and desktop that features your post to the whole userbase, and it's very exciting getting an email that you've been selected! :D)
5. Read the tags under your posts
Due to an old habit that the website collectively held onto from the days where replies hadn't been added to posts yet, a lot of people use the tags to basically ramble their thoughts under a post they're reblogging.
What does this have to do with artists? Well a lot of people will think out loud in the tags about your art and you can read them all under your post, I find it really supportive and endearing and it's one of my favourite things about posting here!
6. Customise your blog on desktop
Something that new users who only use Tumblr on mobile might not notice is that your blog actually has its own webpage on desktop outside of the app with the URL "yourusernamehere(dot)tumblr(dot)com"
You can actually customise this page in HTML and there's a lot of premade layouts called "themes" either available for free or buyable in marketplaces - this can be a pretty accessible and cheap alternative to a custom portfolio website if you don't have one!
I hope some of this is useful, good luck with getting your art in front of new eyes! 💫
oh what the heckie that was way easier than I thought
I'm still very learning how to use this thing, and I very miss PS's handling of masking tools so I am waddling around trying to figure out a new workflow for myself on clip studio
HA here we go it’s called Anti-overflow. this comes in handy when you use very crisp lineart, but you don’t feel like putting down flats before you start painting. honestly tho i mostly just use either the lasso tool to select out my flats, or i select the white space around my lineart, invert the selection, and fill that with a solid color to clip all my flat colors onto. (i don’t really know much about how masking works, i’ve always just used clipping layers myself, hopefully you’re getting some use out of them too)
I have nO idea if I explained this well haha
if I made no sense feel free to ask me questions
You can find CrazyIguana’s tutorial on deviantART or on their tumblr
anyway I JUST
i see an awful lot of this
AND IT’S SUCH A SHAME
I mean theres nothing wrONg with the hair thing
it’s just that more often than not that’s aLL people do, when you could do so much more
I just did a real quick tutorial about character design. It’s focused on pokémon (cause im a dweeb), but the same concepts apply to any critters; pokemon, human or otherwise!
Reblogging this not only for artists but also for people who write werewolf (and other animal transformation) fiction. If a human turned into a wolf, their knee joints would not reverse– what some fic writers mistake for the knee is actually the ankle. A wolf’s hind feet are relatively long, and they are always walking in way roughly analogous to human “tip-toeing.”
JACKETS! I’m creating the world’s first true ENCYCLOPEDIA of drawing tutorials under the hashtag #howtoTHINKwhenyouDRAW, all of which is FREE for EVERYONE, FOREVER - you can see EVERY TUTORIAL on OUR MASSIVE INSTAGRAM HERE and OUR GIANT TWITTER HERE!
How did you get so good at drawing such expressive bodies/faces??? tell me your secrets!! (But srsly your skills are amazing)
AAAA THANK YOU!!
I think my initial inspiration was about 10-11 years ago watching Adventure Time and finding Rebecca Sugar’s boards. Sometimes I get a little frustrated because she gets so much more notoriety than the other very very amazing AT boarders, but….. her expressions man…. she was always able to convey so much with SO LITTLE. (SU’s expressions are on another level of course, but I think AT’s are just so impressive to me because they’re dot eyes)
But the thing is!! I’m also a fan of deadpan. Which AT also does very well. It’s tempting to want to do BIG, extreme expressions at every moment, especially in comedic comics, but you really don’t need to. I find that characters often feel more expressive if you reel it in more often. That way, when you DO have bigger expressions, they FEEL bigger!
for example, a panel where the contrast between big and subtle expressions sells the contrast:
I don’t really,,,, know exactly what I do that works, ?? I kind of just like, think of the emotion I wanna convey, make the expression, think about what my face feels feels like, and try to convey that. Using a mirror helps!! You’ll feel a little stupid but it’s funny.
some misc expression tips:
Definitely prioritize eyebrows, eyes, and mouths!
Noses aren’t as important BUT flared nostril can totally sell an expression, so it depends!
Remember that your upper jaw is stationary, and your lower jaw can move, and then your lips and cheeks can move all around that!
Just subtly changing the placement of eyelids and location/size of irises can completely change an expression
Don’t be afraid to make your characters look weird or stupid.
Don’t reinvent the wheel! Take reference from different media you like that stylize expressions in different ways, and find what works for you. I take a lot of inspiration from AtLA
Again, NUANCE! Like, when most people are sad, they do their very best to try NOT to cry. People hold things in. Sometimes what characters don’t say can speak louder than what they do.
some expressions I’ve done that have varying levels of nuance:
Also framing!! You can use the composition to help project how the character feels:
As for body language!
Having a better sense of three-dimensional form and anatomy isn’t necessary, but it sure helps a lot
Hands!! I have adhd and my family is italian so I use my hands a lot when I talk. But even still, most people don’t just leave their hands hanging loosely by their sides. People cross their arms and fidget with their zippers and put their hands in pockets.
Head, neck, and shoulders. If you can master the foreshortening of these overlapping shapes at most angles, you will be very powerful
Hips & feet!!!!! People RARELY stand straight with both feet flat on the ground with even balance. Most people will shift their weight to one hip, leaving one leg looser and at an angle. It also helps to practice perspective, because people also rarely stand with their heels lined up side by side. One leg may get kicked foreward or loosely bent backwards. I sometimes cross my legs when I stand.
Ultimately, if you want more lifelike expressions and poses, study from life!! Don’t worry about your drawing being “good” or “bad”, instead think about what can make it successful. Ask yourself, “is this conveying the expression I want to convey?” and if it’s not, figure out what you need to change to get it there.
Aaaaaa thanks for the response!!! I've been purposefully practicing drawing for ten years (I even tutored a bit and took some classes) but I am feeling I'm only just starting to really learn! I've been admiring your comics for a really long time and I only recently realized they were all done by the same person, you! I should have known sooner tho cus you have such a masterful grasp on expression and make me go YES THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!!! I always feel like there a spark of humanity missing in most media and character writing and You Show It! You have the humanity and I looove it!!!
do you have any tips for dialogue in comics?? mine always seems so choppy!
also please take everything i write with a grain of salt and remember that rules exist to be broken. thank you for the ask and as always: i hope this helped
Contributions greatly appreciated but not necessary! Can’t wait to see what everyone creates with these. Please open the “README” txt document first for full install instructions and a link to the video downloads.
