How art? @howdoesart - Tumblr Blog

Fly, you need tell us how you draw FACIAL EXPRESSIONS PLS🙏

EVERYTIME YOU POST ART I TAKE MINUTES JUST STARING AT THE FACE

LIKE THE BROWS, THE WRINKLES, JUST EVERYTHING IS AMAZING AND I LOVE IT

SO PLEASE TELL US YOUR SECRET IN DRAWING FACES

The secret is to make the face irl LAWL.

but u also gotta really look at how each of the parts of the face move Lemme use mugman as an example because he has very exaggerated features

these all use the same base but they all have very identifiable expressions

Eyebrows are the easiest way to indicate an emotion/expression. Thats why i love to give very expressive characters large eyebrows. However in 2nd doodle (stressed mug), sometimes to get a proper expression across you need to remove the eyebrows entirely BECAUSE they are so expressive

I find that removing eyebrows allows for a more shocked/horrified expressions because eyebrows let others empathize more. The lack of eyebrows creates a sense of unease and uncanniness

Wrinkles are also very important to give your character if you want either a comedic expressions, OR a very serious and intense expression. It gives your character details for the viewer to analyze.

another thing that can help with expressions is perspective, (ex: the kubrick stare) and different mouth shapes and positions.

the fun part about expressions too is that theres multiple ways to showcase one feeling. Example:

all of the main cast is feeling shock/fear, but express it differently

Cuphead smiles bcs any fear he feels is mixed with intrigue and excitement. Bendy's mouth is agape in disbelief because his character is usually suspended in a realist nature, making these supernatural experiences very hard to believe in. Pebble is very a young puppy, when he's frightened he gets low to the ground, stares intently, and shakes.

Shelly, boris, and mugman may seem like they have the same expressions, which is true, but they have pretty different reactions. Mugs eyebrows raise and his mouth get smaller, aka he gets more alert. Boris's head goes back, fur stands on end, and his ears fly up, making him bigger almost like a defense mechanism. Shelly stares with small pupils and her shoulders square up, making her feel stuck/frozen.

ultimately you just gotta push what the characters feel to the extremes, and the biggest piece of advice i can give is DONT BE AFRAID TO MAKE YOUR CHARACTERS UGLY! Feelings are intense and sometimes ugly themselves, and thats what makes them so satisfying to look at.

tangledbea

Varian and the Seven Kingdoms Consolidation of Info

Requested by anon

This is going to be a consolidation of all the official Vat7K stuff I have on my blog, including copy/pasting of posts Kay Ritter and Anna Lencioni have posted, and to a lesser extent, things I’ve posted with insider knowledge I had before Kay ever released their notes. Alexa Bosy was also involved in the project.*

*Please note that all these asks were sent when Kay was still going by Kait and was still using she/her pronouns. I have edited to reflect their preferred name and pronouns when referencing them, but did not edit the content of the original asks.

Keep reading

midwinterhunt

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

narrettwist

Homie gonna share this

flabbergasties

Oh also! Do you have any writing exercises to recommend?

writing exercises! i'll always rec steering the craft: exercises and discussions on story writing for the lone navigator or the mutinous crew by ursula k le guin for any and all writing exercies. get yourself a copy and spent a day on each chapter, you'll end up with a fun two week writing course and maybe a few exercises that can become longer works!

my favorite (from that book) is the "gorgeous language" exercise. write, like, 500 words focused solely on the phonetics. a paragraph filled with alliteration, slant rhymes, the rhythm of the words. sometimes that alone can steer you in the direction of a story.

ursula explains it better, but i think it works well for me because i think i'm a very...phonetics-first writer, like the musicality of the prose is how i tend to think. so having the freedom to be totally divorced from plot, characters, setting, etc and just play in sound knocks things loose for me.

a few other ones that get me going:

"writing off the page" — open a book to any page, pick a line, and have that be the first line of whatever you write next

write a story with no punctuation, write a story that's only dialogue, write a story without any adverbs (etc & on and on)

write the same story from multiple points of view: first person, second person, third person, etc. the same story, told, like, five different ways.

^^ related to the above, write a story and then switch the pov to a character in the story that you'd otherwise have no desire or interest in writing

what exercises do all of y'all have, i am always taking new suggestions!!

whatagrump

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

thewritinggrindstone

And!

“If you’re breaking dialogue up with an action tag”—she waves her hands back and forth—”the dashes go outside the quotation marks.”

writing-is-a-martial-art

Reblog to save a writer’s life.

jaydove-writes

Thank you

localcanadiancryptid22

Oh my god thank you. No wonder grammarly keeps complaining about my punctuation when I boot my writing up into word counter

guttedpulsars

here is a master list of great art tools that can make your workflow easier! 👇 (updating, please consider supporting me on kofi or check out my other works)

aveloka-draws

How do you draw hands?

Some notes about hands I hope help a lil✨

brightgoat

Bit of an odd question:

Do you experience that many annoying or weird people who are fans of you? And if so, is it still worth it for the attention and interaction with fans?

For context, I've always really wanted a sort of small 'fandom' for my work, and bigger artists always tell me it's not worth it... But it always pisses me off because THEY HAVE what I want and it looks so fun 😭 I know there are definitely downsides, but I was curious how you felt about it 😅

There have been unpleasant interactions in the past yeah. Sometimes it was just annoying, other times genuinely stressful. It's important to have boundaries with your audience, that's what I've learned haha.

Other people have had it much MUCH worse than I, and I still often struggle dealing with things.

I was in your position, and it's normal to want eyes on your art. It's validation, it's encouraging. Some people say 'it doesn't matter how much attention your art gets', but the truth is, for a lot of people - art is MADE so that it's looked at. Comics are made to be READ. I have this mindset myself, so I totally get it. I say go for it, just be ready for what it takes and for what may happen....

cloudyrorrii

try it out here!! this is a small passion project me and my friend have been tinkering with on and off over the past few weeks, and i'm really happy to finally share it with you all! (warning we're still tinkering with the css so the website might look kind of wonky depending on what device/browser you're on) in a lot of ways this is also a gift to fourleafisland's lovely art community, so i want to say thanks to them for inspiring the concept and letting use their minnow design! ^^

eameschairs

me and @microbiologistmusings made a guide! we were talking about how frustrating it can be when so much (well meaning!) art of wheelchair users seems to get the chairs...not quite right. so maybe this will help :) i had a lot of fun drawing it and thank u to levi for your unending wisdom <3

lettersunderthecrypt

Hii!! I saw you said you use Obsidian to help plan out your stories and chapters.

I just downloaded it but I was wondering if you have any tips on how to organize it for story writing??

Omg of course!!

While I think Obsidian can be user friendly, it's definetly a learning curve. I'll put some writing tips and a tutorial! Here's how to get started!!

Here are some links that helped me a bunch:

Here's a link to using Obsidian for Writing and Worldbuilding

Link to using Obsidian for Notes; but still helpful!

(I'm using screenshots from a diff vault than Night Terrors)

Getting Started:

Congrats! You've just downloaded Obisidian and have no idea how the fuck this works - understandable

Your initial screen might look something like this:

So you're thinking to yourself - what the hell is a vault?

A vault helps keep your projects seperated and is a local file on your computer - YOU CANNOT ACCESS YOUR VAULT ON A DIFFERENT COMPUTER OR THROUGH A WEB BROWSER (Unless you pay for ObsidianSync) - it sucks, but that's just a con of working with it - hopefully they do create a web version soon.

From this screen, pick a vault name (let's say my fic title is TITLE1 - so I would write that.)

I don't think hard on where it's stored so I just save it to wherever it suggested.

You Made Your Vault! Now What?

You should end up at this screen, but what are all these icons?

The Top Row above the Welcome note (from left to right)

New Page: Creates a new page

New Folder: Creates a new folder

Filter: Allows you to filter pages

Auto Reveal Current File: When you toggle this on, the active page you were looking at is selected in the file navigator and nested folders get expanded (basically shows you where your note is in the file navigator)

Collaspe All: Collaspes everything into their folders

The Side Bar from top to bottom:

Open Quick Switcher: This is a plug-in (more on that later) that allows you to search and open notes using your keyboard

Open Graph View: This opens that brain looking thingy, basically allows you to see how your files are interconnected if you use tags and can be a great way to visually look at your story

Create New Canvas: This allows you to make a new canvas, I use this the most for storyboarding and connecting plot lines:

Open Command Palate: This beauty allows you to quickly run almosty any command available (navigating, opening, creating, inserting templates, editing properties/text formatting, changing themes, literally everything)

Create New Base: Lets you create a database of your files

Okay, I just learned the key tools, can I start writing now?

Yes! Obsidian is ready to go!! Let's learn what we can do with it now:

Here's an example of me starting to write a chapter and linking ideas together. I'm using the tag properties to link this chapter to other chapters and see which ones connect, also makes it easier to find chapters or notes by properties (for writing you can make this key plot points, characters, places certain events take place)

I also made a link back to the main page - World Tours so I can quickly go back and forth, you'll see me link EXO in the World Tours below:

Canvassing:

Canvassing is the most powerful tool you can use for storybuilding

You can connect chapters, ideas, everything!

Example:

How I use canvassing:

My biggest tip is UTILIZE canvas!!

Graph View:

You can use graph view to see how things are connected - you can make it as complicated or as basic as you want

Basic Graph I'm using here:

More complicated view:

Plug-Ins and More

What's a plug-in? A plug-in is a feature that lets you extend Obsidian into a custom-note taking experience. There are Obsidian plug-ins, community plug-ins, you can even create your own. I suggest you play with vanilla obsidian before you start to put plug-ins:

How do I add a plug-in?

You can add plug ins by going to the bottom left of your screen, click on the settings icon

Click on community plug-ins

Then you need to enable community plug-ins by click enable by the community plug-ins, i already clicked enable so the icon shows Browse for me

Once you click browse, you should end up here:

Best Plug-ins that I use frequently:

Fantasy Name Generator: Automatically creates fantasy names

Dialouge: Allows you to create dialogues in markdown

Example:

Word Count: Better Word Count, Daily Stats, Writing Goals

Proofreading: Red Pen, Dictonary

Editing: Commentater, Readability Score

Longform: Writing a novel? The BEST plug-in,

Templater: Allows you to create templates. It defines a templating language that lets you insert variables and functions results into your notes. It will also let you execute JavaScript code manipulating those variables and functions.

Style Settings: This allows you to create themes, MUST HAVE if you want to change your theme

Iconize: Adds Icons to anything in Obsidian

Sentence Rhythm: Helps swat away monotous sentences

Plug-ins I don't personally use but many people find useful

Typewriter, Dataview, Tasks, Kanban, Calendar,

You can always search through plug-ins to find ones you want

You just learned the core mechanics of Obsidian! So let's learn some other tips and tricks!

Obsidian Tricks:

Learn Markdown

Learn how to create links

Learn how to add tags to your notes

Learn about Quick Switcher

Learn how to create in canvas!!!!!!

Make use of core plug-ins

Start small - you can make obsidian as complicated as you want AFTER you learn the system

Create notes casually, don't worry about linking or tagging immediately, just write and do the other stuff later (write first, then build your system)

You can use the double [[]] square brackets to create a link to a page - even if that page is not created yet

Learn how to utilize MOC (Map of Contents) - this is a singular page that links back to everything, houses templates, organizes notes, all that jazz

Writing Tips:

Write, write, write! Write thoughts for new chapters, ideas, places, dialogue, write everything

Make it exist, then make it make sense, then make it good

Plan out your next four chapters before writing the next one

Example: Make sure you know the flow of Chapters 1-4 before writing 1, you'll kick yourself in the head when your story flow starts to change or need to make edits to link stuff in further chapters

Pacing: This ties back to planning out your chapters, don't get lost in one moment, keep it moving

Your writing will suck: it's inevitable, don't think about it too hard just keep writing

That's all I have for Obsidian! I hope you enjoy the platform - it's called the king of notetaking for a reason!

There are plenty of other features obsidian utilizes, I would encourage sniffiing around Youtube and Reddit to find them

fangirlinginleatherboots

just so yall know

art block is your brain telling you to do studies.

draw a still life. practice some poses. sketch some naked people. do a color study. try out a different technique on a basic shape.

art block doesnt stop you from drawing, it stops you from making your drawings look the way you want them to. and thats because you need to push your skills to the next level so you can preform at that standard

think of it as level grinding for your next work.

gallusrostromegalus

As a scientific illustrator- this is 100% true and going to review your basics will fix it every goddamn time. Not only does it keep your skills sharp, when you’re not emotionally invested in the final product of a piece, you relax and your brain makes more/better art juice for you. So, when you get back to that big/important piece? You’ll know what to do and how to do it.

Nothing in nature blooms all year round. Rest, and take care of yourself.

20th-centuryghost

HEY ARTISTS!

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

There’s a lot of really specific stuff in here, I design a lot of 1930s characters for my ask blog and with more chapters on the way for the game it belongs to I’m gonna be designing more, and this website is going to be an invaluable reference. I hope this can be useful to my other fellow artists as well! :)

anonbeadraws

I made a Room Building tutorial! Lemme know if it helps! 🧡

Tip me here| Commission info here!

butchlinkle

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

girl-under-pressure

I too dyscalculic for this type of shit 😭😭

butchlinkle

it's honestly a lot simpler than it looks, you're just connecting corners and drawing lines where they intersect. I really recommend you just grab a scrap piece of paper and try it and i'm certain it'll click! It's one of those things that makes more sense when you try it yourself.

The perspective examples I showed above look complicated, but the underlying technique is very simple. You just keep splitting the rectangle until it's divided up evenly as many times as you need it to be.

The stairs were split in half multiple times to divide it into 8, the cell door was divided into thirds and then those thirds were split in half to give 6 lines.