Moved

Defunct / Saves art refs

[raposaaaa]

42! whoever u want u v u

leon has become lobster

snkjsfj i havent done digital in so long

[raposaaaa]

and finished r the rarity redesigns! one with a horn and one without

[sabertoothwalrus]

walking into the water gym with an electric type

[sabertoothwalrus]

I just found this almost 5 year old post my brother made me make and I think it deserves some credit

[hug-bees]

Would you happen to have any tips on drawing hands? I've always had trouble drawing hands

haha

oh god

I guess I can give it a try! Hands are still kind of a big mystery to me too, and I’m definitely not perfect at them, but I can still share some tips that have helped me! So uh

As a board artist, I kinda have a shorthand for, uh, hands. When I think about hands, I divide it into the fingers and the pappy bits. What are the pappy bits?

They’re the lil squishy bits in your hands! The lil paps. They actually have a name, the thenar and hypothenar eminence. They’re the balls of muscle that rest beneath your pinky and thumb. When you close your hand, they tend to squish together and make a little fold. If you look at your right hand, look for the little seven mark on your palm. It shows the division of muscles on your hand for you!

Now fingers. They’re hard! Oh my god, I wanna scream, fingers are hard to draw. I tend to…really simplify them. Like a lot. There’s kind of this thing known as “mitten hands” that I tend to do:

They’re all kinda clumped together, which I think can be ok for storyboarding. But when you want something more dynamic, I kind of think of how fingers are grouped this way instead:

For some reason, giving the index finger its own group really helps change things up? It’s what we point with, it helps us pick things up, etc. Even if you draw all your fingers as lil sausages, it tends to stand out and rest above the other fingers on your hand. And even then, I tend to keep most of the fingers as little tubes that are easy to manage. Just look at that first drawing. That’s the best I can do. 💦💦 For recommended reading, I’d head over to Griz and Norm’s blog where they have a ton of fantastic tutorials on hands:

(source) And…that’s it. I’m sorry I don’t have as much in-depth knowledge about this as I do on other subjects, but this is still a learning process for me too! This and this tutorial post have also been a big help for me, so go ahead and check them out!

[hug-bees]

this is a 2 parter but!! could you please save your FAQ advice incase tumblr does go down and also any tips for drawing different kinds of faces, specifically for people that are different ethnicities?

I already saved my FAQ page! Tumblr’s gonna have to pry those posts from my cold dead baby hands

So without going into that whole “Calarts style” thing (which I feel is a misnomer, I’d call it the bean head) there’s a reason this is a pretty popular face shape. It’s affective! It’s simple, the proportions are super appealing, and it’s great short hand for a human face. But it’s pretty easy to get stuck drawing like this if you’re not careful! So how do we switch things up?

(image source) Let’s take a look at human faces. They’re all super different! But drawing is hard!! So how do we portray these differences?

I’m gonna be using the same techniques that I did in my last post. Experimenting with shapes, playing with soft and pointed edges. Here’s some doodles of faces I did:

When you’re trying to draw faces, it’s a good idea to keep in mind basic parts of the skull. Let’s take a look:

Notice how exaggerated these shapes are! They still have the basic components of an actual skull; jawline, cheekbones, eye sockets, etc. Playing around with these basic features can really factor into your character design. There are some basic shorthands that a lot of people know- adjusting the fullness of the lips, the sizes of the eyes. But something I think people forget to play around with the alignment of facial features. How big is the forehead? Is the nose long or short? How big are the jaw and cheekbones?

Another thing to mess with is the shape language of a face. People have natural hard and soft areas on their face- edges of cheeks and jaws tend to be more pronounced, and cheeks and areas around the eyes are softer and have more, well, flesh to them. But with if you try playing with that? What if someone doesn’t have prominent bone structure in their face? What if they’re all points and edges? Consider trying things that don’t come naturally to you for fun. It might like pretty fuggly at first, but it’s like a brain exercise.

Eyes can also really help differentiate faces. I know, some of this advice seems like drawing 101, but sometimes we forget to try doing things differently when we draw! If you draw eyes big and round, try more angular and small. Try drawing people who have loose skin around their eyes, or use square shapes instead of almond shapes.

For some reason, I always go back to this book when I need help with my character designs. The book is super dated, and is generally not how I draw at all, but it’s super useful?? It has a lot of great ideas for playing around with the human face:

It’s kind of a weird book, and it can be a bit limited (especially with drawing women, oh boy) but I’d definitely check it out. As someone who used to draw mostly anime, this was just the source I needed to help push me out of my comfort zone. 

Annnnnd happy drawing? I know this isn’t the most specific advice on drawing people of different ethnicities, but learning some basic figure drawing techniques can really help you notice how people aren’t the same. Hope this is helpful!

[lazysmirk]

Just in case you forget this exists.

It exists.

[dragonofdarknesschaos]

With those “when you want to design a character but you don’t know color theory” posts flying around I thought this would be relevant again.

[secretsivekept]

SLAMs THE REBLOG BUTTON

[niyarest]

there’s also Coolors website that gives you randomized palettes!

[tf2humbug]

Don’t forget ColourLovers, either! It’s a social media-esque site where you can browse tons of palettes and share your own.

You can browse the most popular ones or search for certain colors, themes, and even specific hex codes!

When you find one you like, you can download a wallpaper swatch of it and also select the specific colors it uses to look at more palettes that use those same ones.

ColourLovers is my go-to for when I’m having trouble coming up with a color scheme! It’s also been around for over a decade, so there’s plenty to browse through.

[bigbrotherromano-blog]

Leave a brush and a character in my ask

You know the neopet brushes? Well, I made an art challenge for it.

[yunisverse]

while getting ready to do these i discovered they have added a BUNCH of new brushes, several of which are really cool and a lot more unique than the usual palette swaps, so here’s the completionist version

[mcapriglioneart]

how to draw arms ? ? 

[swagginsloths]

holy fuck

[shoutsofthunder]

holy fuck is right… but… does it work with legs???

[mcapriglioneart]

yes !!

[empresspinto]

but how much extend

[thunar]

^^^^^^^^^^

[kvothe-kingkiller]

[gabbyzvolt25]

I NEARLY CHOKED

[lifeofcynch]

ENJFDFNFATFVFDF

[deactivated-blog]

finally. i can be accurate

[shiny-charming]

This is too fucking great to not reblog

[wishem]

I give it MASCLES

BIG MACHO

[keithislactoseintolerant-deacti]

🤣🤣

[urhella-gaychloe]

LMAOOOOOO

[fernacular]

Okay but for anyone who legit wants to know how to calculate it correctly:

The elbow joint on average rests a couple inches higher than the navel, so if you measure how long the distance is from the middle of the shoulder to that point then you have the length of the upper and fore arms!

[fernacular]

So if anyone’s wondering about legs too, the simplest rule of thumb is that the length from the top of the leg to the knee is equal to the distance between the top of the leg and the bottom of the pectorals:

And I wanna stress that when i say “top of the leg” i’m not talking about the crotch (please don’t flag me tumblr it’s an anatomical term) i’m talking about the point where the femur connects to the pelvis, which is higher up on the hips:

It’s easier to see what I’m talking about in this photo of a man squatting: 

So yeah if you use that measurement when using this technique you should get fairly realistically proportioned legs:

But remember! messing with proportions is an important and fun part of character design! Know the rules first so you can then break them however you please!

[im-a-hyperion-vault-hunter-deac]

HOW THE HELL DID I FIND THIS POST OMG

[thefusspot]

So it appears that Autodesk did a thing.

Go nuts, my friends.

[erudipitous]

this is my favorite art program. it’s *much* more intuitive than photoshop/gimp or corel paintshop, but it still has the full functionality of a digital art program (layers, brush stabilizer, etc.). it’s not overwhelming to start on like practically every other decent art program I’ve tried, you can just pick a brush and start drawing as if it were paper if you want. plus you can download extra brushes for free! and they publish free art tutorials pretty regularly

[gauntletspirit]

ANYONE looking for a free art program: worth looking into.

[turbomun]

YALL I LOVE THIS PROGRAM, especially the ipad version!! and i’m psyched that i don’t have to pay $30 a year for it anymore!!!

[im-gabriels-bitch]

Save an artist and r e b l o g

[stringbing-deactivated20210318]

Animation smears lecture from Chapter 3 or FULL VERSION of my Complete Introduction to 2D Animation which you can find on https://gumroad.com/stringbing

[saffronhills]

I forgot I still lack consistency here’s leon

[saffronhills]

Anyway u can find me at dreamydiscus on deviantArt dot com as I do more bullshit

[polararts]

If you think your art blog is going to be deleted:

You can save all your posts with these instructions I’ll do it too just to be safe, I honestly don’t remember what I’ve posted here over the years.

[1ivoryandsalt1]

You can also import a copy of your blog into wordpress. YMMV if you have a huge amount of posts.

[polararts]

Oh thanks!! This is also a good one!! In case the first doesn’t work or you don’t have the memory for a whole zip of your blog~

[haybalesims]

[dropkickpikachu]

ba groba naby dooni tudem

[saffronhills]

tfw gore was flagged..........time to put it all on dA.................

[toastyglow]

people be like “don’t start with anime style, learn the rules before you break them” like that’s how everyone who ever got good at drawing did it.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, you can start off studying anatomy and technique and stuff, but you can also get to that stuff later after a few years of copying sailor moon or whatever.

as kids we all start off messing around and not giving a shit about rules, and we do the work later when we realize it’s the next step to improving.  adults get to do that too.  allow people to evolve naturally??  they’re having fun??  jeez.

[fictionwritingtips]

Character Details to Hide from Your Readers

Hiding information from your readers on purpose will help you create tension in your novel. I know this doesn’t work for every novel, but if you’re writing something with elements of suspense and mystery, hiding details and revealing them later will improve your story. This also helps add dimensions to your characters and explore their motivations on a deeper level.

Here are a few things to hide about your characters to create tension:

Whether or not your protagonist is lying

Even good characters lie, especially if they feel like it will protect other people in the long run. There are ways to hint that your character is hiding the truth without actually revealing what the truth is. If your protagonist gets nervous or changes the subject when they’re asked about a specific detail, this will help show your readers that something isn’t quite right. If your character’s deception is hidden and then revealed at the right time, you’ll be able to add exciting tension and shock value to your story.

Who the real villain is

Some of the best tension is created when we’re uncertain about who the real villain is. In mystery/crime novels, for example, there’s often evidence that points to one person who ends up not really being the one we need to worry about. If you hide this information from your readers, you keep them guessing throughout the course of your novel and this will aid in creating suspense.

The truth about their past

When you hide your character’s past from your readers, you have the ability to use it as an explanation for something important later on. For example, if you character has these mysterious powers they can’t explain, you can use their parents and back story in order to reveal later on why it’s happening. Revealing past details slowly over the course of your novel helps build the mystery.

What their secondary goals are

Sometimes characters will have goals no one else knows about but them OR they will have a false goal that their using to cover up their real goal. For example, a character might say they’re rescuing another character because they want to help, but it really might be all about finding some hidden treasure along the way. There are many reasons why a character might want to hide their goals. Explore character motivations on a deeper level and you’ll be able to realistically include this type of deception in your story.

-Kris Noel