something2relax2's arts

art + references + tips for another acc

[anatoref]

African-American Hair Styles in Depth Row 1 & 2 Row 3, 4, & 6 Row 5

[almost-casey]

teach me?? how to draw?? the action of kissing????

Step 1. yearn

[atissi]

thanks op for letting me add on to this post!

have fun drawing kisses now!!!!!!

more detailed tutorial by another person: x

[echinoderma]

how do good braids?

i just learned this which is MUCH easier than what i used to do

and its fun!!!! BRAIDS!

[mias-back-from-the-dead]

lmao i went the programmer’s route and made a “braid guide” bitmap brush 

[giantrobocock]

Tali’s 20 day character design challenge

Here’s a fun challenge for artists to experiment with their character design skills! :-] Remember there’s no need to do these in order or in time.. enjoy!

#talisdesignchallenge if you wanna do it, ill be doing it as well!

1)       The Gross Kid – remember the weird, nerve-wrenching guys in your grade? The students that ticked you off with whatever they did? Make a character out of their worst behavior – design them as obnoxiously as possible!

2)      The Personification – take a random object, look at it closely and base your character on it! E.g. the texture can define the personality (rough, soft …), the purpose can make out the occupation (a dice is a gambler), and so on.

3)       The Hypocrite – now take two random objects and compare them. Use the differences to create a contradiction the character has to deal with! (E.g., a piece of candy (fun and bubbly) and a ruler (rigid and proper) can be used for an energetic character that has to deal with an overly strict and organized environment – what happens if they clash together?) The more different, the better!

4)      The Patissier – your characters specialty is your favorite dessert, and they even resemble it! Take a look at which country it originated from for your characters heritage, how popular it is for your characters success as a cook, base your character on which people tend to eat it the most, and so on.

5)       The Little Scare – Childhood throwback! Do you remember your very first Halloween costume? Base your character on that and make some improvements to it. The personality is based on yours as a kid!

6)      The Sentient Toaster – Take a random piece of technology and make a robot out of it! What does it better than the average human and what skills does it lack?

7)       The Fantasy-You – look at what you are wearing at the moment and make a fantasy design out of it. No cheating! Base your race and class on your outfit as well (e.g. if you’re wearing light pajamas, you fit the silky clothing style of an elf).

8)      The Random Page Generator – go on Wikipedia and click “random page”. Now make a character out of the result! (e.g. I’ve got a German car museum on the first try. My character could be collecting cars, a hobby where you have to have a lot of money – another personality trait!)

9)      The Oldschool – create a character using only the MS Paint 95 color palette. Try to make them fit into the 90ies Internet culture as much as possible!

10)   The Rival – Take your favorite character from any media and design an opponent who would be perfect at defeating them (physically or mentally). Adjust them to the universe of the media. Fun bonus: How would your favorite character react to them?

11)   The Marching Band – What’s your favorite instrument? Take a close look at it – shape, tune, personality and, of course, personify it!

12)   The Zodiac – Theres more than the sun sign! Create a character that’s exactly like your sun, moon and rising sign at once. Do they resemble you?

13)   The Monster – What kind of person are you the most afraid of? Make a character out of it (and as an extra, draw yourself defeating them)!

14)   The Villainous Magician– Pick a random, seemingly senseless object in your room. Your character is now a merciless witch or wizard with the power to control these objects – and they want world domination! How will they achieve it?

15)   The Nameholder – What meaning does your name have? Draw a character based on it, and let them have the nationality of its origin too!

16)   The Offspring of the Olymp – Two gods just had a child, again! Throw together two random deities from the Greek/Roman mythology and create their offspring. What are they the god of?

17)    The Frankenstein – Pick a bunch of animals, part them and sew them together to create a new one! What are their survival tactics?

18)   The Passionate – Pick an interest you especially like and plaster a character with as much references to it as possible. The more detailed, the better!

19)   The Animal-Man – Ouch! Your normal human character has been bitten by a radioactive animal – and now they’ve gained some awesome super powers! How do they use them in their daily life?

20)   The Alien – Exaggerate your own physical features in such a way that it creates a cryptid creature! It only eats the one thing you consume the most – and it’ll do anything to get it!

[insertdisc5]

I know you probably get these asks a lot, but I've really been trying to try drawing comic pages. I really admire how free and flowing your style is! I've seen your little tutorials and tips and idk what's wrong but I just can't seem to wrap my head around panel composition? Like I do wonderful painting comps, but I can't seem to break out. Do you have any resources or help to get started?

thank you very much!!!!! im just using this ask as an excuse to draw random comic tips i hope thats okay and that you’ll get something out of it

did that help…

[sketchcomplex]

I stumbled upon a website that allows you to blend any colors evenly no matter how opposite on the spectrum they are.

sharing the knowledge

very helpful art resource

[b09875654321-deactivated2020062]

WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE???

[reverie-lavellan]

idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.

[jjetsam]

For all the artists out there

[imgonnafuckthetriangle]

Youre telling me I threw away 10 dollar markers FOR NOTHING

[sebatticus]

REBLOG to save a life and a wallet!

[imthesaltydad]

Plus copics are actually refillable and you can buy more colored ink online for pretty cheap! So yeah dont throw out copics.

[discretelyobvious]

NO NO NO NO!

Never refill a Copic with regular isopropyl alcohol unless you have absolutely no other option.

Copic markers have their own ink refills to go with each marker,

They look like this and cost around the same price as a Copic Sketch maybe slightly more however they can be used to refill a marker several times

By using isopropyl alcohol what you’re doing, in fact, is diluting what little ink you have left in your make, therefore changing the shade of it.

Of course the one exception to this rule is the colourless blender 0 which is a marker that is full of regular isopropyl alcohol.

As a side note, DON’T throw away your marker if one/both of the is damaged

Copic also make replacement nibs for all of their markers

Which are much cheaper than buying a new marker as you get multiple in a pack.

[celtic-pyro-deactivated20230725]

Reblogging to save an artist. Copics are meant to be reusable and I know how hella expensive those things are. NEVER throw out your Copic markers!

[qrowpilled]

made another one of those palette challenge things, i wont be taking requests for it rn but feel free to reblog this and have ur followers challenge you

ya can repost it on other websites or w/e but for the love of god credit me, i even made it easy for u and slapped my url right on the top so u cant say u forgot who made it

[ijustreallylovedaredevil]

Looking for a random cause of death for a character? Click here.

Looking for a random city? Click here.

Looking for a random city that people have actually heard of? Click here.

Need a random surname for a character? Click here. (They also give prevalence by race, which is very helpful.)

Helpful writing tips for my friends.

[imtootiredtothinkofaname]

smallirishpotato

[nyokoko]

OH SHIT.

[justdrinktea]

A couple more resources I have open constantly:

Random motivations for your characters here!

Need some character quirks? Here and here! 

Having trouble with backstory? Here! (They have an option for fortunate and unfortunate backstories)

[queijac]

Art Fight 2019!

Starting again on July 1st is my favorite online artist event: Art Fight! If you have OCs, and enjoy making and receiving art involving OCs, then I highly suggest you check out the site and set up an account!

For those who aren’t familiar with Art Fight, here’s a brief overview:

Each year, participating artists are split into two teams.

The main goal is to find any artist from the team opposite yours, and ‘attack’ them by drawing art of their ocs! Your team receives points based on what you create.

Artists that receive attacks can then ‘counter’ by drawing an OC belonging to the person who fought them, or pay it forward by simply attacking anyone on the opposing team!

The official about page with more in depth information is located here! There’s also a video format for this information that can be watched here!

Art Fight is a great chance to interact with tons of different artists, get to know the amazing OCs that others have created, and have a lot of fun making art! The art you receive is also very exciting; you never know who may attack you! Keep in mind, it’s all in good fun and any skill level is welcome!!

The event lasts a month (July 1st - August 1st), and the team with the most points by the end wins!

My account can be found here, if anyone feels like attacking me! I hope to see you there!!

[color-palettes]

Antioxidants Galore - Submitted by SeesawSiya

#15211f #4b2e44 #7a2e54 #936685 #dab972

[color-palettes]

Vanilla Ceylon - Submitted by qu0

#B4C3E4 #C3D4E4 #D2E7EC #D2B6B5 #F5DCD7

[thechekhov]

I made a thing! I was thinking about this for a few days - because I realized that when I was young, I was also frustrated about being given the same advice over and over - without really knowing what it meant!!

Here’s 5 techniques which I have done before which have helped me grow as an artist, which are good for 5-minute warmups or just straight up challenges for your sketchbook! 

Obviously, these are not the ONLY techniques - they’re just the ones I find most fun! And maybe they’re not the most ‘correct’ ones out there, but it’s better than another comic about practicing more, right? 

Good luck to everyone on their drawings!

[aprillikesthings]

Keeping your formatting when you post from google docs to ao3

I’ve seen weird scripts and shit? You don’t need to do that, I promise! This takes, like, five seconds at most. It’s literally two steps long. 

Step one: After you type the very first sentence of your fic, highlight it, and then go into the spacing menu and click on “Add space after paragraph,” like so: 

Yay! Now when you hit return you go to a new paragraph with some space between. And maybe you wanna add some italics! Some bold! Let’s say your fic now looks something like this: 

Beautiful. 

And let’s say you’re done with your fic and you’re gonna post it to ao3! Fucking sweet. 

Step two: When you get to that magical ao3 post page, at the top right of the box where you put your fic, there are two magical buttons, and you’re gonna click the one that says “Rich Text” like so: 

And now, go back to google docs, “select all” and copy your fic, and just paste that it into the box on ao3: 

It kept all your formatting! Sweet! And if you do want to mess with it at this point, there’s all those little commands at the top there, very similar to the ones in google docs. 

Okay! Time to publish this thing. I mean I’m not actually publishing it, just previewing it, but still, this is what it would look like if I did: 

HURRAY! It kept all my formatting. There’s not weird huge gaps between my paragraphs, either. 

I went into detail in this post just to make it as clear as humanly possible, but seriously: you don’t gotta bother with html unless you want to! Use the tools ao3 already has! 

Please please do reblog this for you and your fic-writing friends. It doesn’t have to be complicated. 

[everestseal]

you cant just say you have a hack for drawing pinstripes and not tell us jude cmon

[everestseal]

@thinktanks

[slimetony]

lets make a videogame how hard can it be

[slimetony]

nevermind you have to know shit about computers

[hthrthebear]

hey!! sorry to hijack this post, but there are a bunch of ways you can make videogames without knowing shit about computers!! 

for starters, there’s Twine, which is fucking great for making all kinds of interactive experiences (it’s what Crystal Warrior Ke$ha was made in so you KNOW it’s good) at all skill levels (i picked it up and made a game in two minutes a few nights ago)

if you want a bit more involved experience there’s Inform 7 which is a simple language for text-based adventure games that reads like slightly-weird English and also relatively easy to learn

you can do some pretty fucking cool stuff with Unity (my personal engine of choice) but you may need to dig a bit farther to get at the good stuff. there’s lots of really good presets though (i made an entire game just mixing and matching pre-existing templates and adding in my own art, won an award at a game jam for that one) and if you want help the community’s pretty dang friendly from what i’ve seen!

this is just a taste of what’s out there from what i’ve seen, but there’s so many cool resources out there. if anyone wants help getting started, i’m around to give you a leg up on making something in the coolest, most unexplored art medium around!

[auttoton]

I’m addin’ to this post because lowering the barrier to entry for making games is super important to me!!!! If y’all have any questions about making games, you’re welcome to come and ask! I made this list a while back with some friends, so it has some of the programs John already mentioned.

2D Editors:

GameMaker : Potential for pure drag-and-drop “programming”. It is recommended to read-up on the program’s functions to make good use of it. Good for prototyping. Uses its own language called Game Maker Language (GML) that is similar to a C language (e.g. C++ or C#). For both Mac and PC; free version available.

Construct2 : Drag and drop level editor that uses an “If-Then” event sheet structure for programming. Good for prototyping and for beginners. For PC; free version available.

GameSalad : Drag and drop with no code requirement. Good for programming. For both Mac and PC; free version available.

Solpeo : HTML5 based game engine for 2D and isometric game development. Some programming knowledge needed. Platforms supported: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9+. Free version available.

Stencyl : Drag and Drop “programming,” templates you can edit the variables/values for.

Scratch : Lego-block-style coding platform by MIT; totally free and a great intro to thinking in code. Very kid-friendly and comes with a community site. Browser version available.

3D Editors:

Unity : 3D editor that creates 3D games. Can build games for browser, as an app, or for mobile devices (iOS and Android). For both Mac and PC; free version available.

UDK (Unreal Development Kit) : Full-fledged, highly advanced editor. Features a complete set of tools that go from level design to visual scripting to cut-scene creation. Uses it’s own programming language called Unreal Script that can be arranged with Kismet, a visual code editor. For Mac and PC; free.

2D Art/Animation Software:

GIMP : Free photo editing and digital painting software.

Easy Paint Tool SAI : Free digital painting software with a UI similar to Photoshop.

Mischief : Free digital painting software with an endless canvas.

3D Art/Animation Software:

Sculptris : From the company that created Zbrush, this free software is ideal for beginning 3D sculptors.

Maya : Animation, VFX, lighting, and rendering software.

Magical Voxel : Voxel Art (3D Pixel Art). Very intuitive and quick to pick up.

SketchUp :  Architectural modeling software, great for creating 3D environments and buildings. Free version available.

Text-Based Games:

Twine : Create interactive text stories using Twine’s visual map system that links your game together. Easy to learn and use. End result is browser-based. For Mac and PC; free.

Quest : Interactive text stories that you can build in-browser.

Ren’Py : Create visual novels using a modified version of Python that reads like a combination of stage directions and a CYOA novel. For PC, Mac, and Linux; free.

Audio Resources/Editors:

Indie Game Music : This site offers free indie music with no need to worry about royalties or licenses.

Audacity : A free, open-source, cross-platform sound editor that allows you to record and arrange sound.

Super Flash Bros. : This site allows you to record theremin-like (8bit) sounds and export them as .wav files for your games.

FL Studio : Free music composition software.

Miscellaneous Tools:

Donjon RPG Tools : Randomly generates maps, items, XP, etc.

W3Schools : Web-code tutorial database: HTML, CSS, Javascript+.

Debut Video Capture : Video screen capture to record Let’s Play videos, showcase your game on Youtube, etc.

Korsakow : Free tool for creating interactive and database films.

Processing : Flexible programming language used for visual and interactive artworks and simulations.

From Student to Designer, Part 2 : Tips for making a well-rounded, solid portfolio

Places to Publish/Share:

Itch.io : Platform for self-publishing games

Philome.la : Place to share Twine Games

[nicejewishguy]

@slimetony how does it feel to have your shitpost be turned into a helpful resource

[slimetony]

It feels like a betrayal of every tenant of humor I subscribe to. Helping people is an alien concept to me. It makes me upset.