#advice dog

[samhainian]

Turns out you can recreate oldschool advice animal image macros with ocs. who woulda thought.

[catbountry]

It's been over a decade since the age of the Advice Animal and I felt like people needed to be reminded of where they started and how the original Advice Dog is still really funny, since the "advice" was, well... just look at it.

And my favorite I still use.

[corantus]

hi I am obsessed with you character designs!! I'm curious to know how you go about designing characters?

thank youuu!!!

character design is a very broad topic but some stuff that i do personally:

i dunno this is cliche but it's really important. just observe people & animals out in the world and analyze what you see, looking to other peoples work for inspiration is great but you should have a balance

wikipedia rabbit holes

i think a lot about what the character does first. like how their personality and life experiences would be reflected in their body type, clothes, scars/tattoos/jewelry etc

and ok i often do this one thing. when i think the design is "done" i go and sketch the character over and over a bunch of times. that helps me figure out what feels right, or what details are unnecessary

[wolfy8tyu]

i was looking through old memes, and i found this

FUCKING LMAO THAT AGED BADLY

[corantus]

Do you have any tips for people trying to get better at animation or just drawing in general? I’m going to be applying to colleges soon and I’m hoping to do something in animation

when ppl ask me for advice i try not to say shit youve probably heard 3000 times by now so heres my piece

i think observational drawing & being able to analyze things that you see is the most useful drawing skill ive ever cultivated. if you get really good at observation you can do anything. this is my little hill i like to die on

always recommend line of action (free gesture drawing site) for this, if you dont have access to a figure drawing class/co op where you are. if you need a direction for learning to draw, just draw what you see

if you've literally never animated before imo it's best to just kind of jump in and scribble shit. google "12 principles of animation" for a starting point

i used to use pencil2d it's like an ms paint level anim program but its great for messing around. im a learn by doing type of person so this sort of thing works for me

and also! just have a lot of patience and dont worry abt your work looking bad at first, it took me a really long time to feel like i Understood animation honestly

[corantus]

Any advice for getting into art school or what its like when you get there?

i gotta be honest i still have no idea if i did the whole Art School Thing correctly. i have had a c's get degrees experience w school lets say.

but honestly grades in art school dont super matter i think it's valuable to just put your efforts into learning what you want from every class (animation employers dont care about your gpa lol) and just worry abt doing what it takes to pass. and dont let crunch culture get its claws in you. have a hobby where u go outdoors

in terms of getting in:

if theres a portfolio day event in your city, or some other opportunity to speak with / show your stuff to the admissions ppl from the schools you're applying for, you should make sure to go, its just nice to get more personalized info abt what you need to submit

if you have no idea what you wanna do community college art classes are great. i went to cc part time for 2 yrs before going to mcad, it was just nice to still work on art while figuring out where i wanted to go

mcad was my liike 3rd choice safety school that i went to for financial reasons and i still had a good experience. its very true that art school is what you make of it

[corantus]

hi! I'm sorry if you've been asked this before, but do you have any tips for making a comic?

i answered an ask like this a couple years ago but there are definitely things in my process that have changed since then

if youre working in photoshop i literally can't recommend this extension enough. cut my amount of time spent coloring pages down like 90% saved my wrist and my brain i love her dearly. i believe there are a couple "auto flatter" type extensions for clip studio as well but i dont know what they're called

not included in the original ask, some books abt comics i really love:

perspective for comic book artists by david chelsea

understanding comics by scott mccloud (ik everyone says to read this but its true!!)

graphic storytelling and visual narrative by will eisner