Hey Chy! I’ve wanted to message for a while but I got too shy/worried I was a bother. I’m working on improving my art/character design and finding my own style. I always love your art and try to study it. I wanted to ask how you make your art so expressive? Like all your art has such clear expressions and they just squish so cute and make me love them. Is there anything you did to help improve that? I feel like my expressions are flat and I want to make them more toon-ish.
Also, if you’re comfortable with it, how do you draw different body types? I have a variety of characters/self inserts but I feel like any of my shorter/fluffier characters are wonky.
Like here are two of my characters, I feel like in ‘still’ positions they look ok, but more ‘active’ poses feels like their bodies squish and morph weird.
Sorry if this doesn’t make any sense. I’m sure part of it is just me being critical of my own art but I would appreciate any advice/feedback you feel comfortable giving! Thank you and have a great day! 🩷
It does make sense!! And I understand being critical about your own work, I'm alway second guessing my own. And you're not bothering me!! I'll be happy to help the best I can!
Now I'm not the greatest when it comes to explaining art since I never know what the exact terms are for certain things, but when it comes to drawing bodies, I like to think of my designs as toys/dolls | can bend and move around. But also I like to add weight to designs where they kinda have the feel as if they are a bean bag.
For expressions, I'm inspired by many artists who push facial expressions to the max, and watching A LOT of cartoons helped me learn too. But also I think because I tend to struggle expressing emotions irl, I try to use expressions in my art as an outlet for myself. But as much as I enjoy really toony faces, I try to restrict them a little (at least in my art).
Now for your art, you already have that soft/squishiness that's perfect for drawing weighed down poses! Also I think experimenting with stuff you usually don't when it comes to your art can help expand your skills and give you new perspectives on different ways of drawing your stuff that you wouldn't try normally. Like my art style is basically whatever it decides to look like when I'm sketching stuff out, but it's mostly because I'm just having fun or mindlessly drawing. Because once you try to restrict your style too much, then it's not fun and sometimes that's when burnout happens and second guessing. Some artists however will act out facial expressions in a mirror while drawing to get an idea on what kind of expression they want to give their characters.
But also it's okay if your poses look stiff sometimes, I have this problem here and there, it just happens, but seeing the examples you shared, I already think you captured the character's personalities very well so far through their poses, which I think is very important for any character design!
