Hey dude, once again your art is amazing! I must ask how do you draw your skeksis, I'm having issues with the robes and body structures and I'm wondering if its possible for a tutorial or something.
And thank YOU once again for the sweet compliment. I appreciate it!
I don’t blame you for having difficulty drawing them. While their outlandish designs are perfect for a medium like puppetry, they don’t translate too well to drawing. And then there’s their funky anatomy and dealing with foreshortening when drawing their faces. So here’s some tips that I have used that helped me draw these nasty birds:
Gather reference and lots of it, whether it’s from the show, movie, or behind-the-scenes/production. For screenshots from AOR, I recommend using cap-that: it has a great abundance of shots and it’s all organized by episode (not to mention the overall quality is pretty good).
Rewatching scenes from the movie/show and study how the skeksis and their garments move.
Do screenshot drawing studies. Here’s some of skekMal I did months back, as examples:
You don’t have to go crazy like I did, but doing these helped me a lot!
Break down the characters into simple shapes. This can help especially if you’re having issues with foreshortening. Something like this:
Simplify them. You don’t have to include in every detail, color, or accessory. Keep the ones you think are important to the character and get rid of the rest. Stick to a specific color scheme and reuse colors to make things easier for yourself.
Practice, practice, practice! And don’t get discouraged if they don’t come out right the first time. The more you draw them, the better you’ll get. Here’s how I improved drawing some of the skeksis within a few months: