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“When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *academical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.”

— Brenda Ueland, from “If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit”

shirecorn

How to Draw and Design Gryphons and Hippogryphs by using photo references of eagles, lions and horses?

Draw everything individually, from multiple angles.

How to draw horses || How I practice anatomy || Gesture drawing

It's like juicing up for a very tasty dream by consuming your favorite genre, characters, settings, etc and hoping your subconscious combines them.

If the final result is your target, and you see your drawing arm as a gun taking aim, then references are your bullets. Fill the chamber with reference unless you want to play roulette.

Your first step in reference gathering is to be specific. Know what you want and stick with it. I searched specifically for African Lion and Gold Eagle. Being specific helps you observe detail more accurately, and it already puts you one step ahead of generic designs.

I'm only going to tackle Lion + Eagle today for simplicity, but you can use this advice to combine two, three, or dozens of animals including horses.

Get your reference, and start practicing. Keep it simple and undetailed, only drawing the essence of the photo, rather than exact position and proportion.

Use action poses to practice! Even though they're more challenging, they will infuse your final result with action as well. Look up things like hunting, fighting, walking, running, landing, etc to get action reference.

Practice most on the creature you're having the hardest time with. That was Lions, for me. I even did a separate page where I studied the structure of their manes, since I wanted that in my griffin design.

Remember: you can trace photos as part of study! This is helpful for correcting proportions and anatomy. Make sure you are tracing mass and bones, not outlines.

Now that you're weapon is loaded with reference, you'll be able to design freehand without copying a photo. This is IDEAL because you won't be slowed down by anatomy. Now what we're here for: Design.

Creature Design Masterpost || Splice Vs Blend

This is going to be yet another visit to Splice vs. Blend technique, so strap in. Here's some guys I drew after I finished studying. No photos needed at this stage because I've eaten them all.

The most common creature design technique is something I call Splicing. You take pieces of animals and graft them onto each other with stitches. Griffins are notorious for this with their bird talons on the front legs and lion paws on the back. That's a creature that was formed through magic, not evolution. This automatically makes your griffin less believable. And probably a bit awkward in the walking department.

So here's a new challenge: Blending. Take bits of each creature and put them in a mixer, letting the ingredients land all over the place and amongst each other. What if we had a lion skull, with an extra-thick bird beak in place of the jaws? What if the lion chin was still there in the form of a tuft of fur? Maybe the tear duct from the lion, and the eyelids of bird? Let's give it lion ears with the furrowed brow so typical of raptors.

It already looks like a new life form, rather than a photoshopped amateur hour of recognizable animals. I could cover it in either feathers or fur and it would still be distinct as a new species. I want the classic lion mane in some form, so I'm taking the shape and turning it into long, fluffy feathers.

Don't stop there! Try identifying what traits make an eagle and eagle, or a lion a lion, and sticking them between each other.

Keep combining! Challenge convention! Add and omit parts and pieces to your heart's content.

Take this practice to all parts of all creatures. Throw new stuff in a blender instead of stitching it together. This especially includes color! You see a lot of spliced markings in novelty griffins, with a specific cat and bird. Artists get stuck on copy-pasting animal patterns because they're afraid the ingredients won't be recognizable, or they're just lost in the sauce of loving tigers they forget to actually have fun with it.

It's still recognizable as tiger and peacock, but much more compelling, wouldn't you say? Go for something unique rather than staying with what feels "safe." There's a million griffin artists out there, but only one You.

jakathine

10 ways in which fans rewrite their favourite television shows:

1) Recontextualization - the production of vignettes, short stories, and novels that seek to fill in the gaps in broadcast narratives and suggest additional explanations for particular actions.

2) Expanding the series timeline - the production of vignettes, short stories, novels that provide background history of characters, etc., not explored in broadcast narratives or suggestions for future developments beyond the period covered by the broadcast narrative.

3) Refocalization - this occurs when fan writers move the focus of attention from the main protagonists to secondary figures. For example, female or black characters are taken from the margins of a text and given centre stage.

4) Moral realignment - a version of refocalization in which the moral order of the broadcast narrative is inverted (the villains become the good guys). In some versions the moral order remains the same but the story is now told from the point of view of the villains.

5) Genre shifting - characters from broadcast science fiction narratives, say, are relocated in the realms of romance or the Western, for example.

6) Cross-Overs - characters from one television programme are introduced into another. For example, characters from Doctor Who may appear in the same narrative as characters from Star Wars.

7) Character dislocation - characters are relocated in new narrative situations, with new names and new identities.

8) Personalization - the inserted of the writer into a version of their favourite television programme. For example, I could write a short story in which I am recruited by the Doctor to travel with him in the TARDIS on a mission to explore what has become of the Manchester United in the twenty-fourth century. (However, as Jenkins points out, many in the fan culture discourage this subgenre of fan writing.)

9) Emotional intensification - the production of what are called “hurt-comfort” stories in which favourite characters, for example, experience emotional crisis.

10) Eroticization - stories that explore the erotic side of a character’s life. Perhaps the best known of this subgenre of fan writing is “slash” fiction, so called because it depicts same-sex relationships (as in Kirk/Spock,etc.)

- Henry Jenkins Textual Poachers pg 162-177

changan-moon

Chinese hanfu by 华小夏

alexandriad

woman yelling at cat meme but make it ancient greek red figure pottery

swirling-orbs-of-disorder

From ancient to abstract, this one sure got around.

Japanese one made no sense to me until I finally saw the “sale sale/sasa lele” version. セール　セール。 But then it’s a meme so it has to be misspelled? 🤷‍♂️