Just because you did something wrong in the past doesnāt mean you canāt advocate against it now. It doesnāt make you a hypocrite. You just grew. Donāt let people use your past to invalidate your current mindset.
I don't care about Dungeon Meshi otherwise but "Tallmen" is SUCH an elegant solution to placing humans in a fantasy setting that it's still blowing my mind. Just the term itself is enough to instantly recontextualize humans. They're no longer the default race. They're those big goobers with long legs, striding about all the time. I can so easily envision much more interesting relationships between humans and non-humans because of it. Like perhaps "tallmen" are stereotyped as shepherds by other races because they can watch over their flocks better, or as vagabonds because they are better suited to long travel on foot. And of course, they don't *literally* have to be taller than everybody else, they were just the tallest around whenever the label became the norm, or something like that. I just feel like it's so much better than what I've seen in settings like D&D that go "and humans are the... adaptable, generalist people :)!"
Hello :) Something that I particularly admire about your art (aside from the fact its just so pleasing to look at) is how expressive your characters are!! Do you have any tips on how you do poses and facial expressions that make them so full of life?
Thank you so much!! š
As for tips, I can link some tutorials I find really useful (and yes, these are all from the same blog, their stuff is just very accessible).
Poses/Body language/line of action:
Tuesday Tips --- Grow A Spine As simple as it sounds, a character "standing up straight" or "slouching down" reveals so much about them. It
Tuesday Tips - Structure/Gesture: Why Not Both! Probably one the most compelling issue to deal with when drawing characters. There's clear
Tuesday Tips - Apply Pressure A good way to avoid floating characters on a page is to think of the compression created by pressure and gravi
Expressions/facial structure:
Tuesday Tips - The Mask Helps to figure out the shape of eyes in perspective by thinking of its surrounding area instead of guessing it. -N
Tuesday Tips --- "It's An Eyebrow Thing" --- A recurring note a story artist may get in the production of an animated feature is to tone do
Happy Monday. CTN is about 2 weeks away and we are taking pre-order of 100 Tuesday Tips at grizandnorm.bigcartel.com (link in bio). And th
A big one for body language is hands - we talk and express ourselves with our hands a lot more than you'd think, so incorporating good hand poses can level up your stuff significantly.
I find this video pretty helpful for hands
In terms of actual tips, I'd suggest doing a little exercise for yourself - look through short scenes and sequences from movies and shows you think have excellent acting. Live action or animation, doesn't matter, you just have to be able to see their face and silhouette at least somewhat (although animation can usually be a little clearer in terms of condensing emotions into clear shapes)
Pick a scene and screencap the character in question whenever their expression changes. Analyze those expressions - how are the eyes and brows shaped, is the jaw tight or loose, is the body slouched or upright, are the shoulders engaged? What kind of micro expressions are happening between the bigger ones?
Think of the intent behind the expressions - are they subtle, are they exaggerated? Are they pained, joyful, hopeful? Is the character trying to hide their emotions or are they on full display? Are they smiling with their mouth but not with their eyes?
That sorta exercise is more so for your mental library, but it could probably be helpful to try to draw the expressions yourself as well.
Some friends asked so here we go : disclaimer im bad at explaining (so feel free to send an ask or smth)
Final art (long read so theres a timelapse at the end)
If its not for something important (commissions), i dont usually make a lineart for a drawing but just clean up the sketch , it wont be used anyway
I usually separate them by colors , mostly so i can Alpha lock them and not worry about coloring over parts
When coloring i use a soft airbrush to have gradients within the shading , so its not one solid color . How i shade is very blocky , lots of triangles lol (if im using CSP i love using the lasso fill tool ) but there are parts especially in the skin where I keep it smooth and blended, usually nose and cheek area . Using an asaro head is usually a good start to learning how to shade faces with planes in mind
Depends on the character, but I like adding shadows on the lashes/brows itself , make it look solid and 3d , it makes the eyes pop more imo
Using multiply layer to make the shadows darker for more contrast
At some point Iād merge everything together so i can just paint in one layer, easier to fix things with liquify too ; if im in CSP i keep the separate layers in one folder just in case i need em later but i cant really do that in Procreate cos of layer limits
This is the part where i make the shading more painterly .,To make the shading look sharper , i like adding lines on the edges .
The fun part : adding the āØ
This is the part where I add textures , either from texture images or with screentone/hatching brushes. This is also around the part where i add the characterās accessories and stuff like scars and freckles (its just easier to add smaller things near the end than having them accidentally painted over at the start)
Whenever I feel like the drawing looks too much of a similar shade / temperature , I use a gradient map+layer effects (masked) on parts to give it variety . Technically you can do this by just having a layer effect on and manually adding colors but gradient maps make me go āooooh didnt think of that color there ā
CSP also has a posterization filter that i like using when i feel like some part looks too smooth to me.
I sometimes add in sketchy lines , and seeing how cool it looks in Marvel Rivals art ive been adding it more lol
Artists that influenced me are : Nesskain, Toni Infante , Valorantās 2d art(their main artist is Suke) ,Arcane , Spiderverse and the most recent one ive been obsessing over is Marvel Rivals ( its got everything i want my art to be when it grows older lmao )
Here is Moon Sprout! Sheās an earth pony who owns her own plant shop. Sheās has the unique ability to listen to plants š± if she was represented by a friendship element, it would be kindness (listening is an act of kindness š£ļøšš»)
My middle school ponysona my beloved šš cringe is dead
Her name is Sky Charm and sheās part dragon because middle school me thought that was cool š
Drawing ponies has revived me from my almost year long art block which is wild but Iām not going to question it. I think doing traditional art has also helped. When I opened my iPad to try to draw ponies I straight up started sweating because I was so nervous to draw on it š
origamiaround
kianamaiart
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
snowghoul
ellievsbear
