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Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.

edit: apparently tum "queerest place on the internet" blr hates disabled people so much that this post got automatically filtered. cool!

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Really loved "Year of the Ghost" by scrappybook and wanted to draw something for it.

The fanfic is an AU in which Kakashi tries to retire after the Kyuubi to be a farmer. He learns a lot about being a person and Konoha, but it seems that he can't fully retire.

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Teaching my students how to storyboard this sem 🥲 & here are some notes I jotted down to prep for it hehe

(Note: these are gen stuff, not hard rules. hope it helps yall too or smth either way)

[Twitter] [Instagram] [Kofi]

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I was asked by a friend yesterday if I could offer basic tips about comic paneling. As it turns out, I have a lot to say on the matter! I tried breaking down the art of paneling using the principles of art and design, and I hope it helps you out!

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Revising some of my horse drawing tips pages, starting with necks!

Corrected some muscle names and added more explanation/ method.

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ive been wanting to make smth like this for a little while now and i finally finished it up ^_^ hopefully my tricks are helpful

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Things suck right now. Who wants to join me in making paper crane chains? You don't need any special tools or artistic talent, it gives you something to do with your hands, and you end up with a pretty chain of paper cranes that you can either hang up, or throw away without feeling too wasteful. And if you do join me, post pictures in the reblogs! :)

Tools you will need: needle and thread, a pad of post-it notes, and sharpies/markers/crayons/etc. of your choice.

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A guide to designing wheelchair using characters!

I hope this helps anyone who's trying to design their oc using a wheelchair, it's not a complete guide but I tried my best! deffo do more research if you're writing them as a character

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A new viewpoint on antlers reveals the evolutionary history of deer (Cervidae, Mammalia)

fullview recommended!

something i've wanted to do for a while now. i've scoured the internet for something like this and can't find anything that compares all the different types of antlers together. except one recent study on their evolution, which is also very interesting on its own! i simplified it to provide a visual reference, while still trying to be scientifically accurate. some things differ between this and trophy scoring terminology like where the beam is and whatnot, so if something looks weird that's why.

small additional note, this study and others provide a lot of evidence that eld's deer should be in their own genus as it doesn't appear similar enough to barasingha and schomburgk's deer. however this doesn't seem to be adapted anywhere yet, so they're still in Rucervus for this guide.

🔴 KO-FI

⚫ COMMISSION INFO

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New species added: American Badgers

These fuzzy buddies are the newest mustelids on the site!

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use all photos in the repository as references, including works that will/may be sold.

The Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository is permanently open-access and funded entirely by donations, please consider contributing if you can!

** Patreon ** -- *Ko-Fi**

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All the torso animated studies.

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this messed up vintage cat sewing pattern has tormented me since i saw it & like some other folks have done in that post - i tried my hand at tweaking the pattern to resemble the illustration (and my personal tastes) a little more. i've ended up with this, which i have only tested at a small scale and not this final version exactly (where i have done such things as further widening the cheeks and finalizing the leg shapes.) i bestow it upon you nice folks now 👐

go forth and make weird little beanbag kittens! pls show me if you do!

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Excellent tutorial to drawing cubby body types

“Some chubby guide for y’all!”

Source: paggiart on twitter

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I made a Room Building tutorial! Lemme know if it helps! 🧡

Tip me here| Commission info here!

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Matt Wilson

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This is the only tiktok you’ll ever need, I’ve made about 13 of these and I’m not stopping anytime soon

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scuze me i wanna learn to sketch creatures like you do, how would I go about learning that?

Draw from life! Here’s my tips on drawing horses

For other creatures.. well... The one thing that isn’t a tip is just that I grew up obsessed with drawing animals. I’ve been drawing since I could hold a pencil, but only started drawing humans five years ago when I was 20 (which is a WHOLE other story) 

The thing that helped the most was studying bones, so if you have access to skulls/skeletons or replicas, get some. Pictures are cool but nothing beats holding the real thing. You can also study 3d models in the calacademy skull gallery  

Ok I deleted a page and a half of rambling to get to the Big Tip. There’s something that bothers me a lot in creature design, which I will call “splicing”

Splicing vs blending! Using this handy Minotaur who volunteered his time for us

This is spliced! It’s just an animal head on a human body. Sometimes I will splice things like this but only if it makes sense in the story. My manticores are spliced rather than blended because in my head they’re more of a cursed/magicked mash of creatures than something that developed on its own.

Manny here is going to get another piece spliced on

I chopped off his legs and put bull ones in their place. This adds a little more cohesion and I see it as more believable and less “magical accident.” I don’t like stopping here but I see a lot of horny furries that prefer this, so it definitely has its applications. This is still thoroughly spliced with just two cuts between the two lifeforms.

Here’s where things get less Spliced and more Blended. In a blender, everything gets mixed together and spit out in a smooth concoction. This blender gave him fur all over instead of just on the bull parts. I also changed up his hands and gave him hoof-fingers, but not just straight up bull-feet-for-hands. This is pretty good but still solidly a furry.

This is much closer to blend than splice, now. This is definitely not cow limbs grafted onto a human. The Minotaur was not a human with a bull glued to him, but he was conceived, carried, and born as a half human, half bovine child. His mother was a human and his sire was a bull and his origin was greek mythology so things tend to get Messed Up. Hybridizing animal species/breeds is generally not “Copy of one parent with the body part the other” with the exception of corgi crosses.

Shoulders are one of the last things I see people changing on the splice to blend scale, but it really adds SO much monsterness to your designs. Plus, with lower more animal shoulders, Manny can drop on all fours and sprint more comfortably than Hu-Manny.

While the minotaur is literally described as “head and tail of a bull on the body of a man” I don’t see why that has to be the end of it. Describing a creature with all the detail and care of a field guide is not terribly important when it’s trying to kill you. Bull-man is enough for a warning. Blended, this guy looks a lot more monstery and I can see it charging headfirst to impale me, which is what really counts here.

Now there’s a monster boy! I actually drew this one second after drawing splice stage 1, and can you tell which one was faster, easier, and more fun?

My process is not to slowly add creature parts like above, but to blend them up in my head and put them on the page already blended. But I have a lot of practice so that comes more easily to me!

This doesn’t only work on human + animal, but on any number of combinations with any number of ingredients. Let’s take the fabled Questing Beast, an Arthurian legend from the middle ages described as having

“the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion, and the feet of a hart [deer]”

Here’s a spliced version where I cut and glued animals together

This is definitely fun but it doesn’t look like an actual animal, its very obviously a mashed creature. Trying to run with hooves AND paws? Is it predator or prey? Whats with all the clashing patterns?

So let’s turn this splice into a blend. Giving it deer hooves on all four feet because we need some dangerous hoofed animals. The head and neck is gonna be a hybrid of snake and deer with added spots. In fact let’s hybrid the spots themselves to look more like the snake pattern, but spotted and furred all over. The lion haunches are cool but we’ll just take their powerful muscles and keep the lion tail, but put some spots on it. Finally, we’ll make the legs really long so the snake neck doesn’t look out of proportion. Might as well add some little yearling antler nubs from the deer and give it a tiny mane from a juvenile lion.

Now we have a blended Questing Beast

Doesn’t that look nicer and more cohesive? You could even believe it’s a real animal if it wasn’t so absurd.

Spliced creature design is valid and has its place, but to me it always adds an element of uncanny unnaturalness, which is great as a story element!

So have fun! Splice, blend, and invent your own techniques! Try a lot of variety and you’ll eventually find a style that speaks to you.

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