#(aside from that ink one mentioned in an ask a bit ago idk i’m probably getting that one wrong)

[frnkiebby]

https://x.com/fixfaxfvck/status/1793081037553274986?s=46

oh anon i feel like you might be opening yourself up to a lot here with this one~🎃

[ryuichirou]

I really love the way you draw anatomy - you are literally perfect. Would you mind one day if you make a simple tutorial on how to draw anatomy, particularly hands and just keeping things in proportion. Sorry if this sounds like a demanding ask - u can definitely decline or not answer no offence taken x

First of all, thank you so much! <3 I’m so happy to hear that you think my anatomy looks good. I’m not sure if I can teach you anything, but I’ll try! And sorry it took me so long to reply.

I wouldn’t call this a tutorial, more like an outline of what I usually do (maybe with some tips here and there). Hope it’s at least a little bit helpful 🙏

I’ll start with how I draw the hands. Well, as you’ve probably seen on my previous post about this topic, I used to have a hard time with hands because I didn’t understand the logic behind them + my only reference was my own small and blobby hands. Practice helps a lot, but imo mostly because as you draw more hands, it becomes easier for you to break them into simpler shapes (this is important!) and imagine them in 3d in your head or as you draw.

When I draw hands, I start with a rough sketch. Basically I just draw a fingerless block first. It’s a bit illegible right now, but bear with me.

After this I add fingers. Once again, they’re all broken into shapes: a finger is just 3 short tubes connected to the block we just drew. Sometimes some parts of the “tubes” aren’t visible because of the perspective of the hand, sometimes you can clearly see all of them. As I already said, it’s all about learning how to imagine these things in 3d.

Since my sketch is so rough, I tried to make the shapes more clear here. I hope it makes sense.

After the sketch is done, I basically just… draw hands. Remember that this is skin and meat, there are going to be folds (??? Idk if this is the correct word) and stuff. And nails, oh nails… I scream when I remember the times when I used not to draw them lol They help to convey the perspective and the angle of the fingers, so for me it’s better to have them than not. I’m not drawing them the exact correct way, though, but still.

And once again, it took me a long time to start drawing hands more or less properly, and I still fix them all the time. For example, a thumb of the first one on the left is too short. In fact, I’d make all the thumbs bigger…  

So yeah, something among the lines. It’s not perfect, but this is the basic idea of how it works, at least for me.

About proportions… Well, I’m one of those artists who like to make 1000000 sketches before I move on to the inking phase, it’s just more comfortable to me. This way, I give myself more control of the pose and proportions and have a lot of time to adjust and fix whatever feels off to me. Many good artists don’t do that because they don’t really need it.

First, I make a very quick sketch just to grab the “feel” of the pose I’m going for, plus it helps with the overall composition of the drawing. It isn’t detailed at all, so it takes about 5-10 minutes to draw, even less if I’m confident about what I want and don’t try to find the pose that would work the best. At this stage I try to keep the proportions in mind, but I don’t think about them too much.

When I’m more or less satisfied with the basic idea, I draw my first sketch. At this stage I’m err building the body. There are a lot of ways to do that, I’m drawing something similar to a mannequin that is made out of meat. Oh no, that sounded horrible…

As you can see, this time I pay more attention to proportions and sketch all parts of the body properly. I make sure that both arms are the same length, both legs are the same length, that the shoulders are on the same level, stuff like that. At this stage I don’t think about the character, just about the body: I’m trying to make it make sense lol

Also you might’ve noticed, but I changed the position of the arms on this sketch because my initial idea didn’t really work (I tried to sit in the same pose and it was uncomfortable lol)

And then I draw yet another sketch. Sometimes this can be the last stage and I ditch the inking altogether and just colour this sketch instead, but more often than not it looks too messy and I have to make another sketch… (This is also where Katsu usually tells me to chill because we were planning to draw something simple and quick and I’m already making it complicated lol)

Here I’m adding more details, like face, hair, clothing, anything else that I need to sketch before inking/colouring. After this sketch is done, I look at it again and see if anything looks off. If it does, I try to fix it, adjust it, sketch it again, whatever works and whatever makes my sketch less stiff and more proportional.  It doesn’t have to be super realistic proportions-wise though.

Things that I pay attention to when I check the proportions on my drawings:

Shoulders: they should be the same size (although the perspective can create a distortion, but this is a whole other can of worms) + ideally they should be able to fit two heads in them length-wise.

Arms: I check if they’re the correct length (the hand part should start ~at the crotch level). If the arm on the drawing is bent, I try to visualize how it’d look like if they were straightened up. If it’s difficult to imagine, I just sketch it.

Oh, and the size of hands. I always check if they’re the correct size by comparing them to a face of the character: they should be about the same size (of course some people have larger hands and some of them have smaller hands).

Legs: same with arms, I try to make sure they are not too long and not too short. Also, when drawing arms or legs, you can draw this thing. The shoulder/hip and the hand/foot have the same distance from the elbow/knee. This… sounds confusing, I hope it at least looks understandable lol

There are a lot of ways to check if everything is correct: sometimes I just put my fingers on the screen to check if all of the lengths make sense lol and sometimes I draw these lil lines to check if the lengths of the parts that are supposed to be the same match.

If your drawing looks off, just create another layer and sketch the body (the meaty mannequin thingie) over it again. It might help you see some obvious mistakes if there are any. Some people might say it’s too much work, I call this practice lol

There are instances when I redraw some parts of the body completely. There are situations when it’s easier to do it all over again than to fix the existing sketch.

Another thing that I do is flip the image as I draw. Not very often though, you need not to get used to the flipped version of your drawing, it should be somewhat new to your eyes, this way your mistakes will be more visible to you. At least I think so…

It also helps to pay attention to details as much as you can, they make a huge difference. I still have a lot to learn about how the abs work, but like a year ago I knew nothing about them aside from “err I think there are 6 or 8 of them?? And they start below the boobs” (my boobs were also more square). After I started drawing them more often and learning how they actually work, my drawings changed accordingly. I think the right one is at least slightly better haha

So yeah, this is more or less my process. It isn’t necessary to draw 10203100 sketches and to go through all these stages, but I personally feel much more comfortable doing that because this way I can be sure that I would’ve noticed if there was a major fuckup somewhere.

To be honest, if we’re talking proportions, this image is literally the only thing you need to know.

Just keep in mind how many heads are in the human body length, how many heads can fit inside one’s torso, etc. Compare body parts to each other accordingly. Just make a habit out of checking if the proportions on your drawings are correct: make a shoulder bigger, make sure that the legs are the same size. It might be too much at first, but it’ll literally become a subconscious thing very soon, and you won’t have to actively think about all of this every time you draw. I google this image from time to time just to make sure that I’m fixing everything correctly lol

You don’t have to be exact with these proportions, but they still need to have some logic behind them. Like here, if we look at Osomatsu, who is clearly very stylized, we can still see that his body is proportionate. His shoulders are too small for his head, and his body surely doesn’t have 8 heads in its length, but he still doesn’t fall apart because there is logic behind his stylization: his arms are still long enough for him to put his hands in his pockets; they aren’t too long or too short. Hope that makes sense…

Sorry for the long read. Once again, I hope it was somewhat helpful or at least interesting. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

Although I’m still learning myself of course, so there are things that I probably don’t know or forgot to mention…

[ralfstrashcan]

Fire Messages

A (long long long, let's not talk about it) while ago the dear @toughpaperround​ asked me about my thoughts on fire messages... and here they finally are.

Like most things in Shadowhunters fire messages come in two styles (other examples are portals, swords and runes) because at some point they experienced a random visual makeover. Both designs raise different questions and I'll get to those in a moment. First though it's interesting to note that the appearance of a fire message doesn't seem to depend on whether it's created by a shadowhunter or a warlock. On that note, are other downworlders able to create fire messages as well? Since shadowhunters operate them with their steles and warlocks with magic? I guess seelies should be able to as well since they also have magic (though they seem to prefere their nature-birds-leaves-whispering-on-the-wind way of communication). But what about vampires and werewolves? I don't recall either of thoses species ever sending a fire message on-screen, though it might have been mentioned at some point that one of them did, and I forgot. In any case I find it intriguing/ridiculous that fire messages look the same regardless of who creates them. Angelic energy and demonic magic don't really operate in similar ways so why would their fire messages look alike? Distinctive appearances like with the portals would make more sense.

Moving on to the first style! As far as I remember this style can only be spied once in the series, namely at the end of 1x06 when Izzy breaks things off with Meliorn

Which, now that I'm thinking about it, isn't that the shadow world equivalent of breaking up via text? Rude, Izzy. Anyway! The rune she draws at the bottom of the paper

is, as the trained eye immediately sees

Next, the paper goes up in flames

and Izzy lets go of it so she doesn't burn her fingers. Not a trace of the paper is left afterwards.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that the fire message burns into existence in midair wherever Meliorn is at this moment in time. Which... is probably the seelie realm? So can fire messages just travel between realms no big deal? Imagine the possibilities! Asmodeus could be bothering Magnus all day! Lilith could be terrorizing all Clave members via fire message harassment! This is hilarious XD

I have questions though! 1) How does the fire message know a) who the recipient is and b) where the recipient is? Canon never addresses or indicates either of those things so there's literally nothing to go off of. Re a): To me it seems most reasonable that the sender focuses on the person they want the message to receive while sending the message off via rune or magic. It's unlikely that writing the name on the paper alone determines the recipient because i) there exist people who share names and ii) you couldn't mention anyone in your fire message without accidentally cc-ing them, which, impractical and awkward. So intent seems the most plausible thing. Which in turn begs the question if you can mass-message people if you think of more than one person while sending? Probably not. In canon Magnus messages each warlock individually about that ritual he wants to try in 3x09. Might have been for courtesy's sake, so he can address every warlock individually with name but seems unlikely since he was under time pressure. Aside from that this would imply miraculous paper replication and physics says no. Re b): No way. This makes no sense whatsoever except when fire message magic is the ultimate omniscient might that can track anyone anytime anywhere. And if that power really existed in the world then how come no one has used it to currupt everything? Surely if you can access this pool of knowledge to send innocent little breakup messages you could find a way to use it for grand evil as well? I find it hard to believe that no one's tried and succeeded so far. Just look at how much effort shadowhunters put into tracking people all the time! They'd be stupid to waste their resources like that if there was a way to instantly-know the whereabouts of someone. Anyway, this is utter bs and just like the hp owls all over again and I simply refuse.

2) Who can you send fire messages to? My knee-jerk answer would be to anyone you know, both personally and more generally in the sense that you are aware of their existence. You focus on them while sending the message, bam, they get it. But. Spam. Spam is a thing. Do you have any idea how much hate mail and general pranks higher-ups would get if they could be (anonymously!) addressed by anyone? Magnus probably had a whole phase where he did nothing but trashtalk shadowhunters who pissed him off XD I read in this post (which is the one toughpaperround sent my way and which I'm kinda answering with this) the possibility that you can only fire message people you've either met in real life before or who you've established some kind of fire-messaging-you-is-okay-connection – kinda like exchanging phone numbers. Everyone has a phone but you can only call someone whose number you have. You can even hand-wave your way through issue b) and claim that the fire message tracks the recipient through that connection and that's how it can find them no matter where they are. I've thought about it for a while and while I think this is the most logical explanation I don't think it makes sense in-universe for how fire messages are used, or for what the purpose of a fire messages really is. Phones are inarguably more practical because you don't need an extra pen and paper to send off a message. So, why would someone use a fire message instead of a phone? Well, either the person you want to reach doesn't have a phone (*cough* Meliorn *cough*) or the message is so important and time-sensitive that you need the other person to know right now and while you can ignore a text or a call, you can lose your phone or it can die, it's kinda difficult to miss a burning piece of paper flying in your face. Fire messages are like extreme emergency phone calls. And for those it would be high-key impractical if you could only send them to someone you have already met previously. (Of course this is just speculation and doesn't even make sense historically since fire messages were around long before phones and likely were the only means of communication then and not just reserved for emergencies (or maybe they were since paper and ink was precious back then?!). And of course determining the nature of a thing by going 'It would be most practical if it was like this' is highly unscientific. Anyway.) Honestly, my personal take on this is still that you can send a fire message to anyone and the show simply ignoring everything that this implies (aka Alec getting at least 10 lewd fire messages per day from secret admirers) because it wasn't relevant to the plot.

Leaving behind questions that apply to fire messages generally this last one is design-specific. 3) To what exactly is the teleportation, that clearly happens here, limited? The paper, the ink. Uh-huh. What if you glue something to the paper? For example, idk, a GPS tracker? Would that allow you to learn the location of the person you messaged? Probably not, or they would have been very stupid not to do that with Valentine. Even if you could only message someone you have met in person and/or established a special fire message connection with there are still enough Circle members around in S1 who surely had his fire message phone number. (Or did he destroy the connection? Can you fire-message-block someone you no longer want any attachments to?) What happens if you fire message someone who's dead? Does the fire message hover over their grave for the rest of eternity? We'll never know. I'll allow that there is special fire message paper and special fire message ink that can teleport. Anything else tacked on would be left behind. Paper and ink could even be extra-charmed so they can pass through dimensions or whatever. Still sounds fake – because i) how would you spell paper so it can pass any ward (Magnus at some point messages Jem who's probably chilling in the Silent City or something) and ii) if there's a way to charm paper and ink so it can be teleported, why limit yourself to those? Why not put that same magic on your GPS tracker and you're ready to go? – but I tried okay. Whatever, special fire message paper and ink grow on special trees in Idris and their special teleportation magic can't be replicated. There, mystery solved.

The second style fire messages acquire is both more and less logically pleasing. It's more logically pleasing because it eliminates the whole teleportation issue since apparently the fire message just flies from sender to recipient but sadly this creates its own set of issues, first of all how tf does the fire message fly from sender to recipient? Does it have eyes? How does it navigate the streets by itself? What about the secrecy the shadow world allegedly tries to uphold? It also doesn't solve the GPS tracker problem (if anything it makes it worse) because who's stopping you from sending a nice little message to Valentine and then just, following the flying message to his secret hideout?

The journey itself isn't unproblematic either. How quick are those things flying? In 3x06 exactly 54 seconds pass between Magnus sending off his message to Jem and receiving an answer. So in less than a minute the message flew to Jem, he read it, he composed an answer, and it made the way back. No wonder these messages are burning at the edges if they're so quick. (Yes, that was sarcastic.) They also don't seem to slow down when approaching their intended target. Magnus even pushes Clary out of the way because of it.

This is so confusing. So the fire message can navigate through Magnus's apartment no problem but it would have chopped Clary's head off because she was in the way? Was Magnus just being dramatic? I mean I'd totally buy that on any given day, but the situation was a bit too serious for that especially because it isn't treated as a joke to lighten the mood but just like Magnus casually pulling Clary out of danger because that's what he always does. It makes no sense whatsoever. This also begs another question, since fire messages seem to seek out their target quite vehemently. If you're locked in an air-tight room, could you send a fire message to someone, and the fire message on its pursuit to fulfill its duty could help you create a crack in the walls? Could you actually break out via fire message? What if you grab the paper real tight? Could you fly out of a canyon on a fire message? Now, on to the last part of the fire message's journey: the landing. How. How do you catch something that moves so quickly instead of just swatting it away? In the post I mentioned before someone wrote that catching stuff like that works on auto pilot if you have the practice and I'll just take your word for it... but what if you don't have the practice? Personally I'm shit at catching shit. I'd get smacked in the face by 95% of the fire messages sent my way. And considering the speed and the sharp edges of the fire messages that can't be healthy. My poor face. Why do I say the fire message would slap my face and not docilely settle into my palm? Because that's what I honestly believe. I think if you fail to catch a fire message it just flops in your face and sticks there (that should also wake you up if you're asleep, lol) because I mean, look at those trajectories.

Mind that the fire message stays on its initial course even after Magnus / Alec / Izzy moves their hand to a position to catch it. That’s because it wasn't aiming for the hand. It was aiming for the face.

It only gets weirder from here on out.

Remember 3x07? Imogen gets stabbed by Possessed!Jace and uses her last moments to notify Alec of Jace's whereabouts (instead of, y'know, activating her healing rune which takes two seconds, sending the message after and keep on living. SIGH). Fair enough, but the thing is this

Where's the paper? Where's the ink?

What is happening? What is she doing there?!

And then-- and then--

Yeah Alec, I'm as shocked as you are. Where tf did that paper (and presumably ink for writing) come from?! Can shadowhunters suddenly create matter from nothing?? Physics is crying in the corner!! I have so many questions!!