#Anatomy and consistency and more dynamic posing!!!! All good things :D

[sysig]

can i requeeeessstt edgar rescuing scriabin from something |D

Day 6 - There are consequences out here

Bonus, of what he was doing to get stickers in his hair:

[tawnysoup]

I ADORE your art and how well you match the ISAT artstyle. I've been being alot of studies to try replicate the style and draw characters 3d but stylised. Are there any tutorials that have helped you, studies you do, or things you keep in mind whilst drawing to make the characters look so 3d?

Oooaaahh thank you!!! This is a really good question. I say that because I feel like I "2D cheat" ISAT art a lot. It's very comfy to draw bc my normal art is like that too, with angles that shouldn't be able to exist but look right bc it's 2D so your brain forgives it. Design of the art > accuracy of the anatomy, y'kno?

The hair kind of gives it away in most cases. It's meant to be such a specific shape, it kind of stops looking like the character if it gets too 3D? But drawing it more 3D has huge utility too, especially for animation n stuff. It's just something I've noticed about the style! It's very designed for 2D. It's very "the shape of the lines" > "the shape of the 3D object"

It's helpful to remember that ISAT characters are all made up of really simple shapes. Like Siffrin's head is just a ball from nearly any angle but the side. Their body is a cylinder but one end is wider than the other. Odile's face is a ball but the bottom is long, like an oval. Isa's is a ball but his chin is square, it has soft corners. Even Bonnie's face is a ball you just add a cheek bump. Etc etc.

^Notice how i can't simplify the hat down into a consistent 3D shape bc otherwise it just. kind of. doesn't look like Siffrin's hat LOL

If you have the simple 3D shapes down then the rest of it is all 2D cheating and focussing on details! Having character refs nearby at all times especially when ur tryna figure out how to draw the character is KEY so you can keep looking at it and comparing. Try to pay attention to the little quirks of the art style that differ from yours and try to mimic them. But don't be afraid to let your style infect it a bit if it helps you to create something more dynamic looking.

It helps that i've been drawing for ages. I know 'practice' is the age old advice but here's my spin on it: just draw, keep drawing what u want no matter if it looks bad or if some professional artist tells you you're doing it wrong. So long as you keep drawing you are learning. Indulge and draw what you want so you get to keep all the motivation and keep going.

oh and PUSH YOUR POSES/EXPRESSIONS!!! By this I mean, draw it once, and then lower the opacity and draw it again on top but pushing everything a little bit further. If a pose feels stiff this tends to fix it.

uhmmm i rambled on for ages but i hoped it helped u Tea (or anyone else reading)! thank u for the excuse to draw a bunch of funny isat doodlies :D keep going you have GOT THIS!!! THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO MAKE OR ENJOY ART! YAY

[viminoo]

Hi! I was wondering how you draw people’s faces & bodies (specifically babe but thats just cuz I like him :3), I kinda struggle with the proportions of stuff relative to each other, and your art always looks so good! Both like, the style, but also getting them to look consistent. (Also it is in fact me who asked about copying your art again, hi :D) Love your stuff man 🫶

hi anon!!! my art is pretty stylized, and im not the best at explaining but ill briefly explain my process to u!!

this is a p long one so

okay! so!

here are the babes i quickly scribbled up

usually the very first thing i establish is the face shape! i usually do a very vague oval that extends from a circle (generally the eyes are around/ slightly above where the circle crosses the overall oval shape.) depending on who u wanna draw, the oval can be long or roughly square,,, treat it like a playdoh in which u can mold it

* generally i keep the eyes where the ears are, and realistically the tip of the ears is where the eyebrows end but i always break this rule LOLOLOL

THEN i try to figure out the key features of the face: the eyebrows, the nose shape, the eye shape and if there are any other visible feature like deep smile lines or moles

* i draw the mouth around where the bend of the jaw is, and eyebrows are around the same length of the eye (sometimes slightly longer and it ends bending w/ the eye shape). make space for the gap between the nose and the mouth, and the chin

try not to line out every detail cuz it'll look. off??? treat ur lines like shapes and shadows. the eyes are semi circles and the lines of the nose are shadows and stuff like that,, its really about simplifying what u see

style is also what u wanna emphasize. i emphasize their eyes and ears (?) to be bigger and to stick out more. i also shrink necks to emphasize their heads. i also make hair messier and in a sense,, bigger,, than they usually would be.

its all about playing with proportion until whatever looks right to u 🤑

i added a speedpaint below,,

ON TO THE BODY PART!

firstly when it comes to proportion i really recommend practicing figure sketching 🧘🧘 it was super helpful for me when i was still figuring out how to draw anatomy and stuff

i was also gifted this book called bridgman's life drawing WHICH IS SOOO helpful and interesting! not saying u have to buy it, cuz there's plenty free resources to help u like youtube tutorials

i took pics some of the pages

again its all about breaking the body down into bendable shapes and depending on ur style how long these shapes are

and then getting familiar with how it bends and where each part ends in comparison to the rest of the body.

i always start from the head, then the upper torso to get a grasp of how i want to draw a figure's body!

i tend to draw really long limbs, but to keep it looking anatomically accurate enough that it doesnt rlly look "off" i generally keep to these rules

>split the arm into two equal parts at the elbow

>split the legs at the knee, where the thigh + knee is equal with the foreleg (??? the yellow part in the image below) (but i break this rule alot LOLOLOL so. as long as it looks okay)

>the torso length generally varies but imagine it as 3 shapes strung on a string. the middle shape is the smallest and acts as the "knee" of the torso,,

once u get a sense of how the body works shape-wise, u can go silly with the poses (first with reference, then when ur confident enough try without, just to build confidence)

i connect the shapes that dont bend and where many lines connect with a strong line

its important to not treat every line or shape u lay down as the final line. ITS SO EASY TO FORGET THIS!!! u can always erase or redraw or repaint until u get the character right

and then draw everything over and over and over again

thats how u build consistency HAHA

OF COURSE every body is different so mold the shapes to whatever ud like.

++ the key to the confidence in ur figures and posing (dynamic or not) is all about control

and u can really only get that thru experience and practicing and experimenting 🤑🤑

im not a pro (yet) so this is all just from someone who draws too much for my own good.

hope this wasn't too confusing!!!! thank u for the ask anon!

[that-sweet-jester]

HELLO :D I have a few questions regarding your art-

First off- how do you render? Specifically when choosing the differences in material lighting? There’s just a sort of dramatic lighting that your art has that always makes it look extremely epic

Second off- What’s your method for anatomy? Like, Do you use a much of ovals/rectangles, wing it like a madman, or etc? And how do you define each part of the body? (Or separate hair segments?)

And Thirdly- how do you add volume and consistency to your work? Every design that I see of yours just looks like it jumped straight from a 3D movie screen, and really curious as to how you do all that!

Also- holy cow I freaking love your art so much- like I just found out you drew like half of my favourite art pieces out there. And I just love looking at it. It’s kind of like a golden caramel apple, if that makes any sense!!

And thank you for your time!!!

Thank you so much :DDD <333

Hoo boy where do I begin :'D

The first statement I need to make is that my main method is 'fuck around and find out'. Literally. Also sorry if some of the explanations don't make any sense, English is not my first language.

Here's kinda step by step of how my drawing process looks like.

Sketch, then rough cleaning and adding monochrome colors, it's totally unnecessary, but I like to do it just to see how the drawing would look later with dynamic lightning. Then move onto lineart, used to draw it on another layer on top of the sketch, but I switched to just correcting the lines and eareasing what I don't want from the sketch. It's kinda more fun and takes less time. Then come the base colors and adding shadows. What I most often do is add shading on the color layers and then on top of all of them draw a full shadow.

Like this, then multiply and fuck around with opacity. This makes the characters pop out even more and adds depth to them. Then add lightning, and sometimes effects from saved pngs. For example, I often use this site for material textures: https://www.transparenttextures.com/

2. When it comes to anatomy, I most often use existing pose references, not fully copying them but like putting them together like a collage. A head here, hands there, I have full boards on Pinterest dedicated solely to different body parts. In the past I was heavily using whole sketches and body pose references, but over the time I was able to somehow figure out the anatomy on my own. To some degree. I still have no idea how to properly draw hands. What I'm saying is that it's good to base your art on existing references (NOT COPY THEM) but use as a guide, until you get a hang of it.

3. Lately to do something more stylistic and to bring out the volume I started doing this notion in the shadows:

(also a sneak peak of next piece ;3)

I have no idea how to call it, but it makes things pop out.

Anddd I finally got around doing more dynamic poses and dramatic positioning. Bringing parts of the drawing forward, and leaning some further, going wild with blur filter and using black as guides and contrast.

So that might be why it looks more like screenshot of some movie, which is such a big compliment to me imma cry.

So, yeah that's kinda how I work :') Hope it helped and made sense to some degree.

[worldbuildguild]

I don’t have any real presentable art yet, but I want to learn to be a comic artist since I have an idea I’d love to make, but would only work in comic form. Where should I start?

I think comics and graphic storytelling is potentially one of the most demanding disciplines to master since it relies on so many different skillsets. Especially if you want to do your own comics. So, I will always recommend you get a strong grasp on your fundamentals. Anatomy, light, shadow, construction, perspective, pose dynamics, etc. But on top of that, you’ll also be relying heavily on a few other skills that’ll help you convey your story clearer. Such as composition, cinematography, pacing and acting. Other than that, to create interesting and innovative visuals, you’re going to look into world design, character design and prop design. 

In terms of technical crafts, you ‘d want to look into the art of thumbnailing/storyboarding and style-consistency. Storyboarding is a method that ‘ll help you crank out previews for your frames quickly, whereas the style-consistency is nearly self-explanatory: it ensures that you can produce visuals that follow a certain style consistently. 

Finally, you got skills beyond that of your draftsmanship such as storytelling and writing - which should help you construct good, solid narratives and interesting characters. 

^That list is pretty long and daunting I admit. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to get involved with. But no one ever said that you have to go through the list methodically and learn every single topic in chronological order. Many of your draftsmanship abilities improve over time as you just keep drawing and studying your craft. The Design aspects take a bit of abstract thinking and up-there learning, but it’s nothing that you can’t manage from your home with a few online courses or free videos. Same with writing and storytelling, there’s plenty of sources that can help you improve yourself on said fields. All you got to remember that this kind of thing takes time, and you need to be good to yourself - and hold on to hope. Personally, I’ve been drawing dedicatedly for about 12 years, and only now am I in the progress of making my first graphic novel. 

Now for some places for you to start: I can provide you with a couple of sources for some of the topics you’d want to look into. Take a look and see if it’s something for you. :) These are topics more specifically aimed at making the jump from illustration to comics, so keep in mind that it’s only a fraction of the material you’ll be going through on your journey. ThumbnailingDeveloping a comic styleCharacter costumingA note on character designAvoiding same-faceDrawing character turnarounds

There are also numerous books on the art of comics. I can personally recommend the works of Scott McCloud! ( Making comics, Understanding Comics, Reinventing comics )

And of course, read a lot of comics. Get yourself acquainted to a broad range of styles and stories, and get inspired by the masters in the field :) I hope this was somehow useful to you. There’s a lot I know, and I wish you the best in your journey onward! - Mod Wackart ( ko-fi )