#I like drawing cartoony muscles

[moaccyrk]

Here in Brazil, on top of being Halloween, october 31 is also know as "dia do saci", a Saci being a very famous folk character in my country.

In this piece, I drew a witch and a saci stablishing a friendship based on being spooky, magical and super fucking jacked.

[antispopausandstuff]

i just remembered seeing a drawing of plus-sized Adora // She-Ra a couple of years ago or so, and i don't know who drew it, but it was awesome and i'm pretty sure it started the neuron in my brain that goes off every now and then of imagining Adora gaining weight after joining the Rebellion and eating healthier.

[papermonkeyism]

Very sorry if you've talked about this before, but how much do you focus on/care about making the plantlife in your Dinosaur Project Thingy accurate for the time and place?

Asking both because I'm generally very curious, and because personally, every time I make it past my anxieties about not knowing enough about dinosaurs to be "allowed" to draw them, I run right up against "oh shoot, if I draw a grass in the background, people are going to kill me."

Having a cartoonier art style helps! If your style is photorealistic, the style is going to require more details that also make errors way more present and visible, but like, the way I draw trees for example you can't really tell if I'm drawing an aspen, an oak or a basswood, you know? It's just a leaf blob with a trunk in the middle. There's no identifying that.

Also, like 99% of my audience who follows my art follows it for creatures and characters, not plant life, and those more well versed on plants aren't as likely to care. At least nobody has come to bark at me because of it this far!

Considering the amount of actual, professional palaeoartists who basically use memes in their art, I think it's okay and fine for hobbyists and cartoonists to not know everything, right?

(Seriously, the amount of artists who draw theropods with no soft tissue around the jawline is wild! You know that classic look where the entire face splits along the skull all the way to the back of the jaw joint, and drawing that pink skin flap at the corner of the mouth? That's the jaw muscles. Why would a giant land apex predator not have skin protecting its jaw muscles? [Also, is that really what jaw muscles look like? A skin flap? Come on.] I've seen some Actual Professional Artists draw these giant cavities inside the cheek area of things like T. rex, that's where the muscles should be! Where do you think the legendary bite force -which this specific animal is known for- comes from? I mean, it works for animatronics, like in Jurassic Park, because it's hard to give soft tissue to robots that would hold up, but it's less of a thing for art, I think.)

I have a field guide book for Hell Creek formation that I'm gonna reference from when needed. Years ago I backed this kickstarter for a dinosaur video game, specifically so that I could get my hands on the book for this exact reason. It has plants section!

Few rules of thumb:

Trees Big. No, bigger!

No grass (if very late Cretaceous, then maybe grass? but research first!)

No flowers, unless Cretaceous. Might be worth googling "Cretaceous flowers" for specifics

When in doubt, ferns and/or conifers.

Also, finally, this is just me, but it can help to set yourself a "target audience" (with quotes). Personally, I'm making my project for myself and maybe a handful of people I know IRL. I only aim for the joy of these specific bunch of friends and family. Anyone beyond that is just bonus, and while I am very glad there are great many more people who do enjoy my work, it's less important than if my friends like it. And if there's one of the extra bonus people who thinks this one plant on the background of my art ruins their enjoyment of my work and me as a person, then that's a them-problem, not a me-problem, if my friend Satu still thinks the drawing is cool.

(Honestly, knowing these specific people, I wouldn't even have to be as accurate as I am, but unfortunately I did include "myself" in my target audience, so here I am.)

[hellodaekko]

DARLIN I LOVE YEWWW!! Headcanons to go with the sketches below! (also this was made bc I needed a ref of their wolf form for a different piece and I got carried away LMFAO)

Pretty strong when they were younger (sketch 1) but they were more focused on strength training than aesthetic so they've got a sleeper build

Loses an alarming amount of weight in their relationship with Quinn. They develop some more muscle definition from it but they're much weaker than they were prior meeting him because of it.

Had a breakdown and went at their hair after their initial confrontation with Quinn-- which is why its so choppy (sketch 2). He liked their hair long and shaggy and it made them feel sick to see their reflection when it was

The stress of being with Quinn and his type of people made them develop gray hairs early. Their wolf form also reflects this with the beginnings of a gray muzzle and significant loss of hair compared to when they first met him.

Alongside that, they quickly become littered in a myriad of different scars. Their ear is torn to shreds, and a good portion of their tail is so badly damaged in a fight that it becomes necrotic and falls off.

The Shaw Pack wears dog tags with the Shaw name on it along with another tag that has their own full names on them. They stop wearing the tag while they're with Quinn, opting for a vial of his blood (a gift from him) but they go back to the old dog tags after their fight/return to Dahlia. It's chipped and the engravings are worn but they refuse to swap it out for a newer one when David offers them one. Their current one is the same one they had when Gabe was still alpha.

They bulk up a bit after they're settled back into the pack. They're still big on mostly strength training but they like the aesthetic of more defined muscles now. Their wolf form reflects this change as well-- becoming noticeably more muscular even through the mountains of fur that grew back now that they're in a better spot nutritionally.

Not embarrassed to shift if they want to be pet. It'll be the middle of a pack meeting and they'll shift and rest their head on Sam's lap for it. The younger members of the pack will join them, much to their parent's chagrin and David actively has to keep himself from getting distracted while he's trying to talk. Thankfully, they don't do it so often that it's an issue, and the pack will just share a hushed laughter and move on.

ERM... das it! OH and the inspo for their wolf design :] for cartoony purposes I'll draw them like shown above but in my minds eye their wolf form looks like this

just a puppy

[hotpotatopotat]

What or who inspires your art style?

Uhm honestly, I don't know totally! I know there are answers like Skippy and Corndog, Hori ofc, a few others for sure. But mostly my artstyle was developed as a way for combat my joint pain. My style for example used to be something more like this, but it was just too painful to continue to output this level of art (2021)

So I started drawing more cartoony and simple things, that at first I couldn't even color. I really needed to develop my muscle and draw fast because drawing a couple hours at a time was all I could manage.

Over time I guess I just got...better? And was able to mesh a more realistic style in with my cartoons, color, shade, and make comics all within my time frame. I feel like I'm slowly making my way back up?

Thanks for asking!

[dragengyrr]

"Lose the jacket"…

More Alastor in dress from this post because I am completely normal about it (I’m not).

@prince-liest : answering previous asks, let’s establish now that if I mention you directly in my posts, you are free to link the art to your fics without asking (after all, it wouldn’t have existed without them). I’m pretty sure I’m not done with them. Cheers <3

Artist’s little side note (because I feel like rambling again): so Hazbin gave me two life improvements (well, three, if you add the music) - one was stepping foot into the unknown aroace territory and being hit on the head with realisation that it was my home all along, making my questionable behaviours and reactions in the past a whole lot less… weird. At least for me, the allos probably still thought I was weird af, but that’s their problem now.

Second improvement was discovering a cartoony style that just sits right with my hand. I’ve always loved cartoons, had a little nostalgic era at the end of high school where I went back to the stuff I’d watched as a kid (Jake Long, Ben 10, Kid vs Kat, Samurai Jack), then I was discovering shows that were made quite recently already as an adult (Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls, The Owl House), I loved them for various reasons… but every time I tried to play with their style, I couldn’t get past a few drawings.

I also never truly worked out my own cartoony style, so I thought I’d be stuck with realism for all eternity - which is not bad by any means, it’s just that added pressure of your own artistic ego whispering into your ear that if you misplace one tendon or muscle, or get the proportions wrong, you’ll likely burn down in some special part of hell, specifically for artists that are too lazy to check their anatomy atlas for every single drawing they make. Or maybe that’s just me.

The point is – I don’t remember the last time I produced so many drawings in such a short time, and it’s a blast. And I can focus on posing and emotions more than anything, thus learning new tricks, and it might improve my realistic art as well, right now limited by my fear of it somehow looking incorrect (because that would surely mean the end of the world).

-End of ramble-

[venelona]

Summary of art for 2024 ✨

I've been trying to improve myself as well as do less blurry shading... It's been hit-and-miss, but I feel like I'm heading in a nice direction. For comics I want to embrace more cartoony and exaggerated frames as well as pretty ones, and honestly it's been a lot of fun to try out!

Shout out to my bro FendVT who keeps commissioning me himself with more and more muscles revealed each time so I am forced to learn how to draw them 😂 With his efforts alone I am forced to broaden my horizons and learn the dreaded anatomy 💖

Previous year summaries: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017

[runningwithscizzorz]

HOW DO YOU DRAW FACES??!?! seriously, everything about your art is pure eyecandy, I love it SO MUCH, but faces. YOUR FACES. the faces are perfect. they capture every detail. they feel so human. so expressive. i would love to know how you draw/structure your faces because it's the biggest thing i'd like to improve on with my art!

Art is a translation of how you perceive the world. Art is both extremely watered down and painfully vulnerable with emotions. The artist translates the world, and people translate the art. Lots of art gets lost in translation. My goal is to make people read my art regardless of my language. I want my art to speak louder than my simple cluttered words could.

How can you read a face with no words? You have to find your own way to do that, but here’s a very rough way of how I read people and attempt to translate their world into mine.

One practice is drawing straight from a reference. I've been watching TLOU, which has some of the best acting ever and is perfect for screenshotting specific moments to recreate. Pulling scenes from episode five, I stretch and amplify the facial features to properly read their emotions in my style, ex, making Ellie and Sam's eyes bigger to amplify their youth, smoothing out facial wrinkles for simplicity, and (my favorite) exaggerating the mouths so they emote louder.

Second method is feeling how your face moves. Ethan Becker on YouTube explains it better (go watch all his videos) of how to feel and observe how your face compresses and works with different features to properly express emotions. Using your own face as a stencil to understand how your muscle and jaw work is both simple, and always accessible for artist reference.

An example of how I break down bits of a chapter into chunks for each panel while still attempting for it to run smoothly like the writing. Honestly, a lot of this part rides on wanting to do the author justice for their fabulous work. You want to show them how much their work affected you and why it’s totally worth it to draw their stories.

Some examples of scenes from media (that almost made me cry) and how I translate and manipulate it into my style. This is why I redraw scenes from movies so often, not only is it fun and easy, but it’s a great way of studying the masters

But, to actually answer your question, I think the reason my drawings are so expressive to you is because I still follow somewhat typical human anatomy while still being cartoony enough to break the uncanny valley and create an aesthetically pleasing style. I’m still practicing and studying everyday to get better. You must work as much as possible to attempt to properly translate the world.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

How I draw: Proportions/sketching

The first response to a few art questions from @johnny-and-clyde :))

sketching:

So I honestly used to be a lot more…intentional about my sketching?? Up until a few months ago I would draw out actual sketches that I’d then cleanly ink on top of in a separate layer, like this:

I’d try to keep things loose and easy, but I’m not fantastic at that lol

I have a tendency to over complicate sketches- It’s not super obvious here, but I did semi-map out the anatomy under the clothes and fabric folds. That’s probably a good thing to do, generally, especially since I was and am still learning anatomy.

I don’t do it much anymore tho, because I often got caught up in little details that just wound up covered by clothes 😭 So I generally focus on mapping out the clothing shapes over the proportions/ anatomy. Definitely study anatomy anyway tho- this only works for me nowadays because I did and still do study anatomy a lot lol

These days though, I don’t r e a l l y sketch that much. I mean, I do- but instead of making another layer and inking it, I kinda just clean up the sketch the way I would if I were using pencil and paper. I don’t have a lotta example images of this, because it goes from the sketch to the final lineart in one layer?

tried to reverse-engineer it here on this Angela drawing. idk how helpful that is tho lol.

Idk, most important thing for me while sketching is remembering that everything has a 3D form, and also to FLIP MY CANVAS FREQUENTLY so that it stays balanced lol. -also- I almost always take note of the ribcage, the clavicle angle, and the hip angle when planning poses

-And I consciously try to keep things from getting stiff, and think of the pose as an intentional composition. I actually struggle most with plain standing/walking poses, because I very often can’t think of ways to make them look…idk, interesting? That’s why it’s taken me so long to finish pt.2 of my Outsiders character designs- I can’t find good dynamic-but-also-stagnant poses for them

proportion:

Honestly man idk I just sorta say “fuck it we ball” and hope for the best. I used to think a lot more about this one but as it’s become more and more natural to me I become less and less able to define/describe it?? I dunno lol.

My art style is semi-cartoony, and honestly kinda inconsistent in terms of proportions. I generally aim for the hands to be similar in size to the face, and for the shoulders/chest area to have enough space to fit the clavicle…but none of this is really a conscious decision? It just sorta happens. The heads/eyes of my characters are usually stylized, and so the hands end up a bit bigger to match the faces, and I tend to exaggerate muscle mass but not really muscle definition…And I also stylize things for characters to better contrast each other. For example, I’ve noticed I draw Steve Randle stockier/bulkier than he is to better highlight Soda’s slenderness.

(see how they’re not as drastically different in build as I draw them? Steve seems bulkier mostly cos he’s shorter but has a similar amount of mass I think) (don’t quote me on that tho idk how to put this shit into words lol)

I have a pretty decent idea of how proportions are supposed to work from years of studying them, and I have no idea how to explain any of it. Just…do a lot of figure and gesture drawing, use a lotta refs, and it’ll make sense eventually 😭

[glitterclan]

Question!!! How do you do your anatomy/sketches? Your style is so good and a perfect blend of cartoony and realistic and I need to absorb it like a sponge

Also!!!! How do you do the poses? I always have to find specific references

what you see in glitterclan posts ARE my sketches! they are very quick and unpolished drawings done without references. i've been drawing cats for so long that everything is sort of muscle memory at this point

[finchwingart]

OMG I'M YOUR FAN

I really wanted to know, do you draw humans too? Or just animals? Your style is very realistic, did you initially imagine having a style like that?

I draw humans very rarely, I'm just so unconfident with them n don't enjoy drawing them so much ToT In my gravity falls phase tho I drew SO MANY I was actually improving for once, but then I stopped lmao. Oops

Here's the One (1) 'human' character I have

about having a realistic style, it has it's ebbs and flows I guess? I love going really cartoony but drifted a little bit away from that during uni cause I was embarassed of it, which I'm really mad at myself at. I think I was worried people would look down on me for drawing lotsa cartoony animals but I was dumb. I do enjoy drawing more realistically though as it's very comfortable, drawing from reference is nice n simple, but I really need to stretch my muscles and try more cartoons n characters again bc stylisation is the hard bit tbh.

I do stuff like this sometimes!

[t0mashek]

Mini character guide for my fellow McSpirk fanartists!

I feel like I finally have a satisfying level of muscle memory down for how I draw each of our guys in a recognizable way! My portrayals of Kirk, Spock and Bones aren't usually drawn with a reference, and they definitely don't look all that realistic, but I figure at least one of you out there might like to have a peak into what I do to try and make them recognizable!

Before I show the specific lines I always like to use, I would like to shoutout all the artists out there with same face syndrome. I had very bad same face syndrome before I started drawing Star Trek fanart, the variety of characters in Star Trek REALLY helped me draw better characterizations of people! BUT, if same face syndrome is something you currently struggle with do NOT let it deter you from posting your beautiful art!

Even when drawn with the same basic face structure like I did here, it's still very easy to tell who's who, just with the use of colors, hairstyles and facial lines!

Now, for anyone who is wanting to pinpoint what I try to keep consistent in my drawings of the boys, I highlighted the lines I find most important in my drawings of each of them. I try to keep my style slightly cartoony, so I like to exaggerate!

The roundness of Jim's face is what I always try to make the most pronounced in all of my art of him. The contrast to the harsher angles of the faces of Spock and McCoy is one of my favorite things to include in my art. He has a button nose in combination with those apple cheeks, they're my favorite thing about Jim to overexaggerate!

McCoy on the other hand? Give him his TRIANGLES. I try to go for a much more square face when drawing Bones, but for the lines and features within his face we love our good old friend the triangle. That man's eyebrows are pointy, and I love to give him his mouth lines. I like to balance out the sharper lines I draw on his face with the round lines of his hair.

Spock has the bangs, ears and eyebrows that play a great advantage to us, no other bro serves like Spock. While I love the pointy sideburns on all of the boys, Spocks sideburns help me play into the length of his face. He's got a straighter face and straighter nose compared to his human boyfriends. And while he and Bones both have those handsome mouth lines, you can differentiate the shape of the crease to fit their faces! When I'm drawing McCoy's mouth lines, there's more of an angle, I draw Spock's lines straighter, similar to his face and nose.

I hope this might help some of my fanartist brethren out there! Or at the very least give you a little peak into my art process! If anyone finds this helpful and uses it to draw some art, I'd love to see it! The variety of styles and character potrayals I see in all of the Star Trek fanart I browse on here never fails to warm my heart. These goofy little guys never fail to stand out from one another, no matter how they're drawn, and that is just so special to me.

Live long and draw fanart, little gay people in my computer!!! 💛🩵💙🖖

[soft5ku11]

Hey so I'm also an artist and a gainer and I was wandering do u have any tips on drawing fat men

Well, it's all about shapes - at least to me. Keep the shapes connected in the right way, with the right volume, and heaviness. That's what I try to focus on. Fat goes over the top of regular anatomy, so learning how that works first can really help.

What I did was just draw whatever and I learned as I drew more of it. It's all about trial and error, learning and evolving and recognising what you want to improve, rather than being discouraged by "this looks bad". Don't compare yourself to others, only yourself.

But, as with anything to do with art, collect inspiration, collect a huge amount of references. Print out your favourite artworks from other artists, smack 'em through a holepunch and keep em together with a treasury tag. Never be afraid to use yourself for a reference picture either. If you cant find something, just save the time instead of mindlessly scrolling image results on your search engine of choice. Especially since you're a gainer, you can use your own body to study how any niche angle or pose might look with your body type.

To add onto this, of course it'll vary from style to style but exaggerate your shapes, (coming back to the shapes thing) for example, I'll use this artwork of my DND guy that I recently did:

See how the shapes of certain parts aren't necessarily more muscled or fatter? The feet and hands for instance, they look better and read clearer if you exaggerate them a bit, and I already set the hands and feet on the 3D reference model I used to almost maximum. You can do this with heads to an extent as well, but it could make the character's proportions feel off. That part is a balancing act and you can find basic proportion guides for the body online to help with that. But - the thickness of the arms and legs and even the neck pulls the figure further from realistic proportions and more into a cartoony illustrative look. I could go on for ages about this but that's the basic gist of it.

One thing I think is exceptionally under-represented in art advice that I've seen in my time is DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF HAVING ARTIST FRIENDS! Learn from each other, talk about stuff, gather and share resources amongst yourselves, etc etc. You learn more when in groups, that's why school isn't one-on-one.

These are just some tips off the top of my head, there's always more out there and I'm sure one of these things won't work for you and others will, but make the leap like you've done here and ask other artists too. Lots of people would be willing to give some advice to help you get going, and you asking will also benefit others who might be too shy to ask so even if you don't take my advice, you can be happy that you've pulled it out of me for others to see at least XD

[mushroominaforest]

Can I get some Human anatomy tips ? I'd Google it but I like hearing from fellow cartoony artists. If you have no tips or anything u can just ignore me :)

All you gotta do to achieve good humans with accurate anatomy in your art is to only draw Canadians in the winter

Jokes aside, honestly just practice. There’s no quick and easy trick to do good anatomy, you have to put in the time. Study references, do billions of figure drawings, look at skeletons, bone structures, muscle and fat formations etc.

Dont just practice drawing people standing in the pick your character/sims stance. Draw ‘em walking, playing an instrument, playing a sport, (yoga is a good one for more complex pose practice).

Bear in mind this is coming from an art major, so I probably have snobbish opinions about the « right » way to draw lmao.

And if all else fails, just draw Canadians in winter.

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

what are your biggest inspirations when it comes to art?

when it comes to character design specifically i think my top 3 are alessandro barbucci, the original artist for w.i.t.c.h. and arguably one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to specifically female characters

jen zee, the character designer for hades who single handedly forced me to draw more muscles

and good ol' hiromu arakawa of fullmetal alchemist fame

but also i need to give a special shoutout to tetsuya nomura, especially when it comes to the more cartoony proportion but especially how i color the eyes

and i think my real biggest inspirations, like. in general? are both ffix in general, when it comes to backgrounds designs and very different character designs, and ZUN's frills and small details and overall philosophy when it comes to design characters ("idk i just think its cute" is actually very powerful)

[baraturts]

Hi, everything’s been good. Out of curiosity how did you learn to draw the turtles, especially when it comes to their facial expressions and bodies ? Do u have any tips or references that could be helpful ?

Hi, things are going relatively good. Hmm, I'm probably not the best person to ask this, heh. My drawing progression and process has been (and is) a bit all over the place.

For anatomy, I'd recommend searching for terms like "comic book anatomy" and "simplified male anatomy for artists". Some pretty good free resources out there, especially on YouTube. Then you look at those recourses and simplify even more! I don't draw a lot of muscle detail, just focus on making the main muscle groups visible and ignore the rest. As long as that's in place and you have alright proportions (another thing to study, hooray), things tend to look passable.

I also have a little folder of screencaps from the movies (mostly OOTS), always handy! Some taken my self, some "stolen" from here on Tumblr. I've never really used refs for expressions, but I also don't draw a lot of very exaggerated/cartoony expressions. I keep it subtle and often find my self subconsciously making the faces I'm trying to draw, heh. And I guess that's my final tip: Draw! One can't JUST look at YouTube videos and tutorials, you gotta draw a lot too. But never be afraid to use references, that's how you learn and drawing is how you hammer that knowledge in to your hand!

Don't be afraid to ask if there's something more specific you're wondering about or if you want me to red-line something. I find that easier to be helpful with. I'm not a very good teacher on broader subjects, my answers to those tends to boil down to: JuSt GoOgLe It, sorry, haha.