#I think the lineart is making it look flat

[periwinkla]

A word of advice to every artist out there who thinks they have to draw a certain way. I see things like this often: I hate drawing hands, I hate rendering, I hate linearting, etc., etc., etc.

One of my teachers in art school taught us something: if you don't like to draw something (regardless of how good at it you are) find a way to do it differently. Why draw if you don't enjoy it? Don't make your life miserable uselessly. He said, for example, that he really, really didn't like drawing hands. So he developed a style where his shapes were so stylized, and his hands so unlike anything you had seen. And, technically, his hands look weird. But! They are always consistent. You know it's intentional. It's his style. Weird is good. Weird will make you happy. (That doesn't mean he can't draw a realistic hand, it was his job to teach after all. But he just didn't like to draw them, and that's fine.) The same thing you can say with rendering, for example. You don't have to render! You can do flat color. You can do no color. Don't like to color? Black & White! Or cross-hatching. Or simply only lineart/sketch. Don't like to lineart? Do blocks of color with no lineart. Or just paint instead! Or use your sketch instead of the lineart. For myself, I don't like to draw detailed eyes, or noses. See how simple I draw them? That's why! I also don't particularly like to shade, and as you can see, my shadows are pretty generalistic and not very precise. Sometimes I do pieces where the light comes a bit all over the place and I enjoy that feeling of 'I don't know where this takes place, I'm disoriented by how this space works'. Sometimes I don't feel like linearting and I clean up the sketch with a soft eraser brush and that gives a different feeling to the piece, and I often like it even more. What I do focus on is color, because that's what I enjoy the most. Seeing all those bright colors together makes me happy!

What I am saying is, don't force yourself to do something you don't like to do. You'll feel miserable. Art is supposed to be fun. That's all. Happy drawing!

[aychama]

Meditating.

[crystalpallette]

get you a girl who can give you everything

this started a long long time ago when I made a joke about how sega should put ringo in more dresses, and then my friend reminded me that oh yeah!! I can do that instead!!! and then one thing led to another and we joked about punk ringo and I drew that too. using ringo like a dressup doll is so cathartic it's kinda crazy

some bonuses (original designs, timelapse) under the cut bc I like these designs!! I might do some more with them!! please disregard the band poster in the first second of the timelapse that's something else!!!

[clockwise-works]

You ever go a while without drawing so your afraid to do it out of fear of learning you've regressed or forgot how to, only to put it off more as a result and pretty much ensuring that will happen?

[toytle]

HI HI JUST WANTED TO SAY THE WAY U COLOUR YOUR ART AND DO THE LIGHTING IS SO SO PRETTY AND COOL LIKE ??? FULLY GASPED WHEN I SAW UR SUPERBAT ONE HOLY SHIT

thank you so much!! do not ever expect it from me again.

[punknerdmusings]

Hera design for that game I'm making. She's still a rough sketch technically, but I'm also not the most experienced in pixel art 😅 Especially at this size (150 by 200 was original canvas size). Hilariously, smaller is sometimes easier.

Her hair is one of my favorite details, it's braided close to her head but the ends are left loose to be a hair sculpture reminiscent of peacock feathers.

@creatingblackcharacters Thought you might enjoy this one!

[homosexualcitron]

I'm almost done with the first episode of the current chapter i'm working on and wooehhh it's going so well for now.. i usually struggle to draw the first few episodes but this one went rly well

[noroi-amaraciune]

My friends call me an artist but I don't have nearly enough decent pieces. I need to make a goddamn portfolio instead of sketchbooks. I need to make bigger pieces instead of A5 size shit but there is never any fucking time. I have not finished any thought out piece since 2021.

[duskerot]

maybe i will stop lining my art . maybe i will just color under my sketches after cleaning them up alittle

[justsomehazbin]

Holy SHIT am I proud of this. It took a day and a HALF to work on it. I really just wanted to draw a cool badass picture of Charlie in a cute dress, and somehow I ended up with my best piece I think I've ever done!!

To see the process, click the 'read more' below!

Otherwise:

Main blog over here

My Etsy Shop!

Originally, I wanted it to look more like a royal portrait, a good excuse to draw a pretty dress.

I adored the dress design, but it was an extremely flat image, so despite taking like. 5 hours to design it and work on it, I rethought my plan, switching to a far more dynamic pose.

I also made sure to add tons of flow lines, both from her hair, to her tail, to help bring the eye all around the canvas.

I did a billion sketches, but this is what I ended up on! Originally I had her right arm holding the pitch fork behind her back, but it just never looked right. I also took a risk and did a facial angle that has always been extremely hard to get right, and somehow I managed to make it look nice!

After adding the lineart, colors and all of that, I knew quickly I didn't want the angel to stick out as much as she did. I wanted her to fall into the background instead, since she was just on the border and I didn't want any attention really taken from Charlie. So I changed her shade to red, and from there I added more of the background details!

Okay I did leave some inbetween screenshots out but it's past my bedtime. I hope this was fun to look at, at least!

Final product once more!

[bixels]

I think 90% of my gripes with how modern anime looks comes down to flat color design/palettes.

Non-cohesive, washed-out color palettes can destroy lineart quality. I see this all the time when comparing an anime's lineart/layout to its colored/post-processed final product and it's heartbreaking. Compare this pre-color vs. final frame from Dungeon Meshi's OP.

So much sharpness and detail and weight gets washed out and flattened by 'meh' color design. I LOVE the flow and thickness and shadows in the fabrics on the left. The white against pastel really brings it out. Check out all the detail in their hair, the highlights in Rin's, the different hues to denote hair color, the blue tint in the clothes' shadows, and how all of that just gets... lost. It works, but it's not particularly good and does a disservice to the line-artist.

I'm using Dungeon Meshi as an example not because it's bad, I'm just especially disappointed because this is Studio Trigger we're talking about. The character animation is fantastic, but the color design is usually much more exciting. We're not seeing Trigger at their full potential, so I'm focusing on them.

Here's a very quick and messy color correct. Not meant to be taken seriously, just to provide comparison to see why colors can feel "washed out." Top is edit, bottom is original.

You can really see how desaturated and "white fluorescent lighting" the original color palettes are.

[Remember: the easiest way to make your colors more lively is to choose a warm or cool tint. From there, you can play around with bringing out complementary colors for a cohesive palette (I warmed Marcille's skintone and hair but made sure to bring out her deep blue clothes). Avoid using too many blend mode layers; hand-picking colors will really help you build your innate color sense and find a color style. Try using saturated colors in unexpected places! If you're coloring a night scene, try using deep blues or greens or magentas. You see these deep colors used all the time in older anime because they couldn't rely on a lightness scale to make colors darker, they had to use darker paints with specific hues. Don't overthink it, simpler is better!]

[vavoom-sorted-art]

Wing tutorial~

Since it has been asked, I made a little breakdown on how to draw wings.

So, first thing to understand is wing anatomy. I used a swan wing as reference for my artwork. Divide the wing into blocks of feathers. There's sort of three layers to the feathers outlined in the second picture, and these divided along the top joint of the wing where it folds. See the second image. Make sure you bring in these nice, flowy shapes here!

Now that you have these big shapes, you can cut into them and make the individual shapes of the primary and secondary feathers (layer 3.) also make sure they overlap correctly depending on if you are drawing the wing from the front or the back. make sure you stick with a nice rythm and have the feathers get gradually bigger as you get closer to the tip. Like this:

when you go ahead and draw that layer 2 of coverts, make sure that every feather you drew for the bottom layer has (approximately) a feather overlapping it (so you have pretty much the same number of feathers in each layer) and that they line up nicely. But you can also make them a bit more ruffled. Like this:

Other than the flight feathers, the very top part of the wing is very smooth, with shorter, more rounded feathers (almost half-circles!). They can lie very flat or also look a lot more fluffy. think of them almost like overlapping scales. There is also the Alula at the top of the wing, a sort of extra feathery bit that sticks out over the primaries. also don't forget the scapulars which cover over the shoulder blade and are on top when the wing is folded. The Scapulars also have two layers of feathers. (see first graphic).

From there, it's only a matter of lineart and shading or however you want to finish your artwork. Hope this helps with the structure! Drawing wings folded together is a whole other story that I'm not going to get into here... lol.

TL:DR: understand the structure of wings and use references to get it right, work from big shapes to small shapes.

Edit: I demand to be tagged in the results, I desperately need to see more wing art. ÒwÓ

[everestgale]

You're lucky. What I would give to be able to forget—

[Drawing and design notes under the cut]

*cackles* Turns out, even putting just Hero through Moment of Clarity wasn't enough for Everest, they needed to make all of their voices suffer :]

This drawing was a very funny one because it just kept evolving until it got to what you see now! It was supposed to be a quick doodle where I send my human Hero to MoC... but then I wanted to add the other voices and give this drawing some nice lineart... and then I wanted to add flat colors to make sure each character is distinct from one another... and then I added light shading—

Despite how much it grew out of my control, and despite how much trouble it gave me composition and concept-wise, I'm quite happy with the final result. I'm glad I could at least play around and make some concepts for how my voices would change during the Moment of Clarity. Some were definitely on the simpler side, but others had quite a few neat details! If you're curious to read my thoughts on that, well, there we go!

Stubborn: definitely one of the simpler ones, though both of his Adversary-borrowed horns are snapped, almost symbolizing his usual will to fight depleting almost completely. He also has a bunch of bruise/dust marks all over him, as though he just came out of a fight.

Broken: I went with the obvious one and gave him a bunch of cracks for how shattered he is. But I also made his ears longer (which is the case for all of my voices that have "loose"/hair-like feathers - which are Hero, Smitten, and Broken)... and also he has a suspicious scar on his neck—

Cold: he is the voice that has the least "damage" on him, only really having some missing/messy bang feathers. He does, however, seem even colder than usual, insisting that all other voices are too soft, and they need to be numb and unfeeling... what's a better way to represent that than to literally have him covered in light icy texture?

Paranoid: my poor Paranoid always, always wears gloves when he can, it's a headcanon of mine that he feels extremely uncomfortable and anxious without them. And, uh, he is not wearing any in this drawing. Also just like the Hero in this and previous MoC drawings, he does not have any claws on his hands. His claws are gone :]

Skeptic: he was a difficult one for sure, I couldn't quite figure out how to represent his damage and distress. I ended up breaking a link on his neck shackle (which is barely noticeable), breaking his spiky collar feathers (which is barely noticeable), and adding a light "unraveling" texture (which is, again, barely noticeable). He does look very uncertain and confused, though, so at least I got that right!

Smitten: Smitten borrowed some of the elements from his HEA design, mainly the straightened hair and fallen-out curls. But to differentiate between the two designs, I also added a crack along the center of Smitten's face, like the one you might see on a broken heart :]

Opportunist: Opportunist actually doesn't seem to be doing too horribly during MoC (at least if you compare him to some of the other voices), which is why his design isn't as damaged as some of the other ones. He is tattered and messy, sure, but not completely destroyed like some of the other voices, though I did make sure to give him a very wide-eyed... half-scared, half-empathetic expression, I guess.

Hunted: while his quote "Kill or be killed" was taken out during one of the updates, I really wanted to include it in the drawing because I think it characterizes Hunted during this route very well. That's why his primary damage is blood splatters, from numerous and numerous and numerous deaths.

Cheated: he was fairly simple to do because his default design is already cut up and stitched together. All I needed to do was to add a few more gaping wounds and unravel his stitches. That's why his right ear is missing, too!

Contrarian: similar to Cheated, Contrarian also just got a feature of his regular design—cracks—greatly exaggerated. Contrarian really didn't seem to be doing well during MoC, which is why I went all out on his cracks. Couldn't let him open his eyes, or drop his "smiley" expression completely, but you hopefully can tell that he is barely hanging in there.

Hero: oh, Hero, my sweet, sweet boy Hero. I already talked about his MoC design in a previous post—broken visor feathers to represent his destroyed nature as a "hero" and missing claws—and his long, very unkempt feathers represent the passage of time (how long they've been stuck in there) and almost unraveling (how badly has Hero been damaged by whatever they all experienced in the lead up to Moment of Clarity).

...should be all I wanted to ramble about! Hope you all like this drawing as much as I enjoyed making it :]

[sproouts-jpeg]

my second claim for the @sanjiartcollab !! outfit 345!!

i definitely took the concept and ran with it lol (like it’s def the same outfit but u can tell i had waaayyy too much fun with it xD)

closeups on my favorite details:

his entire head/face

i don’t know if it’s immediately obvious but i made his face and neck flushed as if he were a little embarrassed. i think it has a nice gradient :)

also very proud of the hair shape i came up with. i originally tried referencing a buuuunch of different artists i like, but coming up with my own style more directly based off the outfit ref worked a lot better

(btw i didn’t forget his pubestache i just don’t like drawing it lol)

the school bag keychains (there was gonna be a merry keychain too, but i wasn’t sure where to put it :/)

uniform id/nametag

not part of the actual outfit, but when i was looking for references for a gakuran jacket there were some with ids pinned to them, so i thought it’d be a good opportunity to add sanji’s official signature on it. which btw, how tf does one make a kiss mark done in pen??? does this guy just smudge ink on his lips???

furoshiki wrapped lunch box (sanji made pirate lunch boxes for everyone :D)

east blue crew!! they’re like cute lil stickers :] (def inspired by @michelmims ‘s art)

+ just sanji and the lineart!

the comic/lunchbox panels all have each character’s favorite food! (meat on a bone for luffy, fish and chips for usopp, seafood pasta for sanji, onigiri for zoro, and mixed fruits for nami)

also i would like to thank god himself, eiichiro oda, cause if i hadn’t studied his art so heavily in my last collab piece i wouldn’t have realized the power of halftones in shading! also also, watching op fan letter helped me figured out how to pick good shadow colors (basically; cool colored shadows on warm colors, and warm shadows on cool colors!) my shading’s not perfect but it’s definitely not flat anymore :D

is it obvious i really like this piece lol xD

AS ALWAYS PLEASE CHECK OUT THE COLLAB SERVER!! EVERYONES SO NICE AND COOL AND THERES GONNA BE NEW OUTFITS TO CLAIM IN JANUARY!!!

[pleucas]

i got a few asks about my process :0 so yea i took some screenshots mid-process of my recent cliff-skk thing just for that

m gonna preface everything by saying that i did have a ref for the environment!! i avoid color dropping from the image and tracing cuz i do want to hone some digital skills. also saying i'm doing an "environment study" when i'm really just drawing skk makes me feel better abt myself

when i don't have a reference, i tend to do some thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook. here's some random stuff of past work, where i rawdogged everything:

but whatever, back to the cliff-skk. i'll also post a timelapse of it for easy ref, but detailed stuff is under the cut :)

first i did some rough sketches on an orangeish background (underpainting etiquette, i find it helps things feel brighter and keep a stable tone when choosing colors to lay on top), and I quickly lined skk :)

then I laid down some flats for the background, again really eyeballing the reference for hues. afterwards i thought it was a bit bright, and i wanted a more sepia/nostalgia feel to it, so i hue adjusted everything to something more uniform

then i lay down flats for skk + the ocean, which i both had to color adjust a lot (you might see that in the timelapse), and then i jump straight into rendering the background. when i render, i always prefer to do it over something lineless, so i turn the sketch layer off. i rarely do lineart for backgrounds.

i also used to render the characters first, but i've found that it's just not a great approach—especially for art where characters and background are interacting, knowing the hues and shades of the environment is crucial to effective rendering on the character that doesn't make them look out of place.

when i'm rendering, i really try to keep in mind tenants of contrast, perspective, form, and light/shadow. ex, stuff "closer" to us has more detail; the hill in the back is minimalist (in comparison); the shadows lean cool-green while the light leans gray-yellow. rake brushes really carried me here idk... my fav brushstyle forever

eventually i reach a point where i'm satisfied (or bored) with the background. for the last stages i usually have the subjects hidden so i can really perfect the details—but then for super duper final details, like the little leaf specks and grass strands, i unhid skk so the poppy details could work around skk. then i get to rendering the characters :)

i forgot to take ss of all the stages when i rendered skk, but here's something from... about the middle of the process? i tend to render characters with the lineart hidden as well, sometimes bringing it back just to clarify things, but ultimately i prefer to define things by form than by line. that's just me tho idk, idt it makes or breaks anything, just a preference

again rlly just thinking about cool/warm, reflective tones (the greenish shadow on chuuya's left inner leg, sky-gray blue on dazai's vest), really just slotting the subject into the environment. after i finish rendering the characters, i usually return to the background and add some stuff—in this one i defined the waves a bit and put some grass around skk

and yeah then we're done idk LOL. sometimes i run the file through camera raw (photoshop) to do some color adjustments—i find that my iPad displays colors super differently, usually making things a lot lighter than they are (u can see how dark the timelapse is...), so i find myself lightening my work a lot. i also sharpen and add noise as needed :)

i think my process has changed a lotttt even in this past year. it's kinda crazy!! it's always fun to do these and just reflect a bit on how i work. mostly just mindless insanity until it kinda works.

thanks for sending in an ask. and if u read all that, thanks to u too lolol

[hellothisisangle]

I found your Tumblr recently and omg I love your art style., it's so inspiring :D I just subscribed to your patreon because I need more haha.

I was wondering if you have any tips for colouring your artwork?

Thanks so much for the extra support! I’ll go into rendering a face with a reference pic below (because I think that’s what people practice/look at the most) with an absolutely quick and dirty breakdown

I already incorporate the heaviest shadows into my lineart a lot of the time, but I still have to think about shading where the light hits when coloring happens

Since this is coming from top right, the left half of his face will also be heavily shadowed. Understanding 3d planes and how it affects a shadow assists with getting lighting down correctly. I’ve outlined the obvious quadrants that I’ll typically shade with the darkest color. But before that you have to lay down a flat, a color I grabbed from the front of Gortie’s cheek- I think this is a very mid tone. Using a mid tone first is how I think most everyone colors/shades. I can’t say this is how I always do it, sometimes I like to work dark to light, sometimes I start coloring from the top or bottom or side, it depends on what feels good and I get distracted very easily. If I rewatch my timelapses I can see where I got bored of an area for a while and jump somewhere else/come back later

If I know I want to fully render something I don’t bother with cell shading. Not saying this is a good practice, in fact don’t do this until you have lighting practice under your belt.

Colors- go with the reference picture and grab colors from the areas of the face that you’re shading, but increase or decrease the saturation as needed

Forehead- I darken the hairline and add shadows for the loose strands of hair. This is something simple I’ve found elevates the 3d aspect

Eyes- look at eye makeup tutorials, no joke. It’ll show you where to add highlights to make the eyes pop. This is a stylistic choice, but I like my characters looking like they walked out of Sephora. I’ll give them eyeshadow and add a highlight to the upper lid and the inner tear trough. For the actual iris I shade really simply just making the lower part brighter than the top

Nose- bring the bridge forward with the lightest color, add a shine to the tip, darken the side and carry that to the cheek

Lips- upper lip dark, lower lip not, add a shine, I dunno what else to say about this sorry 💧

Chin- shade under the lip and bring the shadow down in a crescent shape

Everything else is sticking to the personal character’s features, like shading his cheekbone and laugh line. I also add a blush tone over the cheeks and nose (again stylistic)

Link to Timelapse: https://youtube.com/shorts/q7E-g05W0m4?si=shZFpHQwNuyO6Qt1

I’ll try to do an actual infographic later when I have time because I keep getting asked about coloring. Just know that I’m still learning new stuff every day and these things should be taken as a “this is what I’m doing now” sort of thing!