#I’m still not great at digital art lol

[eeveelikessoda]

So there’s a new indie “horror” game coming out soon!!! It’s called Piñata Puppy World! It immediately caught my attention, since bright and colorful character designs have always been my bread and butter!

Speaking of character design, please don’t go bashing the creators. I already know that Gay Gecko’s and Lorus Lochness’s designs have been heavily criticized, but it looks like they are going to redo Lorus’s design and retouch up everyone else’s! This game is still in development, and all games have an awkward phase/design where they are trying to figure out what they are doing. I, personally, am really excited to see what this team does!

So please, don’t go hating on the dev team about a game still in development. Game design is hard, and nothing is perfect!

[mossy-paws]

Coroika Splatoon but it’s PHIGHTING! Roblox

Hi to my Coroika and phighting fans so how are we feeling about this one

cooked these up in a few hours! These honestly didn’t really take that long at all and were really fun to do since I got to play around with some charcoal brushes (I love doing everything in my power to NOT use midtones lmfao).

I tired to mimic the style of the manga a bit and I think i did relatively okay! I have a lot more of these planned so yeah >:3! Really excited to get to do them sometime

Og Panels:

[ask-carson-real]

Dog moon

[chipmunkweirdo]

One of the 4 Halloween doodles has been completed!

These are Talking Teddy, Babbling Bunny, Chattering Chickie, and Gossipy Foxie from the AATC Five Nights At Freddy’s parody fic!

Talking Teddy is from the show, but the others I came up with to spoof Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy.

I think they turned out really cute/terrifying!

[kenobiwanx]

Happy New Year!!! 🌟

First of all, I want to thank each and every one of you. Thank you for supporting me and my art. This past year was a good one for me, and that's thanks to all of you!

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I live by my art. This is my full-time job—it’s what pays my bills. And 2024 started off great: I received commissions every single month, something that hadn’t happened in previous years. That was a huge change for me, truly life-changing. I’m so grateful to everyone who decided to spend their money on my art, to trust me with your ideas, characters, and stories. It means SO much to me, and I say this from the bottom of my heart. I put everything I have into creating the best art I can for you, truly. When you message me saying how much you loved it and how much my work means to you, I cry for real. It moves me deeply. So thank you for all the kind words and support.

This is going to be a long message because I feel like I need to thank you and share a bit about myself. So, if you read all of this, you're a warrior, lol.

I don’t usually share much about myself or my personal life, but here are a few things. Well, I’m from Brazil—you probably already know that. I’m a self-taught artist, and honestly, I’m like that with everything I know how to do. I love learning on my own with the resources I have available. When I set my mind on doing something, I go all in. Drawing came into my life as a form of therapy, a way to focus on something other than my negative thoughts. I’ve always been a very anxious and depressive person and went through a lot of trauma that made things worse. Since I didn’t have the resources or support to seek professional help, I tried to find my own way—and that’s how I learned to draw!

I won’t say I’m 100% okay now because life hasn’t been easy for me. I lost my mom to breast cancer six years ago, and it had a massive impact on me and my mental health. She was my rock, my world, and losing her was devastating. She fought the disease for five years, and during that time, I was the one taking care of her, keeping the house running, and looking after my two younger siblings. I was just a teenager, but I suddenly had so many responsibilities. It messed me up a lot, but if I had to do it all over again just to have more time with my mom, I would.

I wish she were here to see how far I’ve come with my art because she was the only one who supported me back then. I know she’d be so proud of me for not giving up.

I used to do realistic traditional art before, spending a whole month on one piece. It was fun for a while, but it was just a hobby—I only sold a few pieces to family members. Then, in 2020, during the pandemic, I decided to switch to digital art. I wanted something that gave me more freedom to express myself creatively, and digital art offers that. So, I started learning. And guess who became my muse for this journey?

Yep, Pedro Pascal, lol. From my very first digital drawing, he was my go-to subject. And let me tell you, those early drawings weren’t great, poor guy, lmao. But thank God, I improved! I’m still drawing him to this day, and he’s been a huge reason I’ve gotten so many commissions since most of them are of his characters. I’m incredibly grateful to him and the roles he plays.

Anyway, I’m working on rebuilding myself, trying to move forward, achieve my goals, and take things step by step. This Christmas, I was able to buy a huge drawing tablet, which was a big milestone for me. I used to do everything on a small tablet, so this was a major upgrade—and it’s all thanks to everyone who commissioned me this year. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I hope 2025 will be just as good. I hope you’ll all stick with me and keep asking for commissions, lol. I wish you all the best in life, that you achieve everything you dream of, and that you stay healthy. Please take care of your mental health too; it’s just as important as your physical health.

I have a lot of personal projects I want to work on this year—art ideas I’ve set aside for years that I hope to finish in 2025.

This year, I plan to open commissions every month. The only exception will be if my waitlist gets full before I open them officially, like who Dm me to reserve a slot earlier, which happened in December. My DMs are always open!

I’ll also be updating my price sheet, adding new information to my terms and conditions, and increasing my prices. It’s been about two years since I last updated them, so it’s time. But don’t worry—it’ll only be an increase of about $10-$15. I still want to keep my art affordable for everyone.

I’ll sort all of that out in the coming days, so stay tuned for updates!

My January waitlist is already open, and there are a few people in line. If you want to reserve a spot, feel free! Just keep in mind the price adjustment I mentioned earlier.

I think that’s everything! I know this was a lot of text, lmao.

Thank you again, everyone! Happy New Year, and I love you all! And I love you, Pedro Pascal!

[ageravena]

The maggots are participating in strange evening activities

Sorry if this week’s post was a bit too freaky, something possessed me again

So, context to what’s happening: uhh Peri and Dale are ummm doing something and err they don’t want to get caught and stuff… or, well at least Dale doesn’t want to. Poor dude always has that terrified and tired look in his eyes when I draw him

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but like my vision of their relationship is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE to what I've seen most people imagine. Like I have not seen ANYBODY make them be like "I will fix him and it's actually working +it's kinda wholesome" (okay, well actually it's a bit more complicated than that, but still). Though that could probably be because I'm the only one with a lethal amount of microplastics in their body /j

Still, I hope that at least some of you can fw it (considering my follower count has risen from 30 to 50 in a matter of a few months, maybe you do care. Or then you're just here for the art/AU/something else and the ship is just something you'll have to deal with lmao, that would be hella funny)

Also here's some extra art. I absolutely love drawing in my chibi style, they look so stupid adorable

Peri really found himself a tall half-Russian bisexual bottom billionaire with internalized homophobia. Good for him

(Yeah, that’s right, Peri's a TOP!!! Probably weren’t expecting THAT!)

(The headcanon inbreeding has gone too far)

-------------------------------------------------------

I’m having trouble with my art style again! I mean the current style looks nice. It’s got the roughness and the edge I’m looking for, but it still lacks a certain softness. All the artists I’ve gotten inspiration from paint traditionally, so trying to recreate the same vibe is difficult when all the digital brushes feel too… digital, and fake

I’m currently in a weird transition phase where my art, especially my rendering style, isn’t consistent. Maybe I’ll figure something out. We’ll see. In the meantime, don't be surprised if my style changes a bit with each post lol

If you ever wonder why it takes me so long to post: it’s because of these long ass descriptions lol. I know most, if not all, will skip them, but I still like to add them for my sake. It’s also great English practice!

Also guess whose silly ass got sick right before Christmas. Mine did! Oh yeah, Merry Christmas or happy Holidays or whatever you’re celebrating or not celebrating btw 😍

[iamazfighter-blog]

Consistent art style? Never heard of it

My Mushroom Oasis March drawing…… ok i know it’s April I did technically started doing this in March, but I got busy. I also just decided instead of posting every day just to put all of the pictures together in one post because I’m lazy anyways. I’m also very new to digital art so please just don’t look at it too long.

Day 1 Chickens

I own chickens they’re great

Day 2 Jam

I genuinely didn’t know what to do for this one

Day 3 Flower crown

this one is my least favorite out of all of them

Day 4 Stargazing

I think the idea was cute, but I’m not at the level to make it look great

Day 5 Ran

He’s supposed to be braiding my hair if that isn’t clear

Day 6 Butterfly

Could not think of a good background for this one

Day 7 Sleeping

I used a reference photo for this one, but it was still the one that took the longest

Day 8 Mushrooms

Heheh yum

Day 9 Crocheting

I know I’m knitting in the photo. I forgot the prompt was crocheting

Day 10 Baking

IDK why this is my favorite, but it just is

Day 11 Cat

I love cats, but I’m so allergic to them

Day 12 Hiking

don’t look at the background

anyways, this was my drawings for #Mushroom Oasis March I absolutely love this game excited to play more and can’t wait for the next update (don’t judge me on my bad handwriting lol)

[bakathief]

I'm a little shy! But I would like to express my amazement and admiration! A while ago I found your Shadow Chase art, I loved it and became a fan, you create very funny stories and your art is beautiful, but that's not the point, I started following you because of that, but then I realized that you have many others projects and You are also very busy with your personal life. My question is how is everything organized and planned to advance a project despite academic/work responsibilities? I've seen that you even have collaborations with others and I keep thinking "this person is great." As a final note, I just want to leave my good wishes and hope you have a nice week. <3

Gosh, so many compliments in one ask, I‘m still a little loss for words. Thank you so much for reading my work and looking into my other projects, collabs and art! I hope you‘ve been enjoying them. ❤️ 

I think there is no denying that I need to organize myself a little bit to make everything work. I think I‘ve always used drawing, especially drawing comics, as a way to breathe and when I started uni I promised myself I would continue drawing somehow. The first semester was hell, but I finished all the way. 💪 And I had the same mindset for working, so when I started this year I was very motivated to draw. Lol I think it also helped that I had several different projects to work on so when I wasn’t in the mood for black and white I would move to something colorful. Comics also offer the possibility to work on different parts. Do I want to work on the story, on the storyboards, on the actual drawings or just editing…? A lot of options. And this is something which I heard on a video on AI but artist and creative people in general don‘t create in other to have more content but to get something out of their head and feel the satisfaction of creating a certain idea and I felt that very much. And then there is the joy of collabs and while there were unfortunately more failed attempts at collabs I’m very glad for those which eventually resulted in great projects. ❤️ I might have to take actual breaks from drawing when I get back to my thesis. I finished all the work but need to write the discussion part and wow, how much I don‘t wanna work on that. 

Currently I use my time on commutes for drawings digitally or making storyboards. In the evening I finish private stuff and when time is left I work on traditional art. Shadow Chase is the only project where I try to have an overview on how many pages I have done and want to finish before the next upload. Other works can usually go up once finished. When I create something for fan projects like zines, bigbangs, etc. I usually just try to finish said project right away. I don‘t like procrastinating (except my thesis I guess) and rather have stuff than can be finished done right away and focus on my other projects again.  Shades of Tourmaline was definitely my biggest collab project yet and with the amount of art planned it took like 3 years to finish because that was something I couldn‘t get done right away. 😂 fortunately clef was very patient with me (and kept me distracted with new collabs, oops). 

The short answer would be I try to draw as much as possible because it is just a lot of fun with the additional bonus of entertaining a few people. ❤️ 

[artscheese]

As a autistic Balan fan, I wanted to say thank you for continuing to still loving this game. For me it was really hard to liking without getting bother by the masses who told me everytime that the game is bad and feeling ashamed of that. You are a great artist who gave me courage to still being a Balan wonderworld fan even after the harassement Thank you for you're fan art of bw and have a nice day! (P.S I love you're au of digital circus, it's so awesome! ^w^)

Oh!! You’ve probably mistaken me from another artist?? But thank you nonetheless! I also love this game as well (even if I’m self conscious of liking it lol) and I like drawing the characters from it!! :D

[chelstory]

At first I thought I wanted to start a path in animation, but then looking at your Elemental art and storyboards makes me want to try my hand there too! (Yes, I love Elemental that much, watched it 7 times).

Not sure if you’ve been asked this a lot, but where does one start on the path to becoming a storyboard artist (or anything relevant to the animation industry)?

I’m a vocational nurse who is hoping to use her free time to slowly go on that journey of “animation aspiration”. Someone told me that the best way to start would be getting a wacom if I want to try more animation.

Does that also apply to storyboards? Like what technology and apps do I need?

How do I put myself out there like you did?

Apologies if this question has been asked too many times. I just feel so inspired after seeing your work!

- Abigail

Apologies for answering this a million years later 🥲

You should absolutely go for it!!

If you want to do anything within the animation industry, my general advice would be

1. Watch loads of movies and shows! Animated and live action. Make a note of shows you like and are inspired by

2. Draw a lot. Get a sketchbook (I like to call them shitbooks) and just draw any and everything, no matter how ugly. Just get used to drawing whatever on paper and when you’re ready, move to a digital medium like an IPad or any other small drawing pad that you can comfortably draw on

3. Study story structure! Knowing how to properly tell a story is really vital, especially if you want to be involved in a show or a movie. YouTube has a BUNCH of resources. Also read books!!

4. Learn how to visually tell a story! When you watch movies/shows, pay attention to how the scenes play out and what shots the director used to get the idea across. Make a list of shots/scenes you really like and study what makes them work

5. When you’re ready, invest in a desktop setup! Tablet, PC, monitor, all of that. Most animation professionals use ToonBoom, Storyboard Pro, Photoshop, Blender etc. There are cheaper alternatives to all of these too

6. Just make stuff and put it out there. Whatever interests you, whatever gets you pumped, just draw and post it. Post into the ether and eventually people will see it and want to know more about you.

Starting and putting yourself out there is scary and hard (I still lowkey hate it lol) BUT part of living is sharing yourself with others! Because I faced my fears and put myself out there, eventually I inspired you! 🧡

All in all, go for it! If you have any other questions, you can DM me!

Edit: I just looked at your page and saw that you already draw a lot and draw digitally which is GREAT

I’d say def focus more on your own stories and post that stuff separately from your fandom stuff! You’re already putting yourself out there and allowing people to get a peek into your personality, now just sort of direct that to your own characters, stories and other stuff that interests you!

[little-red-fool]

OMG YOU'RE SEVENTEEN?? (I've been following you for months and I didn't once read the pinned message beyond the line about no AI and NFTs lmao) YOUR ART IS SO CRISPY I THOUGHT YOU WERE A PRO ARTIST AROUND 30 WTF

(sorry for the yelling via text)

HOW DID YOU GET SO GOOD!! (Tips on lineart please?) WE'RE THE SAME AGE, BUT HALF OF MY ART IS SHIT AND THE OTHER HALF IS FART

ALL HAIL LITTLE RED FOOL, BESTOW THY GREATNESS UPON THOU MERE MORTAL SERVANTS

But in all seriousness, any tips on, like I said, lineart or just digital art in general? (I just started digital, and... Ten hours of work and I'm just on base colors 😎🕶️🤏🥲) I love, LOVE your style and especially COLOR! How do you tie it all together? Like, I'm 17 too, but I'm not even close to your stuff?? I'm scared as fuck from ever trying color traditionally because I spend SO MUCH TIME ON A SKETCH, so I just picked up digital and HOURS LATER IT'S STILL AWFUL

Sorry for the rambling and repeating, man, it's been a long day and it's late in the Balkans... Don't let the rambling force you into answering tho

Have a good one. ->excited fellow artist

(tip of the day: did you know that in Romanian, moon and month are the same word, with the same pronunciation, spelling and plural? It's called: lună [loonuh] and I think it comes from latin, since Romanian is a heavily latin language, with bits of french and turkish (HEAVY bits), dacian, slavic, italian)

OUAHFSHD THANK YOU SO MUCH I’M REALLY HAPPY YOU LIKE MY ART!! Also I’m sure your art is better than you think it is (we generally tend to view our own creations as worse than others because we’re the ones that made them, don’t worry I’m the same as well ajdbsjd) but yeah I’ll be happy to give you some tips and stuff! (and yeah I never colour traditionally either I just leave everything in plain biro because I don’t want to mess it up lol)

(I haven’t seen your art so these will probably be more general tips but hopefully they’ll help a bit, also keep in mind that I’m not a professional so this will be more about what has worked for me but I hope it might help you a bit)

So for stuff like lineart, avoid using chicken-scratches—it might seem easier or less daunting to do shorter overlapping lines like that but it will give your sketches and drawings that overall fuzzy look, the trick is to have longer confident strokes. It might seem a bit tricky at first if you haven’t done it before so don’t worry it happens but if you keep practicing they’ll eventually look smoother and less shaky. For the longer lines it better to draw from either your elbow or shoulder, and by that I mean keeping your wrist still and letting the larger parts of your arm do most of the work—this will also help your wrist in the long run. For things like shorter lines and smaller details then absolutely use your hand to move the pen, but generally try to use your elbow and shoulder as it will help you get those longer smoother lines. Also this is just a personal preference of mine but I generally use brushes that have a bit of pressure sensitivity which helps add some line weight. If you don’t have pressure sensitivity another way you can get line weight is by taking an eraser to some of the edges and narrowing some parts.

For colours it mainly depends on the lighting—lighting is everything and will affect how the rest of the colours will look, so it’s important to have an idea of the brightness and colour of your lighting. The background also plays an important role in picking colours for me as well as it helps provide colour context and makes it easier to pick colours by eye if you want a certain mood. If you want a more dependable way on getting colours to match up then I’d recommend having a layer that’s just colour on top of the rest of your piece—you can play around with the blending modes and opacity, I mainly use either an overlay layer with a medium colour that’s slightly desaturated or a colour burn layer with a light saturated colour; most of the time I use colour burn because if you put it over your lineart then it will also tint the parts of your lineart or sketch that’s at a lower opacity too. But with figuring out colours I’d highly recommend researching some stuff about colour theory, there are a lot of good and easy to understand explanations and art tutorials on YouTube so I would recommend starting there (unfortunately I can’t link recommend specific videos because my playlists are a mess ajdbsjdbsj but some good channels to learn from are Sinix Design, Marc Brunet and Marco Bucci).

In terms of general digital art tips, ALWAYS FLIP YOUR CANVAS. You will not believe the amount of times I’ve looked at a drawing and thought it looked pretty good, flipped the canvas and found that everything’s wonky. In cases like these the liquify tool is your best friend, as well as the lasso tool and transform tools, as well as just manually fixing them by redrawing some parts. Also use as many layers as you need, and by this I mean if you’re working on your sketch, lineart or colouring or whatever and you want to do something you’re not sure you’ll like, duplicate the layers so you have a backup in case it goes wrong and you want to go back. When I say use as many layers as you need I mean use as many as you need, these are some of mine and they’re all from just one sketch because I get really anxious about messing stuff up lol, also don’t be afraid of drawing separate parts on separate layers and merging them afterwards if you want.

Also take your time, unless you have a deadline don’t feel like you have to complete a drawing within a certain timeframe, if you want to get faster at drawing then that’s great but don’t feel like you need to push yourself, especially if you’re just starting. Practice takes time and patience is your best friend, and you probably hear lots of other artists saying this but trust the process. You might get to a bit you’re struggling with and not like it and want to abandon the drawing, but I found that rather than saying “this is bad” or “this is wrong” start asking “how can I make this work” because a change in mindset can help you a lot with art. Also don’t feel like you have to reach certain milestones with your art by certain points either, like with the age thing and comparing your progress with other artists of either the same or different ages, because it can make you feel worse about your art. Trust me there are some artists younger than me who are like 14 or 15 who’s art I envy and—again with the mindset thing—instead of getting down that your art isn’t similar to their’s or worrying that you’re “behind” in your artistic development (there is no such thing btw everyone learns at different ages and speeds so don’t feel bad if you haven’t progressed as much as you would have liked to) it helps to ask what you like about their art and what you would like to incorporate into your own—this has helped me learn and improve a lot faster.

I don’t know if I have any more tips at the moment, but I hope that answered some of your questions! (also sorry it’s a bit long or some bits don’t make a lot of sense I like to ramble a bit lol) (also also thank you for the little fact as well!)

Have a nice day anon 🧡

[getooine]

Native Spidersona

Hi! Thought I’d make my first post by sharing my Native oc I made after watching Across the Spiderverse! ( it was so great :D)

Her name is Méškéso and she is a Southern Cheyenne Spidey~

Hopefully this came out cool- I just got an iPad recently and I’m still figuring out digital art lol

[star-going-supernova]

I saw fan art of bear cub Gregory from pixlokita on tumblr, so I hope that I can request a prompt where Gregory becomes a bear cub (still can talk and looks like Gregory) and Freddy is happy to have an actual bear and son. Please write this please, for a birthday wish. Thank you.

I took these two prompts and came up with something in between, lol. This is pure fluff. Happy belated birthday, friend! 🎉

Like Father, Like Son

None of them were technically supposed to be able to access the internet. All relevant knowledge to their jobs, the kids, the pizzaplex, etc. already existed within their databases, and all information stored across the servers was available to them. But Chica had gotten bored one day and spent a bit too much time tinkering with herself via the upgrade cylinder. Monty had demanded his own internet connection after that, and before long, every animatronic in the pizzaplex had access. 

It was not long before Roxy discovered online shopping, and after a few mishaps in trying to figure out how to get the packages to themselves without management finding out, there was not an animatronic among them who had not secretly ordered something or other. 

Sun in particular seemed to enjoy finding new things to add to the daycare—rightly so, considering management was slacking in that regard—and as a result of his frequent digital window shopping, he often sent links to the rest of them, sharing things he had found that he thought they might like. 

All that to explain why Freddy opened a link from Sun with the caption you HAVE to get this :D and discovered that yes, he had to get it. 

It was a child-sized onesie with little footie boots and gloves that could be folded out of the way or velcroed into place and a hood with ears stitched on. It looked wonderfully soft and fuzzy. It was a warm brown with details depicting a bear cub. 

And it had excellent ratings. 

• • •

Gregory laughed when he saw the onesie, but he also snatched it up and took off to go change into it, so Freddy did not think he minded the gift. The others would probably tease him once they caught sight of it, but it would be worth their jokes.

Make no mistake, Freddy did not wish Gregory was any different from the way he was. Nor did Freddy wish he himself was human. But it still tickled something in his code to imagine silly little impossibilities, like he and Gregory being a family by blood. Of course, Freddy was as much a real bear as Gregory would be in a stylized onesie, but that was hardly the point. 

It was only a minute or two before Gregory returned, and he must have stopped by one of the others’ rooms because his nose had been carefully colored in and a line drawn beneath it down to his upper lip. The onesie was a perfect fit—naturally, as Freddy knew his son’s exact measurements—and Gregory’s glee was near palpable. 

Freddy made a little involuntary sound of delight. He crouched down, feeling his eyes brighten to match the building warmth in his chest. 

Gregory came to stand in front of him and did a jaunty spin to show off the little pom-pom tail. Freddy had never understood the human urge to squeal from seeing something so utterly adorable as much as he did then. 

“C’mon,” Gregory said, showing off the toe beans on his gloves, complete with felt claws, “tell me I’m not the cutest bear cub ever.” 

Laughing, Freddy swept him up, and Gregory did not even scramble to hold on, so great was his trust that Freddy would not drop him. 

“You are certainly the cutest bear cub I have ever seen,” Freddy assured him, and Gregory smiled smugly, head leaning on Freddy’s shoulder. “And the best bear cub in general. My bear cub.” 

How odd that mere months ago, Freddy would have said he would not want a child of his own. He could not imagine, now, not having Gregory in his life. When he looked back on pre-Gregory memories, the absence of his adopted son almost shocked him sometimes. He had been happy back then, yes, but in a very mild and content way. There was little variation in his day-to-day, though he had not minded at the time. 

He did not think he could go back to that way of life. It fell far short of the joy that each new day brought now. Gregory made things unpredictable and lively in a way Freddy would be loath to give up. 

And best of all, his love, his gratefulness, and his happiness was matched in Gregory. 

Beaming, Gregory wrapped his arms around Freddy’s neck in a tight hug. “My papa bear,” he said, and it was only a bit teasing. 

[messydiabolical]

@dandenbo asked me for the art asks: 🎠What is a typical 'workflow' for a piece from idea to finished? It turns out to be a long answer so here's its own post, under the cut to save your dash! How I go from screenshot to painting: (This is not intended to be a 'this is how you do it!' kind of guide. I absolutely don't do an optimal route, this is just how I go about painting and what works for me! I've done a workflow for a screenshot to painting as I do a few different things but this is one I could explain somewhat coherently. My comics tend to be created pretty chaotically lol)

1) I take an ungodly amount of screenshots while playing. Also pester friends for their screenshots or stalk the group discord for interesting shots.

2) Go through all those screenshots cursing why I took so many, looking for those great moments that I want to paint. I’m particularly looking for nice poses/captivating moments, dynamic lighting or interesting expressions, and they don’t need to have all 3 as we can fix some of that in the next step. Here’s the screenshot I chose for my Keahi x Thane piece:

It was a cute, soft moment between them and I liked the highlight at the edge of their profiles. 3) Refine the screenshot. I don’t use anything fancy for this. I game on windows PC, so I open up the screenshot with windows photo editor. I crop the image, play around with saturation, exposure, contrast, just basic editing until it looks tastier. For this piece I wanted it to be hyper colourful and vibrant, leaning towards warmer tones.

4) Decide what I will change, then gather references for those changes. In this case I was fortunate that not a lot needed changing. I knew I wanted to move Thane’s eye position to looking at Keahi rather than the way he is slightly off focus, do a more realistic ear with earrings for Keahi, make Thane a little more smiley and lower his eyelid and give Keahi nicer eyelashes. I keep a whole bunch of art guides and tutorials on my PC so I grabbed the necessary ones and sent them to my ipad ready to have on hand for the sketch stage. I have Thane’s character model in XNApose, so I can check things like his eyelid specifically in that (this is actually for a different project but shows you what I mean)

If I was going to change up the lighting/shading I would also gather references for that. For example sometimes i’ll take screenshots of lighting schemes I love from films/tv shows (think the strong teal and orange scheme in Mad Max or the neons of Blade Runner). Or for precise shadows, I can again use XNApose. I also have a little 3d printed Thane head I can shine a torch at and take photos of to get shadow ideas. For humans there’s lots of reference to be found with online searches, I find pinterest more useful than google for this. For specific expressions or body parts, i’ll just take photos of myself (hand poses, smiling from the right angle etc.) My camera roll is an interesting place. I have drawn drell frills on my neck and on my chest before to see how the lines would fold at certain angles. 5) Setting up a canvas I work in procreate. For a piece like this I try to go pretty big, say 5000 x 4000 pixels, then i’ll crop down later as needed. 300 DPI. As I work, I’ll make duplicates and continue on the copy each fresh session. When i’m finished I make a backup save of the PNG and .procreate files on an SSD. I immediately turn the background colour down to a more muted colour to not burn my retinas. If i’m using a textured background like an oil board i’ll insert it, and any overlays like canvas effects. Set up my layers from the start basically for easy toggling throughout. I try to be good and label things to make life easier, it doesn’t always happen though. I don't wear a digital glove or use paper effect screens but I do have a bottle of screen cleaner and a microfibre cloth handy at all times. 6) Sketch. I’m still very much learning to draw. I tried for a long time to do the classic ‘ball for a head, draw the planes/lines etc. It was a constant struggle and never clicked for me, the ball especially always made things much worse, turning a circle into a 3d image in my head just does not happen. I find it better to just start drawing and work things out as I go (I use procreates reference window to see my screenshot). So I’ll have my sketch in one canvas, and i’ll also have a second canvas with the photo ref on it at the same size, and if I feel like something is really wonky and off i’ll test my lines over the photo to see what’s gone wrong, then go back to the sketch and correct the areas that revealed. Sometimes I’ll use the grid feature if i’m getting stuck.  Here's a few of the sketch stages:

Here I tried out the lines on the photo and noticed that Thane’s frills were a little too far to the left, and Keahi’s eyebrow needed to arch down towards the nose.In the next pass I correct these:

Also, and I know i’m gonna get side eye from some people for this but I really could not care less to be honest. On some pieces i’ll just trace the screenshot. Sometime I just want to get to painting, am not in the mood or mindspace for a learning experience, and this is a hobby. It’s my screenshot, no one is getting ripped off. My latest Javik piece was done this way 🤷‍♂️ 6) Painting. I’ll start by blocking in the background and the portrait flats, usually on separate layers. I try to have an idea of the background colour from the start as this can effect the whole piece overall, but sometimes you just gotta change it as you go so having it on a different layer makes this much easier.

The painting itself I’ll lay down wider areas of colours, then start going in and refining bit by bit, I tend to work on one area at a time, and sometimes I’ll get pretty well rendered on a small area before moving on, other times work on a wider area. It really depends on my mood and what i’m vibing with that day. Like you can see here I’ve done some general messy colouring all over Keahi, but done a lot of refinement on the eyeball:

7) Finshing the piece, uploading and testing: When I’m sick of rendering the painting and don’t think I can add anything more to it without gnawing my own wrist off, it is time to finish up! I make sure I toggle all the layers I want on, add a top signature layer (lol I lie I forget this all the damn time). Then i’ll upload the piece to my google drive and open it up on my big 4k monitor on my PC, and on my phone, and see how it looks (my ipad is a 9.7inch air). I find that once off my ipad, it often looks a little less saturated and contrasting as it does in procreate. So I might go back and change the levels if it’s too big a difference until it looks decent across devices (it’ll never look perfect on them all though, just gotta find that happy medium).

8) Posting online I really don’t have any strict steps for this. I know some people go for optimal posting times, and will make multiple copies of their pieces in different sizes to fit better on different sites (damn you instagram and your need for everything to be square). I… do not do any of this lol. I post when I’m done whatever time or day that is. I do tend to reblog/retweet etc before I go to bed, as I live in the UK and that will at least be getting into evening time in US. I reblog my own stuff a fair bit.

[stupidlittledoodles]

Updates

I’ll do a proper pined post at some point. But for now…

Now that tumblr have taken away the ability to add my own url without paying this blog isn’t serving as a website anymore. I’m using it as a creative blog instead. RIP stupidlittledoodles dot com. Maybe I’ll set up a website using the url at some point. If I ever decide to open a shop that’s likely where it will go.

I’d like to build an illustration portfolio so will be using this blog as more of a journal bc sharing things motivates me. :)

Right now I have a bunch of art queued up from the 2020-22 lockdown era. I figured it deserves a home. It’s funny how I look back on older work now fondly when at the time I was so self critical. But everything was on hard mode then. In hindsight I must have been craving stimulation because it’s all bright & highly saturated colours lol

I’m also painting a lot so expect a mix of analogue and digital art.

My other blog @stupidlittlesideblog is where I repost a lot of art from other creators I love and a little nonsense. Nonsense may include gay things, various gaming things, and cats. But mostly art. Would love to see you there :)

My other other blog @theadhdgoblin is full of memes & i have a seed of a tumblr community starting for Adhd, Austistc, and Audhd folks so follow there for updates. Which will be slow bc tumblr is still adding features & I’m still working out what to do with it. So we’ll see what comes of this new thing together.

As always thanks for sticking around through the periods of inactivity! I think this blog is a permanent home for me, even when I pop out for a while the great vibes here always call me back 🥰

Kbye 💕

[onigiri-dorkk]

Okay!!! Hey!! This shows my actual gradual progression!!! Line work, shading/highlighting and detailing, even head/hair proportions, have gotten sooo much better. And I’d say the latest piece even took me LESS time than any of those first three. I’m really really really stoked about this progress, it almost makes me wanna cry lol. I used to dream about making cool digital fanart!! I saw a post from loooong ago of me trying to manifest someone making AOT x Final Fantasy art, for example 😭😂

To be fair, Final Fantasy is 3D-style so I had great reference lighting and shadow, but I definitely have more control over the program and I’m getting a clear idea of how I like the skin to look like. Fabrics/clothing are still hard for me; thankfully Tifa/Cloud only had sturdier leather pieces on them, but I do want to study/practice 1) fabric and 2) anatomy. I feel like I can move on from what I’ve been practicing, and it’s time to step into improving another part of drawing!

Just a reminder to keep creating!!! Every practice session makes you better!!!