#I'd really love to get a new drawing tablet procreate is starting to not be worth it anymore man

[sillimancer]

there's probably not a way to crack spotify on ios is there

[upthenorthmountain]

One nice thing about drawing the same character over and over is that it lets you see your progress. I feel like I’ve made a fair amount!

When I drew that first picture in September 2014 I was 32 years old. I’d always wanted to be able to draw, but just never got round to it or knew how to get started. Like a lot of people, fandom is what inspired me and gave me the push I needed. It’s the most amazing feeling to be able to draw now, to be able to get down what’s in my head, to make things I love and am proud of. I know I still have a lot to learn but that’s where the fun is!

If you’re one of those people always thinking ‘wow I wish I could draw’, here is how I did it:

I worked through the book You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler, which a friend recommended to me (if I'd known then about the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards I'd have used that too, but I didn't. It's good though)

I filled up a couple of sketchbooks with terrible drawings, mainly figure studies from quickposes.com and bad drawings of my blorbos

Finally thought I had something good enough to post, posted it, received so much support and love that I carried on, and I honestly cannot thank all of you enough for that

Kept drawing and drawing, making myself do the things that were hard or that I thought were above my skill level (harsh truth: you will never get better at the hands if you don't draw the hands)

After a little while I thought 'I wonder if I can use my iPad as a drawing tablet', and started using the Procreate app (then about £4, now about £10 I think, still a flipping bargain), first with my finger, then with a stylus that came with my iPad case, then with a slightly better stylus I bought on eBay, then two years ago I got a better iPad and could have a Pencil which is AMAZING

I have also recently taken two Procreate courses on Domestika which taught me a lot of things about drawing in general and Procreate in particular and I should probably have sought this information out sooner! They were Atmospheric Scenes in Procreate: Paint with Color and Light by Ramona Wultschner, and Female Character Portraits in Procreate, by Natalia Dias, and I would recommend them both

And I kept drawing a whole bunch and my friends were super encouraging so I just kept going and didn't stop

I have tips! Things I've learnt along the way

If you use Procreate, look up and learn about clipping masks, alpha lock, streamline, liquify, Gaussian blur

Don't worry too much about brushes, I mainly just use the hard and soft airbrushes and two versions of round marker (one with low streamline for sketching and one with high streamline for line art). I have a spotty one for freckles and that's about it really for what I use 99% of the time. People will try and sell you brushes by making you think you'll be able to draw like them if you have the right brushes but you won't and you don't want to draw like them anyway, you want to draw like YOU

Use more layers than you think you'll need, you can always merge them later

You will suck at first. You will suck so bad you will want to cry. But you have to be terrible, it's the only way to get to not terrible. The only way you STAY terrible is if you give up

Just when everything seems awful and everything you draw is crap and you don't ever want to draw again, that is when you must KEEP GOING and PUSH THROUGH because you are about to level up. Persevere just a little bit longer and soon you will be staring at your own hands thinking 'HOW'

Drawing is a learnt skill. There is no such thing as Talent, just people who've spent longer learning and practicing than you have. Eight years ago I couldn't reverse park my car, either, and then I got a new job where it was really handy to be able to reverse park in the car park and now I'm really good at it. You can improve at anything if you're willing to put in the time! GROWTH MINDSET!!

[sleepysheepytea]

Hi I'm new ! So I've seen your art and I wanna make art like that too , but I don't know what drawing app to use so I use paper and it's kinda bad , so could you tell me what you use to draw pls 😊 ?

Helloooo! Welcome, it's very lovely to have you here!

One thing I wanna clear up beforehand: it really doesn't matter whether you do digital or traditional art! A drawing program really won't make your drawing skills better, the only thing that will help in that sense is lots of practice and fun! So, please don't think that getting an art app will automatically make your drawings 100 times better, I've seen tons of people who make absolutely gorgeous pieces of art without touching a tablet haha, so pls don't think that using paper is inferior in any way!! I, myself, have many sketchbooks and I draw in them a lot! You absolutely can make beautiful art on a simple piece of paper if you put your mind to it! <333

So, that aside, if you do want to try to get yourself started on digital art, I'd recommend Procreate! Though it does cost a little bit of money, it is very much worth it! That's how I started out! Of course, there are a LOT of other great apps out there that you could check out, I've heard ibis paint is a good one too! I don't use Procreate anymore, but I did use it for years and I've made some pretty great stuff on there!

I now use Clip Studio Paint, as well as a GAOMON drawing tablet, both of which are very pricy and have taken me years to get to, so I definitely wouldn't recommend those to a beginner since they're both professional resources and seem to require quite a few years of experience with digital art (at least in my experience :P) Sooo I would probably stay away from this one and go for the ones I mentioned before!

Another thing I'd like to mention: The jump from traditional to digital art is incredibly big and can be quite scary! I got quite overwhelmed when I made the jump, and it took a LOT of patience! I'd recommend taking it very very slowly, going at your own pace, and taking a break if you need to! I like to go back to traditional art with a classic pencil and paper all the time! And if you find out that digital art is not for you, that's absolutely and perfectly okay! But if you're set on building on digital art, I say go for it! Don't give up, be persistent, but take breaks if you need to! <3

[martuzzio]

Love your drawings how do you make them?

Thank you for the compliment! I haven't done a digital drawing tech/process update in a while so this is going to be so long, sorry in advance! HUGE disclaimer: I have a steady income and like buying art supplies so my setup is NOT broke art kid friendly. However, I do have worthwhile and sometimes free suggestions!

Software: Adobe fresco and photoshop (I get them for free through my job as a graphic designer, don't come for me). More affordable options I like are CSP (one time purchase), Procreate (I've never used it, but I can't leave it out), and Krita (free!). All of these are awesome and let you do a LOT, including animation!

Hardware: Huion Kamvas 24in on an articulated monitor arm (college graduation gift to myself). In the past I've used a Wacom 13in (bought secondhand from a friend for super cheap), a surface book laptop/tablet (very generous Christmas gift from parents), and my iphone. Finding affordable options for hardware is more difficult than software, but if you have the money for it, looking for a drawing tablet on a secondhand site like ebay or facebook marketplace is worth your time.

Other drawing supplies: a random drawing stylus for my phone, a scanner, a sketchbook, pinterest, colorhunt, unsplash, dafont, and my gigantic 4gb folder of textures on my laptop. I also signed up for this freebie thing from creativemarket (and haven't been charged any money yet so that's cool) which will send me stuff like new digital brushes and cool textures to download. It's definitely more graphic design focused than illustration, but I'd still check it out if you're interested. :D

My art process in bullet points, for pieces I actually spend time on:

Sketch my idea in my sketchbook or phone, sleep on it, then actually start drawing the idea the next day

Make a tighter sketch from the loose sketch I drew the night before while using a million references from pinterest (for really funky poses) or unsplash (for scenery and background ideas) so I'm not drawing completely from my mind/memory (this is important because your mind is prone to remembering things wrong. Always always always use references)

Completely skip over actually lining my art and instead clean up my tight sketch until it looks okay enough

Fill in flat colors using a textured brush (gasp) while sometimes using color palettes as inspiration

Render colors with more textured brushes (plain hard edge circle brush users fight me /j)

Shade in a cel style on top of the rendered colors with a bright mid tone purple/blue/pink set on multiply at 50%

Clip a layer on top of my "lineart," color all of it a dark blue or brown, then start coloring different parts of it with various colors (ex: for a diamond sword, I'd color the edge hitting the light with a bright blue/green/pink. For the edge in shadow, a purple/dark blue/brown)

Forget to sign my name, close the drawing program, then have to reopen it

This is SO LONG, but I hope this gives some insight! If anyone has more questions, let me know. :)

P.S: I have so many art resources saved in my browser that I kind of want to make a whole separate post for it. Let me know if that's something you'd like to see! I might just make it lol