#I'm trying to do less stiff poses.

[cosmic-bee]

hey, they are besties now!

____

ᴵ ˢᵃʷ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ʸᵒᵘ ʳᵉᵃˡˡʸ ˡⁱᵏᵉᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵈʳᵃʷⁱⁿᵍ ʷʰᵉʳᵉ ᴹʳ Qⁱ ᵃⁿᵈ ᴷʳᵒᵇᵘˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵗᵒᵍᵉᵗʰᵉʳ, ˢᵒ ᴵ ᵐᵃᵈᵉ ᵃⁿᵒᵗʰᵉʳ ᵒⁿᵉ ᶠᵒʳ ʸᵒᵘ.

[bishopony]

How draw wings.

first thing, references all day long. I like to use physical books that I pick up from thrift stores like this massive book on birds of prey-

it's got giant spreads that are really easy to look closely at. I really prefer physical books and images over digital references unless I need something really specific cause that way I've already got the good poses bookmarked and I don't have to go searching

If you don't have access to any good books, I definitely recommend getting reference images from stock image sites like pexel.

Step 2 is simplification. Don't try to draw exactly what you see; instead look at the major shapes in the wing. In the image above I can separate the major parts of the wings into these shapes: (doing all this with a trackpad so bear with me)

which can be further simplified to something like this:

don't be afraid to play with shapes either to make them look nicer and less stiff. definitely look into wing anatomy as well, I'm not an expert on that and there are definitely people out there who can explain better than me lol

[reachartwork]

the process

a lot of people like to ask me about my process and how ai can be "creative" because they're under the impression that it's just kind of a big slot machine. you pull a lever and art uncontrollably comes out. well, let me show you my process

this is going to be a long thread tagged with #long post, blacklist that if you want to skip it.

so how it starts like most art is that i have an idea. in this case, earlier i made a post about witch-knights "surfing" on swords, so i'm going to try and make that - a witch-knight flying through the air atop one of her swords.

it starts with this picture.

i think this picture is dogshit so i discard basically all of it to try and find something closer to my original intent. there's a couple of uninteresting regenerations so it's clear i have to go back to the drawing board and teach the machine what it is i'm trying to do

let's start with a witch-knight on a broom. it's definitely not great but it gives us a better pose that i can work with.

i start by erasing the broom and replacing it with a skateboard - the machine understands skating better for what i need it to do.

there's a ton of small, subtle errors in this image and it overall looks like dogshit but the most important part right now is blocking and the overall pose structure - i need her "surfing" a large, lengthwise object, in the sky. i start by erasing pieces of the skateboard

now we have a sword, which is good. but the sword itself looks... bad. i'll spare you the abortive attempts at selective regeneration of the sword and just show you what happened when i rolled it back a couple of times from this pose and let it regen entirely.

again, tons of small little shitty errors, but this is something i can work with. i do another regen for a less shitty sword. her boob armor gets replaced with, like, generic scale mail.

this image has a great sword and decent pose but like... everything else is kind of futzy and i dont like it. instead of trying to pick and choose i just throw it back into the oven for a second. much better! but now she's going to cut herself on the sword, oh no!

again, i'll save you the agonizing thirty minutes of trying to get it to understand where the foot should go. unlike before i didn't really have a choice except to muscle through. there! now she's surfing safely :)

so it's done, right? well, i mean, i could post this. and it would probably do okay. but *i'm* not satisfied with it. there's stiffness. dozens of minor errors. the eyes look weird when you zoom in. let's start by fixing her hat, and then maybe her hands?

but she's missing fingers on her left hand so let's go ahead and fix that too. and i don't really like the tip of her sword and the ocean looks really flat and boring. so, VERY CAREFULLY, i have to etch out the parts of the sword and her body i have to keep, and also write an entirely new prompt to tell it "i want an ocean w/ rolling waves please :)"

this is better but not great. i try again - serendipitously, it makes this really cool variant with a shadow over the water, but i know working with that will take more wrangling so i'm considering it an evolutionary dead end and discarding it for now.

i proceed to spend 30 minutes trying to make the ocean look better but it's really not working imo. i'm gonna go back to the shadow version and see how that works

i'll spare you the other 8 minutes - i'm satisfied with the following picture. the sword isn't *perfectly* straight, her eyes aren't perfectly textured, the scale mail is... weird, in texture, but anything else would be greasing the wheel and i think beyond the machine's ability to do fine detail.

i've also attached the starting picture for comparison - it has better, "higher quality" clouds and ocean but i personally cared more about the pose and the sword surfing - the background is mostly tangential. could i get back ocean and clouds of that quality with another two hours of painstakingly cutting and re-generating bits of the background without destroying any of my existing work on the pose? probably. but i don't want to.

total time spent on this piece from start to finish was one hour and twenty one minutes. and now you know!

[kozachenko]

Here's a digital sketch dump of some pose/anatomy practices and some 2hu doodles, I think from now on if I don't have any big final piece to post, I'll just post sketches I liked that I did digitally (might also reblog some drawings of mine that I want more people to see, maybe idk).

Artist's Notes:

Ok so after the recent Hifuu fanart I did, I've been hoping to experiment more with how I draw faces, how I render, as well as how I stylize things. In some of the earlier sketches I did, I had an idea for a pose that I wanted to try drawing, so I took a ref pic of myself doing said pose (the leaning one btw) and then did a sketch over top of it just to get an idea for the shapes, negative space, and silhouette. After that, I wanted to do some simpler breakdowns of the shapes so I can get better at simplifying the body (these ended up being the bottom right sketches in the post). I also did some experimenting with how to push certain parts of said sketches to create a different body type (via liquify and then a more refined version based on that sketch), as well as figuring out what makes a pose feel natural and not stiff. This was also a bit of a foreshortening practice just so I can get more confident with it, and I ended up using the arms from the liquified version for the coloured Zanmu sketch I did since I liked them so much (dw I'll get to that).

The next thing I wanted to try and draw was Hisami, mainly because.... I am very bad at drawing her in my style. Last time I drew her I made her look really creepy and spindly, and it is my headcanon now that she can switch between a more human, and more creepy look whenever she wants. I'm liking where the face is going a lot, might have to refine a few things about it in the future, but it's cute (I also made the blush purple which I think is what I'm gonna do with her face from now on). I also like how her hair in the sketch turned out a lot, but the outfit..... not as much... Ever since I started changing my style to something less cartoony, I've had a hard time drawing her outfit in my style. Especially the flower veil thing she has on, which, I did try to find a way to draw, but I ended up deleting that sketch because I didn't like it. I'm also not a fan of using the colour purple, like, pure purple, magentas are fine, indigos are fine, but not strict purple. I also have a hard time with drawing all the little pattern details on her dress. I also need to find a way to draw the flower veil in a way that looks good because everytime I try it ends up just looking off (very similar to whenever I try to draw Zanmu's blue spears). I think the only solution to this problem is to do what I normally do and make my own version of the outfit, but with adjustments to suit my style while still trying to keep core elements from the original design intact (like I do with Zanmu and Keiki, and yes I am going to get to that Zanmu drawing just gimme a minute).

Ok next up is Keiki, my favourite Touhou character who I haven't drawn since the beginning of the year. Since my style has changed a lot, I wanted to just do a face sketch of her to get a hang of drawing her again, and I..... really really like how it turned out! When I drew her eyes, I realized that a good way of keeping faces too same facey can be via varying the sizes of their pupils, so that's an idea I'm gonna keep in mind from now on. I had a lot of fun with her hair, I initially was gonna do it like how it is in the official art, but I ended up not liking it, so now I'm gonna draw Keiki with wavy heir like this because it's fun and it looks nice. I also included my base sketch for Keiki's face since I was initially struggling with drawing her bandanna, and in the coloured sketch I added some more detail into her hair.

Now to finally talk about the sketches for Zanmu. Good lord was I having a tough time with her face. I also did this sketch before I figured out how I wanted to draw hair, so that's why the rendering on her hair is different (I did this soon after the Hisami sketch actually). Since I changed my art style a lot, I had to find a way to translate her face from my more cartoony style to my more detailed style, so while the face shape, nose shape and mouth was fine, I was really struggling with the eyes. I did get somewhere eventually though, and I am super happy with how it turned out. I wanted to lean more towards the androgynous side of the gender presentation spectrum, mainly because I think that makes sense for her character. Also made sure to include the silver hairs and some wrinkles just to bring some signs of her aging into her face because those are just staple features of how I draw Zanmu at this point lol. You will also notice that I gave her some scars on the right side of her face, and that's because I am a Zanmu-with-scars truther, I fucking love it whenever I see someone give Zanmu visible scars like that it just adds so much omg (I also tried to put a wolf bite mark on her arm in the full body drawing but idk if it reads well). While you can argue that her not having scars sells the idea of her being this "powerful, untouchable mastermind who is impossible to defeat," I'd say that instead of those scars representing times she got injured, they represent everyone who has failed to defeat her.

As I was drawing Zanmu's face, I referenced my sketch of to help with contrasting their features since I made Keiki's face more traditionally feminine. I also didn't mention this in my commentary on Keiki's face because I wanted to save it for here, but giving Zanmu scars also plays into the fact that she used to be human, wheras Keiki doesn't have any scars because she's a god who doesn't follow the rules of normal human biology. Plus I'm thinking about the two of them interacting again (return of Zan/Keik??? (I'm a multishipper btw) maybe???) so drawing their faces together will definitely help me in the future if I wanna draw them together (again, maybe as a ship? I've kinda been ironing out the kinks in their potential interactions (romantic and non-romantic) for a while now so idk maybe expect that in the future lol).

And now for the full body drawing, when I was doing the face sketch I did this little snippet of an outfit, had a vision, and the made it into a reality. I'll admit, part of me was worried that it would end up looking too much like Yuugi's outfits in the spinoffs and mangas, but I feel like I made enough changes to differentiate them. I tried to keep a few of the major details in Zanmu's design (i.e. the red tassles and yellow lining on her shirt) while putting a new spin on it. I also dialed up the scars to 11 since without them the whole thing kinda looked incomplete. Also, while I could say that the leaves on her kimono are "a nod to the fact that technically she should be a tengu because back then people belived that corrupt monks would turn into tengu but no Zanmu is an oni and they're maple leaves because...tengu...ahahahaha" what really ended up happening was that I looked up clothing patterns from Sengoku era Japan, liked the leaves the most because the red picked up on the red from the rest of her design and just ran with it. I also always had the idea to put Zanmu in men's clothing from Sengoku era Japan and while the accurate thing to do would be to put her in a Buddhist's clothes from that era.... from a character standpoint, I don't think Zanmu is pious enough to strictly wear the proper monk uniform, and also since she's basically the king of Hell, she would probably dress herself like royalty from that era. TBH, I probably could've been a bit more historically accurate, but again, this was mainly for conceptual purposes because I had a vision and I needed to see it through.

If I were to draw her in this sort of outfit again, I should probably try and use more references, although now that I look at it, if she were to wear it properly this would maybe, probably look a bit closer to a Kyūtai sugata (a very huge stretch, but it just kinda reminds me of that) just without the layers under and over the main piece of clothing (In the website that I searched up to try and compare the outfit in my sketch to, they name the outfit pieces but don't label them on the image, so I don't know 100% what everything is called) so I will definitely have to use that style of clothing as a reference going forward.

Also, I was kind of inspired by the ToTK design for Ganondorf since I have finished the game a while ago and I absolutely love what they did with his design (it's just so fucking cool omg) and I thought that sort of look would look good on Zanmu, so yeah got some inspo from that.

And those were all the notes for each of the sketches, I'm motivated to draw rn but kinda art blocked, so doing these little coloured sketches helps a lot.

[hothothotch]

Heeey ! I have a Hotch request 😄

Context: she’s one of his first case, some young girl who hacked the Pentagone to make a point to a teacher that you don’t have to be good in class to be a genius in something. They try to arrest her but she didn’t did anything just enter their server and disconnect. But all the way into interrogation she flirts with him. They let her go and he sees her a couple years later?

I don’t know how to end this, but yeah just a thing I got in my head for a while 🥹

hey! i loved writing this one and, again, i want a part two of it, so maybe you should expect one haha. i hope you like it, anon <3

Requests are open!

1991

"I'll plead the fifth in this one..." you smirked up at Agent Hotchner, batting your eyes seductively — or as seductively as you believed you could be — as you observed him through your eyelashes, "And I'm very good at pleading, just so you know".

Aaron didn't react visibly, even though the urge to roll his eyes was definitely there. After a few minutes of interrogation (probably ten, but he wasn't sure, since you were a delight to hear — ironically speaking), Aaron had lost count of how many flirtatious comments you had thrown at him, the situation way more annoying considering that his boss, SSA Gideon, was sitting by his side, observing everything with as neutral as an expression he could have, clearly as unamused as Aaron.

"Oh, come on!" you groaned, clearly unpleased with Aaron's lack of response to your flirt, "You can laugh, right? There's nowhere on your contract saying 'FBI Agents have to be stiff and serious, even the hot ones'!".

"I don't usually laugh when interrogating someone" Aaron replied, opening up the file he had in front of him to read your name out loud, "Much less when they invade the Pentagon's system".

You tried to bit back the proud smile that showed up on your face at the acknowledgment of what you've done — you highly doubted one of those Agents would clap their hands at your achievement, and still you'd rather face them than your parents, that were probably fuming on their way to the Bureau.

If SSA Hotchner and Gideon's faces were the last things you'd see for the rest of your life (that probably wouldn't be as long as you once thought it would), you might as well fall in style.

"That was impressive, wasn't it?" you asked, your voice clearly smug as you leaned against your chair, "I'm really good at that!".

"Not that much" SSA Gideon intervened, "I can name a few hackers that can do the same".

You raised one brow in defiance, trying to mask the way his words had evidently hurt your ego, "I didn't say I'm unique, I said I'm impressive. There's a difference" you pointed in a matter-of-factly way, before turning back at Agent Hotchner, "From now on, I'm only answering your questions, pretty boy".

"It's Agent Hotchner".

You chuckled, "Okay" you nodded curtly, "Pretty Agent Hotchner boy".

That time you saw the way he reacted, his body language denouncing you was starting to frustrate him. If you didn't know it was overstepping — more than you've already overstepped — you probably would make a joke about how you could help him with his frustration, but you weren't really into going to jail over harassment.

Trying to exhaust his patience was one thing. Crossing the line between amusement and crime was something you didn't want to do.

Oh, yeah. You had hacked into the Pentagon.

"Okay, look..." you started, straightening your pose on your chair, grimacing when the metal of the cuffs (an unnecessary accessory, if you will) skimmed on your skin, a clear indicative that you'd soon have a new bruise at that spot, "I've hacked into the Pentagon, true" she directed a pointed look at Gideon, rolling her eyes, "Yes, I'm aware there are a lot of other hackers that can pull that out, but I had a point to make!".

"Which was?" Aaron questioned, his eyes still trained on you. With a quick look to his hand, you noticed he was wearing a wedding band — golden, brilliant; he was probably freshly married. You questioned if he looked at his wife in that intimidating way, or if it was reserved to people like you, or that he judged to be like you.

You took a deep breath, leaning against your chair, "I'm graduating on MIT" you started explaining, even if you knew they could find that information on your file, and that they probably already knew that, considering you'd been smart enough to hack into the Pentagon from your college's computer, but not enough to hide your tracks, "And I was unlucky enough not to get good grades at this specific subject, and my teacher made a point to humiliate me in front of everyone. So I made a point in showing her that while she's theoretically smart, I'm technically smart".

The single raise of Agent Hotchner's brow was enough to reveal what he was thinking about you after your explanation — that you were a spoiled child, that you couldn't have things any other way except for yours, that he could have you arrested solely by how bad your reasoning had been.

"Yeah, pretty Agent Hotchner boy..." you crossed your arms in front of your body, "Not everyone is born with everything on a silver plate, y'know? My attention is not as good as it was supposed to be".

Aaron switched a quick glance with Gideon, his demeanor betraying nothing as they kept their eyes locked for a few minutes, expectation suddenly building on your body along with the urge to pick at your nails, an anxious behavior you had.

"Let her go" Agent Gideon finally said, standing up from his chair, turning his back on you both to walk out of the interrogation room.

"What?" you squealed in confusion, placing the palms of your hands on top of the metallic desk you had between Agent Hotchner and you, "That's all?".

Aaron hummed in agreement, standing up to grab the cuff keys' in his pockets, his hands brushing with yours for a second, and you could swear there was a sudden electricity on that touch, causing you to push your hand away.

He looked up at you with one brow raised again, his voice a bit more humored now, "What? You want to be arrested?".

"You arrested me, pretty Agent Hotchner boy" you reminded, shaking your cuffed hands, "And while I think being cuffed is sexy, I can't wait to remove those. They're hurting my pulse".

"You should've told us, we'd lose it a bit" he shrugged, opening the lock expertly, before sitting on the desk, "You only logged into the system and turned it off. We can't arrest you for turning the computers off, so you're free to go".

You faced him for a while more, trying to find something to say, maybe a snarky remark — a joke? But nothing came to mind. So you only nodded, standing up from the chair with a smile.

"So off I go" you told him, massaging your pulses, "Guess we won't see each other again, pretty Agent Hotchner boy".

Aaron shook his head, crossing his arms, "I hope not".

"Ouch" you put your hand over your chest dramatically, "You wound me, honey. Hope you don't miss me too much".

Aaron finally allowed himself to roll his eyes, standing up from the desk to walk toward the door, "It won't be a problem".

...

2011

You were honestly — and positively — surprised when the message arrived in your inbox, the (a rather last minute) white invitation warming your heart in a way you didn't think it would.

JJ and Will were getting married.

It was a surprise not because you thought you wouldn't be invited, but because you didn't think it would happen at all; the last time you and JJ talked (only a year prior to that date), the woman had been pretty straightforward about not being ready to get married, even if Will clearly was. You were surprised to know that he supported her and it wasn't an issue, even though JJ sometimes complained about how they ended up fighting over the topic.

You were happy they finally got to an agreement. And even happier that their agreement gave her an excuse to leave her house, even for only a few hours.

"You look beautiful!" you stated once you spotted JJ on the dancefloor, bringing her for a hug when she finally recognized you.

"I can't believe you're here!" JJ held you against her body happily, and you could feel her smile on your shoulder as she rocked you from side to side, "I thought you were in Paris!".

You nodded when she pulled back, allowing you to move and embrace Will, that had a similar smile on his face, "I was. But the Pentagon called me back and I was forced to come back. Which is a loss, because I was starting to get used with the accent. And the paycheck".

Will shook his head, laughing at your last comment, "I'm sure Interpol will be missing a great Agent".

"That they will" you nodded eagerly, playfully throwing your hair over your shoulder, "I was their jewel, and now they have nothing. But I'm happy to be back home. Will be even happier when I find a good house for me, since I've sold my old house".

"Oh, that's your lucky day!" JJ commented, immediately taking your hand in hers, already guiding you through the dancefloor to a table where a few people were gathered, laughing at something one of them had said, "My friends' neighbor just passed away, and their old apartment is vacant. Maybe you can rent it".

You smiled, ready to give JJ an answer when you looked at the table again, your eyes widening at the sight of one man in the middle of the group. You froze in your place when you recognized him, your jaw slightly dropped when your eyes met, recognition clearly passing through his eyes as well.

You heard JJ saying your name, and you were fairly aware that she was introducing you to the group, though the only name you managed to hear was, "This is Aaron Hotchner, my boss, and friend".

Boss. It was curious — last time you've seen Agent Hotchner (or pretty Agent Hotchner boy, as you once called him), he was an Agent working under Jason Gideon's supervision.

Ten years had gone by, though. A lot had changed. You, to begin with.

"Oh, huh... hi!" you waved at the group, trying to pretend you had gathered any of their names, "JJ was telling me that one of you had a neighbor who had passed and may have an apartment free for me?".

Aaron — who seemed to be on a trance just as you'd been in the past few seconds — cleared his throat at your question, trying to brush away the embarrassment of how you kept looking at each other. If someone in his group noticed, though, none of them made a comment about it.

"That would be me" he stated, and you held the urge to mutter an 'of course that is', "Maybe we can talk—".

"On the dancefloor" the old man beside him suggested, nudging Aaron slightly with a mischievous smirk on his lips as he took a sip of his drink (whiskey, you deduced), "Do you like to dance?".

"Very much" you nodded, directing your response at the man who asked the question, but your eyes were focused on Aaron, "That's one of my technical skills".

If there was any doubt to Aaron that you remembered him, this doubt fade away at that exact moment — and you noticed it by the way his body language immediately changed, going from an almost nervous one to a more relaxed one.

"I guess you can show me, then" Aaron offered his hand to you, a smile appearing on his face when you immediately accepted it, guiding you back to the dancefloor, "Let's just try and not be arrested tonight, okay?".

You snorted, patting on his shoulder when the song turned into a slower one, and your eyes met one more time before you replied, "I won't make any promises".

Thank you for your request ✨

[skyacya]

Hello! I got into transformers recently and I've been scrolling through Tumblr for awhile to find TF related content. I happen to come across your blog and dare I say your illustrations are stunning!🧡 The color choices and the line work is absolutely amazing.

You can say I'm a little motivated to draw some robots now—but as someone who only drew humans in the past and someone who just joined the fandom. I've come to the realization that drawing robots is much harder than it looks🤲..

If it's not too much to ask, would you mind sharing some tips or experiences on how you started drawing them? Thank you🦐

Man, you have no idea how much seeing this made my day (〃´∀｀)! But sure!

The general idea I use is to break down characters into their most basic shapes, fx Transformers Prime and Animated has super strong shape language especially compared to G1 where everyone are squares

Before drawing a new character, I like to practice my muscle memory by isolating these basic shapes on top of a reference image. To get that proper giant alien robot feel it's especially helpful to practice big, squareish shapes (though depends on the character, some have more fluid shapes similar to humans).

With the overall shapes you can draw your desired pose much easier because you don't need to think about details yet.

When you have the pose down, you can continue on with the details. These are also just shapes broken down into smaller shapes. You just continue to break everything into shapes until you have achieved the level of detail that you want. Everything is shapes

When adding details, it's a good idea to have a bunch of references ready. I usually just go through an episode/chapter with the character I want and take a shit ton of screenshots

⊹⊹⊹⊹Some general tips I have are:⊹⊹⊹⊹

Find inspiration from different artists you like and see how they break down the characters (and try doing the shape practicing to get used to the feeling of drawing bigger shapes)

This is a strange addon tip but hear me out, a lot of R18 tf artists are insanely talented, like to an unlawful degree. Welcome to the rust sea of sin, I would add recommendations but I am a coward

Varying lineweight is especially useful to separate bigger shapes from details, otherwise it can quickly look busy and messy (look at Alex Milnes art before coloring, there it is very visible)

Alex Milne also uses full black in certain less visible/high contrast areas to create focus on the more important details. It helps to create a more balanced drawing. Also helps to hide areas you aren't confident about such as joints lol

Don't be afraid to exaggerate the lines, robots have a tendency to look stiff

Do not fear the shapes, the shapes mean no harm.

And lastly, thank you for your kind ask! There are many ways to begin drawing robots and I hope this may help in your journey down the rabbithole of giant sexy gay alien robots (ʃƪ˶˘ ﻬ ˘˶)♥♥

[spookedbees]

how do you anatomy

I personally don't think I'm the best at anatomy, but I'll do my best to explain my process!

I usually start by kinda just blocking in the general shape of the pose. If I'm working traditionally I might make a couple small thumbnails to test out poses (especially if I'm not using a reference). I try to go pretty quick and messy with this part to make the pose feel less stiff (and to try to avoid perfectionism cuz that shit is time consuming)

If the proportions, angles, etc. are feeling off and you're working digitally it can help to move the reference picture underneath your drawing every now and then to make sure nothing looks too far off. Just keep in mind that there might be differences if the character you're drawing has a different body type/height than the reference

From here I make the usual anatomy guidelines. There's tons of great tutorials that explain this part in more depth (especially if you're looking for help with a specific body part) but the gist of it is to simplify all the human shapes into easier shapes like squares and circles

I also try to keep this part pretty loose and fast to keep the pose more dynamic and less stiff. It helps to try and think of each part of the body as a 3d shape (so the torso is a big rounded box, the arms are tubes connected to spheres, etc). Also keep in mind the angles of the head, shoulders, and hips. For example, in this reference the shoulders are at a slant so I made a straight line across the shoulders to keep that angle in mind

From here I kinda just go at it and sketch (which isn't the most helpful adivce, I know). You can think of this part as putting the skin onto the shapes you just made (sorry if that's a gross image, I don't know how else to describe it)

If something specifically is giving you trouble (like arms or hands) I'd highly recommend looking more closely at references or guidelines for those specific anatomy pieces that thoroughly break each shape down in more depth. It can also help to look at art that you admire to see how they translate these shapes into their art (focus on where they put lines to indicate muscles, limbs, etc).

If something feels especially difficult, you can always do a study of that thing (maybe spend an hour just drawing hands or legs or whatever else is giving you trouble). I'd say try to keep these sketches loose and quick so you can focus more on the general motions rather than minor imperfections

Also, when adding the clothes, keep in mind where the body folds, what limbs are in front of others, and other similar details to figure out where the folds go (this helps indicate the figure underneath the clothing)

From here it's mostly cleaning the sketch and adding colors. I'm sorry if my process isn't the most helpful, I tend to jump around a lot and make lots of minor adjustments in the moment

I hope this was still helpful in some way!

[raireart]

Alright, almost ALL of my Dragonriders of Pern setting character designs! Most of these are my characters, but there's a bunch from my partner, and from a few friends! Had a lot of fun playing with colors and design and trying to make each one look like a distinct character, while also keeping a family resemblance between the siblings in the line up! It's been a lot of work but I think I did what I set out to!

I still need to work on making my posing less stiff, but I'm pretty happy with the whole effort! Most of these were drawn in 2023.

(That said, ugh, I don't know why tumblr gives a pixelated white edge to my pngs when I post them...)

Please do NOT repost this. Reblogs are fine!

[queenofthelanternfish]

Oh yes, and can you also teach me how to make the drawing less flat?

hey there! so, i finally have time to do this, hopefully it's helpful but idk i'm honestly terrible at giving art advice because i'm like, a very trial and error person. however hopefully this step by step on my process is helpful. keep in mind, i only use paint tool SAI to draw, so i'll be showing what i do on SAI and nothing else. reallt sorry but that is simply all i have! any way:

i start off with a simple sketch, i try to add some form of movement in my gestures to keep it less stiff- arms, legs, posture, they don't all need to be doing something, but you can't have them all do nothing. expressions are important too, you want a baseline of how you want your character's mood to be conveyed. usually with Odessa here, her expressions typically exude confidence to the point of looking smug and self assured. how a character expresses emotions in a drawing tells a person a lot about their personality, so varied expressions are very important!

next is lineart. this is where i solidify a character's pose, expression, and general anatomy. lineart can be kind of a pain and i rely on a stabilizer tool being at level 15 to keep my lines smooth and straight. you can also use a clipping tool to color your lineart to make it look less bland. black lineart is only good for a more stylized drawings like i did here, but almost every single one of my drawings has colored lineart.

now it's time for flats! in order to make your art pop more it's good to use colors that are bright but not eye burning bright. i put each color in a separate layer, hair for one layer, skin, etc.. you need a good base to work with in the beginning and you can tinker with hues and lighting in the end stages of a drawing to make it pop more or be more muted to your liking. flat colors give you a general idea of how the character's color palette will look.

now, here's the most important part- shading! i always have my shading layers over my lineart to keep it from interfering with my other layers and take higher priority, the only thing above shading is strong highlights like eye shines and jewelry shines. you want to shade with a NOT gray base, this will make your art look bland and flat. i used a darker muted purple and used the multiply tool to put over the drawing's colors. you want to make sure the color you pick is dark enough to be seen, but not too dark that is contrasts too much with your base colors. i also use two different layers for shading, one for general shading and one for shading darker areas like the inner ears, parts of the hair, or under the head. after that, you can clip onto individual color layers to add a more airbrushed/watercolored shading to add a little value over the cel shading. you can also use this to add different hues to the skin, since skin is not one color, human or monster/alien/cryptid!

next is highlights! and highlights are important to make your art "pop." honestly, i always feel my art is terrible until i add the highlights. i don't know why, it just changes it for me. with highlights, you choose your color layer, and highlight with the same color on that layer in a clipped layer (set to screen, like you do with multiply) to keep color consistency. i probably made it sound complicated but it's not! i love highlighting hair and skin, it gives it that shine to keep your art from being dull. you can also airbrush/watercolor highlights but keep it very well blended in to keep it from looking choppy and clunky. i also want to add that for extra shiny highlights, like for eyes or jewelry, i like to use the luminosity feature to make it extra bright.

at this point the drawing is more or less done! after this, i like to fiddle with colors, hues, saturation, etc., to make it stand out even more and keep it from being sterile. this is where you can have fun playing around with colors. you can merge all your layers together, and clip a new layer to your drawing, and add extra colors with filters to see what feels good. i used a combination of purple and red to make Odessa look more flamboyant and interesting. this is a little addition that can change the whole vibe of your drawing, adding extra colors, lights, shading, are all great to make your art stand out better.

any way, this is what i do on SAI to make my art look like how it always does! hopefully this was helpful, again i can only show examples with SAI since i don't have any other art program, but hopefully this at least gives an idea of what you want to convey in your art. if you have more questions, let me know because i'm sure i've missed some finer details because i'm bad at detailing my drawing process orz

[djwaglmuffin]

Redraw of the redraw of the redraw of the---you get it.

Anyway. A few things:

I wanted to walk away from the Inuyasha influence on Celeste's hair. I love Rumiko Takahashi and I credit her, Yuu Watase, and Kosuke Fujishima for my current style of drawing so fixing her hair was priority one. Let's hope the change doesn't irritate me.

Color practice is priority 2. I will revisit this with varying lighting styles a little later but the top is the first attempt.

I have an XP Pen so the colors are off. I know this and am trying to be more conscious of this.

I have started to employ 3D models in my work because I'm sick of pawing through google or pinterest for references so said fuck it and started posing my own models. Having said that, this makes everything stiff and proportions are a little off. I am working to fix that.

Celeste is officially 21 years old (because that's how long I've been drawing/working on her character) and I wanted to reflect her maturity over the years. having said that: this is her EARLIEST earliest design. I'll post her 1860's vibe below (without the hair fix).

Anyway, hope you all enjoy. I had fun, more or less.

I'll give myself this much: I haven't gone BACKWARDS in artistic development. I'm still kind of apprehensive about coloring but I'm trying to just relax and do what I want without worrying about "is this the one? Will people finally see the effort and like my work?" jfc I'm tired.

If you are so inclined, you can check out my newly reworked Patreon account:

I hate to put my work behind a paywall, I really do but, maybe the promise of lemony goodness is enough to bring people in to start engaging my story. I hope. Snippets, sketches, bonus content, all made available there. Whatever doesn't need to be behind a paywall won't be but all NSFW content and bonus story stuff will be.

[clarafyer]

MY PERSONAL ART TIPS! A big thread I'll be adding to

I too, was once a 10 year old gacha kid whose only drawings were a way too detailed catgirl persona and friends. I didn't have much in-person or online inspiration and help for a long time! So I'll help others earlier in their art journey (and perhaps the masters too, never not a good idea to try some advice!)

So let me spare some of you a few of the unnecessary mishaps during everyone's art life.

If you've never seen my blog before, hello! My name is Clara. I'm a neurodivergent teen artist, aspiring animator, and resident cat person. It's nice to meet you! If you'd like to know who you're taking advice from, here is some of my latest work!

Now without further ado, LET THE HELP COMMENCE!

STROKES: Fix stiffness in your poses!

To start off, a BIG thing I recommend for newish artists, is don't be afraid to draw loosely! The looser the lines, the less stiff the pose. And stiff poses are a very common issue within the community. Sure, your anatomy may look bad for the first while of drawing looser lines, but it will help you be more confident in strokes. The more confident the stroke, the more efficient an artist. The more efficient an artist, the faster you learn.

To practice loose lines, simply draw a long line as fast as you can. Over and over again. I know, that may seem boring, but it helps train your hand and arm to be faster. But if it's so much a hassle to do in your free time, then do it on the side of a worksheet if you're in school, or a sticky note if you're at work.

Speaking of practicing...

PRACTICE MAKES BETTER: Get over it!

I said the phrase wrong, didn't I? Oh wait, no I didn't. NO ONE IS PERFECT. And don't forget that! There will always be issues, problems, and mistakes in your art that you don't realize until the day after you've shared it with everyone you know. The artist is always their worst critic. So the best thing you can do is to keep at it. Practice your weak points to support the composition more, hone in your strong points to better make a focal point. Practice will always help, even if you don't see it. A slow pace is better than no pace!

"But Clara, what are my weak points? How do I know what I always mess up on!?" you may ask...

ANALYZING YOUR ART: Pros and cons!

Well, pick your latest finished piece and tear it apart (NO NOT LITERALLY OH GOD NO PLEASE-) I mean analyze it. Grab your pen and a separate paper, or just your notes app, and make a list of pros and cons in it. Doing this with multiple pieces is especially important, as with multiple examples, it's easier to find a pattern.

How about this, I'll give you an example!

Here we have a piece I made a few weeks ago. It's of my Western AU of my main cast of OCs. TIME TO NITPICK!

WEAK POINTS

- The clouds are too detailed compared to the rest of the composition

- The right horse seems very stiff (I already am aware I struggle with drawing animals nowadays)

- The funky hatching I did with the plateaus in the background just isn't working out as well as I thought it would anymore

- the god damn horse on the right

- The sky in the middle just seems far too empty. I could have added more indication of the sun at the top to add more noise

STRONG POINTS

- The color palette I chose blends well while having the colors still be sharp and clear against each other

- The entirety of the woman and her horse on the left

- The glitchy effect adds some zestiness to it that I love

- The whole thing looks quite cinematic, with a successful wide shot and the black bars imitating that of a movie's

- The inlines of the otherwise completely flat-colored silhouettes help define the overlapping shapes quite well

And there you have it, 5 pros and cons each I found in something you probably only noticed were little to none. No, I'm not bragging, it's an actual psychological phenomena where the artist notices so many more intricacies than the average outside viewer. Your mom isn't hanging up your art out of pity, GET THAT OUT OF YOUR HEAD! People love your art so much more than you do.

That's it for the first post. Don't worry, there'll still be more helpful tips coming! I just won't be able to fit everything in here with Tumblr's picture limit and all. Happy drawing!

[shkika]

How do you make the iterators have such expressive eyes? I'm amazed by how much emotion you're able to give them in your art, do you have any tips you can give on how you draw the funky little eyes? :]

Ah gosh this means a lot thank you!! I have a lot of fun trying to figure out how to make iterators expressive without adding anything more onto their faces!

Aside the obvious tips of manipulating their shape, I recommend relying a lot on body language!

These two poses for example are very similar along with their eyes!

However the one on the right Moon is less enthusiastic and more so uncomfortable, her shoulders are loose her hands are barely together. The pose carries less energy, because she.. doesn't really have it! I tend to add a lot of shadow too for more intense emotions and little subtle things go a long way!

Past collapse moon lacks any eye shine, because she is.. tired and kind of uh.. resigned I suppose.

I also try to make different iterators emote a little different..! It's most obvious with my UI design where her eyes are just... more.. stiff and horizontal..?

It makes her look like she's slightly squinting all the time, when she emotes her eyes either become more circular or just straight up tilt. It makes her look dorky which I enjoy. More... creature..

[hellothereimaloser]

i’m the anon who asked abt anatomy a bit ago!! and that definitely helps, i do always turn body parts into shapes. and i’ve started studying a bit more from references and drawing poses from that.

but oftentimes it still ends up looking weirdly stiff? almost like one of those barbie dolls where you can just change the way the limbs are positioned but they never actually look human? do you have any advice on how to make it look more alive and fluid?

i’m so sorry if i’m bothering you & if that question makes no sense 😭 but whenever i see one of your drawings i’m just absolutely fascinated by how effortlessly alive the characters look? i just saw the beach one you posted on your insta story and holy shit?? it looks so human but the stylisation is absolutely gorgeous and idk. it just baffles me that people get anatomy to look that good

once again, sorry if this doesn’t make sense 😭 you don’t need to answer this. i hope you have a good day though (and it’s pretty obvious already i think but i LOVE your art omg)

Hiii! No it's alright, I appreciate all the questions and yeah I struggle with that even now kinda, like the anatomy feels sometimes too stiff 😭 In that case the only thing that helps me is drawing hella dynamic lines, like don't focus too much on your strokes but try to make lines in a big, fast swoop (now I'm the one wondering if this explanation makes sense hahaha) even when drawing small lines, just draw them really fast and make them CURVY, WAVY, not too straight :D When you practice this everyday, your lines should become more dynamic and the anatomy shouldn't be so stiff!

Summing up, focus less on accuracy now and try to learn dynamic strokes :DD

I hope this helpss fr

[cerosin-bis]

Howdy!

(First of all, I'm a massive fan of your art and headcanons. I'm krueger girl any day of the week, and your art just makes me want to gnaw on him.)

I've been obsessed with drawing military gear for a few years now, and I love how your art style depicts everything. I was just wondering how you went about developing that ridiculously cool style? How much do you think about real anatomy and actual references of gear while still retaining the stylistic look? I always tend to struggle with overdetailing in certain areas, especially on plate carriers and guns.

Do you have any tips for someone wanting to improve in this specific area? (Other than heaps and heaps of practice, of course, haha)

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

Hello! Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm glad that you like my take on Krueger that much as fan, means a lot! 😊♥

Also, this is very high praise. In a lot of ways I think it's also important to remember that my artstyle tends to be very forgiving as my lines are naturally super loose. My anatomy isn't objectively good, but it works because I have a general idea of how body parts are linked together. i think.

My reply got super long (SORRY..) so it goes under the cut:

What made me develop my style was... gaining confidence. Over the course of the past 5 years, 90% of my drawings were the same 4 characters, over and over.

I got comfortable with the layout of their gear -> the more comfortable you are with something, the more you simplify it → the more effortless it looks → the more "daring" you get with it. I think it particularly applies to gear art.

Regarding specifically what you mentioned, here's my advice (this is personal advice from my experience, again, I lack actual solid basics and I only draw lined works, so this might not apply to painting!!!) :

Overdetailing: DRAW UNZOOMED!!! literally my n°1 advice. When I over-detail (you can see it in some of my posted pieces) it's exclusively when I wanted to correct smth and stayed zoomed in. Unzoom as much as you are comfortable with - I advise seeing at least 40-50% of your drawing at all times. Having a general view will help you not to "linger" on any part, and consider your drawing as a whole instead of separate parts.

References: use them, but don't get trapped by them. Basically: don't try to stick to them too hard. This is personal advice, but in my case, when I focus too much on a reference and try to replicate exactly what it shows (the exact angle an arm bends, every detail on a piece of gear, etc), my drawing ends up being very stiff and/or overdetailed. Try to draw your reference your way, with your proportions, while retaining the general idea of the ref - whether it is an entire pose, a body part, a plate carrier or a gun. It'll be less frustrating, and will get you to develop your own style quicker while making you improve.

I'll be honest - I lack actual, good anatomy basics and practice, which hinders me *a lot* when I draw or attempt drawing more elaborate stuff. It might not show because I find workarounds in my style.

My point is that.. despite this, you guys like what I do, and for the most part (I can't believe I'm saying this now) I'm confident with my artstyle 🥺 ... so, ultimately, it's about finding some sort of balance. Again, thank you for your words. I hope amidst my rambles you could find something useful. I'm rooting for you! 😤

[psi-hate]

diana, this might sound like a weird question, but how do you draw boobs/gock/vaginas and anatomy in general? i wanna improve my art and you seem to have a lot of experience with it

-alice in anon because im embarrassed lol

hmm good question! im gonna be honest i don't really use references most the time, and i recommend you absolutely use references very often when drawing something you're not the most confident in.

for anatomy, it sorta comes down to me focusing on how other artists draw specific parts of anatomy and getting a good feel of how they generally look enough to know what looks wrong in my own attempt so i can continue adjusting it. it's a shitty bruteforce method but for me i sorta just osmosis it from exposure. in general i have a decently trained eye in 3d space on account of my 3D modeling experience, so coming up with shapes at particular angles is a little less of a headache i imagine some others would deal with at my skill level. i still struggle with posing which is something i really gotta practice more. i know it'd be faster if i used references for practice but my art process is a bit too casual out of stubborness... but i will do what i can to improve my workflow at some point!

regarding stuff like sexual anatomy or what have you, i actually pull up a few different artist's works, specifically those who draw shapes i find most appealing, and apply their concepts to my own attempt. it's sorta hit or miss atm, i'm still very new to drawing sexual anatomy. at the very least, i try and draw bodies as they are. what i mean is, a chubbier body is going to have more pockets of fat pulling some parts down, and comparing with my own body and those whom i've been with, i just try and capture the practical "flaws" and do my best not to polish them out of the equation. sunken eyes, messy hair, folds of skin, muscle definition, wrinkles, hair, etc it's all very pretty and more than anything i want to appreciate those bodies.

use references, look at your own body and try and plan out angles and poses before you get too deep into the drawing! my biggest flaw at the moment is lack of forethought going into a piece which can make a lot of my art much more stiff because an idea i wanted occurs halfway through the drawing and retroactively adjusting things is just not gonna work and it'll look stilted. come up with your idea and sketch a very simple example so you know what you're aiming for the entire time instead of me who habitually draws heads and facial features long before deciding how i want the rest of the body, usually locking me into the same perspective and angle as always lol. i have been fixing this most of the time now and i hope that is more apparent in some of my recent works.

sorta just rambling, but yeah! the most simple way for me to tl;dr this is that i recommend using irl examples for references for poses or how particular pieces of the body are structured in 3D space, and looking at other's art for ideas or inspiration, reverse engineer their process and practice it until you feel satisfied it makes sense in the context of your drawing. take special attention of smaller details of the body and don't be afraid of making something look "unappealing" if you want to portray a specific feature. you might not draw something the way that looks good to you, but the most important thing is learning what it is that does look good in your opinion, and reviewing what you could do to help draw more like that.

i'm really sorry if this is far too convoluted and not great advice, i'm the literal embodiment of "fake it till you make it" and any skill i've learned is simply because i am stubborn and bruteforcing it till i accomplished whatever it is that i wanted. for someone who is more interested in learning and improving the "right way", i tried to offer some more rational strategies to what i do in hopes that it makes sense in helping better lol. hope this helps!

[stuffymcstuffsworld]

The right tune

Iruma practiced on his piano... it was difficult when he first started. You wanted to stuff cotton in your ears. But you were a good parent who could get through even Clara's strange music. Like hell, you were going to let an off-key piano beat you.

You watched as Kalego hounded your son. (Pun intended) You knew his reputation was on the line but still. He could be a little... softer when explaining, in your opinion, at least.

"Mmm, maybe he should try something different." You said casually. Both teacher and student looked at you. "He's going to be stiff and going through the motions if he keeps playing the same song over and over again."

Iruma seemed curious, and Kalego had a thoughtful look on his face. As if he was going over the pros and cons in his mind. "It can still be a song about love... but maybe something more from an adolescent point view." You suggested.

Kalego eyes you. "What do you have in mind?" You pulled out a notebook and began writing down lyrics. Kalego walks over and watches over your shoulder as you explain.

"This will be less complicated to keep track of it's a duet and the tune remains the same. The second person doesn't chime in for the first half but slowly adds building up in the empty slots of the song."

"The lyrics leave something to be desired." He says flatly. "I told you it's more adolescent besides you have to admit these lyrics are perfect for Iruma!" The brooding demon scoffs but doesn't argue.

"Baby, let's try this, ok?" You set the lyrics down in front of Irumas sheet music. "It's okay to be stiff and awkward for the first half it actually helps to drive the point of the lyrics."

You back away and slide the coffee table into the middle of the room. Standing on top of it, you got into a pose and smiled. "Go ahead, Iruma!" Iruma eyes the new page a moment before the soft and awkward plink of the keys starts.

☆What do you see~ You people gazing at me~ you see a doll on a music box that's wound by a key~☆ You kept your movements slow and awkward as you slowly spun in a circle. Iruma giggles and continues playing.

☆How can you tell~ I'm! Under a spell~ I'm! Waiting for loves~ first kiss☆ The jerking motions you made to the music worked for any mishaps Iruma had while playing. He soon found the rhythm.

☆You can not see~ how much I long to be free~ turning around on this music box that's wound by a key~☆

The music slowed down, and you smiled. ☆Yearning~ Yearning~ While! I'm! Turning around and around.☆ You slowed your spins and returned to the original position.

Kalego grumbled as he advanced towards you. Probably having already remembered the silly lines you scribbled on the page. The music started from the top.

☆What do you see~ You people gazing at me~☆ ♤Truly scrumptious, You're truly truly scrumptious♤ The way he walked about you avoiding your limbs as he moved counterclockwise to your turns was perfect.

☆You see a doll on a music box that's wound by a key☆ ♤Scrumptious as a cherry peach parfait♤ You could tell by the look in his eyes that he wanted to strangle you and you tried really hard to stay in character. The mention of food made Irumas eyes widen, though. So maybe you hit a breakthrough.

☆How can you tell~ I'm! Under a spell~ I'm! Waiting for love's~ first kiss!☆ ♤When~ You're near me, it's so delicious. Honest truly, you're the answer to my wishes.♤

He successfully managed to grab your waist as you both slowly turned in different directions. Smooth. You narrowed your eyes slightly at the pompous smirk.

☆You can not see~ How much I long to be free~☆ ♤Truly scrumptious though I may seem presumptuous♤ He started to slow down more with you as you were nearing the end.

☆Turning around on this music box, that's wound by a key~☆ ♤Never~ never~ ever~ go away~♤ He drifts a little from you and gets on one knee.

☆Yearning~☆ ♤My heart beats so unruly~♤ ☆Yearning~☆ ♤Because I love you truly~♤ Absolutely thrilling to see a prideful demon like Kalego on his knees, reaching for you with supposed longing as the music died away.

☆While! I'm! Turning around and around☆ ♤Honest truly I do.♤ You finish in your original position. Iruma stares at both of you! "I GET IT NOW!"

The fire in his eyes startles both of you as he attempts Lilliths Red Carpet again. There are fewer mistakes, and the transition is smoother. You give Kalego a smug smirk. He rolls his eyes.