#These will look better once lineart and colors have been set!

[nymphrasis]

Adopt sketch update, 16 WIPs made today, marking 28/1000 n3n/ Stopping for the night, to both lay down and let my hand rest >w<! Good progress thus far :D! Images that are done shown below, marking who is who!

Magikarp

2. Mimikyu

3. Pikachu

4. Butterfree

5. Girafarig

6. Musharna

7. Umbreon

8. Slurpuff

9. Fennekin

10. Victini

11. Oshawott

12. Lucario

13. Primarina

14. Meloetta ( Aria )

15. Vaporeon

16. Finneon

[pien-art]

-FAQ-

Hello! I've gained a whole bunch of followers lately and I've been getting a lot of questions about commissions, what my setup is, what brushes I use, etc, so I thought I'd make a post about it to answer everyone's questions at once !

Putting them under the cut <3

Commissions:

Commission prices are listed in my pinned post. You can send me a private message about your commission idea and we can get to talking :) It is helpful to have enough references handy (character, outfit, descriptions etc)

I am generally a fast drawer but I also have a job and a physical disability so there might be moments I can't work on your commission. But that is never longer than a few days at most.

Payment is upfront, the full amount and via paypal only. I know this might seem a bit scary but unfortunately there are a lot of people who end up not paying for commissions and I want to avoid that.

During the process I will send you frequent updates and will ask for input, to see if it is going in the direction you want. You can ask for changes during the sketching progress but once I've started on line-art and coloring, no big changes will happen. (You can for example ask for a different color for a shirt etc, but not for a different prop or pose or expression)

When it is completed, I will send the drawing to you via email. The drawing will remain mine and it is not to be sold or profited of by the person who commissioned me. If the commission is for something commercial/for selling, that needs to be discussed. I prefer to do drawings only for personal use!

For more questions, my dms/asks are open :)

How long have I been doing digital art:

I've been drawing digitally for about 5 years now i think? But before that I've been drawing and painting traditionally literally since the moment I could pick up a pencil.

Set-up:

It's just me and my ipad and apple pencil laying on my bed. I wouldn't even know where to begin for those whole multi-monitor/screen setups ;-; I draw only with Procreate

Brushes:

I tend to play with different brushes from time to time to get different textures, but generally i use the same few for most of my drawings/styles. My favorite one is the Peppermint Brush, for sketching. I use it in every drawing i make! I always sketch with it, and often do the line-art with it as well! And it makes for a nice textured brush for rendering as well! (i used it for a lot of rendering of the armor in this drawing)

The (procreate) brushes i use a lot are

for medieval style: inking - Ink Bleed (for line-art) artistic - Quoll (for coloring)

for general style: calligraphy - Chalk (coloring/rendering) sketching - Peppermint (line-art/sketching)

for realism: calligraphy - Shale Brush (full rendering) Also using the shale brush for smudging and erasing when drawing realistic

for lineart: smooth pencil from this pack by Heygiudi

How/why do you choose a base color:

I tend to look at a few different things when deciding on a base color/color palette.

the overall color of the reference pic

the color i associate with who or what i am drawing

the feeling/vibe i want to give off with that drawing

color has a BIG impact on the vibe of a drawing, so it is something i keep in mind when im drawing.

Using a color as a base to start, helps a lot with my drawing process. It helps me pick out other colors so they match better. It helps me get light/dark values right. And the chalk brush i use, has gaps between the strokes, so the base color will always come through a little. Having the same color come through in the entire drawing, helps pull all the colors together if that makes sense? I always start with a solid base color when i am painting traditionally as well!

Advice:

PRACTICE!!! just keep drawing and practice. I know this is such generic advice but truly practice is The Way. Learn from other artists but don't compare yourself to them. Everyone's artistic journey is different and there's no "good" or "bad". And most importantly make sure that you have fun when you're making stuff :3

I also learn a lot by studying art I admire and love. Figuring out what it is I like about it. (for example, the line thickness or the shapes or texture etc), and try to incorporate that in my own style in a way that is not directly copying or stealing.

[loverofpiggies]

IT’S POWER, EVERYONE!!!

Check out my etsy shop

If you want to see how I made this piece, check out the extended stuff below!

Okay, the story behind this piece is nuts, but. I’ve known I’ve needed to work on improving my art for a while, so as you can tell from all the newest pieces, I’ve been trying to push myself. It started like this:

This was actually the fourth sketch I made. I knew I wanted Power to be looking down at us (you know, what she does with everyone), and I wanted to have her swinging a blood scythe in one way or another. I set up composition lines, but the more I looked at the sketch, the more frustrated I got. I finally just had to accept my anatomy and my 3d understanding of the body is very much lacking, and If I wanted to improve I had to work on something.

I watched a bunch of tutorial videos, and decided to try out the 3D model in Clip Studio paint. It didn’t take too long to learn how to manipulate the model, and I came up with this:

From here, I decided to do my quick sketch with Power

While I was experimenting with Clip studio’s art stuff, I decided to try playing around with their new “Shade Assist”. I figured it could give me some more ideas to make my shadows feel more ‘real’ or have me look at my art in a different way. Once I finished the lineart, got the color in there, and drew in Meowy, this is what I tried.

I really loved how the ‘evening’ mode of shade assist looked, even after playing around with my own colors, but I liked how it gave her a slightly more ‘yellow’ tone, and how the shadows were actually just lavender and light pink. So I took those colors, and worked on the shadows.

From there, I made the background layer. I used one of the Clip Studio gradient pre-sets, the ‘evening’ one, and painted a texture on top of it to have it match more with the textured painting style I went with. I added blood splatters, and ‘rectangles’ in the background, just to have more things visually going on.

On top of all of that, I added another layer on top of Power herself, with a very slight tone color of the gradient behind her, to make her and the background feel like they’re supposed to be together. And that’s it!!

I’m really happy with this so I wanted to explain my process. Looking around at tutorials on youtube, talking to artist friends who- tbh, are WAY more knowledgeable then me, helped a ton. And using the 3d model helped visualize the body, and different angles, WAY better then anything else I could find.

So uhhh thank you, and enjoy!

[your-unfriendlyghost]

Hiiii i just saw your Outsiders/Christine art and HOLY SHIT. When i say my jaw was on the floor it was on the floor. I’m a huge Stephen King fan (I’ve only read his books bc to me his books are good enough. I’m not a huge horror movie watcher girlie but i can do thriller/horror books. I have like 8 of his books, including Christine, on my bookshelf) and once again: HOLY SHIT. I can lowkey see the Outsiders trio as the Christine trio. Now whenever i go to reread the book, i can’t view it the same anymore haha. Another Outsiders/Stepehen King art idea for Halloween: 11/22/63. It’s one of my absolute favorite Stephen King novels. And if you haven’t read it, highly recommend it. It’s so intense and entertaining and i do get lost in that book. Anyways, HOLY SHIT. But i was also wondering if you have any tips for beginner digital artists? Like on layers, line art especially, shading etc.? I really want to get into more digital art but my tradional sketches lowkey look better than my digital ones haha. Whenever i see your stevepop or Outsiders art it just gives me a boost of inspiration. And i love them your honor.

Woah, thanks!! I’ll have to check it out- so far I’ve only read Christine and The Body (because my dad’s obsessed w/ Stand By Me), but I really dug both so I’m looking forward to it!

And as for digital art tips, I guess I’d say to keep things loose! I like to use a modified version of the Shale Brush on procreate for my sketches and lineart because it resembles a pencil, and the rough messiness makes it a whole lot easier for me to just relax and draw the way I do on paper. I don’t shy away from messiness especially in digital art- it makes things flow better in a medium that can get really stiff sometimes.

I like to do my sketches in bright colors, and I tend to assign every subject a certain color so I can tell them apart easily (idk how helpful it is, but it works for me!) Then I lower the opacity and draw on a layer on top like this:

Then I turn off the sketch layer and either fill everything in with base colors, or color it in grayscale w/ this Copic marker brush and varying levels of opacity for my comics.

As for shading, I do a combination of cell shading and painterly shading (picture for the uninitiated lol). Both have their merits, and shadows in real life usually include a bit of both.

For more simple stuff, I take a shade of either purple or sometimes magenta and cell shade everything with this pencil brush on a multiply layer, usually set to 30-ish% opacity depending on the drawing. Then I’ll blend it out a bit to soften some edges, which is what makes it look painterly. Also if you don’t know, “clipping mask” layers are really helpful for shading! You just put the shading layer over the colors and it stops you from going outside of the colors, it can be super helpful. This method is the one I usually use, and the one I’ve been using since I first started about five years ago now.

For the Christine poster specifically though I mostly just kept everything to one layer and color dropped from the reference, altering the colors as I saw fit- and just sort of guessed for Evie because she’s way tanner than Leigh and needed her own colors. The only times I used different layers were for each individual character so that they didn’t mess each other up, and also for the sketches, which I put on top of the colors but lightened the opacity on. Idk that I’d recommend this for a beginner tho, it’s taken me years to get comfortable working like this!

Sketch is set to a multiply layer here too. You can’t see it super well here tbh, because of how dark everything is, but oh well. Here’s a study I did last year with the same method tho! (Also she’s got some similarities to Evie huh?? I guess I have a type lol oops)

Anyhow, that’s probably enough for now lol- but lmk if there’s anything else you wanna know! And obviously this is just how I do things, there’s no hard and fast rules for any of this- I’m making it up as I go along, and you should too!!

[exandrothinadresseveryday]

um um um I'm back and I decided to analyze your art cause I really admire it :')

Honestly, I've noticed you use the same line width, if not similar line widths throughout the entire piece, which makes the dresses easier to swallow compared to how some artists draw, and I also think it goes perfectly with the overall simplicity of your art! While it is rather simple, it is also rather easy to add details into it to make it much more fun to do and gorgeous to look at.

I also love how you color things, as it is also pretty simple and goes with the line art, but it's also really easy to add details that you can overlook but still add to the drawing! Not even to mention how well the background goes with the outfits, especially in cases like the black hole dress or the white and blue angel dress (which both look amazing and are easily some of my favorite pieces ever)

Anyways once more, your art looks gorgeous and has given me so much inspiration and insight into my own art and how I can better it, as well that keeping things simple can totally help my art a ton!!!

um anyways sorry for the paragraphs but tysm for making the blog, it has cheered me up multiple times before and it probably will do it again countless times <33

This is so freaking cool to read, you absolutely hit the nail on the head with some of these comments :D Hope you don't mind if I add some insight on my part since it's so lovely idk if I could post it without anything to say.

But yeah, my usual choice in brush is literally a default CSP brush with the pen pressure turned off, and it tends to be 6-12px wide? There's nothing particularly special about it other than drawing with a smaller brush size helps me keep my canvas roughly the size I like (since I alter it each drawing), and I'm not a big fan of line weight in general lol. I'm definitely not the kind of person who will swear by a special custom brush or specific settings, I've always been the kind of person who will just make art with whatever the fuck I'm given.

If I can be honest, a lot of the time I just wing it with colours and the background- so you don't see it but there's a lot of me trying to slap a bandaid on a leak I created by not planning ahead. Sometimes things go smoothly, other times it doesn't.. For the record, an artwork will turn out wayyy nicer when you have a complete idea of what it's meant to look like. Do not aim to emulate me 100% I am but a fool in the grand scheme of things.

ANYWAYS, you wanna know something fucked up that might make ppl look at my art differently? This is my process for the latest drawing I did. I took my sketch, I drew it over it digitally and inked it, THEN I overlayed the sketch because I liked how it messed with my colours-

I paint OVER the artwork, realised my sloppy colouring makes the bottom part stand out so I add a shadow trying to adjust for this, decided I needed the artwork to be 100x more vibrant so I upped the contrast a bajillion times..

Then the rest was just shit i painted over:

I didn't even have lineart for the angel dress.. Check out this freak shit:

Have fun guessing what part of my artwork is what now,,,

[captmickey]

Shoppy talky, feel free to do all or none: where do you get your cute ideas, how long does it take to make something on average, what program and pens are you using when you go digital, do you color drop or eyeball it, what makes you happy and what's kinda flustering about the hobby in general, who do you love drawing most and from which angle~.

I could (and did) read this in Graham's voice haaaaaa~

1 - where do you get your cute ideas It depends? Comedy-wise, it almost always stems from either a- A conversation that was between me and someone else laugh or b- it made ME laugh. I ah... I have a weird rule where if it doesn't make me laugh, I don't make it. However, the cute ideas? It's usually inspired by seeing prompts or thinking of situations that has me kicking my feet, something that makes chest feel all warm like a big ol' hug and a comfort I desperately want to give the character. (Sorry if I'm vague... even I'm trying to think where I get it from.) 2 - how long does it take to make something on average Haaaaaa that one is tricky if only because it depends on the work? Like, okay... drabbles and quick prompts is no more than a few days (rarely, but sometimes, its on the spot), but a comic page, colored doodle or a longer fic takes easily a week at the shortest and a few at the longest. Sea of Adventurers and 3adv as a whole can easily take a few months if only because I'm a perfectionist and tend to revise. A lot... act 8 has been in the works since like, September? And as I write this have only finished chapter 2 of Sea of Adventurers. Out of three.

3 - what program and pens are you using when you go digital So for my basic drawings, I use Clip Studio Paint and honestly I use the generic g-pen or texture pen (depending on I guess the theme? Like the anniversary page was g-pen, but my recent KQ comic was texture pen). However! When I do a comic page, I use both CSP and Medibang.... I prefer the comic font/texture Medibang has but I looooooooove the cleanliness of CSP so I do all my roughs/lineart on CSP (sometimes even color on it) but I transfer it to Medibang for that grayscale coloring/texture.

4 - do you color drop or eyeball it Both! Like, for characters that pre-exist I've color in the past (e.g. Guybrush, Graham or Neese), then I'll pull up either their original source material and color drop. However, if it's one that never existed (e.g. 3adv!Zelda or Mako) then I eyeball the colors until it's appealing to me. However, once it's set and I'm repeating them several times.... color drop~

5 - what makes you happy and what's kinda flustering about the hobby in general What makes me happy is really having the ability TO create? I know it'll sound vain but honestly, there's nothing that delights me more than knowing if there's something I want to see, and I'm not seeing it, I can pull up a computer or sketchbook and get to making what I want (that was literally what stemmed 3adv haaa). I also love seeing how people react to my artwork as a whole... sometimes I'll get comments about it that makes me really sit and go "wow, people like my stuff" and it makes me happy. But on the other side of the coin, the flustering part about it... there is a few things, but it boils down ti having the time and energy and motivation to create. Like, sometimes I want somebody else to come up with the idea and the drawing and so on and so forth. Sometimes my bouts with depression gets the better of me and I can't bring myself to create. Sometimes I find myself with an idea that looks so cool in my head but when I try drawing/writing it, it's just... garbage. And it's frustrating. (And then I boot up Final Fantasy when I grumble how I should be working on making it work). And sometimes it clicks for me at 2 in the freaking morning and I forget to write it down and poof! Gone it goes. Like my sleep.

6 - who do you love drawing most and from which angle~ Hmm... while I do love drawing Link (especially in action shots) and Graham without his hat, I have to say it's my two favorite captains: Guybrush and Number One. Especially from like... the 3/4 angles because of how their hair is floop.

Also Guybrush lowkey became ten times more tolerable to draw once I fixed his hair for 3adv and I really really really really love drawing No1's stache.

[kiwikipedia]

I decided that I better post the first and second ascensions before I went insane and did the third fully. Circe’s staff is a placeholder, but once I have all three I’ll post this again lol

Anyways, did you know that there’s almost zero muscular guys with their legs showing fully? I worked with Caligula but it was still a bit of a trial. There’s a lot more of guys who wear armor and leg coverings than you’d think!

I used and edited assets from Summer Robin Hood, Summer Blackbeard, and Waver (shirt), Rider Da Vinci (ponytail... hair not uh, horse tail), Summer Marie, Kiara, and Kiyohime (hat and flowers) , Caligula (as stated above), Summer Costume and Alter Emiya (Torso and cooler), and Lancer Arturia Alter (horse ears). Saddle bag and towel were hand done and everything else was taken and edited from Chiron’s own assets.

Not including the Draft Layers, Two Ascensions end up close to 400 Layers which seems like a lot but when you factor in the combination of color, lineart, shading and the shirt’s texturing, its a lot. Fate’s sprites are all cut up so you gotta make sure it all fits, yeah?

Anyways (again), I have a general plot line for the Summer Event with Caster Summer Chiron (tentatively called Eternal Summer Stage / Lost Summer Stage) and also the individual sets below the cut as well as the taglist

In general, I’m thinking that kinda like the Hawai’i event, this one takes place in Greece, but things are really different — either the nation’s been condensed or it’s impossible to tell where you are in Greece, even for the Greeks.

The premise is that something or someone is creating an influx of energy there, causing an unbalance or some shit but while the threat level is low, allowing for you to take your time (as all Summer events do), it still needs to be dealt with.

Chiron is your main companion Servant though he’s not the welfare one. He, alongside of a rather enthusiastic Li Shuwen and unmasked Berserker Lancelot— both of which are also Summer Servants for the first half wave (Li being either Saber or Berserker) and Lancelot being a Lancer but still Berserker’s more mellowed and gloomy character.

(Costume dress Servants are still up in the air but I’m weighing more on Hans Christian Biggerson and Geronimo, with the long overdue Hawai’i Cu, and Medusa)

Upon arrival, there’s all sorts of plays and performances going on up and down the coast and further inland where there’s a large village up against a Mountain. Both myth and man are mingling, to which Medusa and Chiron both note to be something much out of an ancient sort of tale (hence why Chiron can take his true form and no one cares).

The first half of the event is mostly solving the mystery of what this influx of energy even is— which is where you meet the second Summer Servants for the first half. Technically not Summer in terms of Class change, Ching Shih is the first you meet, dressed in that event’s other Costume Dress for her summer look. She’s happy to help, though there seems to be something a bit off about how easily things start to pop up after that. Plays pertaining to [    ] and other tales, along with even more heroic legends being spun and told. At night, you often run into an unknown woman who sits and chats with you about things as well.

All the while, Chiron seems to become more and more troubled as time goes on.

One night, however, you wander outside the inn because you can’t sleep only to get attacked by rouge Servants. This is when the second meeting happens— and it’s the “Dark fellow” that Ching Shih has been talking about. None other than Sir Agravain of Iron is here.

Though he recognizes you, he doesn’t say much on the matter, simply defeating the rouge Servants and sending them back to the Throne mercilessly. Post fight, Chiron arrives with Ching Shih and Li Shuwen and Agravain is formally introduced.

(There’s an entire thing about him wearing black armor and then you get his costume dress for free)

After that, the reveal that there’s all sorts of half-phantom-half-servants or rouge servants hiding about is finally confirmed though you’ve been fighting shadows and monsters before, the real task is at hand.

In general throughout the farming periods, the Servants will state that they are splitting up to investigate the area, kinda like the very first summer event where each location is a little bit of a sub story (Lancer-lot and Cu are at the shore investigating traces of magical energy with Geronimo, Li Shuwen and Medusa are investigating the plays and performances with Ching Shih, Biggerson and Agravain are in the town investigating there) so that’s there to get the rest of the costume dresses in the shop (Ching Shih, Cu, Medusa, Biggerson, Gero, etc)

The second half has much more to do with Chiron than the first, though he’s your companion for the first half.

Achilles joins the group, though like Ching Shih, he seems a bit odd, but he arrives and arrives with startling news which kicks off the second half of the event— the mountain against the town is Mount Pelion, the Birthplace of Greek Heroes.

This, of Course, has Chiron absolutely of kilter because suddenly he’s home. Ching Shih admits that she feels like a majority of the Singularity’s power is coming from the Mountain but didn’t want to risk going there because it’s crawling with phantom-servants— which only spurs Chiron to restate that he should still go to investigate there.

Everyone decides to go after that, because Chiron clearly isnt about to just up and let it go.

As you go through the mountain you learn a bit more about it from Chiron and Achilles, and Medusa inputs some that she knows. Agravain and Lancelot get into a minor fight, but it’s settled by Hans mostly, the usually in-between stuff.

Oh and did I mention that during this time there’s also cutscenes and non battle story from an unknown person’s POV within another space? Because there is.

In general, I’m still working out the middle chunks, but the ending is pretty much the arrival at Chiron’s Cave, only to be met by the mysterious woman who you’ve been talking to at night. It turns out that she’s Chariclo and she admits— or seems to admit— that she’s been summoning Servants from between the lines of history and Servants that normally have been gotten overlooked for some reason or another due to either being seen as not heroic enough, prejudiced factors, or they’ve simply been forgotten.

Some other stuff happens, and right when she’s about to say something pretty important you’re interrupted... by you.

Another version of you has arrived and it turns out that while Chariclo has been summoning and maintaining Servants, it wasn’t her choice. The other You has been having her do so in order to find [     ] and you know who that is— how could you not?

An argument breaks out, the other You is convinced that Chariclo has already summoned That Man, and while she doesn’t deny it, she states she can’t let the Other You into the Cave because it’ll ruin things. the Other You is determined, and perhaps a bit irrational with obsession to see That Man again and orders the Shadows to attack.

While almost every Servant is there for support, Achilles is not, and when the battles are done you realize why as Achilles stands by the Other You.

Chariclo is firm, continuing to refuse entry into the cave, and the Other You has had enough. Achilles is revealed to have not been Chaldea’s Achilles and apologizes before he’s ordered to kill Chariclo. Obviously, Chiron’s not about that, and takes the blow, severely wounding him.

Of course, this causes a chain reaction, as Li Shuwen and Agravain immoderately go for the kill on Achilles— the Other You makes a move for the Cave, you intercept Yourself because even though Chariclo might not have been a full alley, she had protected the Cave vehemently, Medusa and the others hold off the others are still fighting the shadows, before the mountain shakes.

While not dead, Chiron’s blood on Chariclo’s hands is enough to pull her from her passive state and forge a temporary contract with you. In combination, you and Chariclo stop the Other You and there’s a long conversation about grief and letting go before You and the shadows leave— either fading away or just leaving.

Once gone, Chariclo immediately has you bring Chiron into the cave so she can start healing him.

This is where you meet your welfare— none other than Romani Archaman himself. He’s weak, of course, but there and its a big reunion moment only to be interrupted by the Singularity destabilizing now that the Other You is gone.

There’s conflict, of course. Chariclo wasn’t lying when she said that Romani was too unstable to bring back. Similarly, the only reason she was able to appear, that she knows of, is because they are at Mount Pelion meaning she too is too unstable to follow a Rayshift. Unless a Holy Grail is used.

A choice is presented that you have to make, but all your choices are Romani, no matter how much you or Chiron want to bring Chariclo back as well. When you make your choice, Chariclo will present you a Grail and admit she didn’t use it on Romani at first because she was terrified what the Other You would do when Romani was stable.

With Romani Stabilized, everyone moves to head back down the Mountain for a rayshift back, but Chiron lingers. There’s grief, of course, but the two must say goodbye once more.

... Only, upon arriving in Chaldea, it turns out to not be the case.

Upon Chiron’s injury, Chariclo’s Noble Phantasm, “Lifeblood of Pelion”, quite literally used Chiron’s blood as fuel upon it being soaked into the ground. While they’re not the same as Ryoma and Oryou, as they’re separate Servants, Chiron and Chariclo’s origins linked and allowed for her to exist in Chaldea as another Caster. it’s a bittersweet ending, as Ching Shih and Agravain did not follow— but it’s no worry. Ching Shih stated that she’d see you again, and Agravain, while he didn’t say so, simply nodded in response.

( * Basically Ching Shih and Agravain are added to the permanent summon pool with Ching Shih being a 5* Rider and Agravain a 3* Assassin )

Chaldea Achilles remains extremely put out that he had been the one to harm Chariclo in the Singularity— and also annoyed he couldn’t go because he was busy making sure that Herc didn’t go off the rails.

Post event, the usual collection of the other 4 copies for the np5 welfare are unlocked along with a costume dress for Romani. Who is a Shielder class Servant.

So yeah. That’s basically the bare-bones of the idea. I don’t quite remember where the Shielder Romani idea came from but I saw a post on it and filed it away in my brain forever. The only reason Medusa, Cu, and Gero aren’t full servants is because I really couldn’t think of good classes for them. The only ones I can really think of for Gero is Avenger, and Medusa has alts for lancer and avenger, and Cu has alts for saber caster and berseker... also there’s the Servant pool of Ching Shih, Agravain, Chariclo, Chiron, and Li Shuwen, which is a hefty number even if the first two are perma summon.

If Third Asc Chiron doesn’t obliterate my soul then I’m probably going to work on Summer Li Shuwen next, or the Costume Dress trio of Gero, Medusa, and Cu. Then we’ll see about making those sprites where there’s no character base to use at all.. I might die (jk)

But when I do post the third ascension I’m going to include hatless Chiron because he’s got a lil bow hair tie and the horse ears are CUTE as hell

Anyways, Tag list below. Good god if you made it this far congratulations I know I ramble and make zero sense half the time

Taglist Form or feel free to ask me to get tagged (just DM!):

@jedifisto​​ @spaceydragons​​ @purgetrooperfox​​ @spacerocksarethebestrocks​ @insanelytomato @babygirljoelmiller​ @certified-anakinfucker​ @d3epfriedanger​ @genifer-championofpaldea​​ @thecodyagenda​ @babygirl-leon-kennedy​ @txtalnyx​ @jawajawas​

Please tell me if you want to be taken off of the list as this is no longer just Star Wars art

Additional Tags for those who have been interested in Summer Chiron the past few days (i hope you dont mind):

@300iqprower​ @bitterrosebrokenspear​ @random-senpai​

[yurissweettooth]

My Typical Art Process✨🌈

Was gonna reply to anon with this, but figured it was a bit too unrelated so I'll make a separate post! I do kinda wanna share my process anyway for anyone curious. I made something similar for twitter once but I no longer use twitter and my style has changed since then so here's a new one!

Tl;dr I draw for fun only and I have learned that textures and overlays and post-processing can do a LOT when it comes to making something look more "complete" while also not taking a lot of additional time. This is just my personal style spawned from my laziness and my love of harsh colors😆

I'll put it below the cut because it's long!

So to begin with, when I doodle (as opposed to a proper drawing that I take my time on) this is my typical "lineart":

I just draw the… what do you call it? The under parts… Like the circle and shapes, etc. to get the pose. Then lower the opacity and do another sketch on top of that. Then I lower the opacity of that and do ANOTHER sketch on top. 😆 I do that as many times as necessary until it looks like something. I don't worry a ton about anatomy or messiness or stray lines, it's just for fun to get an idea out of my head :)

Sometimes I also leave the under-sketches in or sometimes I turn the layer off. For this one I left them in.

Then I turn on all my textures, overlays, and H/S/L correction layer and crank the saturation up. The selected colorful layer was something I made once and saved it as an image material so I can just slap it on any time as an overlay. You will see it in almost all of my art, she's my beloved crutch and also I just like it lol. Other than that, I sometimes use paper textures that CPS came with and sometimes I make a perlin noise layer with the smallest grain size and set it to 'soft light'.

I also have recently been using a manga screentone overlay that comes with CSP.

Then I start coloring underneath!

This is how it looks without all of the blinding colors and textures I put there to distract you from the mess lol

Even in ones where I DO put in effort and try to use better anatomy and clean up a lot of the scribbles I pretty much never use clean lineart simply because I cannot be bothered 🤷🏾‍♂️ I don't really do anything different here, I just spend more time one it:

Also, even then the overlays and textures do a lot of the heavy lifting. Some of the overlays and effects I draw myself like the rainbow boarders around them and of course the doodle hearts. I don't draw backgrounds very often but I don't like an empty background so overlays or little doodles or text effects typically go there.

I should also mentions that I use the lightroom mobile app to further enhance all of my art, as shown above in the before and afters. I don't really have much to say on this point. I used to use lightroom mobile a lot when I did doll photography and I pretty much just wing it based on what I learned doing that. I like to mess with the texture settings and do masking edits to change the foreground and background independently to get better color balances. Like a bozo I pay for the subscription but I bet you could use any old editing app.

Oh, and I do pretty much everything with these brushes here. I got them a while back when they were free for 48 hours but unfortunately they are no longer free and cost 80 clippy now :( Should also warn you that they saturate any color and idk how to stop it from doing that so I just adjust the color accordingly before using or edit in post. Very nice though!!

Some other (free) things I like and use a lot:

Warm color set

Watercolor paper texture (free)

Cloud brushes

Watercolor auto action

Real paper textures

Prism brushes

Freckle brush

Aaaaand that's basically it!

[tacky-optic]

I saw the Lupin recolors you did (they’re amazing btw) and I’m curious how do you keep lineart so clean on your recolors? I’ve been doing some recolors recently but my technique is usually either trace the lines on top of whatever color I’m changing to which results in slightly-sloppy and inaccurate lines or I spend a million years doing masking. But yours look so clean it’s awesome! How do you do it?

Hello, anon- thank you for the kind words and for sending an ask in!!

The screenshots anon is referring to are in this post!

Sorry it took me a while to get back to you-- I wanted to make some example images to go along with this since this is a question I've gotten quite a few times. I'll try my best to answer as concisely I can!

I personally use Clip Studio Paint (which is what I'll be using to explain this), but I've also done this with Photoshop. I'm hoping this method is simple enough so that its usable for whatever program you (or whoever else sees this guide) uses.

We'll see how it goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Some bits to start:

I know this is kind of a no-brainer, but a big thing that always helps is image quality. The better the image quality, the less obvious your changes will be-- so make sure the screenshot you're recoloring has good resolution. This method (in theory) should work for lower res stuff too, but it'll be harder to avoid messy lines no matter how careful you are when selecting. Here's the images I'll be using for this example:

Make sure to have a backup of the original screenshot you're editing!! Even though I didn't include this in these upcoming examples, have the original below the image you're editing so you can check your progress and make sure you didn't miss any changes you wanted to make in your edit.

We'll use this pt. 4 screenshot of Lupin as our first example!

Let's say we want to make his jacket red-- it's as easy as it sounds, but it'll still take a bit of time.

I use selection tools over masking-- primarily the polyline tool. Even after testing with masking and layer overlays, this is the best way I've found to keep line integrity and cleanliness.

When you select with the tool, you'll want to go along the edge of the actual color you want to change, not the linework.

It's going to be time-consuming (which is why I only outlined his sleeve lol) but from all the testing I've done, it's what gives the nicest results. Plus we don't even have to use any layers or masks-- we can just change the color of the screenshot directly!

To do that, we'll want to find the option to change hue, saturation, and luminosity.

From here we can tweak the colors in whatever way we want without any of that ugly crunchy outline stuff or having to fiddle with a dozen different layer settings.

This way of doing it is really good for changing the hue, saturation, and darkness to whatever we want it to be without sacrificing line quality.

Here's the final:

Even though I eyeballed the color for example's sake, the final change doesn't look half bad!

The only catch I've come across is when you need to make something a lighter color. You can bring the luminosity of an image down, but once you bring it up you start having some unavoidable issues.

We'll use one of my favorite Zenigata screenshots for our second example.

Let's say we wanna change his red pt. 4 trench coat to his green one from pt. 3 (again, only changing the sleeve for time's sake).

This is a tough change since there are a lot of lines and extra details on his coat that get caught and lightened in the change.

At this point we're going to have to do some line tracing.

Yeah, I'm not a fan of this part either, but unfortunately it's another time-consuming necessity if we want an edit to look as unedited as possible. Every other method I've tried to keep the lines dark ends up really corrupting the linework already in the image.

I'm sure you've noticed the edge of the selection we made in this; even though I skipped this part for time's sake you're going to want to go over those outer lines, too.

I recommend using a simple default brush set to a size that is as close to the actual linework as you can get. If the brush you're using doesn't have tapering or line size pressure just make sure it's slightly smaller than the actual lines. Stabilization isn't exactly a requirement; I'd only suggest turning on line stabilization if you aren't very confident with your linework (practice makes perfect and all that).

When we're done, it'll be pretty obvious that we went over the lines-- there's another really simple fix I found that helps to make this a little less obvious.

Messing with the layer opacity and the blur filter helps to bring out the linework beneath what you've gone over and makes the lines look less obviously drawn in.

I'm sure you could also tweak the layer's settings until you find something that looks right, too-- it'll be the same sorta "experimenting until it looks right" deal as with changing the colors earlier.

I generally stick within the 2.5/3.5 range when blurring for decent res screenshots. In hindsight I probably went a little too low with the blur for this one, but you get the idea.

I think that it mimics the semi-blurry quality that lines tend to have in screenshots and helps to make it look less like it was drawn over.

Here's the final:

I'm sure if I bothered to do the entire trench coat it wouldn't look half bad, lol.

ANYWAYS that's a crash course on how I make lines not look like doodoo in my edits :3

Hopefully this is helpful!!

Thanks again for the ask, and if you have any more q's don't be afraid to send another ask in!🫡

[pennyroyal-xiv]

something different: a history of my painting

A while ago I received a comment that was something like "I feel like you've improved your painting a lot in a short while". While this is for the most part true, I have been working on my painting skill for years. Over 10 at least. It does tend to improve in leaps and bounds because well, I have ADHD, and sometimes I hyperfocus on my painting skills because it gives me The Serotonin. But when I'm not doing that I'm still observing the world around me and developing my eye as well.

Just wanted to throw a few pictures up that show I did in fact start somewhere:

(buckle up this is a long one so continued under the cut-)

This piece is from about 10 years ago when I got more into painting as I was working on some board game art. It's super basic and you can tell I'm more used to doing lineart&color at this point.

Here's another one from that set that I don't like as much:

This next one is from a few months after when I was helping out some friends with video game concept art (yeah I know I wasn't that good but I wasn't paid for this iirc).

I do like this one, it was enjoyable to work on as I had a set of requirements to include (ooze, mushrooms, crystals). Still pretty uh, lackluster though.

Next up, when I was super into LoL and working on a portfolio for getting into art grad school, which I didn't end up pursuing as I went into the tech industry full-time.

I was soooo proud of this Lux piece. Looking back, yeah, it's definitely above my average for the time (I put a lot of time into it) but there's obviously a lot I'd change now.

Similarly I also loved this piece of Soraka that I did, around the same time, maybe 9 years ago. Super simple background, everything is very smooth, and I'm pretty sure I was working exclusively in Paint Tool SAI.

Hmm I actually don't have a lot in between that... Here's a little piece I did for a friend circa ... 2019?

It's definitely an improvement... my favorite bit is the amber-orange vase.

And THEN I got into ffxiv...

This piece of Erren from around a few years ago? 2022 maybe? was one of my first pieces going straight back into painting after a long dry spell of no real art. I remember being pleasantly surprised that I could paint better than I did previously.

This piece from the FFXIV OC Gala (the first one) was a similar level of skill, and it was the start of me almost exclusively painting going forward

Once I started doing some black/white studies and using environment/pose reference, I feel like my improvements started to pick up a lot. This piece I used in-game reference for, from the Ishgard aetheryte plaza.

This piece challenged me because I was using in-game reference for the background and character angles. I think I overdid it and it ended up looking a little weird, but I'm happy with the rendering at least.

Compare that to something like this where I used a real-life reference photo instead, mostly for the torso up. I think the pose looks a lot better. Although I think the face didn't land 100% the way I wanted.

This piece however, of Gaius, hits the sweet spot I think. The reference used was only for the background - the pose was from my eye only. It did take me a LONG time to finish though.

I hope this post accomplishes a few things:

makes you realize that I've been at this for a long time

shows you that you can really improve when you use references & train your artist's eye, even if you aren't drawing every day

[sabertoothwalrus]

do you have any tips on streamlining your comic/art making process? I colored in a doodled comic and the whole thing took me hours, I just feel like there's something I'm missing that would make the whole thing go faster? I know a part my own struggle is just learning the program i work with in the first place. apologies if this is somethin too specific to myself lmao

laziness, ultimately.

I think it's pretty universal for artists to assume they're doing something the "wrong" or "difficult" way, and that there MUST be some secret everyone else knows that you somehow missed. I know I definitely feel this way, especially about painting and layout design.

I think once I realized that the amount of time you spend on a comic =/= how much people like it, I stopped caring if I left things sketchy or uncolored or anything besides the bare minimum of what it takes to say what you need to say. I've been trying to practice skills I'd use in storyboarding, except I don't really think about it like "practicing storyboarding skills", I think about it like "what can I do to communicate this scenario as efficiently as possible". How clear are the poses? The order of dialogue? The pacing? The tone? Does the punchline land? Is the setting and placement of characters clear? What can I do to vary the perspective and angles to keep it interesting and aid the tone, without it being too confusing? Sometimes, I DO need to do a bit more with value or color or backgrounds, but I try to get away with conveying as much as I with as little as possible.

I skip a lot of steps. I don't do lineart, I just clean up my sketches. I rarely color things (but I'm trying to get better!) and when I do it's really sloppy and not at all in the lines, but it doesn't really matter. I don't think anyone cares much (not in a self-deprecating way, but a "most people are only going to look at this for a few seconds so fuck it" way)

Beyond that, keyboard shortcuts help a lot. I know screen tablets are the Hot Thing and seem like the industry standard for animation and illustration, but I can't imagine not having my hand on my keyboard the entire time I'm drawing. I use wayyy too many shortcuts to ever use the ones on my tablet, or one of those controller things.

Certain things like the polygonal lasso tool or CSP's nifty "close gap" feature on the bucket tool sure help a lot. There are somethings you'll always have to brute force, so you just have to practice getting faster at brute forcing it.

[swindle-comic]

You may have answered this before and if you have forgive the re-ask. But what art program do you guys use for making the comic? Is it more than one? And on average how long does it take to make a page from script to lineart to ink & color? It's so vibrant!

Okay so

It starts as the script Lolly writes, which, beyond Chapter 1, is a list of dialogue and important actions (unless the scene were to change, at which point Lolly gives a detailed exposition of what exactly I'm supposed to be drawing) and, for the most part, it looks something like this:

From the script, I sketch out thumbnails for each page, traditionally, in a sketchbook specifically for thumbnails. Most of them look like this:

Once I have the thumbnails done, I go into Paint Tool Sai 2 and get all the panels and lines done. Those get saved as two separate images so they can be imported to TVPaint as two separate layers. In TVPaint, I import backgrounds and color, shade, and add speech bubbles (for chapter 1, everything was done on TVPaint, but I ended up liking the pen selection in Paint Tool Sai better).

... Yes, I do use an animation program to do my coloring in, but like c'mon I paid 700 bucks for this thing, I'm gonna use it as often as I possibly can. Plus, it's nice to have all the pages of the comic on the same file as individual animation frames with their own layers, it's a good organizational set-up I have going. (I did accidentally save over Chapter 2 Page 14 on the comic's TVPP file though :C )

Once the page is colored and the speech bubbles have been added, I export the frame containing the latest page to a single PNG, and open that in Photoshop to add all the text, any emojis I need to add, and any sound-effects that are hand-written (as opposed to typed) so that I can add an outline to them.

Once that's saved as a PNG, I open it in Paint Tool Sai, again, to add the paper texture (not actually sure how many people notice this detail) and that gets saved and uploaded to the internet for all of you to read :3

Ideally I just spend one day on each page so I can dedicate the rest of my time to work I actually get paid for lol, though sometimes it may just happen that I can't spend as much time at my computer on the day I'm supposed to update the comic, so I get delayed.

[thecrowslullaby]

Art Advice?

I've been wanting to get back into drawing but I've been out of practice for a few years. I used to trace a lot of character bases and while I think I'd be good to start back at that point, I'm worried that others will say I'm "not a real artist" if I'm tracing yet don't have the confidence to draw something completely on my own without a reference.

So sorry for the long ask!

Sorry it took so long to answer, I was a little all over the place this week I say that as if I''m not always all over the place

Also, I really honored you're asking me for art advice aaaaaaaaa, but anyway here we go:

Ok, I know some people might hate me for this but: Tracing is absolutely 100% ok as long as you don't post the drawing claiming it's your original work. If it helps you feel better about it you can always think of the original drawing as your "sketch layer" and you're simply doing lineart. Or try to find the basic shapes and go from there. Using character bases is also 100% fine. Lots of my friends do that and then they just credit the artist (if the artist allowed to use the base with credit. I don't use base too often not bc I think it isn't a good practice but bc my hand is too shaky to properly ink most of the time.) Or you can always ask artist who post sketches if you can lineart them? I know some ppl would be delighted!!!!

References are a blessing, I use them all the time and I don't think I'm any less of an artist for that. The more you draw the more poses you're able to draw from memory but heck, famous painters paid people to sit for them. And anyone who claims you have to draw without a reference is just a bitter peasant who cannot afford a model (I'm joking about that one, but seriously, there is 0 shame in using a reference, be it photo or drawing. For poses/color compositions. Drawing inpiration is 10000% fine, just don't steal artwork folks)-> pinterest is your best friend, trust me.

And my fave art advice: speed. Take a fricking huge stack of paper and give yourself a time limit. Start with a long one if it makes you feel more comfortable. 1 hours for a sketch? Need longer? thats fine? Too long? Great start with 30 minutes. Once the timer's out its time to finish, no buts. And then just shorten the time span. You don't have to draw a fully colored drawing in under 10 minutes, but it's nice to chalange yourself, so you get more comfortable with your lines. There are so many cool sites that set the timer for you and give you a drawing!!!!!!!

If a drawing isn't working out sometimes it's easier to toss it. I know it's hard and I don't always go through with it but it works wonders with the speed method. Marie Kondo the sh*t out of your doodles.

Post your drawings!!!!! Make a secret account if you're worried about them looking bad but put them out to get them out of your system. Or set yourself a challange that you have to post at least once a week, or twice a week. Not a fully made pic with colors and shadings, just something. F*ck, that did wonders for my motivation.

Step by step youtube guides for drawing are a blessing. I used to religiously watch them as a teen.

Also. Drawing style? Change that as often as you want.

And if anyone tell you you're not a real artist bc you use reference/trace to improve understanding of anatomy tell me and i will steal their f*cking kneecaps for you.

[iraprince]

hello! do you have any advice for switching from traditional art to digital? (i recently ran out of supplies so im relegated to my computer lol) i hope youre having a good day!

i sure do!

first off i really recommend clip studio paint, but i also recommend u wait for it to go on sale. it goes 50% off a few times a year, so imo it’s worth waiting, but it also is usually on sale for only a few days so u have to stay on top of it. they usually announce on twitter etc. the tools don’t make the artist and obviously it doesn’t Really matter what program u end up settling on, i’ve just been really pleased with CSP and i wanted to recommend it

second: nothing that u can do with digital art programs/tools is cheating and it took me way too long to really internalize + understand that. copy-pasting stuff instead of redrawing it, using symmetry rulers, using transform/ctrl+T to stretch or squash slightly off anatomy instead of starting over -- when i was first getting into digital i A. didn’t know u could do this stuff and B. felt weirdly guilty doing it once i figured it out, as if i was a worse artist for using the tools that are literally built into the software or that it was lazy or dishonest to do so. that, it turns out, is bullshit. any drawing is just a constant series of decision-making and a lot of digital tools just help u make or retract or edit those decisions faster than traditional does. it’s not better or worse, it’s just different, and it’s worth ur time to figure out which of those differences are the most convenient and useful. this stuff exists for a reason! use it! save ur wrists and ur patience and ur time!

figure out file organization early, because it’s something u don’t have to deal with irt traditional art and so it probably won’t come naturally, but it also makes ur life harder to have a desktop swarming with wip files that are all titled “kjsrhrfgdhgj.psd” or whatever. some ppl sort into folders by date; for me it works better to sort by content (i.e. i have folders for tvrn stuff, patreon stuff, different fandoms, dnd/ttrpg stuff, “misc ocs” for characters i don’t draw much and “misc fandoms” for one-off fanart that doesn’t merit its own folder, etc etc; this is what makes it easiest for me to find stuff, but ur system might end up different.) i admittedly still name my files keysmashes if it’s personal stuff rather than work/commissions, but at least it’s all sorted into a category where i can quickly find it again anyway

also, u can hybridize traditional and digital! i frequently like my traditional pencil lines better than what i can do digitally, so i often scan them in, turn them into lineart, and color digitally (here’s a tutorial on how i prep that). but even if u don’t have a scanner, a carefully taken phone photo with high contrast can still be used the same way. i tend to lay my sketchbook flat on the floor in front of a window, squat down and hold my phone as level as i can while i’m taking the pic, and then i blast it in my phone’s built in gallery editor (highlights/shadows and contrast) before sending it to myself and doing the same thing w tone curve/levels in csp. it’s not perfect, but it’s presentable, and it can be a good way to ease urself in if ur feeling frustrated w the learning curve on digital draftsmanship.

oh, and this tip is really small but it’s ended up being rly helpful for me: resist the urge to zoom in way past 100% scale view just bc u can. if there are times where u absolutely need to, sure, whatever, but there’s no point in regularly tweaking tiny things pixel by pixel at 250% zoom bc nobody who looks at ur art is gonna see that and ur just bloating ur own time spent on things and creating unnecessary stress for urself!! if 100% zoom doesn’t give u the control u want, that may just mean u need to work larger to begin with.

set up a comfortable workspace with a Good chair. look up proper posture and try to stick to it. i know we’re all gay and it sucks to sit in a chair properly but otherwise ur gonna hurt urself. take even more frequent breaks than u do when drawing traditionally! screen bad!

also, if ur tablet has a way to calibrate pressure, try that out. a lot of them are set in a way where you have to press really hard to get full line width and over time it can really seriously strain ur wrist; u can’t manually set pressure in traditional tools (besides like. using softer lead i guess lmfao) but u can with tablet pens and u should try it, bc if u can use a lighter touch overall it really goes a long way towards preventing injury in the long term.

this is all the stuff that came to mind immediately; i’m sure there are tons of basics i haven’t covered, depending on how much of a transition this is for u, but there are a lot of tutorials out there written by ppl more patient and more educationally-oriented than myself so you’d be doing a better service to urself seeking those out than if i were to try to clumsily emulate them lol. good luck + have fun!

[cassthepilot]

Yo! It’s been a while, how have you been??

I was just wondering if you had any art tips and tricks? I’m looking to improve my digital art so I figured I’d ask (no pressure to answer of course)

aaa @edgynoise!! so good to hear from you again! I hope you've been doing well <3

and oh wow, of course! I'm not sure what kind of advice to offer but I'm happy to throw some things out here that might be helpful.

that said; here's some stuff that's personally worked for me

- spend a little time loosening up

this one helps me out a lot. if i go straight into a drawing from the start it's going to turn out stiff as hell for me every time so to combat this I usually spend about 5-10 doodling before getting into the actual meat of any kind of meaningful drawing. really helps wake up the hand meat muscles.

- get your thoughts down first and then tighten them up

i don't know if this would be applicable for everybody but generally I feel it's important to get whole of something down (no matter how busted it looks) before going in to correct certain things or agonize over anatomy. for me, the energy of a piece is it's foundation and that life is what everything else gets built around & up from. I find it much better to draw it messy & broken in the beginning rather than squeek through the whole thing erasing, redrawing & erasing on the same piece.. I feel a piece can just lose too much of it's energy that way. once i have the bare sketch worked out, I just set the sketch to a low opacity & redraw the lines for real-real on another layer over it.

- listen to music!

not always for everyone but i find picking music that matches the mood of what i'm working on generally helps me channel the vibe of something. for the mining piece above i listened to a lot of the old coal mining songs this was inspired by. i feel like it really helped me hit what i was going for.

- feel it out

so this may just be a me thing but when i do pieces i generally try to bring a lot of feeling and acting into them with me. if the character is concerned, i make myself feel that emotion while drawing them. If their face is sad or upset or fearful I make those same facial expressions myself in order to channel it into them. and if there's body language involved i'll sometimes even go the extra mile & act things out with my hands, depending. i don't know what it is about this but i find that it can really bring a lot of life to a piece. also just being aware of those facial muscles and how they feel in certain situations can make emphasizing & drawing them easier in general.

- try to vary your lineweight

this one really depends on what style you're going for but I find that, for myself, varying the line weight really helps add a lot of life to things. my lines in tend to run a little thicker overall but the general rule of thumb is broader / thicker lines where there's gravity, weight or in places where you want to emphasize the energy of something. (ex. bottoms of feet, arms, thighs, clothing, jawlines etc.) and then lighter/thinner lines for more detailed / finer areas like say the eyes, facial features, details in fingers etc.

not the best example but hopefully it more or less gets across what I'm stabbing at haha

as for digital / art program tips I'm not sure what I can offer that may be helpful but here's what I got!

- keep everything on different layers. this is a big one. 100% will keep you from wanting to rip all your hair out & setting it on fire. i'm not sure how familiar you are with layers yet but generally I set them up so that the lineart is on the top layer, the flat colors are on the bottom layer & the shading on the character is inbetween.

- when shading, try to avoid using straight black

unless there's a solid reason to shade with black (like say doing a strictly pen & ink piece) I generally try to avoid it. if you need dark colors for shading I find it's always way better to shade with a really deep red/purple or blue instead. even just that hint of color will make the overall colors in a piece far less dull & muddy.

- take advantage of the hue/saturation feature to adjust colors

this one's a huge time saver for me. basically if I have my characters shaded & i'm not really digging the colors or think they're popping off right I will select the layer or color & then use the hue/saturation function to adjust the areas i don't like accordingly until i hit on something that looks more harmonious. This is especially helpful if you're trying to find the right colors you want for something but just aren't sure what's going to look good. it's also super useful on things like your shading layer or if you're working with warm or cool light sources.

- deepen shadows / brighten up light sources

When a piece is near finished for me one of the small after effects I like to add is a light airbrushing in both the lightest & darkest areas. This helps add more contrast and if it's placed over top the linework layer it can sometime help to create ambient mood, depending on what you're going for of course. Anyway, for me this usually means creating a new shadow layer, deepening them up with a hit of darker airbrushing and then setting that layer to multiply & adjusting the opacity according to what looks good. For the light sources it's pretty much the same deal except the layer will be set to 'overlay' or' vivid light' whichever usually looks right to me.

- tie it together with local color

so this is a favorite trick of mine that i enjoy using from time to time & one i find can really help with pulling the colors in a piece together to make it look nice.

basically if a piece is finished & I just want to make it look more cohesive & tied together i will start by filling an entire layer with a local color (for example if the piece is warm i will make a layer of just straight orange), then i will move that layer to the top of all other layers where it can be king and then proceed to set the entire thing to overlay & lower the opacity to something between 8-25%. how much you lower the opacity depends on what you feel looks good of course but overall i find it can be a useful trick for quickly warming up or cooling down the tones in a piece. Overall it’s just handy for making an illustration look a bit more cohesive color-wise.

this examples a little on the extreme side but hopefully it can kind've show what i mean in the way of unifying the colors.

- study life

so this sort've falls under generic art advice but you can never go wrong studying from life. And I don't just recommend this in a 'it will get you good at drawing the human body' kind of way. What it will do is get you good at drawing people. Just observing the mannerisms people have, the way they gesture when they feel things, the way certain body types carry their weight, the body language that accompanies both stronger & lesser emotions, how people posture themselves to reflect (or reveal!) what's going on inside. When you really sit down & take the time to study & observe people you'll find that there's so much to take away from it. Everything from the way a person carries themselves to how they move their body can say so much about a person (whether they intend it to or not) and I've found that if you want to pull something really convincing out of a character then body language is where it's at. It's equally as important as facial expressions honestly & a good tip (if you're just looking to get better at body language only) is to draw the face last & force yourself to communicate emotions with the hands, body & posture instead.

- andrew loomis

so fun story back when i was studying art in college - one day my media teacher walked in & straight up told the class that if any of us had to drop out tomorrow we could basically just study creative illustration by andrew loomis & it would be the damn near equivalent of what we were all paying to be taught. To this day I've never forgotten that. And to this day it absolutely holds up. Really can't recommend this guy enough if you're looking to understand the fundamentals of illustration! And what luck! all of his books are free! :)

Fun With a Pencil (Beginner) https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Fun%20WIth%20a%20Pencil.pdf

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth (Intermediate) https://illustrationage.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/andrew-loomis-figure-drawing-for-all-its-worth.pdf

Creative Illustration (Intermediate-Advanced) https://illustrationage.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/andrew-loomis-creative-illustration.pdf

Drawing the Head & Hands (Intermediate) https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Drawing%20the%20Head%20and%20Hands.pdf

study other artists!

one of my favorite things to do! if you like what someone makes - study them. I do this near constantly with a lot of different people for a lot of different things. Everything from the way one artist colors, to the way one artists handles lighting, to the way another artist draws hands - if there's something i see that I like in a persons art or their style - I study it. Even if it's outside of my current comfort range (or skill level) I find there's always something to gain by either attempting to emulate it myself or just breaking it down & figuring out what makes it look the way that it does. One thing I find that's really helpful is breaking apart .psd files whenever an artist will offer them. just looking at the way other people handle their layers or add effects to things can really help broaden my perspective & way of doing things.

That said; if it would be helpful you're more than welcome to check out my own .psd file here if you feel it would help you out any!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yigbm7b9b8eyb0g/run%20with%20us%20-%20full.psd?dl=0

At the moment it's one of the more put together ones I have so hopefully it can offer a better visual insight to some of the things I do. Again, if it's something that you think would help.

Anyway, I guess that's about it. Also wow this was a lot longer than I thought it would be so my bad if I got way too rambly or anything haha. Super excited for your future art endeavors here & think it's really awesome that you're exploring more! I'm so happy & excited for you <3 Feel free to hit me up if there's anything else I can help you out with.

[genderhoax]

I used to want to be an artist but then i stopped drawing for like 7 years. I want to go back but i'm scared and dont know where to start. So yes, i am interested in those drawing videos can you post them if you dont mind? ^_^

Of course!! I am in the same situation as you actually. I used to draw a lot in middle school (2010-2012) but my depression worsened during high school and in college, I’d only draw as a distraction, never seeking to study or improve. I decided to get back this year, since I decided drawing was the only thing I could see myself doing professionally. I felt very lost, because how do you get back? How do you know what’s your actual, current, art skill? What are your weaknesses? Your strong points?

That’s how I learned to study the fundmentals of art. Because visual art is not a skill. It is a set of skills, if you are very good at anatomy but not really when coming to painting your art is going to look differently than someone who learned anatomy in how to draw manga books but paint like a pro. I am going to divide this post in categories, Also, all the videos I link I also recommend all the channels they are from! My favorites are The Drawing Database, Sycra and Ganev, Sycra and The Drawing Databse have a little of everything and are great at explaining. Ganev is a bit sarcastic but I like the way he teaches. I took some parts of the text of this post from here.

How do I begin? How do you even get back at art? What tips should you use? These are general tips videos, usually nice to draw along. /the fundmentals and how to get started/ /5 tips for better drawing/ /perfect pratice/  /beginner’s guide/ /5 tips for digital art/ /10 tips to improve/ /why your drawings are stiff/ /what level is your art/ /improve your art fast/ /drawing basics/ /how to hold and control your pencil/ /intuitive drawing method/ /iterative drawing/

The Fundamentals: Proportion & Placement Proportion is relationship between one element and another. In the visual arts proportion relates most importantly to the abstract quality of scale and placement. You know how stereotypically an artists puts a pencil to their eye when looking at an object? They’re mesuring the proportion of the object in question and how to represent it corectly in the drawing. /principles of proportion/ /ways to create illusion of space/ /drawing the human figure/ /how to draw proportions playlist/ /how to use proportion in character design/ /basic anatomy and proportions part one/ /part two/ /part three/ /part four/ /proportion basics/

Form & Construction The idea of form is how we see the 3D objects in or world and transform them into 2D in the paper/canvas. It’s understading that eveyrthing is made up of basic forms. /dynamic sketching part one/ /part two/ /how to draw forms/ /structure/ /building form/ /another how to draw forms/ /how to visualize 3D forms/ /form study process/

Perspective & Depth Perspective is knowing that as things move away from the viewer’s eye, things seem to get smaller. Get familiarized with terms like horizon line and vanishing point. This is the basic that must be understood to learn perspective. Here’s a good article about this. /an intro video on the subject/ /step by step tutorial/ /perspective basics part one/ /part two/ /part three/ /part four/ part five /part six/  /another basics video/ /20 perspective lessons/ /eye level tip/  /linear perspective/  /simple form perspective/ /drawing the figure in perspective/

Anatomy Anatomy is something I think it’s one the most crucials things to learn in order to make your drawing look good. Once you understand how joints work you’ll be able to see how bones and muscles move. And this goes for anything with a skeleton. It’s one of those things of you learn the rules before breaking them. I am linking different playlists, since linking different videos on various parts of anatomy would take forever. Just study a body part at time: head, eyes, nose, lips, ears, shoulders, neck, hairline, breats, torso, hands, feet etc. /how to do an anatomy tracing/  /playlist 1 /  /draw the head from any angle/  /anatomy for artists/ /draw facial features/ /how to draw and paint/ /playlist 2/ /draw 3/4 head with loomis method/ /playlist 3/ /drawing a head in 3 hours (this one is great to draw along with the artist)/ /how to draw a body/ draw a head with loomis method part 1/  /part 2/ /part 3/ /decipgering bridgman’s anatomy/ /anatomy quick tips/

Gesture Gesture drawing is a method of capturing figures in exaggerated poses, usually drawn quickly. It is important to undersand that the goal of all gesture is to study the figure and see how it moves. I like looking at poses and copying them. Here’s a good article. /how to draw gesture/  /how to draw any pose/ /draw interesting poses/ /a guide on gesture drawing/  /tips for expressive dynamic poses/  /figure drawing tips/

Composition The overall layout of a piece is very important. Artists often consider things like the rule of thirds or the infamous golden ratio. Neither truly defines a composition, but they can both go into your decision making. /composition in art/  /understanding composition/ /10 composition tips/ /beginner’s guide to composition/ /art fundamental: composition/

Value Studying value is very much the study of light and shadow. But there is a technical side of light that you’ll want to pay attention to if you’re going for technical rendering. /guide on rendering/  /seeing light and shadows in daily life/  /10 minutes to a better painting/ /understaing colors and values/ /shading basics/ /ambient occlusion/ /shadow colors/ /tips on how to shade/ /draw shadows on objects and people/ /lighting tutorial/

Color Theory Color theory is understanding which colors go good with eachother, and knowing the pyschology behind it. (what are cool colors? what colors make someone feel comfortable?) It is fundamental in art for you to understand the relationship between colors and what makes them look good. Best color theory books. A comprehensive guide to color theory. /hue value saturation in photoshop/ /color theory for noobs/ /understanding color/ /what you should know about colors/  /warm and cool colors/  /the basic elements/ /choose colors that work/

Traditional Media If you draw in traditional media, all videos above can be used easily. These are just videos for general tips in traditional media, there isn’t many since my focus is digtal ^^’ /watercolor tips/ /draw with colored pencils/ /blending colored pencils/ /4 how to draw lessons/ /Block in colors/ /holding the brush/ /

Digital Media Digital art is how everyone’s been doing art these days. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing with your phone or your computer. I don’t do art on my phone, I know the most used app is mediabang for android and procreate for apple, and I think anyone who is able to do art with their finger is very skilled. If you are like me and prefer doing art on your computer, you probably have your tablet. If not, well you should have. Not having a tablet is not an option if you want to get better at art ^^’ Best tablet for beginners in 2020. Or you can just buy an old used one, if it still works, and you are a beginner, a small intuos is all you need. When talking about softwares, the three big ones I see people using are: Photoshop, Clip Paint Studio and Paint Tool Sai. The best one is CPS, but I find Sai easier to navigate, but CPS is extremely complete and I hope to be able to master it someday. CPS Tutorials. I don’t have much to say about photoshop, people use it mostly because they’ve been using it forever lol I divide my digital painting process in steps: Sketch/Lineart/Color Blocking/Shading/Blending/Color correction. Sketch is the basics, draw your idea. Lineart is to clean your sketch. Color Blocking is to color your drawing one color, so it’s easier to work in it. Shading is to understand where the lighting sources are coming from and apply them. Blending is to blend the colors of your drawing with brushes. Color correction is when I use filters of hue/saturation and others to make the drawing more appealing. These require understadings of the software of your choice which I am not very good at the moment so I can’t give you more tips than that ^^’ Hopefully these videos can help. /perspective grid/ /clean line art/  /coloring process/ /make lineart interesting/ /best brushes for digital painting/ /skin shading tutorial/  /lineart vs painting/ /art in clip studio paint/ /hair tutorial/ /3 tips for improving/ /10 digital art mistakes/ /color block tutorial/ /shading skin/ /from lineart to painting/ /cleaner lineart/ /add texture to your art/ /improve your art with better shadows/ /the importance of brushes/ /use layer modes/ /improve your lines/ /how to blend colors/ /another blending tutorial/  /color blocking/

Exercises It’s no secret that to improve on art, you must pratice. Everyday, even if it’s just a little! A great way to pratice is make use of youtube picture in picture function to draw along in your software of choice. /pratice drawing forms/ /proportion exercises/ /perspective exercises/ /value studies/ /creative drawing exercises/  /simple drawing esercises/

Resources Senshi stocks, a deviantart page full of poses photos. Quick poses,  pictures of models, contains nudes. Character design references DesignDoll, create a personalized sketch doll and make it pose.

Phew!!! This took forever to make and is way more than you asked for, but I decided to go all in so I can have a masterpost for me too and for anyone else interested in art. As soon you can understand the fundamentals, you can do your own research and study, youtube is really great for this. I hope this helps, let’s get better at drawing together!!! Ganbarimashou (ง •̀_•́)ง