#actually liked coloring over the traditional sketch so might do more of that

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[shineonyoucrazyyandere]

Hello, I hope you don't mind if I share a weird headcanon of mine 👉👈

I normally see people talking about Kakyoin make drawing about you but what if Jotaro does that too? The reason I have this headcanon because I remember the scene when Jotaro using Star Platinum drawing the fly he saw in the picture, and he draw it so well. It makes me think that maybe Jotaro has talent in art too. Jotaro's style will be realistic style while Kakyoin will be more like cartoon/anime style.

Imagine their sketchbook filling with so many drawing of you 💕 Jotaro will watching you from afar, sketching you with your cute smile, your beautiful eyes, he captured it all. For Kakyoin, I think he will even make up characters (oc) that look like you and him and ship them together lol (this headcanon inspried by my friend, she actually do that with her crush).

Thank you for reading my ramble, glad to talk with you :D I would love to hear your thoughts about my weird headcanon

P/s: Love you writing so muchhhh 💝

This is fun stuff, I could eat it up all day. Thanks for sending it in, so I can blabber my mouth about it

This always internally bugged me so I’m very thrilled that someone brought up how well Star Platinum drew that fly. I suppose it’s kind of easy to gloss over for a lot of people compared to Kakyoin’s scene of painting on that canvas. (Then again that fly was kind of important to identify to figure out where Dio was so then again it’s “???” for an explanation)

Anywho, I’d say signs point to Jotaro being able to draw, and I think it’s a hobby he prefers keeping to himself. Like you said of him having a sketchbook, almost no one sees what he draws in it and he doesn’t want anyone else to see it especially if it’s various sketches of you. So more than likely when he does do so, he’s somewhere where he won’t be pestered by school girls, or whatever punk tries to start a fight with him.

I’d also like to think he goes back and lingers on prior stuff, just staring at it for a little while. This applies usually when you’re out of school sick (which he’ll probably stop by later anyway with or without your knowledge). But there’s something comforting about seeing every piece of your visage in his sketchbook. Literally no one else knows about this sketchbook aside from maybe Kakyoin (Holly has her suspicions he takes a sketchbook around but she smiles not pestering her son on his hobbies as she thinks it’s adorable).

For the most part art wise I think Jotaro sticks to traditional art, maybe a dabble of charcoal but he prefers pencils. Maybe watercolor if he ever went beyond, but traditional with pencil/pen is the easiest way for him to pull something out at his leisure. Would he let you see? Maybe eventually when he gets you where he wants you, or if the cat is out of the bag early and you see it and you’re not quite with him yet. Let’s just say seeing that may speed up him taking you.

Kakyoin I could definitely see diving into the oc type of thing, he’d certainly reference an artstyle of a manga you like. (Don’t ask how he figured that out so quickly). Though he definitely loves putting some passion into his artwork and occasionally shamelessly make sultry artwork of you and himself. He loves painting the most as he spreads colors, mixing them into the wondrous hues that is your skin tone. Or splashing watercolors in a notebook, that looks something out of a fairytale. Soft and warm lighting��.oops he’s getting a tad bit excited.

He definitely presents pieces that are obviously meant to be stand ins for the two of you. That no one else would ever be wiser too, yeah you might have this odd feeling something’s not quite right, but there’s nothing there you could really prove other than observe just how pretty the composition is. If you compliment it, that just fuels this man’s desire further.

Biggest takeaway here is Jotaro and Kakyoin very blatantly have their own styles whether sticking with black/white/grey, or full on color. Both would be pretty in their own right, and their style choices speak of their personalities without saying a single word.

[amerricanartwork]

Current digital art process!

Acting on @shkika 's request because making my redraw for this post actually ended up giving me more confidence in my digital art process! As such, I'm gonna use it as a reference. And if this walkthrough of sorts turns out nice, I might do it again as my process evolves!

I started off with a quick sketch of sorts, trying to focus both on movement and volume, and get the general idea of where each element is located. I edit the image dimensions and placement of things a lot in this phase, as my ideas often tend to change once I actually begin drawing them. In this case, as I got it down, I decided I wanted it to look like some cheesy animal motivational poster, so that influenced where the text was.

From there, I began to clean and sometimes edit the sketch, mainly by thickening the lines to make the shapes more definite, and erasing what wasn't necessary and interfered with other parts. Volume is one of my biggest focuses in my drawings, so I try my best to get the volume of each character at least hinted at with the lines. This is something that will probably remain in my process for a while, as I quite dislike doing separate lineart and like the messy, sketchy feel anyway.

I also wanna mention, in addition to having references and such in other windows, I've recently begun having a second mini window of my current drawing off to the side so I can see what it looks like overall more easily, regardless of how much I zoom in on and flip the main window. It's quite helpful!

For reference, this is what the final sketch looked like:

Then, I went on to add the flat colors. Another tip: I almost always set my sketch layer to "Lumi & Shade" because I think it makes the line colors a lot richer, but since it's based on what colors are underneath, it colors the lines a lot more individually than changing the sketch color as a whole. Here's some comparison to a version without the effect (left):

Then, I add some shading using a (really nice) marker brush. This is honestly one of my favorite parts of the process, just trying to carve out all the volumes, especially since I usually use a pretty blue color for shadows!

Sometimes, I honestly just leave drawings finished at this step, because I adore the sketchy look so much, and because I really don't like the tediousness of more realistic rendering in the painting process; from what I've seen/experienced, it often involves having to basically paint the entire image over again, which I've realized I find REALLY boring (and is also why I clean the sketch instead of making a new lineart layer). As such, one of my hopes is to reach a point where I could almost completely avoid having to clean up the image in a traditional painting method, instead being able to lay down lines and colors so well that they convey nearly all the volume necessary on their own, still have that sketchy appeal, yet also look finished and professional.

Alas, I did do a bit of clean up on this image, but I think it still turned out alright!

Here's the finished drawing! I'll have to practice with this process a bit more to truly solidify it as my digital go-to, but nonetheless, I think this came out adorable! Thanks again shkika for the ask, and thanks to @mintscampi for the sweet prompt! I hope you guys like it!

[celerydays]

What program do you use to make your fanart? Is it on just an average ipad or is there special ones just for art? Your work looks so good! I’m wanting to try digital art but unsure where to start :)

I use the Procreate app for all of my digital art! ✨

It should be available on any iPad 💗 I personally invested for my birthday this past year and I have the 12.9" M2 iPad Pro, but I'll even occasionally use my fiancé's iPad Mini and the Procreate app on there in a pinch since it's so small and portable~

The only real difference is that performance might suffer a bit, the larger an art piece is or how many layers your work has, depending on the iPad. But if you're just starting out, I probably wouldn't find that to be much of an issue!

(More rambling about digital art origins under cut ✨)

There's definitely a learning curve, especially if you're more used to drawing traditionally! It can help to still sketch traditionally (if that's what you're used to) and then upload a photo of your drawing to your tablet to work over digitally (this is personally how I started out and I used to just make little digital doodles by tracing and coloring over my traditional sketches.)

A small doodle from my sketchbook that I traced and colored digitally, from around 2011-2012, I think? Uh, happy Doctor Who day today!

My very first digital art set up was actually a tiny Wacom Bamboo tablet where the drawing space probably wasn't even bigger than my hand, and a super old bootleg version of Photoshop CS2 which was already a version that was 7 years too old for the time (CS5/CS6 was the most updated version by the time I had started on digital art).

Everyone else in my class had the bigger/fancier/professional-grade Wacom Intuos and I remember my professor taking one look at my baby tablet and just going like "how tf are you drawing on that" lmao.

But still! Experimenting and doing little exercises can get you a long way – I would say to approach it with similar exercises you would do as if you were learning to draw traditionally for the first time.

Shade in circles/nail down basic lighting. Gesture drawings. Random scribbles. Just things that help you get used to the feel of digital art!

Test out different textures you can achieve with one brush, then expand it to see how other different types of brushes can behave and add to the experience.

For proof that even just one brush and not the best/most updated tools can work: these are two of my first more "serious" digital art projects I did in college (with my tiny tablet and mega outdated version of Photoshop) and 99% of the rendering was just done with the "soft airbrush" brush.

But even then, we were taught to create our base sketches traditionally and upload them to the program to work over.

Then one day I decided I wanted to just be able to also do all my sketches digitally and just worked on getting used to sketching straight on my digital program. It was then that besides the all-powerful undo-redo buttons, I started to really make use of the transform/canvas flip/liquify features which I don't think I can live without now lol. (Caveat: I'm now a little too dependent on those features so I keep a traditional sketchbook to do silly doodles in occasionally to exercise my hand because sketching traditionally without the buffer of those digital tools is pretty difficult for me now lol.)

That was a little long-winded, I'm so sorry hahaha. I hope something in this rambling could be taken as somewhat helpful for starting out on digital art!! 💗

[nuokis]

please post a tutorial or walkthrough or even just a longer process video talking about how you draw!! im obsessed with the textures and colors but i cant seem to wrap my head around it!! (i would pay money for a whole mini course tbh if you were interested in uploading one to gumroad or wherever 😵‍💫)

thank you, i'm flattered :') texture and colour are really important to me so i'm always fine-tuning them to find what works. to be honest i feel like i'm not qualified to teach others since i haven't really even settled on a process, i just kind of mess around until i like what i'm looking at. there are certain things i do much of the time but it's definitely not a linear process!

that being said lately i've been experimenting with traditional media and i've found i really enjoy how gouache behaves so i've been trying to replicate the process in digital. i'll try and explain how i've went about it recently using this super boring piece of a random person...

i'm using a basic pencil brush and a default procreate brush called gouache. i picked it for the name when i was looking for something similar to the paints i'd been using but honestly it looks more like a marker to me.

i find trying to do separate inks on top of a sketch distracting so i just erase what i won't need. i'll add a darken layer on top of the sketch and go over it with a single colour as a kind of underpainting. i did the flat colours on a separate darken layer here but generally i'll just work on one layer.

we'll add some colour variation and shading, it looks super subtle here but i'll punch it up later. i think the critical thing with this kind of brush is working with transparent layers so you don't lose the texture and you can play with mixing colours.

i'll often mess with the curve tool a lot but this piece is pretty simple and i ended up only using it once or twice. when i'm happy i'll duplicate the colour layer and see which blending mode i like, testing stuff out at different levels of opacity until i find something cool. i think i went with a transparent overlay layer here.

the lineart is getting buried so i duplicate that layer as well, drag it to the top of the pile and repeat the process of stacking blending modes. something i like to do is add one layer with the lineart blurred to give it a softer look.

i'll fill a new layer with a dark colour, add about 80% noise scaled up a bit and set the layer to saturation. again you can experiment with the blending mode but i've been using this one recently.

this next part might be pointless but i save the image, open the new file and resize it without actually changing the resolution much, then sharpen it to bring back the detail. maybe it's in my head but i feel like this makes the image look a tiny bit more finished and adds some crunch.

finally i duplicate the whole thing, blur the layer on top and set it to luminosity on low opacity to create a soft glow effect.

final touch-ups and you're done!

sorry for the convoluted explanation! my process tends to messy, i get distracted and don't often work in distinct steps but i think i managed to describe some of the things i do the majority of the time. i hope it's even a little helpful :)

[sundaysplayzone]

Commonly Asked Questions.

I get asked the same 3-5 questions all the time, so I thought I might make this new lil pinned post to help everyone out! But first, I want to thank you all for visiting my blog!

Do you take requests?

No, I do not.

Are your commission open?

Yes currently! Honestly now a days they’re almost always open. You can check them out on my website HERE!

Are you okay with gift art?

Of course! I would be flattered! If you’d like, you can find most of my characters here on toyhouse (I promise to update it soon!)!

How do you get the retro/vhs effects on your art?

I actually made a tutorial on that here! But honestly at the end of the day it’s a lot of “I plug this picture into several different apps and video editing software.” I wish I could give you a simple answer, but there is no easy way to do it that’s the same every time. I rarely if ever do it the same way back to back. Some colors look better when edited in Photoshop, some in Photomosh Pro. I pay almost $100 a month to have access to all of the software I use to make these effects because it’s part of my job. But luckily you can find so many free tutorials and apps out there, you just need to be curious and try new things!

What do you use to draw?

Another vague answer whoo! Sorry, but I use so many things to draw! But usually it’s sketch/ink/color/shade in Paint Tool Sai, and then move it to Photoshop to add the background, effects and details. I also use Procreate and Clip Studio from time to time. When it comes to traditional, it’s usually standard cardstock or a mixed media sketchbook. Then I draw and color with microns, copic pens, jelly rollers/gel pens, prisma colored markers and copic markers. 

Did you draw the backgrounds in your art? And if you use screenshots, where do you get them?

In the majority of my pictures, I use screenshots from old cartoons. I get these screenshots from the shows themselves. My friend is kind enough to set up a program that takes snapshots hundreds of times during the show. Then when the episode is over, they send them to me. I then spend HOURS, going through thousands of images and delete all but the good pieces. A majority of the time they take a lot of editing to be usable. I have to clean them up, remove character and scale the images.

This isn’t always the case however! I do often draw my own backgrounds! If you ever want to know, feel free to ask!

As for the more aesthetic/abstract backgrounds, I make those myself! I spent far too much money buying licenses and rights to use tons of different patterns and vectors. With those, I love recreating authentic backgrounds in the style of those seen in the 80s and 90s!

I see you draw a lot of Transformation/Chubby/(insert common movie trope here). Are you a fetish artist?

No, I am not a fetish artist. Do I draw art that might be someone’s fetish? Do I take commissions from people with a fetish for this subject matter? Yes, of course. But people need to realize, furry characters alone are a kink to some people. For me the difference is in how it’s drawn. And I personally do not draw my art in a way that sexualizes the piece.

I love drawing transformation scenes, people being swallowed by a monster, extra big tummies, but not because it’s something that I find hot. I just like drawing fun scenes. I get bored of just drawing a character standing in place all the time. I like drawing wacky scenes! 

A lot of my love for these come from cartoons. Edmund getting turned into a cat in Rock a Doodle. Hercules getting swallowed by the hydra. Kaa hypnotizing... everyone xD It’s just a story telling tool and sometimes it’s fun to draw! I’m not into hypno but I do like drawing big, colorful eyes. I’m just whatever about tf but I love drawing the swirling magic effects and the character changing from human to animal. It’s just cool to me!

In short, when I draw these things, it’s like I get to draw scenes from cartoons and movies in my style. It’s so wonderful to attempt to emulate some of the effects and details they used in movies from my childhood. It’s not about the hand changing into a paw for me, it’s the magical sparkles and how it’s so bright and vibrant compared to everything else. Where you see it go from hand to paw, that’s what I love drawing about tf art! Or being able to exaggerate the body and make a character look weighty by making them really round. Getting to draw a comically big mouth, giving a fun and interesting perspective shot. I think that stuff is so neat! Because it’s art!

I don’t care if it is someone’s fetish. I’m not drawing it in a way that’s sexual. Heck, it even says I wont in my TOS! Everything is G-PG here in Sunday’s Playzone! I’m not here to make that kind of content. It’s okay if adults have fetishes, and so long as you and others aren’t sexualizing my art, all is well!

[arengnera]

The Flesh Dress

All of the fabric for this was reclaimed from curtains, scraps, tights, discarded tule from a local highschool prom that I snatched up like a horrible little vulture. The boning in the bodice was done with huge zip-ties but I’m not convinced getting real sewable boning wouldn’t have been worth it. The channels on the reinforcement were a bit of a bitch. The swords I also forged myself, but this ain’t about them. A lot of (mostly fake) blood, sweat and tears went into this one and I’m super pleased with the results. Huge shout out to @spoonbendersanonymous​ who was kind enough to lend me the fake blood, their anatomical text book, and had me sit down to watch Bride of Reanimator for inspiration.

Process photos and bonus photoshoot pictures below the cut!

Original sketches! A lot of me trying to figure out how to make boning look like bones while maintaining a classic shape. I said edwardian on the sketch but it honestly might be Victorian I'm really not sure. This was a combined art project for one of my classes, the idea was using old fashioned mourning traditions and clothes in a modern and campy way, to complain about how much capitalism erodes our time to mourn. At least that’s what I told the professor, It’s really about making a weird and off putting dress first and foremost.

Tape pattern and paper pattern! This was my first time doing this so don't take thus as any sort of guide.

It worked though, as shown by the world’s worst corset fitting - the pink thing on my arm was where I was planning on putting the upper sleeve, I was trying to see if my poof was good since my sleeves were a lot thinner and a lot longer than what would have been optimal for the amount of poof I wanted, I had to do some work around with the fabric I had

Now I’m just bragging about getting eyelets to look clean and good for once in my life. If I was going to do anything different about this though, I would ad more eases in the back, because I need to contort horribly to get out of the bodice, I fit it too well

This bad boy was really the crux of the whole project. The entire thing was a pun so I could applique an anatomically accurate heart on a sheer sleeve.

This was was it’s intermediary stage, where I was suddenly very much out of time for the first deadline and had to put off adding all of the gore I wanted to, so the simple applique heart had to do. The skirt itself was way less poofy than I would have liked, and didn’t quite give the silhouette I wanted. I ended up going with the train because the under skirt isn’t actually connected in the back. Thus is the nature of working with weird panels of curtains you’ve already cut into for a few other projects. God bless the thrift store curtain section.

The guts were made by sewing together sheer tights, and filling them with polyfill. Here they are, before they were stippled with liquid flesh colored latex and soaked in fabric paint - and after where you can see all that extra TEXTURE

I was able to use it for another project though, and I was very happy with the beading work here, although I did end up losing my biggest strand at some point.

Here’s my makeup test! I played around with doing some blood red lips but decided the blueish corpse look was better. Fun fact! I drove home wearing a sweatshirt that says “I heart corpse desecration” on it through the snow storm, and pulled over to offer some guy a hand with his car, forgetting I still looked like this. He turned me down.

The face of someone who can definitely be trusted for road side assistance. - Also I was posing as the two of swords tarot illustration for the final gallery exhibit.

[tophattrio]

TOP HAT TRIO ARCHIVES: Part 1

Warden: Look at all this lovely art of us! We could fill a museum! Professor: There's so much it seems like we can't keep up... Once-ler: ..... Y'kno what guys? I'm gonna take a break...

((A small fraction of my old old old trio art, most of which has never seen the light of tumblr (under the cut)! None of this is colored. Some of this is pre-blog or just... REALLY early-era Trio art, so some of it is... dated. Also, as indicated by the top, this is part 1. Meaning there will probably be more, LOL...))

((I hope it's okay if I ramble some fun facts in the middle of this!))

We're gonna start off with this silly lil doodle of the lads! This was drawn during the era where I did my silly crossover drawings, before I mustered the courage to turn them into an askblog.

Based on the date, I must've drawn this next one while I was in the process of actually making the blog... potentially their original "profile" images? Or just a doodle I did to get me hyped...

As you can see, all the drawings so far are pencil and ink... that's because (if I remember correctly) this is when I was VERY new to computer tablets! I felt more confident in my traditional art so I would slap quick colors onto the back of a bunch of ink-drawn replies and make minor adjustments with the tablet. I remember being hesitant to switch to a fully digital style since I felt the sketchiness was almost part of the style of trio? But I've come to accept change is good! Everything post-Greed M!A is all (or mostly) digitally lined (with the occasional trad sketch), but if you look closely at the trio in this (and many other) early-day responses, you can definitely see the pencil marks!

Unposted Thneedville High Trio!!! I was SO obsessed with the Once-ler Askblog AU's back in the Once-ler Fandom's hayday... they were a lot of fun to observe on the side and I wanted to be part of that in my small way, but unfortunately, I was a coward so I never did LOL... I'm thinking this was drawn in February or March 2013...

And, something I drew on the same page, Truffula Flu Trio!!!! I think I briefly thought about making it (and thneedville high) a sideblog but I felt like I couldn't commit for multiple reasons: (1) AU hype was dying down a little, (2) It was a bit too serious a concept for Trio; I wanted to keep them lighthearted and silly (covers bad end with a hand). And (3) I was still doubting whether or not my blog counted as a Once-ler blog (being only 1/3 once-ler) and whether I was valid to participate in events. Eventually I got over that fear when I joined Camp Weehawken and participated in the fandom revival of 2015, but the fear was definitely there at the very beginning and I hesitated to jump in on some stuff because of it!!

These were some of my earliest (unanswered) asks! I think for a while I thought I accidentally deleted the Pinkie Pie one, but it mysteriously came back one day?? I don't plan to finish these but might as well get some closure since I already drew them. I had to look up which troll typing was the one being used here so I might be wrong, I know nothing about homestuck except chapter 1 and 2 and whatever I osmosis from my mutuals LOL...

Peacock was drawn before I knew anything about Skullgirls...... within the past few years I recently watched her gameplay/storyline! She's defs a fun character. Trio are probs neutral about her. I'm not confident enough to do anything major with her, but I would love to cameo her more!

I got a few asks / M!A's about genderbent versions of the trio back in early 2013 and these were my doodles for that. The designs were based off of different designs floating around tumblr at the time that I liked. I'm not interested in doing this M!A anymore, but the dresses are cute!

Some glasses shenanigans I never posted for some reason?? (For reference: (1) (2) (3) (4).) It's silly stuff like this that make me realize Trio!Professor is a little bit like "Cheerful Mystery" Professor but like... waaaaay more tame HAHA (I never read the manga back then because I was upset they made Layton OOC, but from what I've seen he's... a lot more chaotic there). Which, ykno, good chance explains why Trio!Professor stays sane around Once-ler and Warden and their wacky selves.

Some wardlers and layclaires!! Also a few super old things I doodled out for Lovestruck M!A part 2 (including warden being a perv and oncie being flustered and confused, LMAO) but... idk if I have the energy to commit to it at the moment... partially bc thinking about getting an influx of shippy-type asks gets me overwhelmed and idk if I can commit to another magic anon all my magic anons manage to kill the blog somehow 😭, but ykno... saving the anons in my inbox in case I change my mind... Love these guys dearly regardless,,, <3

Some doodles of Layton and his rivals!! I think someone sent a small "Descole takes over the blog" M!A (hence the itty bitty chibi head LMAOO) but (again) I don't have the energy to commit to anything but vanilla THT right now. I still thought the idea was fun enough to draw out and anticipate in advance! If I change my mind y'all will know about it...

My first drawing of Wilson from Don't Starve!! I didn't even play Don't Starve at the time, but I wanted to do research if I was going to properly execute the magic anon and I fell in love with him immediately. Unfortunately he (and his game) became my new brainrot and I still feel really bad about that LAUGHS, but hey! Was worth it! Maybe someday I'll redo trio mods for DST...

I may have him cameo again, but potentially after his character update in Don't Starve Together eventually drops, of course, :3 chants give us lore lore loRE LORE-

Aaaaaand that's all I'm gonna show for now... until next time everyone!

PART 1 (you are here!) || PART 2 (TBA) || PART 3 (TBA) || …

[pumpkin-spike18]

✨Weekly Progress #32-33✨

It's been an emotionally tough two weeks. Much (if not all) of what I've been planning hasn't been going well ^^;;

Weekly Progress #32

Posted devlogs

Worked on Outlines

Finished Punk BL Part 1 Outline

Finished SFB sprite lineart

Concepted + outlined VF project

Wrote 2.1k+ words for VF

Sketched VF sprite

Weekly Progress #33

Wrote 2k+ words for VF

Finished 1 VF sprite

Flat colored other VF sprite 4/5 outfits

Finished Punk BL Part 2-3 outline skeleton

Designed 1/4 LIs for Buggy BL

Wrote 6k+ words for Punk BL

Finished Buggy BL outline skeleton

When 2024 started, I had some goals and plans for my devwork this year. I hoped to start developing commercial games. I didn't expect all of my plans to work, but I also didn't expect none of it to work the way I planned.

So while I said to myself, "Welp, that just means I gotta replan and make a new schedule for 2025!" it was still difficult for me to hype myself up for that.

I planned to join Velox Fabula 2 to cheer myself up, but despite writing over 4k words and completing a sprite... my willpower simply disappeared and I gave up completing the project.

I might finish it in the future, but the stars misaligned this time.

It is a Quick Transmigration, multi-lifetime story between two people. The story was planned to be vignettes of moments between the two characters, but I realized I wanted something more and the scope was already too big for a small jam like VF2.

Punk BL Game

That's not the title, I have no idea what the title will be. I hope an epiphany will hit me soon because idk how to tag my posts otherwise. Or I'll have to go back and edit a lot of posts.

It's a rather big and ambitious idea. This will be a turn based battle/hybrid VN with some dating sim elements. I wish I had a single word to describe it. Perhaps I'll have to do some more researching for similar games.

The story is about Silver, whose been ordered to defeat the gangsters who run Lucidus City. If he falls in love with one of his rivals, well, that'll depend on you...

(did I post this image before? I feel like I have, but I can't find it on my own blog LOL...)

The story is split into four parts (currently); writing for ith as come so naturally that I did 4k on Friday night. These are sketches for the main characters of the first part. The MC, Silver. The "love interests" (once again, I hesitate to call them so because they won't get traditional romance routes. I'm still unsure if they'll get actual romantic endings) for part 1 are: Drayton, Gordan (Danny), Caleb, and Evan.

Any guesses to who the yandere in this story will be.

(Just some expressions I picture him making throughout the story)

Buggy BL Game

The other untitled BL game I've been daydreaming about. Thanks to discussion with some friends, the basic concept is: a bunch of bugs get stuck in a death game, similar to the idea of Kodoku.

I only have the base outline and one of the LIs designs finished. Meet Butterfly, one of the more uncooperative love interests you get to meet in the death game.

Actually, all of the love interests are quite uncooperative...

I haven't finished developing the rules and stakes of the death game yet, but I know for a fact that variable control will be essential to this game. I have a bad feeling future!Pumpkin will be ambitious and try a system where who you let die early in the game will affect later trials of the game...

Other than that, I'll be finishing a few owed artworks this week before I dive into rescheduling my long term gamedev goals for 2025 and beyond.

[bageltopia]

may I ask how you plan out your fics? I’ve been wanting to get back into writing, especially for multi chapter fics, but I’m not quite sure how to approach it. I’ve always liked the structure of your fics so I was just wondering if you have any tips! Thanks!

hello, sorry this took a while to answer! but sure, i’d be happy to share and thanks for enjoying my fics!

first: this is something that differs from a couple other writers, but i never think of my fics as i’m writing them as “multi chap” fics in the traditional sense. i just think of it as one cohesive story, and then decide as i go (or after the first draft is done) how best to break it up the sections into chapters in order to best serve the story. i’m just not a “release the chapters as they’re written” person, and that is something that really colors my writing and planning process. i find this allows me the greatest degree of control over my storytelling. if i decide something from the beginning is no longer flowing or serving the story the way i want it to, i can go back and adjust it as many times as i want because it’s not published yet.

i also am NOT a discovery writer when it comes to longfics. for shorter things - let’s say anything 15-20k or under - i often let the plot make itself known to me, but for longer ideas, i like to plan.

but i know other writers operate differently, so YMMV!

i wrote a lot more on this than i thought i would, so rest is under the cut

as far as planning - i often start with a huge infodump doc where i just write a bullet-pointed steam of consciousness for all of my thoughts/screaming/inspiration/mental breakdowns lol/etc. after that’s all out, i organize it into different plot points that i want to address.

if you’ve ever looked into the way tv shows are written, i like to plan my longer ideas around a somewhat similar framework - there is the A plot, the B plot, the C plot, etc. maybe even a D or E depending on the show, running as a through line across all the episodes. and since this is fan fiction, one of those plots (if not the main one) is almost always going to be the romance between the main pairing, unless you’re writing gen fic. i personally like to add other story-driven elements in addition to the romance that allow me to add character development, mystery, excitement, intrigue, etc.

i’ll use Lightning’s End, my 52k lusan fic, as an example here. i only had 2 major plotlines that i thought of for that fic. 

A = sanji developing + realizing his feelings for luffy

B = the island they land on and the mystery of it (and how it conceivably grounds the work in canon)

these two things unfolded pretty concurrently in LE, but they might not always!

i like to weave the 2 elements together, decide how they interact with one another, and then actually put together the events of the fic - sketch out what actually is going to happen and how. i don’t really do intensive scene-by-scene outlining other than when i’m in the actual writing process, but i want to know any broad strokes before i put pen to paper!

for LE, i can distill this down in “chapter 1” (or the first 10k) as: the storm sweeps sanji + luffy overboard >> they stargaze and have an emotional breakthrough discussing their pasts >> they find out they’re not alone on the island.

when i actually start writing, i decide what actually is concretely happening in the scene, where they are, what little things each character is doing in the moment, etc.

i also keep a running log of little details i want to remember to sprinkle throughout; anything funny, sweet, inspiring, angsty. physical or behavioral characteristics i want certain characters to have, etc. so i can keep track of them and remember to make them consistent. some of these even end up becoming motifs for the story!

in a nutshell, i like to approach longfics from a big —> small view. decide the plot points, construct the conflict/resolution for each, decide how each of those individual conflicts play into each other, and then decide the scenes and details.

for Lightning’s End, weaving the 2 plot points together got me to 5 chapters at 52k total. for moonlighters, i had a lot more plot points—that themselves required more exposition and development—to get through. approximately 5 or 6, according to my notes, and then i went through the process of making sure they were all interwoven throughout each of the scenes and events i had planned or written. circling back to make sure each of my scenes were always serving one or more of these plots was key for me.

i’ve talked a little bit on discord and twitter of the notion project i’ve made for moonlighters haha…if you happened to have seen that:

i want to make it clear that notion was only ever a tool for me to organize these thoughts that i was already putting into practice from my previous multi chap fics, just in a way that was a lot more regimented and trackable. and highly tailored to me and my planning process. you could probably accomplish the same thing on google sheets, or docs, or excel, or even on pen and paper. i just happen to like notion’s system :D :D

[studioboner]

Hey! Have you tried using watercolour pencils before? And if you have, do you have any tips for using them? I'm kind of curious as to what other people think of them, as I use them frequently when colouring a traditional sketch.

Hi! sorry for the wait on answering your ask. I do actually use watercolor pencils! The thing is though, i've always used them as final steps OVER my other watercolors and never really on their own.

So i tried a bit with them to see if i could find any tips to give you.

Truth be told i dont think theres anything here i can say that you probably dont already know given you use them more often than me

in fact if you have tips to share here feel free to!

Overall though: and i find it most important

This is LIGHTLY going over the paper with my pencil, from a part that was dry to a part that was gradually wetter. The wetter your paper is the more the pigment will activate and the more easilly it will spread and paint. This means less line marks, but it also means MORE saturation

here, this one i made sure to wet all oh it before i even started going over with the pencils. he is INCREDIBLY sturated, and his colors are very even, almost a flat color look to it! had i put more effort it would look very flat, some adore this type of effect

this one though, i sketched it very lightly with some colors to use them as underpaint

and then i went over it with a wet brush to even out the pencil marks, and while it was all still wet i started applying more pencil on areas that i wanted to give focus to

it's very easy to see which areas were wetter [his face.the forehead] over areas that were drier, more moist only [such as his ears] by how the paint is spread thickly and evenly

i'll often use the watercolor pencils for texture and color saturation emphasis like here

or for lineart like here

but it was fun to try using only them fully, i might try again in the future, thanks for the ask!

Oh also if you end up setting a custom theme for your blog [so that it has a page on desktop] set a link for your art tag yeah? I got really curious to see what you've painted but couldnt find them

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Under Where

When you’re building a story, consider. How deeply do you want your character to know their world? How personal is the story? What is the scale you want to write on?

Basically, if you’re going for an epic save-the-world fantastic story, you can gloss over a lot of little details. What do people eat? Eh, whatever the tavern/spacer’s bar is serving. How do they travel? Whatever’s most Dramatic. Does it actually make sense to feed horses in this passless mountain range/ pump fuel to spaceships in this particular abandoned space lane? Eh, who cares? So long as the action or mystery is tantalizing enough, you just need to sketch the basics and let the readers’ minds fill in the rest.

A specific example? If the story’s a Traditional Heroic Fantasy or otherwise R-rated then your Evil Overlords can strip characters naked and never mention underwear.

....However, if you’re aiming for a solid PG-13 where they’re almost naked, you need to know!

In the case of Colors of Another Sky, I may eventually have my characters crossing oceans to other continents. Yet it still won’t be an epic quest. It’ll be for personal reasons. And maybe kingdom-level reasons, but it’s not a “the world is at stake!” More “the climate’s going to get worse and we need time and resources to try and keep it from getting worse for us personally. Also, I want chocolate.”

Yes, they’re out to save lives, but... it’s not meant to be epic. I want to tell a story of specific people, and part of that is how hard it is to acculturate to an entirely new way of life. So I need details on a much finer scale than Epic. Food. Building styles. Clothes. And yes, underwear. Because that’s a detail that is very hard to change in your life and get used to.

Seriously, look up stuff by historical reenactors. There are no shenanigans like clothing shenanigans. Though learning that your silk clothes could stay cool and clean through several wearings because your linen undershifts handled the sweat and body oils, and thus might need to be boiled clean... interesting.

So. Underwear. Cooking. Heating. Labor-saving devices. All things that make life bearable, or annoying, depending on your day. Because sometimes making life better means killing monsters before they kill you. And sometimes....

Well. Sometimes it means improvising a washing machine.

(Working mothers are going to love them, so much....)

[em0-snail]

help

Okay so!! As of right now the site is down so I can't provide screenshots and I'm going off of memory so please bear with me. Also I don't know what you need help with specifically so I'm just gonna go over the basics and if you have any other questions feel free to ask :))

Just to make sure everyone is on the same page, art fight is a yearly event where you upload your own characters and are assigned a team. You attack people to gain points for your team, and attacking people is basically just drawing their oc.

And just a heads up, while I'm not too sure this will happen this year, almost every year so many new people join art fight and try to upload their attacks on the 1st of July the sites server's get overwhelmed and site goes down alot. It happens. I recommend saving a few refs before the games begin and draw them after July 1st (you aren't allowed to draw anyone's characters before the 1st, keeps things fair). Like I said, it happens. Sometimes the site is only down off and on during the first few days and is fine the rest of the month, sometimes it's down so long they add an extra week to the games. It really just depends lol. Like I said save refs now so you can actually start on the 1st.

You can have up to 100 active characters and as far as I know there isn't a limit to how many characters you can attack. Your artistic media doesn't matter, you can be a traditional artist and still participate, you can be a digital artist and still participate, hell you can be exclusively building physical sculptures of folk's characters and you're still allowed to participate.

You can find other users to attack a variety of ways, ranging from searching through tags or through spamming the random character button until you find one you like, you can also just ask around here on Tumblr and see if anyone is participating this year:))

Not everyone has a little card like this but here's mine! It has my username and my favorite/featured characters on it. Again you do not need to have one of these but if you want to find people on artfight you might wanna be on the lookout for cards like these.

As for uploading your characters, I'm gonna use my boy Smudge as an example.

You can only upload 7 pictures per character. Usually folks don't need many more than 3. I recommend having a full body ref

As nice as this drawing is, if anyone wants to draw him they need to see more.

Something like this is alot better, it shows what he looks like without his costume and again gives the potential attacker a better idea of who they're drawing.

You have the option to upload a description of your oc, alot of folks tend to leave it blank and honestly I don't recommend doing that. You don't need to put your OC's full 129 page google doc backstory in there but you should at least give a basic description of their personality and any important information (it might also be a good idea to put their pronouns, I have on multiple occasions accidentally misgendered a few characters because their pronouns weren't in their description)

Permissions are different than a description. Permissions basically means what you are and aren't okay with. For Smudge here I prefer if he keeps his costume. You generally don't have to specify to not draw gore of a character as I've only gotten gore of a character once since like 2017 (and I put that I would love to see some gore in their character permissions).

Uploading attacks is pretty simple. Like I said before you can attack others regardless of how you make your art. Traditional art tends to get less points than digital art. You get more points depending on what you do (ex. A digital headshot sketch would get less points than a fully lined fully colored and shaded traditional drawing, a colored simple animation gets more points than digital line art, ECT). Obviously don't lie about what you're making to get more points. From what I've seen other folks don't tend to lie so don't be a dick lol. And even if some does lie about what they did, I believe you can flag art and report it. Plus a week after art fight is over a bunch of mods go through the art and make sure everything has been properly marked (if you think you marked something wrong though don't worry!! You aren't gonna get in trouble or anything, worse case scenario you'll just lose a few points for your team).

I know this is a lot and I know I definitely forgot something but again feel free to ask if you have anymore questions :3

[hikapoi]

This is from the Artists Asks List. You can just pick the ones you're interested in answering if this is too much lol.

1, 9, 12, 15, and 25

I've answered #25 over here! (= 1. Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital?

AHHHHH this is such a good question.. I always want to say a real pencil in my hand is the way to go even after all these years doing digital art but last year I don't think I did any traditional art at all... It honestly makes me so sad that the only time I do any traditional work is during Inktober or Sketchvember.. when the months roll by I just think, "ah darnit another year goes where I only do traditional work as part of a game." Man I just think traditional is when I'm at ease and most relaxed bc I can just feel fluid if I'm drawing for fun, but with digital you can really clean things up to look really good. A part of the reason I enjoy doing the yearly holiday cards when I ACTUALLY SEND ANY is that it's a time I can do special traditional art for my friends to make them really happy. I think I'm good at digital art but am even better with traditional, but I don't think I can say that anymore if I haven't really touched a pencil in recent years. It might be the opposite now, my traditional work lacks the precision and finesse of my digital work but since I have art supplies I PAID for and HAVE TO USE I have a tendency to experiment with traditional media more. I am STILL buying loads of art supplies to this date..

9. How much time do you spend drawing on an average day?

HNGNGHGH it really depends.. Ah, average day? Hmmm when I'm on fire I might say at least 2 hours a day, whether it's to work on a quick doodle or to continue a more time-consuming piece. There are days where I might spend 4-6 hours. The craziest for me for one day might be 8 hours-- with or without breaks in between.

12. Is it okay for people to ask you about your process?

YEAH ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS it's no secret. I always did the circle/stick man base but when I really got into One Punch Man in 2012 or so when Murata-sensei was streaming, I noticed he skipped that step and went straight to defining muscles, limbs, faces, etc. I thought DANG if I could do that I could draw SO MUCH FASTER and SO MUCH MORE!! It was horrible at first and I hated a lot of my art while I was trying out this new thing but now I'd say I'm fairly decent and it does get me to do more art faster.

Anyway! My process is to start with a pose idea. The timing on this varies, but I usually thumbnail with little stick figures until something sticks. If there is one I like I might blow it up or redraw it on a larger scale. I always start with the face shape and eyes first. It helps me get a good idea on how to frame the hair. I cannot feel I am drawing the character until I get this right. I'll then detail until I color. I skip a line art step most of the time because I clean my sketches along the way ((I KNOW, RISA)). If it's a piece I'm serious about being a "best" I might seriously do a line art layer but I usually have trouble because I can never find a comfortable inking pen AND I feel line art makes my art suddenly stiff. I used to never color but I try to do it as much as I can because I have always admired my friends for their bold colors and I told myself that that's my own personal goal to have more colored work.

15. How long does an average piece take you to complete?

If it's a fairly simple/rushed drawing that is semi-refined that can take me about 2-4 hours? I can get a lot done in just 1 hour as well thanks to all those Mob Psycho 100 60 min challenges. But if I just take my time drawing something that I don't particularly hate I'd say 2 hours is a good average. For a more detailed one with backgrounds or groups or lots of detail, that could take me at least 8 hours of actually drawing. The hours spent into references/getting ideas/thinking of a background add to an illustration's turnaround time even if I am not actually moving a pen.

Thank you for your interest in me! I hope maybe I've said something interesting!

These questions are from this art meme if you want to do it too: https://hikapoi.tumblr.com/post/708522112589119488/artist-asks

[kirazdaha]

HAHAHAHA Every Turk Family has one of those names and unironically mine does too 🫡 Tell your mother thank you she is a very lovely lady

I know all of the artists you listed below because my dad blasts them on the radio everytime we go out... I call it old people music but hey I never said it was bad, they're awesome and I might have memorised some of the artist's songs from how much I listen to them... Barış Manço is a classic without a doubt! Fun fact my parents were able to go to his concert and got a signed picture with him I will always envy how lucky they were 😭 I love how women in the industry made the most iconic songs I hear them often in weddings too! Or clubs, even though I only went to one once I'm not very fond of them...

My questions were do you have any tips or inspiration with how you draw! I love your art and artstyle and it's honestly what I've been trying to achieve for a while, I can't believe I'm learning how to draw men because of a silly lawyer show it's a disease...

(We are just having a conversation at this point) (I feel like those people who speak out loud in public) (I hope you and anyone who's reading this is having a good day :) be kind to yourself and others everyone)

OH MY GOD i envy them too😭😭 also omg that sounds like heaven to me. the other day i went out partying and i felt sooo out of place because i only knew like 3 songs. omg it was so so bad.

hmmm tips and inspiration…. my number 1 tip would definitely be to look at a lot of other artists you like and analyze what exactly you like. and then try to emulate that in your own work. i try to look for inspiration everywhere - artists online, traditional artists, old masters, 3d artists, even theatre and poetry, etc. - doesnt mean that i am equally inspired by them all (because all these things at once sound so scary and big but they really arent!) but rather, i try to be open for anything and that helps me find inspiration :) 

ill try to explain my thoughts more under the cut because this got long:

for me for example, so far i only posted some art i made that was lined (which, i would say makes up maybe half of the art i draw - i mostly sketch and recently have been building up the courage to paint more) and one of my inspirations is meltow. i think if you go over and check out their art youll definitely see it lol. but also i love the clean look some comics have and my friends tell me my art looks like it belongs in a comic which, i guess yeah :) when it comes to colors and composition i LOVE this artists works. i still have a lot to learn and just looking at their works inspires me so much!!!

i will say i have ALWAYS struggled with lineart. its probably the worst thing in the world to me because it never feels right!!! i like lining on paper with harsh inks and stiff ink nibs that allow for like. very little variety in line weight, but i havent done that in over 3 years (i hope i can get back to that). but yes, something about lineart makes me feel so icky when i use any brush that reacts to the pressure you put on your tablet LOL i just hate it. ugh. i havent been able to work it out.

it was only in 2020 i think that i decided to try it out with a thick brush with some texture and no pen pressure. that probably was the first time i got actual lineart that (at the time) i liked done. and then later on, discovering that other artists are able to achieve beautiful drawings with similar brushes AND that lining with a very simple brush can feel so satisfying helped me evolve a lot! until 2022, i actually wasnt able to give my art the kind of finished look that i wanted. so what people consider my style is really just born out of my limits and working with them. that obviously doesnt mean that i dont try to challenge myself as much as i can. i do and i think everyone should! thats what makes art so fun

if theres any good advice i can give to a beginner itd probaaaaably be. okay this is difficult and i feel like im not really qualified for this. as a hobbyist much less so because a lot of the knowledge and skills i acquired was through an intuitive process (i could never stick with habits such as regular studies or warmups or whatever is meant to be good for you) which definitely isnt the most “productive” way but i mean it doesnt have to be. its just a hobby! you dont have to perfect art. but yes, i would definitely say dont stop drawing. youll always be your harshest critic and at the beginning, and especially if you begin at an older age because youve been training your eye your whole life but your drawing skills for only a relatively short time you will notice a lot of mistakes. and youll think you wont achieve the image you have in your head. and maybe you wont (because youll always strive for more and youll never really be satisfied as an artist bla bla) for a while. but you have to keep drawing! try out different strategies, find out how other artists draw, watch speedpaints, try out different papers and pencils, try everything that makes it more fun and keep going! it will all pay off!! 

in my eyes theres also no point in saying “i should wait till im better to draw this idea i have” because if inspiration strikes you you should use that. even though i still sometimes catch myself thinking like that. you can always redraw things later on!! if theres anything that will keep you drawing you should use that! like getting into shows and games that make me want to draw helps a ton LOL people are not joking when they say getting obsessed with one character is the quickest way to improve. i 100% agree!!! if you saw my first nachos you wouldnt even recognize him. not kidding wow this got long. thank you for the questions though!! i hope some of my rambling can help you. feel free to talk to me whenever!

[genericpuff]

HEY SO I'M GONNA FINALLY ANSWER THE HANDS PART OF THIS QUESTION LMAO

don't get your hopes up tho, it's probably not gonna be that interesting because honestly?? I STILL SUCK AT DRAWING HANDS. ALL THE FUCKING TIME LOL I have little "quirks" with how I draw hands that make them evident that it was indeed I who drew them, and I still struggle with fingers specifically because I often have to redraw them during the process to make them look less like little freaking sausages. I owe that to my roots in cartoon/chibi-style art where sausage fingers were pretty much the norm, it drives me nuts when I end up with them on my normal-proportioned characters LMAO

That said, to me, "learning how to draw" whether it's hands, shoes, faces, etc. is literally just learning little tricks and secrets that help you understand the things you're studying better. And one little 'trick' I learned that helped me understand hand structure a lot more was from an Ethan Becker video talking about Loish's hands. I've been following the "when in doubtie one fingee outie" mantra ever since, it shouldn't be used as a default setting for fingers in every scenario obv but it DID help me understand more how the fingers moved relative to one another and how you could "trick" the complexity of hands into 1-2 easy shapes.

(if you've never watched Ethan Becker, don't take his style of comedy too seriously, he's not actually attacking anyone lol)

When it comes to my actual drawing process though, thanks to the way I draw Rekindled I've learned that I work a lot better by laying down solid shapes as my 'sketch', it works better for my brain to see immediately what's working and what's not, vs. a wireframe sketch that doesn't 'fill in the gaps' quite as much as solid color. So try that sometime, instead of sketching out a hand, just lay out the shapes with solid color. Personally I've learned the 'wireframe' structures or whatnot that you see in a lot of how-to-draw guides don't work for me because I find it over-complicates it-

(haha nope sorry too much for me, it's cool if this works for you but my brain cells are out on this one fam)

My brain thrives on simplicity and freedom of movement in my structures, so solid colors work a lot better for me in that regard. That said, what works for me might not work for you (and vice versa) so try your best to find new techniques and methods, you don't have to do the thing that people tell you you have to do to "get good". That's just what works for them.

And of course, do life studies! Here are some steps you can start off with that I think might really help for simplifying the life drawing process:

1.) Prepare a nice big canvas for yourself, if you're working digitally do not zoom in on that canvas, keep your fingers OFF that zoom wheel or the Z key or whatever you're clicking to zoom. Zooming removes the big picture and you need big pictures to break down.

2.) Pick a big brush size or a tool that can't become too detailed (so if you're doing digital, pick a round brush and bump the brush size up to a medium-large size, if you're doing traditional, get yourself a nice thicc charcoal stick)

3.) Rather than looking at other people's breakdowns of hands (which they made for themselves and their brains, not for you and your brain!) go and find some pictures of hands and break them down yourself, trace over them if you have to, fill them in with solid color or just draw yourself some cute mittens like Becker above, just whatever you gotta do to break those forms down into shapes that are simplified and easy for you to understand. Try out different hand shapes and finger positions, eventually you'll notice there are ways the hands can and cannot move and that's going to be the foundation you need to actually stylize them with your personal flair down the road - learn the rules first, then break them. And yes, tracing is okay if you're using it for educational purposes like personal art studies and shape breakdowns. Just keep it loose and for learning.

Yes, it really does come down to "just practice" BUT you can wind up practicing the 'wrong way' if you're doing the same things over and over again expecting different results so make sure to step outside of your comfort zone a little and experiment with new techniques even if it means coming up with your own. You never know what will work for you until you try it!

Hope that helps! Happy hand drawing! <3

Omg hiiii, I absolutely love Rekindled! You're so talented, and the story you're making for Persephone is so intriguing! A lot more than whatever trashfire Lore Olympus has become.

That being said, what was the moment you stopped liking LO Persephone? Have you always disliked her, or was it gradual? Or just a specific moment that made you go "yeaaaaah.. she's not it ;-;"

(And bonus question if I can ask, but how do you draw hands?? I hate them with a passion, but unfortunately hands are pretty necessary T^T)

aahhh thank you so much!!!

honestly, I was a pretty big fan of LO up until the trial arc. Like, you've all seen me hate this comic with a fiery passion, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because before I hated this comic, I loooved this comic. I'd literally be counting down the hours until new updates, I loved the art, and I was too smitten by the appeal of the series to notice its writing problems, I just loved the romantic drama and the H x P ship, and yes, I loved Persephone, I loved her design, her personality, and I felt so 'seen' by her struggles, both with her trying to pave a path for herself and the SA plotline. I was even (regrettably) one of those people who would lurk in the antiLO tags and think "wow, these people are dumb, can't they see how brilliantly written this is ?? they're nitpicking!"

But then the trial arc happened which involved writing a plot that didn't put the romance front and center anymore - now that Rachel had to actually write something complex and logic-driven, the blinders started to fall off and I went wait... maybe Rachel doesn't know what she's doing. Persephone choosing her own lawyer? And it's Hades, one of the judges? Why are they suddenly establishing Thanatos as Hades' adoptive son? I'm not a lawyer, but I know that's not how any of this works and it really tipped me off that something was amiss, that Persephone was having all of her solutions conveniently handed to her on a platter and all of the other characters were suddenly being made to look like assholes just to make Hades and Persephone the heroes.

And then... Eris happened.

See, one of the things I loved most in the story was Persephone's character arc concerning the Act of Wrath. I write stories about characters with dark "personas" all of the time. So it was something I had frame of reference for, I really loved the premise of Persephone earning her name through this act of violence and while it was dashed with the opening of S2 revealing it was "all an accident", I was excited to see how the trial arc would bring about new information and confirm who was telling the truth about what "really happened" with the Act of Wrath. If the courtroom drama wasn't gonna be realistic, I could at least hope for some good 'OBJECTION!' reveal that would finally put to rest once and for all what really happened, and maybe Kore would finally embrace this 'dark side' she had.

So for the actual twist to suddenly reveal itself as... 'actually, this one goddess we've never mentioned before blessed you with wrath. why? idk she just did. anyways she's the reason you have wrath and that's what made you commit the act of wrath. problem solved.'

And that was where the twisting of 'faith' happened. When I went through the subconscious realization of , "Oh no, Rachel doesn't know what she's doing and it took me this long to notice. Oh no, maybe those antiLO freaks had a point-"

That said, there was a glimmer of hope in the midseason finale. Persephone was sentenced to remain in the Mortal Realm to carry out her mother's duties and I thought, "great! This will be Persephone's Rocky moment! She'll have to prove herself without the help of Demeter or Hades! This is gonna be awesome!!" During the hiatus, I was VERY excited to see where the story was going, I still had so much hope and I figured the mishandling of the trial arc was just a bump in the road. The series was still good, it was just going through a rough patch, these things happen.

And then it came back and it all went downhill from there. There was a 10 year time skip with very little insight as to what happened. Minthe and Daphne were just suddenly back to normal. They were referencing some food shortage or terrible event that happened during Persephone's reign that they never explained in explicit detail. And now, all of a sudden, Persephone was just returning to the Underworld, where Kronos had suddenly taken over. I had cautious optimism but throughout it, I was really seeing the cracks that were already forming opening wide. A lot of what I had to say wasn't positive anymore, I literally couldn't understand what the reasoning was behind these writing decisions and I couldn't find myself rooting for Persephone anymore, everything just seemed to convenient and easy for her to make her seem like the "strong and confident" character the comic claimed her to be.

The S2 finale was my breaking point and I think it was for a lot of other people too. That was pretty much where my 'transformation' from passionate stan to passionate critic happened, and it happened alongside the creation of the UnpopularLoreOlympus subreddit which would become my new 'home' within the community. After seeing how much the story had gone downhill, it made me realize in hindsight just how awful and one-note Persephone is, how she really never cared about anyone but herself and Hades, how her mother did, actually, have a point about her being practically groomed into a relationship with a billionaire slave driver, how she was very intentionally drawn to look like a child in ways I couldn't believe I had never noticed before, the list of "awakenings" goes on. And it sucked! It sucked to have that realization that the thing I loved wasn't just imperfect, but incredibly problematic in its writing and art choices. And just like when I loved the comic, I couldn't just let go of it, I had to understand to some degree why this happened.

It happened because Persephone was always being written as a one-note, easy to project onto self-insert character. A Wattpad protagonist. Not an actual representation of the Goddess of Spring, but a blank slate for the creator and the fans to imagine themselves as purely for the power fantasy of hooking up with a rich and abusive guy.

That was when I made my first piece of LO art intended to be an 'edit' - a redraw of Persephone's rebirth as the Dread Queen from the S2 finale, an ode to the Persephone I was hoping to see but never got. The rest from there is history.

I know I'm being SUPER dramatic about it but this was literally how it felt to go through the realization that this comic - and its characters - wasn't as good as I thought it was, and I think that's a sentiment that's shared by a lot of the 'haters' in this community. LO was a big part of my life and even some of my friendships with people, so when it went downhill, it felt like such a hit to the gut. It's still a big part of my life, albeit in the opposite direction, but I still wonder sometimes over the "what ifs", what if the series hadn't turned out this way? What if I had never realized its flaws? Rekindled is basically a love letter to those what ifs, satisfying the feelings I never got to keep with LO, and giving me a reason to count down the hours on Saturday nights again. I'm glad it's made that same impact for others, too <3