#and i used like those pose reference things

[nikoco11]

I love the way you draw bodies sm! They're always so fluid and unique!! Do you have any tips?? (other than the super obvious look at a reference lol)

hi thank u!! rather than just looking at refs, i explained how i actually use them here in a big old post, and how i keep those poses fluid!

another tip tho, and a more recent thing i’ve been doing, is that i use a ref just to decide a general idea for a pose and then pick my favorite lines either within the reference already or i make up my own

^^ for above, i very loosely used the reference at all. it just gave me an idea to start with for a pose and then i picked dramatic curves i really wanted to do and pushed the pose to show those lines.

a lot of my fluidity comes from caring more about those lines showing in the pose than the pose or anatomy actually making sense LOL

this is a more direct reference !! i liked the angle and the point of the knees, so i started there and then exaggerated what i wanted to draw more swoopy :3

additionally helps line confidence to use as few lines as possible.

it makes a lot of organic swishes and pretty lines if u try to keep each section of a limb or whatever to just a few strokes. 2-3 if ur really wanting to push it!

[noplacelikelondon58]

th-th-th-th-th-th-th-them..............

[artsycloudysleepy]

Here it is :)

WOAH!!!! THE ELEANOR EVER!!!

SHE LOOKS SO UNHINGED AND COOL I LOVE IT :000000

THANK YOU SO MUCH I LOVE HER!! YOUR ART IS AMAZING /gen

also completely expected it to be a fragment so am really happy to be so surprised!!! she looks terrifying in your style!! /pos

[quilleth]

My drawing ideas versus my inability to find good references for them versus how quickly i lose motivation trying to find them: FIGHT

[color-palettes]

On the note of """"fandom colors"""", I just want all you artists to know that you don't have to come up with color designs out of your head in order for things to be valid. Referencing design, photos, etc for color pallets is an IMPORTANT part of character and graphic design. (Just like using references for poses!!!) I like to find photos of landscapes or flowers and mosaic blur them- then pick the colors I like out of those. Great way to make cohesive and we'll balanced pallets.

real and true!!!

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

Started rereading the Hunger Games series and I feel like it’s so overlooked how in 74th and 75th Hunger Games, we don’t know every Tribute’s names, with Katniss only referring to them by their District numbers but in TBOSAS, we knew every single Tribute by name. We associated them with the clothes they wore on the Reaping Day and Suzanne even goes so far as to describe how they looked, however briefly. We see these Tributes and we’re familiarized with them by the little tidbits provided to the mentors and to Snow and Lucy Gray. But we never get this in the original trilogy.

In two generations, President Snow alienated the Districts from each other so much that Katniss didn’t even care to know all the names of the Tributes sent into the Arena with her, with the exception being those who posed great risk against her safety and those she felt great compassion for (e.g. Cato, Thresh, Rue, Mags, Betee, Wiress etc.). Katniss even went so far as to call the D6 Tributes in the 75th Hunger Games morphlings, for their affinity to imbibe in the drugs that help them forget their own traumas (an incredibly hurtful description, in my own opinion, to be known by the qualities you hate the most about yourself). We never know the real name of the 74th D5 girl, with Katniss only referring to her as Foxface and we don’t even know Marvel’s name until we get to the second book and he was Katniss’ first personal kill. Katniss even kills the D4 girl in the books with the same tracker jacker venom that killed Glimmer and yet still, we don’t know her name. We are so removed from the identity of the other Tributes that we don’t even know what some of them looked like beyond brief descriptions of mangled bodies and dead Tributes in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

And, the thing is, Suzanne established the importance of names in the series. Even in real life, we recognize the importance of being named. It is a fundamental aspect of being human. If you’re ever in a perilous situation where a person might be placing your life in danger, we’re told to remind the person that you’re human. “Keep saying your name, how old you are, where you came from. Remind them you are a human being just like them.” Before any propaganda can work against a group of people, refusing to recognize a person’s name is the first step to dehumanization. And just like the people of the Districts, we don’t care enough about the other Tributes to even want to know their names. Their propaganda worked on us, the readers.

In two generations, President Snow completely wiped out any sense of familiarity and camaraderie the Districts may have shared with the other. In two generations, Snow sowed the seeds of distrust and division into the Districts so deeply that even we, the readers, were affected by the effects of Capitol propaganda. In two generations, the Districts ceased to genuinely care about the others beyond the vague sense of injustice they feel for their shared plight. It’s why Career Districts don’t seem to care about killing the other Tributes. How can you care, to show your compassion and humanity, when you can barely see them as people? Yes, they may have been in the Arena with you. Yes, they may have been starved and beaten and forced into labor like you were. Yes, they might be children just like you. Yes, they might be subjected to the same deplorable system that turned you into virtual slaves. But they are not your friends. They are not your allies. They are strange, with different customs and traditions that you have. You do not share the same values. They do not care about you. At the first chance they get, they will kill you with your bare hands and they will do it with alacrity if it meant their survival. There can only be one Victor and it can’t be them. It has to be you.

[pocket-deer-boy]

This is just a personal pet peeve of mine but i feel like a lot of online art tutorials overstate the importance of stuff like guidelines to get “correct” anatomy every single time and while those are typically really good handgrips for beginners we should also tell beginners about gesture drawing. Like maybe i’m being too animatorbrained here but being able to pump out a pose in anywhere from 15 seconds to 2 minutes and quickly move onto the next drawing without lingering on every little mistake is a really really good way at getting good at drawing people proportions quickly. If you make mistakes fast you learn from them fast. So here’s a little exercise:

Sit down, grab some reference images, draw ten poses in twenty minutes (or do ten poses in ten minutes if you’re feeling adventurous or confident) and take a step back and look at your work after the fact. Be sure to move from drawing to drawing quickly once your timer is done. Pretend you’re in a model drawing class and the model has already changed pose whenever your timer hits - finish up whatever lines you were drawing, move on to looking at what the model is doing now.

You will make a lot of shitty drawings, of course, but that’s not so bad. You only spent a minute or two making each one. Focus on the drawings you do like, and look at them as a whole.

Look at all the drawings together and how they fit together on the page. Look at little details and lines you’re proud of. Take note of things you found difficult to get right in such a short time. Take note of the things you liked doing. Do the exercise again, and focus in on the things you want to improve or explore.

Maybe you want to focus on how the torso conveys its weight on the legs. Maybe you want to focus on how shoulders and arms bend around the neck. Maybe you want to focus on how to convey depth on the torso. Maybe you can learn something more about how to draw a body if you only draw using sharp lines and angles. Maybe you can learn something more if you only draw using squiggly, overlapping lines. Maybe you can learn more about how to draw a body if you only fill out the shadows with thick, quick lines. Congratulations! You’re not just learning how to draw a body, but you’re now also exploring your tastes!

This is a fine exercise to do alone, but it’s a lot more fun to do as an activity with a small group so you get to discuss the art you made together.

[marie-m-art]

Good Animated Omens - Behind the Scenes

Here's a behind-the-scenes look at the walk cycles I animated of Aziraphale and Crowley (original post here).

I'll reiterate that the character designs are @lookitsstevie's creation! I made builds in Toonboom Harmony based on their designs, and then animated the builds.

Long post under the cut, organized into four parts. Feel free to jump around or just click through the images and gifs to get an idea of the gist. (At least take a look at Part IV, where you'll see a version of Aziraphale without his jacket and a closeup of Crowley's torso!)

Hopefully this is interesting even if you don't know the first thing about animation. It's not a step-by-step-from-scratch tutorial, but it might give animators some ideas to think about when trying this software!

I'm happy to answer questions about what I cover here - comments, DM's, or ask-box questions are all fine by me. If you like any of the new gifs and want to reblog it on its own, I can make new posts for those upon request! (I'd prefer you don't reupload them, but if you do please at least credit me with a tag to my account - thank you!!)

Part I: The interface and some basics

Above is a screencap of the software interface.

In the centre is the Camera window, where all the drawing and animating is done. 

To the left, the Node View. It's a representation of how the pieces and layers that make the characters are grouped and connected to each other, which is what makes a character "build". Every piece in this window is called a node, and there are different types. Light blue "drawing nodes" contain the drawings themselves. Each drawing node usually has a green "peg" attached; the peg is used to move and rotate the drawing piece; you set a pivot point on each peg. Light grey nodes are groups that have more nodes within, and dark blue nodes are added effects (eg masks, the blur for the halo, etc).

Below, the Timeline - it's where keyframes are set and tweened. The red square dots indicate there is a new keyframe on a particular frame; the white dots indicate keyframes are on layers nested somewhere under the topmost visible layer. All the pieces of the characters can be found in the timeline and correspond to the pieces that exist in the Node View (and Camera). Typically you work with a collapsed view of the build layers in the timeline, which allows you to set keyframes on multiple layers at once.

To the right, a few tabs in this window - Tool Properties, Colour Palettes, and, shown on top here, the Library. The library is where you store your builds, so that you can bring in a fresh copy when animating a new scene. This library tab also has the Drawing Substitution window, which shows thumbnails of every drawing contained in a drawing node when that node is selected.

A second of animation is 24 frames long. Finished animation will often have keyframes on every second frame with the tweens removed, to help simulate the look and feel of traditional animation - this is known as animating "on twos", and saved time, money and paper in the old days. If you leave the tweens on, and/or have keyframes on every frame, the animation is "on ones".

My walks are on twos - it's the look I prefer.

When I say "tween" I'm specifically referring to the software feature that will automatically calculate and interpolate the path between two different poses/keys of a peg. An inbetween could be the result of using a tween, a new drawing, or both. On twos, an inbetween will look the same as any other keyframe on the timeline when you're finished - its relevance as a concept is during the process, not the end result.

Quality animation is achieved via a combination of moving/tweening pre-existing drawings using their pegs, and adding new drawings as hand-drawn inbetweens when needed. Toonboom Harmony also has nodes called "deformers": they offer a way to tween the shape of a drawing without needing to redraw inside the drawing node. (Part IV has the explanation for which pieces I used them for, and why.)

Part II: Navigating the builds

This is what their default poses with no animation look like.

Animation using builds is sometimes colloquially referred to as "puppet-style animation" because the way you can connect body parts to each other feels like making and handling a 2D digital puppet: you can connect a hand to a forearm so that they can move as a unit, and you can connect that unit to an upper arm to move the whole arm as a unit, and that arm gets connected to the torso, and so on.

When you want to connect two pieces, like a hand to a forearm, then you create another peg in the Node View and attach the two body parts together under that new peg. The screencaps below show the nodes that make up Aziraphale's and Crowley's entire builds inside their respective groups:

Things got a bit sloppy ... It looks extremely complicated, but once it's set up, you don't have to think about it too much when you're animating!

And I've zoomed in on the nodes that make their arms so you can see how there are pegs on top of pegs (all the green nodes), with wires connecting everything:

As I explained in Part I, new drawings are added and contained within a body part's drawing node (the light blue ones under the green ones), and the Drawing Substitution window is where you can see all the drawings that exist in a particular node. In the timeline, you set keyframes for moving the pegs, and you also choose which frame the new drawings will appear when applicable. You might have a lot of drawings stored in the nodes, but only what you set to appear in the timeline will be visible in the final animation.

You can select a body part in the camera view, and then find the corresponding layer in the Timeline or the Node View by pressing the "o" keyboard shortcut. If you select a body part by clicking on it, and then press the "b" keyboard shortcut, you will jump up to the next peg it's connected to. You can hide and unhide pieces using "d" and "a" respectively.

In the first capture above, I'm showing that the arm pieces can be moved separately or together, and you can see how the pegs in the Node View light up when I select them in the Camera window (hiding them turns them red). In the second capture, I pop down to the timeline to step back and forth between the poses - the light grey row (it appears between the rows of red dots) represents the hand's drawing node in the timeline.

Part III: Summary of animation process

In my head I imagined how their walks would differ from each other - Aziraphale bouncier but with very straight posture and limited arm movement, vs Crowley slinking and swaggering all over.

I also knew that I wanted the animation to look good for both a walking-on-the-spot version, and as a version walking across the screen (both versions are at the top of the post!).

Then I started doing some rough animation.

I set aside my finished builds for the roughs. For each character, I made a few drawing nodes and two pegs; a peg for the up-and-down upper body motion, which I tweened, and a peg for moving them across the screen. The legs and arms are drawing substitutions.

With these extremely rudimentary rough "builds", I worked out - how many frames long the walks would be, - how far the characters would move across the screen each step, - how much the upper bodies would move up and down, and - the key drawings of the legs and feet.

I didn't worry about animating clothing, hair, or Azi's arms in the rough stage. For those elements, the drawings would be spaced really close together and would be easier to figure out with tweens. (Note: this rudimentary setup would be sufficient if you want to clean up and inbetween characters by hand frame-by-frame instead of making full builds; my preference is build animation because the process is more fun for me)

Then I started working with the finished builds, using the roughs as a guide, and established the broadest motions first: the up-and-down motion in the upper bodies (I set a keyframe at the lowest point, a keyframe at the highest point, then tweened between them) and how far they'd travel across the screen. Then the feet were done.

I went back and forth between viewing them walking on the spot and walking across the screen to make sure that both versions worked. I also made sure they crossed the same amount of ground relative to each other.

After those crucial parts, I moved on to animating their arms, hair, torsos, clothing details, and finishing the legs, not necessarily in that order. I simulated twisting/rotating their torsos in 3d space by moving their waistcoats and lapels.

The first gif switches back and forth between versions (imagine a background scrolling by when they walk on the spot). The second gif is an example of bad "footslip" - they're moving at different speeds, and if you pay attention to their feet, Aziraphale appears to slip on ice while Crowley appears to slide forward on skates.

"You go too fast for me, Crowley!"

Part IV: Extras and details

Here is a version of Aziraphale's walk without his jacket, and a closeup of Crowley so you can see his swaying hips better:

One of the cool things about animating with builds is they lend themselves well to small modifications; the jacketless version took all of five minutes to make.

I'd be remiss not to include a close-up of Aziraphale's hair, the real star of the animation :) (Crowley's hair is also animated but I purposefully kept it understated since it's a much different texture.) And a closeup image of Crowley's snake tattoo:

The biggest unit for both of them are their upper bodies, which includes their pelvises. The up-and-down motion is only on one peg instead of on every single piece, which is handy because it means I can hide just that part of the animation when I want to work on the clothing details:

During the process of animation, I am often hiding then unhiding pieces like this so I can see what I'm doing.

Their clothing ended up being a lot of separate pieces, which I kept adding during animation rather than before, as it was hard to predict everything I needed. Their clothing also incorporates cutters (aka masks), and deformers (see explanation in Part I). In the next set of gifs the deformers show up as green outlines with handles and get turned on and off.

Aziraphale's torso functions as a mask for his clothing. The shape of his torso subtly changes via deformer. His lapels and waistcoat have V shapes that are masks/cutters (they cut a V shape out of those pieces); the same pieces that make the cutters also are used for the black lines of those V shapes via a special layering setup. The main shapes of his lapels are animated with deformers, and you can see how far beyond his torso shape they extend when I turn on the deformers in the second gif.

Deformers work best for shapes that change a little bit, and/or slowly. The minor shape changes in his and Crowley's clothes ended up being a great use case for deformers, because they pretty much tweened perfectly.

The reason I didn't use them on Aziraphale's legs was because those shapes change significantly between keys; I predicted I'd have to re-adjust every frame of a tweened deformer, so I drew the inbetweens by hand (halfway through, I realized I probably should have used them after all, but I was in too deep by then; hand drawing was fun though!). Deformers worked well on his bottom jacket:

Crowley's pelvis is layered above and below his thigh pieces and has a deformer. Also take a look at all the drawing substitutions for his hands:

And lastly the deformers on the hair:

Epilogue

I'm hoping the gifs all play at the same speed for everyone as they play for me. Hopefully the demo gifs are at least watchable, if not super clear... (I'll listen to feedback on the presentation of the information, for if I do similar posts in future!) Don't hesitate to ask questions about anything I covered, or about any details you noticed that I didn't elaborate on!

ko-fi.com/marieanimate

I'm shy about mentioning it, but I set up a Ko-fi account in case this post compels anyone to leave a small "tip" (but reblogging and sharing is just as good)!

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

[kozachenko]

Finally decided to play around with my old lineless style again! Also figured out a way to draw Reimu that I actually really like!

Artist's Notes;

I've mentioned in a few earlier posts that I've been wanting to draw in my lineless style again for a while as a way to test what I've learnt from my previous style in regards to lighting. I did the face first and then for a while was thinking about doing a full body illustration of Reimu just to draw her outfit again. I'll talk about the face first since that's the first drawing I did in this batch.

For the longest time I really couldn't find a way to translate Reimu's face into my style. I was able to make her clothes work out well, just not really her face. I did like elements of how I drew her face a few other times, namely the tiny eyebrows and her pupils, but they didn't really feel like Reimu to me, or at least how I imagined her in my head. I then realized that it was less of a problem with the entire face and moreso the eyes, and it took me quite a bit of trial and error to make something that I was happy with. Also, as much as I thought the tiny eyebrows were cute, it didn't really make sense with her character. Like, from what I know about Japanese history, plucking your eyebrows was something that nobles (rich people) would do, and since Reimu is...neither of those things, I decided to just give her some thicker eyebrows instead (I will be saving the plucked eyebrows for another character though, so they will return). After I got to a face I was happy with, my next challenge was the hair. I did the front part first and liked that enough to continue, and then after more trial and error I realized that deep down I was a short-hair-Reimu-is-best-Reimu-truther this whole time because once I gave up on the long hair and gave her shorter hair something just clicked in my brain. And so, after drawing her outfit in again (this time without the yellow tie which is kinda sad but I'll find a way to incorperate it into future designs because it just was not making sense to me in context with the rest of the outfit) and finnicking around with the bow, I came to a version of Reimu's face that I actually liked. I thought that it made more sense for her character to have her cut it short, mainly because she's doing a bunch of Youkai extermination and she has to keep her hair out of her face somehow. I still wanted to make it kinda messy though, as Reimu is probably too lazy to clean it up herself. I think another reason I like it so much is because in Forbidden Scrollery, Moe Harukawa gave Reimu short hair and that really suited her, so I guess that was just a subconcious reason as to why I liked it so much. I also think that the shorter hair helps to separate her a lot from Marisa, as I think Marisa looks really good with longer hair. Speaking of, now I wanna do a drawing of her and Reimu together to really solidify how I draw them (unlike the previous version where it was just them standing). As much as I do like the face, I am concerned if she looks too much like how I drew Keiki now, but that might just be a product of the stylistic choices I made with her eyes and I might just be overthinking it. I am hyperaware of same face syndrome so that's probably the reason I'm so concerned about it lol.

Now for the fully body drawing. I was struggling to think of a good pose for her, so I just took a picture of myself and used that as a reference while still making slight adjustments for readability's sake. This is another case of, "I've looked at this too long and can spot every single issue with it" but this time I'm still happy with the final product mainly because this was a test drive for how I want to develop my lineless style in the future and for what it is I am more than pleased with the result. The main reason I deviated away from my lineless style was mainly because I was having a hard time with the lighting and making it interesting, and I am so glad that I've finally found a way to make it work! I'm especially happy with the clothes, as I think clothing folds are really fun to draw. I was somewhat inspired by the works of J.C. Lyendecker and the way he draws clothes, though admittedly it is not a one to one, since I mainly wanted to try implying the shading of the clothing folds with shapes (I do really want to do a study of his style one day as his art is incredible). So for the sleeves, I drew in a bunch of triangles where I wanted there to be a strong highlight, roughly coloured in the inside, and then blended them all so it looks like a more subtle. On both of these drawings, I also added in a noise filter to give it some texture (as that's what I used to often do with my drawings) and while I do like it, I might want to experiment with making it more subtle in the future, as it's pretty noticeable in both these drawings. Overall, I'm really happy with the lighting and colours of this drawing, and while I could nitpick several aspects of it (her hand holding the gohei looks too tense, I tried making her look like she was standing on the balls of her feet but the positioning of her Gohei's trail of papers ends up making it look weird, and I could've put more effort into the hair and bow and so many more things), this is more of a piece for me to experiment with my style again, and I'm excited for when I get a new idea for a piece, as I really wanna try some more stuff out with this style!

[lackadaisycats]

Hello! Would you happen to have any recommendations for realistic anatomy books on humans (for art purposes)? A lot of the online anatomy references are very exaggerated and the models have only 'ideal' body types and don't depict any others (E.g. Online male anatomy references are extremely buff for no reason). Thank you for the help :)

I do have a small collection of anatomy-for-artists books, but honestly, those are also populated predominantly with people who look like living Greek sculptures. So, I asked around a bit for both book and online sources. Here are a few things:

Height Weight Chart -- A library that people have contributed multitudes of their own photos to. Some people took turnaround photos in form-fitting clothes. Some are just one-off snapshots of people in street clothes. But, both of those things can be useful in their own way, and there certainly are a lot of body types here. (Thanks for the link, Fable).

------------------------------------------------------ AdorkaStock -- Features a whole free pose gallery containing a really excellent array of varied bodies. The photos generally focus more on form than costume, and if anything, the extremely sculpted bodies you tend to see in other stock libraries are de-emphasized here.

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

Satine Zillah -- An expansive library of downloadable photo packs. Most of them feature athletic or thin body types, many are heavy on costuming, but there are some that focus on more variety if you take time to scroll through (elderly bodies, plus-size bodies, people with dwarfism, etc.)

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

Morpho -- I know a lot of people swear by these books by Michel Lauricella. Morpho: Fat and Skin Folds in particular seems to cover some ground that a lot of other anatomy/pose lessons just skip right over. Looks like it's available as an ebook too.

I hope that helps some! I'm sure there are other resources out there, though. If anyone has some solid recommendations, please leave them in the comments!

[lethesbeastie]

Hi, I saw your post about practicing drawing fat people and I was wondering if you could compile like a list of resources or references?

It can be difficult to find resources for drawing the wide variety of forms fat bodies can occupy, so I've done my best to bring together some resources I've been able to prove have some degree of diversity in the references they offer!

My primary resource recommendation for drawing fat people is Morpho Anatomy For Artists: Fat And Skin Folds! It does a wonderful job breaking down where fat accumulates on the body, how it interacts with the familiar landmarks of human anatomy, and what sort of shapes it tends to form under the influence of gravity. It's a phenomenal reference and my top recommendation for anyone seeking to improve at drawing fat people!

When it comes to finding decent photo references for fat people, the pickings are frustratingly slim. Most sites that specialize in pose references either don't have fat models or have all their images behind paywalls. Of the resources I looked through, the best sources for pose references were Adorkastock and Line of Action.

@adorkastock actively seeks to provide an incredible profile of pose references with diverse body types, and as an added bonus you can access a lot of their images for free on their site/Tumblr or join their patreon for early access to images! Line of action is a site aimed towards practicing figure drawing, providing images and a timed function to challenge artists to sketch within a set time limit. I took the time to go through roughly 300+ images and was pleased to find that during my session around two-to-three out of every ten photos were fat models. The only caveats to this was the fact that most of the images were of the same individual, limiting the applications for studying the variants of fat bodies. Still, it's an amazing tool that has a free mode and allows you to filter the types of references you want based on age and level of nudity.

Beyond sites that specialize in art reference photography, there's also the ever popular Pinterest, which is the site where I typically seek references for my personal studies. Due to the nature of Pinterest's extensive collection, there's a vast variety of references for different fat body types that includes a lot more "everyday" people. The primary issue with Pinterest however is the rampant reposting and lack of proper credits for images, which can make things dicey depending on how you wish to use the references you find. For personal studies this isn't really an issue, but for any sort of professional or paid work is something to be aware of just for the sake of accountability.

* For those who are 18+, porn photography of real people also offers an incredible wealth of visual resources for fat bodies and how they interact with gravity/movement/etc. The variety of positions and angles offer many opportunities to study human anatomy, and it's a pretty well-known fact that drawing NSFW art can be an important learning experience for those struggling with drawing anatomy. In the end, it depends on your personal level of comfort with viewing/drawing explicit images, but it's not something you should completely overlook.

Last but not least, look at the work of artists you admire who draw fat people! While I typically recommend sticking to photo references for learning anatomy, studying artist's portrayals of fat people is also incredibly helpful for learning different tactics for simplifying and/or stylizing fat bodies to better fit ones own style. There are also plenty of artists who've crafted tutorials detailing their approach to drawing fat folks, so I highly recommend you check them out as well! I hope the resources I've linked here can help you in your studies, and feel free to drop another ask if you have any more questions! I'm planning on posting a tutorial on how I do studies for fat people soon, so that will be an additional resource for you once I've got it posted!

[soularsss]

Drawing Likeness: with Tem!

okaay since a few people actually showed interest in me sharing a bit of what I've been doing to figure out how to really capture likeness, specifically Temuera Morrison, I figured id do my best to write it out

I am also going to entice you with some of my recent clone art! (oooh some of it is unreleaaasedd)

I am putting the whole thing under the cut because I have a feeling its going to be long:

Read more!!!

a couple disclaimers before we start

-This is not some definite post about how everyone should be drawing clones, nor is it in any way claiming that this is the right way. This is just my musings as I stare at a mans face for way too long and try to replicate it

-I am inexperienced. As kind as you all are to me, drawing real people is relatively new to me, capturing a persons identity through their features is difficult for anybody, and I am no different. I have watched many a video on likeness and had my share of classes, but If im being honest, i rarely put it into practice successfully. So there'll probably be errors in this post or things i will come back to in a few months and wish I had said/done differently

ANYWAYs you guys get my vibe im just here to ramble and today we are rambling about mr copy paste. I am doing this for Law, my clone boy, because I plan on delving further into oc fanart and I want to put effort into representing him correctly!

SO LETS BEGIN

Before even deciding what specific pose of a person I want to draw, I tend to grab a bunch of references and compile them like so

(all of these can be found on my pinterest)

Why so many? Well, we are about to delve into facial features, so when we are dealing with photos we have to take into account that there are an abundance of circumstances that will influence how a persons face will appear, some of these include:

focal length: All of these are taken on different devices, and focal length can play a big part in distorting faces

age will play a part, your face changes a bunch throughout your life!

lighting, while not as major, can muddy the waters and make it difficult to interpret facial planes and features

SO, to make sure we get a proper grasp of what's really going on, I like to make sure we have lots of options to compare and contrast with.

Next up! What I like to do is block out the main facial features with colour on different layers, the features I block out usually are the general face shape, eyebrows, eyes, nose and lips. But what you are looking for is the defining features of a person, so that could include other things! Maybe a scar, or some particularly prominent cheekbones.

I dont have any rhyme or reason when it comes to picking my colours, all that matters is you can see all the shapes clearly.

Now I may be biased, because Ive been staring at these for 4 hours, but notice how it still looks like Tem? :D

Anyways, now we can break these parts down, and you'll see what I mean about compare and contrast:

We'll start with isolating the facial shape, putting all these next to eachother you'll notice they arent exactly the same (partly because of my shoddy work) But the distinguishing features run through each shape! Namely the very soft rectangular shape I sketched out in the bottom right there. Along with his soft, wide jaw structure.

I did the same for the rest of his features!

You'll notice I highlight the prominent shapes and ratios,

When drawing anything, it is important to start from the very base shapes and build up.

When drawing something you want to look like someone, those shapes relative to other shapes is what makes it look like them.

I didnt use the same technique with his eyes and lips, but I wrote out some helpful info for them! More importantly for his eyes.

When drawing eyes, I find the most important part is where exactly I draw the creases, (along with the overall shape of the eye itself) it is important to understand where those will present themselves with hooded eyes.

NOW, with an understanding of his facial features in place, lets take a detour to colours:

before I start, a couple things to note:

-Temuera morrison versus the clone troopers in the animated shows:

While I love the animated shows they don't exactly stay close to their source material. Im going to link here to an excellent post discussing whitewashing specifically in relation to the clones.

Temuera is Māori, of Te Arawa (Ngāti Whakaue) and Tainui (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rarua) whakapapa, and also has Scottish and Irish ancestry.

The Māori people are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (Aotearoa). Māori originated with settlers from East Polynesia. Māori people often vary in skin tone, Skin colour doesn't determine ethnicity. There's often a correlation but it's not a requirement.

But that is a tangent! What we are aiming for is to stay true to Temuera.

Bringing back my reference photos from before, Ive colour picked a buncha values and theyre all over the place. Why doesnt this work?

Similarly to earlier, you have to take into account the photos themselves. Many things like lighting, colour grading (when it comes to filmography) and makeup, can alter how a skin colour presents in photo.

You can attempt to get true to life by swatching from certain places on the face. Here I've tried to pick some photos with good lighting, and I've also tried to avoid overly lit/shaded areas.

Tem has a very warm, tan skin tone, Instead of colour picking I tend to try and replicate it myself, but I do often bring in references to make sure Im staying true to the source!

a brief intermission to talk about colour theory, something I myself struggle with alot. Often, when putting in flat colours without a background, I will forget to make sure the colours i intend to use will work with the skin tone i have picked! (something that is apparent in older works of mine, not just in relation to clones, but in general, the colours I end up with stray largely from their original sources and it is something I am doing my best to keep in mind and improve in! Although I don't think i am nearly experienced enough in the topic to say I have succeeded yet lol.)

anyways back to Tem :))

Now we can put all of that into practice! Things to keep in mind when drawing out a piece next to a reference like this:

the distance between the eyebrows? how far down his face does his nose go? Basically just, in relation to eachother, where do all those shapes we found earlier, sit?

The screenshot above is from before I did it myself, but instead of directly tracing from the reference, a handy trick I use it to complete your sketch first, and then overlay a traced version to see where your inconsistencies are! Alternatively, you could move your sketch over the image, but I didnt do it that way so!! uh!! im sure it works exactly the same!!!!

When it comes to a final illustration, or any sketch that isnt a direct study, of course you can push and pull and stylise! You'll see below that I'm not exactly 1:1 to my reference photo either.

The important thing with stylisation, or at least my own personal understanding of stylisation is that you need to thoroughly understand the thing you are stylizing! "You need to know the rules to break them" and all that. While shapes, lines and rendering can change, when it comes to drawing someone, and making it look like them, you have to make sure to keep their core features true to source. Caricature can capture a persons vibe whilst drastically exaggerating features, but it will only look like them if you KEEP THOSE FEATURES!!!! SHAPES!!! AHHH!!

But that is just my perspective on the discussion of style versus realism, please dont take is as Law, I dont know what Im on about half the time!!

anyways, after fixing your sketch, add local colours!

I rexified him because why tf not! But this is where you can go crazy with that clone personalization!

And then here is a very very barely rendered version (if you guys want me to explain how i RENDER that would need to be a completely different post, and I havent had anyone ask about it yet so who knows! maybe one day) But I digress, hopefully you learnt something new through my ramblings! It has certainly helped me organize my thoughts and I have also found some areas I would like to focus more on in the future to improve my own art!

TLDR: In order to understand an object, be it a face or a building or literally anything, you have to break it down to its simplest forms, understanding LARGER shapes will help you immensely in the long run

If you guys like this sorta content do let me know! I'd be down to do similar things for armor/anything really, I am very anti gatekeep so really anything at all you want to know! Send me an ask :))

also if you see a spelling mistake.. i don’t know how that got there

[wombywoo]

Ok! I've finally decided to put together a (somewhat) comprehensive tutorial on my latest art~

Please enjoy this little step-by-step 💁‍♀️

First things first--references!

Now I'm not saying you have to go overboard, but I always find that this is a crucial starting point in any art piece I intend on making. Especially if you're a detail freak like me and want to make it as realistic as possible 🙃

As such, your web browser should look like this at any given point:

Since this is a historical piece, it means hours upon hours of meaningless research just to see what color the socks are, but...again. that isn't, strictly, necessary 😅

Once I've compiled all my lovely ref pics, I usually dump them into a big-ass collage ⬇️

(I will end up not using half of these, alas :'D)

Another reference search for background material, and getting to showcase our models of choice for this occasion~

When picking a reference for an actor or model, the main thing I keep in mind (besides prettiness 🤭) is lighting and orientation. Because I already kinda know what pose I'm gonna go with for this piece, I can look for specific angles that might fit the criteria. I should mention that I am a reference hound, and my current COD actor ref folder looks like this:

Also keep in mind, if you're using a ref that you need to flip, make sure you adjust accordingly. This especially applies to clothing, as certain things like pants zippers and belt buckles can be quite specific ☝️

Now that we've spent countless hours googling, it's time to start with a rough sketch:

It doesn't have to be pretty, folks, just a basic guideline of where you want the figures to be.

The next step is to define it more, and I know this looks like that 'how to draw an owl' meme, but I promise--getting from the loose sketch above to below is not that difficult.

Things to keep in mind are--don't go too in-depth with the details, because things are still subject to change at this point. In terms of making a suitable anatomically-correct sketch, I would suggest lots of studying. This doesn't even have to be things like figure drawing, I genuinely look at people around me for inspiration all the time. Familiarize yourself with the human form, and things like weight, proportions, posing will seem a little more feasible.

It's also important at this stage to consider your composition. Remember to flip the canvas frequently to make sure you're not leaning to one side too often. I'm sure something can be said for the spiral fibonacci stuff, which I don't really try to do on purpose, but I think keeping things like symmetry and balance in mind is a good start ✌️

Next step is just blocking in the figures. Standard. No fuss 👍

Now onto the background!

It's frankly hilarious how many people thought I was *hand-drawing* these maps and stuff 😂😂 I cannot even begin to comprehend how insanely difficult that would be. So yeah, we're just taking the lazy copy and paste way out 🤙

I almost always prepare my backgrounds first, and this is mostly to get a general color scheme off the bat. For collage work, it's really just a matter of trial and error, sticking this here, slapping this there, etc. I like to futz around with different overlay options until I've found a nice arrangement. Advice for this is just--go nuts 🤷‍♀️

Next, I add a few color adjustments. I tend to make at least 2 colors pop in an art piece, and low and behold, they usually tend to be red and blue ❤️💙There's something about warm/cool vibes, idk man..

Now we move on to coloring the figures. This is just a basic block and fill, not really defining any of the details yet.

Next, we add some cursory values. Sloppy airbrush works fine, it'll look better soon I promise 🙏

And now--rendering!

I know a lot of beginner artists are intimidated by rendering, and I can totally understand why. It's just one of those things you have to commit to 💪

I've decided to show a brief process of rendering our dear Johnny's face here:

Starting off, I usually rely on the trusty airbrush just to get some color values going. Note--I've kept my sketch layer on top, but feel free to turn it on and off as you work, so as to not be too bound to the sketch. For now, it's just a guideline.

This next stage may look like a huge jump, but it's really just adding more to the foundation. I try to think of it like putting on make-up in a way~ Adding contours, accentuating highlights. This is also where I start adding in more saturation, especially around areas such as ears, nose and lips. Still a bit fuzzy at this point, but that's why we keep adding to it 💪

A boy has appeared! See--now I've removed most of the line layer, and it holds up on its own. I'll admit that in order to achieve this realistic style, you'll need lots and lots of practice and skill, which shouldn't be discouraging! Just motivate yourself with the prospect of getting to look at pretty men for countless hours 🙆‍♀️

I'll probably do a more in-depth explanation about rendering at some point, but let's keep this rolling~

Moving forward is just a process of adding to the figures bit by bit. I do lean towards filling in each section from top to bottom, but you can feel free to pop around to certain parts that appeal to you more. I almost always do the faces first though, because if they end up sucking, I feel less guilty about scrapping it 😂 But no--I think he's pretty enough to proceed 😚

They're coming together now 🙆‍♀️ Another helpful tip--make sure you reuse color. By that, I mean--try to incorporate various colors throughout your piece, using the eyedropper tool to keep a consistent palette. I try to put in bits of red and blue where I can

Here they are fully rendered! Notice I've made a few subtle changes from the sketch, like adjusting the belt buckles because I made a mistake 😬 Hence why you shouldn't put too much stock in your initial sketch~

The next step is more of a stylistic choice, but I usually go over everything with an outline, typically in a bright color like green. Occasionally, I can just use my initial line layer, but for this, I've made a brand new, cleaner line 👍

And the final step is adjusting the color and adding some text:

Tada!! It's done!

All in all, this took me the better part of a week, but I have a lot of free time, so yeah ✌️

I hope you appreciated that little walkthrough~ I know people have been asking me how I do my art, but the truth is--I usually have no clue how to explain myself 😅 So have this half-assed tutorial~

As a bonus, here is a cute (cursed) image of Johnny without his mustache:

A baby, a literal infant child !!! who put this wee bairn on the front lines ??! 😭

Anyway! peace out ✌️

[obae-me]

Human Things that Confuse the Non-Humans

I've seen a lot of headcanons on my feed recently that are all about demonic traits and things that seem to scare or facinate MC, but what about the opposite? So I was wondering what sort of typical human things might either unsettle the non-humans, confuse them, or enchant them in some way.

Most of these are based off of personal heasdcanons I already have, so it's very self indulgent.

If ya'll have any other ideas, feel free to share, I'd love to hear them.

Also not proof read cuz I'm writing this at like 5 am due to sleep issues.

------

Circadian Rythem. I've always wanted to bring up how I headcanon that the Devildom doesn't even follow a 24 hour schedule, since the 24 hour thing is entirely based around the sun, and since they don't have a sun, it makes sense that days would follow some other set rule (I always think that Devildom days are much much longer, hence why MC is caught so many times in canon just taking naps wherever even when Belphie is not around), but that's a headcanon for another time. Anyways, I think the fact that Humans almost need to follow a certain sleeping schedule would totally confuse the demons. Demons only really sleep to stay at their strongest, it's not as vital to them. And the fact that humans can die if they don't get the proper sleep? Totally freaks them out. If MC ever pulls an all-nighter, they all think they're one foot in the grave. Having Solomon and MC getting naturally sleepy more often than the non-humans do might seem pretty adorable at times though.

The fact that human hair does indeed shed. I don't personally think demon or angelic hair would, I feel like hair is something they can change at will within reason (There is a chat with Mammon about him getting his haircut, but he said he was going to change it, so I like to think he made it grow back instantly and cut it like normal again). So I like to think that MC or Solomon leaving strands of hair behind is shocking, because the non-humans only ever associated that trait with animals, but they also find it weirdly cute in a way. The demons and angels do try to ask to comb or brush Solomon's and/or MC's hair from time to time. They feel like they're helping.

Being able to roll (curl? Fold?) your tongue. I think it would be hilarious if despite the millions of other things demons and angels can do, none of them can roll their tongues. And then they get confused too when they discover that not every human can do it either, just certain ones. Solomon can do it and treats it like a party trick.

Allergies. I don't know if it's said in Canon anywhere that demons and angels can have allergies...I hope not because (as much as it sucks) it would make sense for it to just be a human thing. Just the concept entirely would have the non-human's heads spin. What do you mean certain things can just have your body essentially attack itself? And it's different for every human? It can be quite literally anything? (The non-humans would absolutely have a heart attack if they knew about mine)

Human mimicry. I think we as humans just have a natural instinct to mimic or repeat certain things. It's a lot more noticeable with internet culture and memes and references and things, but I think a very human thing to do is repeat or mock things we come into contact with. For example, if we hear an animal noise, we try to repeat it like we're talking to it. If we see something in a weird position, we might try to pose like it, etc. We try to relate to things, which is why personification is so prominent in everything we do. (Like how some of us tell wobbily objects to stay or loud machines to shut up) The non-humans think this is very cute. They don't really do that. The closest thing they might relate to is a current trend, but those pass by rather quickly. Mammon probably thinks we're almost like a bunch of crows.

Emotional control/suppression. Hear me out. It's well known in canon that the brothers blow up easily. They'll fight someone over miniscule things. Even Lucifer, who says he prides himself on his control, loses his temper quite often. And Mammon, while seemingly the best at controlling anger, is very open about all his other emotions. The only two demons that clearly have the best control overall are Barbatos and Diavolo who are the two most powerful demons in the Devildom. It probably takes so much energy and power to keep themselves in check. We hardly ever see that dark aura around them if at all in the game, which seems to give the two this unspoken common respect. As for angels, it was already mentioned once that the angels do have magical methods forcibly controlling emotions, and despite that, I'm sure it takes ages of training and practice to get to the level of "patient perfection" they're supposed to exhibit. Now, humans aren't perfect, and of course, there's a lot of nuance to this like mental illness I won't get into, but generally speaking, we quickly learn how to regulate our emotions or how to supress them for society's sake. At the very least, when we get angry we dont suddenly get surrounded by a dark shadow or shift into a different form. And I like to think this terrifies the non-humans to a degree. They don't know when humans are angry or upset until it's blatantly obvious. They already are off-put by Solomon because they never really know what he's up to. And what if it's not even because he's doing "weird" things, what if it's just because he seems to be so calm all the time and no one knows how to read him? None of them know how to read human body language. There's no aura to see, no puffed up wings, no glowing eyes, no whipping tails. Humans can just...stand there, sometimes with a blank expression, sometimes just staring. It can give even the stronger willed beings the creeps. Bonus points if MC is great at masking too. You mean humans can just...take extreme emotions and tuck them away for later? I'm sure that's an absolutely wild concept. Most of the non-humans are just not capable of that kind of control. Albeit its not always the healthiest option, but just the fact that humans have the willpower to just sometimes choose or force themselves not to feel at all is Barbatos level intimidating.

[fortheb0ys]

I wanna dress Will Graham up all nice and pretty just to mess him all up again :3

BROOO YOU GOT ME THINKING!! Give me like two sentences and I could go on and on if I'm feeling it. So I offer you my ramblings🤲

Does anyone remember that one Criminal Minds episode where this lady collects human dolls?!?

Well, make that into male reader insert <(´･ω･`<)

CW Sorry, i realized I don't put these often : reader is a serial killer and will is profiling him, reader views people as objects, reader can't tell what's real and will uses that to his advantage, will refers to himself as a 'sex doll', murder (not too descriptive), reader loses his virginity, sex, stalking, kidnapping, obsessive behavior NOT PROOFREAD ENDING IS RUSHED!

FEM ALIGNED + MINORS DNI

You watched Will from a distance, become fascinated by Will's beauty. His curly hair, his facial structure, his build, his everything.

He haunted you. You saw him everywhere you went.

Will was different from the rest. A body of pure perfection. The others ones in your collection were unamusing, marred in compaison to him.

Once you've had gotten your hands on him, your collection fell neglected. Left on the shelf to collect dust. Disposed of them when they broke.

Will was your prized doll like one of those vintage Christmas Barbies.

Once you've finally gotten your hands on him you noted he wasn't in perfect condition. It was quite clear under closer eyes, a few nicks and scratches. You'd treat him better than anyone else would. You wanted to keep him from farther damage.

At first, Will was a bit hard to play with. His face model was always in a scowl. Brows knitted in anger.

You thought about redoing his face, scraping off the base and painting a new one. Thoughts about the last time you've done it deterred your decision. Their faces had always came out disfigured, never getting quite right.

His hard shell didn't deter your love for him. You treated him gently, bought things for him, making small conversations at your little tea parties. His anger was met with your kindness.

It took a while till Will's shell chipped away. His scowl disappeared, replaced with a friendly smile. Happiness to see you home from you doll hunting.

Soon he became the best doll you've owned. A pleasure to have company with.

His voice box sounded much different from the others. The other doll yelled crude obscenities. Of course, their angry words didn't last long as taking out their boxes quieted them down.

Will was kinder. He was more willing to carry a conversation. He'd let you play with him without protest. Let you play with him, brush his hair, change his clothes. The others were hard to move, their sticky joints refusing to move.

Of course, the hunt for new dolls didn't stop. Once Will met these new friends, he became cold. Back to the old Will.

Will never liked play to nice. Mean and unpleasant words were barked at the others. They broke quicker than anticipated. You'd find Will covered in red, broken dolls at his feet.

He'd plea that he was special. That you couldn't have any other dolls. He was the only one that's supposed to be in your collection. Red, teary eyes begging to be the only doll in your collection.

You pulled him into close embrace, feeling his pounding heartbeat against your chest. Whispered promises as he cried at your every word.

Your precious Will, beautiful yet so broken. You plege devotion solely to him.

Since than you only cared for Will. Every moment was spent with him.

He seemed to enjoy playtime as well. He'd sit quiet and pretty as you changed him. His hands always posed between his legs. His joints bent seamlessly as he shifted in his sit.

One day while picking his clothes for the day, Will made mention that he had working parts down...there. That they'd the react when played with.

He said he was a 'sex doll', that only he's the only one.

He guided you as you were inexperienced. Spoke you through each step. Your fingers nervously stretching him. Your eyes trained on Will's face, looking for any sort of discomfort.

Fingers still he's face contorts. You weren't sure if it was discomfort or pleasure. You weren't going to risk breaking your precious doll by testing which one.

Your hand begins withdrawaling from between him. Before you could do or say anything farther, Will's hand shoots forward to grasp your wrist.

"Don't fucking stop." Will growls as his grip tightly.

His eyes darken, a glint of something beneath them. Like there was a secret to be shared behind blown out pupils. It seems almost sinister.

Your heart skips a beat and your mouth goes dry and all you could do was give him a small nod. Sex brought out this side of an otherwise gentle Will. One you were not willing to challenge.

Once Will felt like he was fully prepped and ready, he made you withdrawal your soaked fingers. With shaking hands gripping your cock, guiding it to his ready hole. A hiss sounding from Will almost made you stop but you wouldn't dare to do that again.

It felt so fucking good. Stinking in inch by inch. His hole stretching to fit your cock. His insides warm and wet. Pleasure consuming your entire being.

Did all dolls feel like this? Why haven't you tried this before?

Once Will completely bottomed out, he gave you a slight squeeze. You had to hold yourself back, nearly cumming after only just a moment.

Your eyes shut tight as your head falls against Will's chest, trying to focus on breathing. Shaking breaths timed with Will's heartbeat.

A sharp kick to your side, a signal that Will wants you to move. Eyes snap open to look deep into Will's. That look still present, now even darker.

"Take it nice and slow." Will spoke sweetly behind a kind smile. He's gentle once again. Will's changes in mood were slightly off putting.

You began to move at a slow pace, sloppy as you tested the water. Thrusts were shallow and somber. Will's hand grip at your hips and begin guiding your movements.

"Follow my lead." He locked eyes while you felt the need to look away.

His hands push you forward establishing a rythm. Pushing in deep to hit something the made Will gasp and pulling out till your tip was the only thing in him.

You tried focusing on keeping the order as you roll your hips into him but everything felt so good your mind went numb. Will's grunts turned into moans as you kept nailing the spot in him that made him sing.

You push your entire weight onto, trying to reach deeper and deeper. Confidence is now yours when Will clenches around you. The heat is suffocating, sweat pools down your back.

One of his hands leaves your hips, guiding yours onto his weaping cock. Your fingers tightens around it, jerking it in rythm with your thrusts. White drips for his tip on his stomach. He's as close as you.

Your thrusts finally lose pace and your thrusts become shallow once again as you feel like the end is near. Will pulls you in a kiss, swallowing your little sounds, cumming together. White paints your bodies.

You pant as you collapse on top of Will. Your eyes fall heavy as you focus on catching your breath.

"Will you stay with me forever, doll?" You plead once the room had fell silent.

"Till time separates us."

You pull Will close, your head against his neck. In that moment he felt real, almost human. Like his heart beat just as yours. Like flesh and bone.

[frostblightsunbite]

Another Cass drawing, for the soul.

Had a concept I wanted to sketch out, I'll probably redo this some point in the future.

Rant under cut :)

This isn't the best, but I don't completely hate it so its fine. This was a sketch, as you can probably tell from the shitty line work, but then I experimented with colouring and kinda liked it, so its weirdly disjointed. Also I resized the image so literally none of the line weight is consistent so...

Anyway, cape turning to night sky. neat concept. probably done a lot before, but I can't think of any examples rn.

I messed with the pose a lot. I think there might have been a reference originally, but it now Does Not look anything like it.

I hate the clouds. and the sky part. I hate drawing/painting those in general, so I should probably do a study or something, but I really don't want to

Oh and fun fact, This blog was supposed to be under a different name, but when I tried to make it, it was already taken. as it turns out, literally exactly 11 months before I had made that account using a different email. I'm so dumb.

I'm trying to make this somewhat coherent, but it's like half 3 in the morning, and I need to wake up at 7. I'm so tired idk why I didn't just finish this tomorrow when I would be happier with it.

as a side note, I think every time I draw Cass her eyes get bigger. which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I fear the day when her eyes will envelop her whole. also it kinda functions like a spiderman mask, so thats fun for expressions.