#but hes a lot easier to draw if it's lineless

[basofy]

my undying love for the lisa companions

i wanna draw more of them

first pic is bo singing la vida mejor :) no that's not the guy's voice watch the whole thing

second to last one is referencing this best post in the world..

sorry about fox garth wait no i'm not

MONEY GARTH ATTACK

[sysig]

He dunked up (Patreon)

[camodupcas]

But it was easier, it was easier to cry.

hi! sorry for not posting often. I haven't been drawing a lot due to school, but this is a experimental drawing I did with my oc cyrus! lineless was fun, but messy, maybe I'll do it again idk

cyrus is a boy btw he/they please thanks 🙏

[nightgeist]

WOW Geist drawing?? I know, it's rare these days. But I finally got some of my OCs out of my brain and onto a canvas and I'm decently happy with the result! I did a lot of experimenting with this one: I learned how to do lineless art the proper way (it is SO much easier than my shitty method before) and worked with fire lighting for the first time, as well as different blending methods and whatnot (I used Multiply and Add for this one). This is a little snippet of the lore for their story I've been developing seriously since 2021, but developing at all since 2020.

The story is set around an archipelago with different communities on each little island. The dude on the left is Doiro Homestead, mayor of a currently unnamed island (I'm changing the names, the originals are no longer canon) that is mining-run. The guy on the right is Angelo Grim, the sole resident of the smallest island in the archipelago, simply referred to as Angelo's Island. His life work is mapping out and researching the Underworld, which is actually a unique ecosystem deep underneath the earth's surface, but the Underworld is linked to negative beliefs by many so he is seen as suspicious to most people he interacts with. Doiro is an exception to this.

Characters without the background and lighting:

[frankhightower]

Commission Prices 2023 (and FAQ)

It's that time: I'm open for commissions! Got questions on the general process? Please see last year's FAQ. Questions on the changes? Please see below:

Why the price increase? Mostly because of inflation, but some I raised because I had severely underestimated how long it took to make (for instance, shading now takes me about as long as coloring and the linework combined; the previous price sheet assumed it took as long as just coloring. This wasn’t because I was “bad” at coloring and “good” at shading, I just hadn’t done a lot of shaded pieces to get a good grasp on the time it took)

How can I know which were raised for inflation and which were raised for “difficulty”? As a rule of thumb, if I raised it by $5, it was because of inflation; if I raised it by more, it’s because I’d underestimated it

Why $5? In 2017 I set my prices as 5,10,15, etc. and it felt fair at the time, but there’s been quite a bit of inflation since 2017.

So why does black and white still cost $5? I am committed to keeping a $5 option for people that can’t afford more. As with the refsheets, I know that art is a gateway to wider participation in the fandom so I strongly believe in having an affordable option.

So why does lineless only cost marginally more than the lined equivalent? Most artists charge, like, double! Because I happen to like doing it.

It says prices are per “full body” character, that’s new. Yes. After the “dollar menu” experiment, I’m more willing to not draw the full character (which, as I’ve mentioned, requires me short-circuiting my own brain that “needs” to see “the rest of it”) and lower the price accordingly. This is also why I’ve set my comic pricing as “per panel”: you rarely have the whole character in-panel in a comic so that offsets the extra stuff that the panel needs.

Wait, that said “per prop” last year! Why the change? Same reasoning: I’ve decided not to charge for props. This means the total price people will pay won’t go up as much.

What counts as a complex marking? That’s also new. As with refsheets, a character with more than 3 spots or stripes per limb or more than 6 spots/stripes total (not counting tail for either).

Those numbers sound kind of arbitrary... They’re based on practice, and I arrived at them by studying several established character designs so I know they’re fair.

My character doesn’t have spots or stripes, he has markings shaped like [insert symbol here]! A marking in the shape of a “y” counts as two stripes. A marking in the shape of an “H” counts as three. Curves (up until a J-shape) are treated as stripes. C-shapes, circles and dots are counted as spots.

As a practical example, suppose you have a giant heart shape on your back—that counts as three spots (and your back as a limb) so you’re good. If that heart has a line through it, now you have 4 (3 spots and a stripe) so it counts as complex.

My character has those, but I can’t afford the complexity charge... I’m sure we can figure out a way to clothe them so that only a manageable amount of markings is showing.

I heard you charged someone complexity for clothes though? Yes, if your clothes are covered in spots/stripes/etc, it will take me longer to draw it!

You weren’t charging for this last year! Why the change? I noticed I was unable to predict the time it would take me to draw a character when this happened (kind of necessary to be able to do when you’re squeezing drawing time in between your job) and this is definitely a factor.

Just quit your job! No.

This is all ridiculous, just use a pattern fill! Although I respect newspaper comic tropes, that is not the kind of work I offer.

This is only valid for 2024, how much are prices going to rise next year?! They probably won’t: by my math, these prices should still work with the inflation expected for next year. However, I’m not quite convinced of the effort valuation for the more expensive options (lineless may prove either easier or harder than I’m anticipating, but I won’t know until I’ve done more of them!) so I want to leave the door open to adjust prices again in a year.

…How does the discount option work? Find a piece in my gallery and tell me you want “this but with _____.” If I can reuse part of the drawing, I won’t charge you for that part. I keep the raw files for all my drawings so I’m very likely to find something I can reuse.

Posted using PostyBirb

[dusksmote]

How do you ink and color? Any tips? I love your art! 💜🖤

oh shit i got this ask months ago and forgot to answer

inking: god i hate lineart so much. the trick is to not do it 😂 unfortunately, i still find myself spending hours on lineart all the time @_@ 

the biggest thing i’ve found is making your lines varied in thickness. it adds to the interest. i also try to make my outside line thicker than my inside ones to break up the figure from the background. don’t be afraid to skips some lines and imply them with shading instead. i will color over my lines at the end to make them not as strong, but i’ve learned to still keep some lines black for extra emphasis. 

^ here’s one of my older pieces that i’ve been considering redoing. it has very little line variation, ALL the lines are colored so there’s no solid black, and there’s very little hard contrast in shading values. overall, it looks flat and uninteresting and if i had the time i’d redraw this one.

this is a more recent example of lineart that i think works a lot better. the characters are really well defined with a strong outline, but the inside lines aren’t harsh and distracting. you can see i recolored the lineart in kyle’s hair to be a dark red, and in some places it blends with the shadows to imply areas with more highlights. stan’s pants don’t have and lines in them, just the outside shape and pockets. 

you can see in this wip what the lineart looks like before i do all the shading and fancy stuff. stan’s pants look totally flat and straight until i start shading.

a lot of the time though i won’t even do lineart, especially if it’s a big scenic piece. the more zoomed out less detail you can convey, and lineart takes up a lot of space. 

^ this piece is an example where i do both, lineart and no lineart. the mirror image of kyle isn’t the focus, and i honestly didn’t feel like going in and drawing exact lines because they’d probably look fucked up anyway. i typically don’t put hard lines in backgrounds because it would take FOREVER and just be distracting.

the one thing you do have to be careful of with lineless art is contrast. hard lines are good contrast that show you what you’re looking at, and without them your image can blend together. 

here’s part of a painting i did last august, when i was first experimenting with lineless styles (full image on my NSFW twitter). can you tell what’s going on here? i sure as fuck can’t. there’s no contrast, and it makes all the skin tones blend together in an unintelligible mush.

contrast has always been one of my biggest weaknesses as an artist, so i’ve been trying to improve over time. here’s a more recent lineless drawing:

this one works because it had high contrast. the highlights are really bright and the shadows are really deep. you can still make out the facial features too, but there’s no ‘lineart’ layer’. everything was painted on in the same layer.

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coloring: oh my god i love coloring. it’s my favorite part of drawing and the reason why shit takes forever. a lot of the same stuff from before comes into play, like contrast. you can also portray some really interesting moods based on colors if you’re being stylistic, but also pay in mind to your environment.

i always color my background first. in fact, a lot of the time i’ll do the entire background before coloring a piece. the environment establishes your light levels and light source, and it’s typically easier for me to tweak colors on a figure than the ones in the background. in the above example with kenny, the background is a mostly solid black with a beam of light from the left. i picked kenny’s colors to fit in this environment. 

it’s also important to use references.  

you can see in this wip i’ve got a reference image for how light from a TV looks against figures and the way their shadows are cast across the wall. it also helped me figure out what colors to use in this situation.

a lot of coloring is just trial and error to see what works. i usually start with a flat base color and add value to it. if you put all your colors on different layers it’s really easy to change them quickly. 

here’s an example:

i got my base colors down and here i can see the skin tone is blending with the background, so i lightened it up for better contrast

i typically shade the skin first, then clothes. you can see here i did a dull skin tone with a bright colored shadow. this adds more contrast and interest. i always try to avoid doing dull shadows where you shift toward black. black shadows are really uninteresting and they can make your piece look muddy. i’ll typically shade with an orange, red, blue, or purple.

the final piece has a really bright highlight on it coming from behind. this just adds more visual interest and contrast. you can also see i’ve gone back into the pink shadows and added an even lighter, brighter peach value in places to show reflected light. this also gives the darker pink shadow an added outline effect, because it touches the base skin tone but looks lighter within. 

^ this one’s a good example of light and shadow (full image on my NSFW twitter lmao). there’s not a lot of color because it’s dark out, so everything had to be conveyed in values. there’s hard light across the stomach and then a shadow over the chest, but there’s still light being reflected up into stan’s face that lets us make him out. the rest is deep shadow and unimportant, so it’s all black.

that’s the other part, color and value determine where your eye is gonna look, so consider that when drawing. 

^ consider this piece i drew like a year ago. it has a lot of blues and reds, and originally i was going to make stan’s guitar blue. i don’t have the wips anymore, but it didn’t stand out and it didn’t look right with the image. after a lot of playing around i went with yellow because it’s bright, it breaks up the image, and it adds another color to the piece to balance it out.

the same thing happened when i was working on the cover image for What They Say About Us. 

you can see in this really early wip that i’d blocked in the colors and butters is totally naked. for one, i was like “damn that kid is WAY too naked in this image” and he also blended in with stan and cartman. additionally, there was a lot of warm colors on the left, a lack of color on the right, and an overall lack of blue.

first change i made was throwing a shirt on him and it made a huge improvement. the image looks much more balanced now and he’s not super distracting with his naked-ness.

other than that, coloring is just picking your base colors, blocking in shadows, adding highlight, and cleaning it up. if you wanna improve, look at photo references. look at other people’s art and examine how they use color and value. practice practice practice. have fun with it. the most fun i have coloring comes from figuring out interesting textures like the pharaoh headdress or kenny’s leather jacket. 

i find stock photos like this and study them to see how the light works

other than that, the rest is just playing around, seeing what works, and making things up as i go!

[askdarksidelogan]

1,000+ Follower Celebration!

DTIYS, Writing Prompt and Mood Board/Edit!

Thank you a thousand (pun intended) times over for helping me hit 1,000+ followers! I cannot express how grateful I am to have each and everyone of you and to have built such a sweet and positive community! I wish I could do something more special on an individual basis but 1,000 people is a lot. So internet hug for all of you!

DTIYS

So as promise, I made a Draw This In Your Style! I have multiple versions to help people who are on time crunches or just want to draw something a little more simplistic to something with lighting and a space background!

Now to clarify, lineless art is my style so if you don't want to draw lineless art then that's 100% okay! Have fun and feel free to add your own twists to it!

Writing Prompt

In order to include other forms of art to help include as many people as possible, I'm also making writing a writing prompt and edit prompt!

"Close your eyes," Deceit whispered sweetly before cupping his hands over Logan's eyes, "What do you see?"

Logan wish he could respond with something mystical such as a foggy forest or all of the dark sides together and happy.

But it wasn't...

"Nothing."

This prompt can go anywhere! Fluff about how Remus shows him how to use the imagination to angst about how when Logan does imagine things it's only violence! Go wild with it! Feel free to rewrite this prompt if you wish to use it in your writing but please keep the concept the same, that being Logan can't imagine or imagines something specific he doesn't want Dee to know ♡

Edit/Mood Board

For this you can use any pictures and it can either be an edit or mood board but there's a catch! You have to use at lease one picture from this blog. ANY picture, including fan art (ask the artist beforehand though and credit them) and other submissions! From asks to full drawings! You can even use the DTIYS picture if you wish ♡

You can also add as many filter and other stuff over the drawing to make it fit if you wish!

If you need a little more guidance, keep the theme to an orange and blue aesthetic!

General info/Rules

• Feel free to tag me but I won't guarantee I'll see or reblog it (Tagging me sometimes doesn't work and I don't want to fill this blog too much) but I'll comment and like it if I see it!

• You can also submit the post here if you want but I would reccomend making your own post for it!

• Please only make one post. You are allowed to do two or all three of the challenges but keep it all in one post. This'll make it easier for me to see everyone's creativity!

• You can always just DM me the post if you're anxious about posting it! I don't bite and your never a both for messaging me♡

• Tag it #1000Snapped or #1000SnappedAU to also help me find it! You can @ me and also tag it, anything to help me find it ♡

• Have fun! This isn't a competition or anything, just a fun thing for people to do to help me interact with all of you more!

Questions? DM, Comment or send an ask ♡

[blueberrydoodles]

Tw for eyes and s/h (if triggers should be added please let me know)

Don't have motivation to start the redraw of the Christmas thingy so take this slightly ventish thing in the meantime

It also gets a little personal, so close friends I wouldn't recommend looking at the description (and maybe the drawing in general) since I don't want to worry anyone. Im ok though I promise so if you do look please dont worry!

Time taken: Just under 6 hours (Specifically 5 hours and 47 minutes)

"I should be getting better..."

"Why is nothing getting better?!"

Rambling

Ok but honestly after fighting for this pose for a good while I had so much fun with the coloring! I knew from the start I wanted to do either blue/red or blue/red/purplish or pinkish? (To reference fusion of red and blue. Also to reference the color Tom's eyes change to before he goes all monstery). I ended up going with red and blue, but I guess some bits look slightly more purple??? Idk. But yeah more ventish Tom stuff. Im sorry that the hand/claw/whatever Tom is holding up looks disgusting.

Honestly this takes heavy inspiration from Foxi Boxi's (youtuber) "Overthinking" video. Specifically the part where the character is standing with blue string on there arms/near their feet. I tried to recreate the feeling that frame gave me, as it felt very fitting for what I wanted to do and I related to it a lot (again, it was just my interpretation of that specific part. If what Foxi was trying to do was different, ok)

Oh btw Tom isn't monstery because he's mad I just headcanon generally overwhelming emotions can cause a shift (I think this is just kinda common knowledge in the Eddsworld fandom now??? Like A headcanon so widely accepted that its basically canon???)

MMM DWAH IM ACTUALLY REALLY PROUD OF THIS

I may do more lineless stuff in the future because I actually love the way it looks!

What is this?

Basically its me feeling pressured to stay in touch with the world around me and focus on things like school while trying to keep my mental health in check. I recently get out of a very difficult couple of months and I'm still recovering from the emotions I experienced during that time. I'm generally very closed off and tight lipped about what I'm going through. Especially with my mom, so I feel like she expects a lot from me without knowing its harder for me than she would assume. She thinks I'm just lazy. She was especially hard on me during the months I mentioned before. It was hell on me and I feel into one of the longest lows I've had. I struggled with temptation to return to self harm as a coping mechanism. But I made it through. Like I said, I'm still recovering from it all, and other things have been happening that haven't made things much easier, but I promise I'm trying to be more productive and take care of myself. It can be a bit hard for me to keep up with everything, but I know I shouldn't use my mental health as an excuse to not do anything. I just wish my mom could understand that I try, its just that there are days where I just can't, if that makes sense

UPDATE

Made a version with his lower legs

I think the first one actually looks better though

[worldbuildguild]

https://paintable.cc/digital-painting-the-ultimate-beginners-guide/

Hello! i would like some help with mainly the anatomy (specifically hands) and the shading! And if its not too much to ask just a few tips on digital painting/lineless? (Characters are from Homestuck) Thanks in advance :3!

This is really cute.  I took a glance over the anatomy. I had to make an assumption on the leg stance since the supposed adult troll’s lower half was obscured by the dress itself. 

Based on the dent in her dress I could only assume that one leg was nudged underneath her somewhat. I recommend straightening this leg out in order to balance her better. If the intent was to make her lean in over the child, I would recommend bending her at the back instead of the knee.  I wasn’t certain if the head-size compared to the body was a stylistic thing, but I assumed a much, what with the general proportions of the head was rather toonified as well ( large eyes, small mouth ). If you want it a little more realistic looking, and I’ve misunderstood your intent with the head size, I’d shrink it a bit. This could also make your adult character appear older and physically more mature. 

I flipped the kid’s hand to rest flat against her pelvis. In the original picture, it seemed as if he was grasping for something since his fingers crooked upwards. generally, when we rest our hands at something, the palm will sit flat on the object/person, and the fingers will splay out from the centre of our palm. 

The source of the light was not super consistent in the original drawing ( there was a lot of light coming from the centre of the image, as well as something coming in from the left near the adult troll’s face, and one directly to the right of the child’s face ). So I picked the one that sat to their left and worked my way from there. Working with light coming in from the side is generally easier to start up with if you’re just getting into shading your pieces. That way you can divide your characters down the middle ( or 1/3rd, 2/3rds depending on whether the source sits DIRECTLY to their side or a little to the front or back ), and shade that entire chunk in. Working from there, you can  “carve” out your lights into the shaded half, following the form of your figures. 

Starting with large primary shadows is easiest, so don’t go into smaller, finer shadows before you’ve blocked out the big ones.  

We are still working on a comprehensive painting-post for you digital painters out there. But i can link you up to a couple of sources that can give you a few tips and tricks to the art of digital painting.

https://paintable.cc/digital-painting-the-ultimate-beginners-guide/ https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/10-basic-mistakes-in-digital-painting-and-how-to-fix-them--cms-23730

https://www.evenant.com/design/3-important-techniques-for-digital-painting/

- Mod wackart ( ko-fi ) 

[landeg]

31 Days of Apex: A Retrospection

I participated in the incredible #31DaysOfApex challenge hosted on Twitter, where fans created new content for every day of July based on a one-word prompt. I’ve signed up for/started lots of similar challenges in the past but always ended up having to drop out or trail off before the end... but this time, I managed to complete something for every day of the challenge!

My only goal was to make something by each day’s deadline, and it was a really interesting exercise both in technical skill and also in my management of not only my time, but my expectations and energy. Below, I go into more detail behind each piece.

To preface; the beginning of this challenge coincided with the beginning of a new personal time-management exercise where, for 5/7 days a week, I would only go on the computer at night. Combined with the deadline, this had an interesting effect on my time management and the quality of certain pieces.

Day 1 - Memory

From the start, I wanted to use the challenge as an opportunity to do more studies and to push myself wherever possible. This was the first piece I did and I had more time to work on it, so I used it as a digital painting study. I still think it’s a strong piece and it’s probably my favourite of the month. Symbolically, this character’s backstory doesn’t match up with her own memories, so the idea is she’s missing information she can’t quite place or remember, and this both scares and comforts her.

Day 2 - Blood

Another digital painting and lighting study that didn’t work out as well as the first, mostly due to time constraints meaning I couldn’t scrap it and start again. While I don’t like how it turned out, I did learn a lot. The character on the right is a field medic, and my intent was to show the calm after a successful rescue.

Day 3 - Mercy

Some days I relied more on the humour of a piece’s concept than the skill of its execution, though I also liked how this piece turned out artistically. After two days of intense studies, though, this was very quick and easy for me to turn out as it relied on existing skills.

Day 4 - Prize

This one thankfully came together very quickly, which I credit to the two previous painting studies making it much easier to achieve what I wanted. The character is searching for the disembodied head of the man who killed her parents, who is now acting as a robot, hence the vaguely half-machine-half-human silhouette in her hand.

Day 5 - Family

Another quick, simple illustration under a time crunch. The character framed by the nameless foreground figures has no memory of herself or her family.

Day 6 - Noise

For some pieces where I was under a time crunch, I experimented in an opposite direction; instead of studies, I played loosely with different techniques/brushes/etc to see what came out. This was a lineless style I ended up employing a lot when short on time. The piece pictured here was just one of four alternate colourways, presented in a pop-art style. The character is almost always depicted with thick coverings over her ears, so I thought she might be sensitive to auditory overload. This particular piece was retweeted by the character’s voice actress!

Day 7 - Mask

More relying on humour for lack of time/a better idea. A fun experiment in colour, though.

Day 8 - Healing

Another technically “easy” piece but with a stronger concept. It was actually pretty hard to get the reflection & condensation elements balanced right. The character pictured has a narrative thread relating to an old ex he has trouble moving on from.

Day 9 - Weapon

While obviously another joke, and made to be finished quickly, it was surprisingly difficult to get the duct tape and knife to read clearly without over-cluttering the lineless image. This little ‘bot is a drone used by one of the playable characters to hack areas of the map; it’s not NORMALLY an offensive weapon. This image was promo’d in a video stream by the character’s voice actor!

Day 10 - Truth

I only had less than an hour to finish this one by the deadline, but I still tried to experiment with silhouette and colour. It was surprisingly hard to get the interior silhouette to be legible. The outer silhouette is a playable character (not easily readible unless you’re familiar with his design) and the inner silhouette is his sister, whose disappearance he is trying to investigate.

Day 11 - Shield

A fun, self-indulgent one. Had a blast simplifying the game’s characters down into little caricatures. The character in the centre has abilities related to shields and protection, so many other people were drawing him for the prompt; I wanted to try and flip it, so I picked other characters he would be friendly with, and picked a non-lethal, lighthearted setting.

Day 12 - Ruins

Short on time so did a quick lighting study. A recent game plot has changed one of the areas of the map, submerging it in water and leaving it to “ruin”.

Day 13 - Hero

Another painting study. Really didn’t like how this one turned out, but had to turn in something, and I did learn a lot in the process. If I’d had more time I probably would’ve scrapped it and started again. This characters had recently been revealed to have been manipulated by another character who used gas-based offenses, whom she admired.

Day 14 - Rest

I was going to be away from mt computer until after the deadline, so I decided to make a traditional piece. I ended up enjoying it so much I tried to take the time to do a few more traditional pieces later. This piece was sort of a comedy of errors; I had to do it while I was out, and the pen I had brought with me to ink my sketch ran out, so I had to make do with a blue ballpoint pen, and I was missing several colours of coloured pencil. I think the finished piece reflects how rushed it was, and it did’t meet my concept, but I do still like it.

Day 15 - Skull

Another quick one but I wanted to experiment with a different line style. Wanted a sort of “graffiti” effect. One of this character’s skins includes a skull-shaped mask.

Day 16 - Growth

Extremely quick play on words because I didn’t have the time to work on anything meaningful and couldn’t think of anything better!

Day 17 - Home

Another traditional piece, this time by choice and with more time. Markers. It looks extremely like some janky art school homework on 2 point perspective because it extremely is. Perspective and backgrounds are very difficult for me - they just don’t “click” - but I had a lot of fun with this one. I kept my mistakes intact because I didn’t want to edit it too much. A lot about the technical perspective is wrong, but I think I achieved the “mood” I wanted. This location is a bar owned by one of the player characters where many of the other characters are shown to meet.

Day 18 - Sky

Very happy with how this one turned out, even though there are still lots of problems. Markers again. There’s a lot I would fix next time, and I think technically it’s lacking, but there are some specific areas I feel happy to have achieved, such as the almost brushed texture of the curved metal above his shoulder and the values of the shadow/reflections on the underside of the head piece. I’m also happy with how I was able to draw from my shoulder rather than my wrist when inking the curved lines, something I struggle with.

Day 19 - Target

An experiment in pushing the lineless style I’d already been playing with for a stronger likeness. The pose and expression in this could both be pushed more but I like the result. This character had just learned that one of the other players, whom she had trusted, was actually sharing her secrets with her enemy, and she didn’t know which one it was.

Day 20 - Friendship

I had this one concepted from when I first looked over the prompts. It was a fun challenge trying to simplify all the elements into the lineless, blocky style while being legible. This character has a strained relationship with one of his friends, and finally pushed her too far with his selfishness, and she now no longer responds to him.

Day 21 - Scar

Quick joke. This character was introduced briefly as a red herring for another character before being killed off. He was stabbed through the chest by another character’s hand, hence the scar pattern.

Day 22 - Dream

I wasn’t sure about this one while I was making it but I ended up liking how it turned out. I wanted to capture the character’s robotic legs bent at an unnaturally straight 90 degrees, like a Barbie doll. The flat background and lighting make it feel like an indoor stage. The little “electric sheep” are inspired by iDogs.

Day 23 - Meal

After a few days of not having time to really spend on any piece, it was fun to get to spend time on concepting and composing this. I always admired these kinds of watercolour-like food illustrations and this is the first time I’ve had any success in creating one myself. I concepted and sketched out the individual items traditionally before working out the composition within the box digitally. Each food item/utensil is inspired by the different characters’ design elements. Only two of the now-current characters are excluded due to plot reasons. In particular, I like how one of the character’s dome-shaped shields acts as the base and cover of the box.

Day 24 - Hobby

Wasn’t a fan of how this one turned out. I think the likeness is a bit off, and his facial anatomy is skewed. But I also like how the general composition, tone, and bee turned out. This character’s concept art originally imagined them as a beekeeper who would use smoke to fight.

Day 25 - Fear

An incredibly rushed piece that I intended to go back in and add more detail to, similar to day 4, but I actually took a step back and decided I liked the blocky, flat-colour version. This character is the youngest of four, all of whom are MIA or worse, along with his father, and his mother is losing her memory. He’s talking to her through a handheld holographic device. This piece gained more traction, most likely thanks to the subject matter since this is a popular character.

Day 26 - Holiday

I didn’t want to do a religious holiday like Christmas or Easter. A lot of other people also interpreted the prompt as a vacation, but I had already done a sort of “beach vacation” piece for day 11, so I instead went for a “public holiday” and chose NYE/NYD. This was fairly quick but the lighting was an interesting experiment. I knew this one wouldn’t be as popular because it wasn’t as “flattering” but I personally really like it. The girl on the left is kind of goofy and completely un-self-conscious and I think it’s captured here.

Day 27 - Music

Really didn’t like how this one turned out. I don’t think the likeness is good at all, the lighting is poor, and the gold detailing feels lazy. But I liked other elements, such as the pose and the clothing.

Day 28 - Treasure

This is my least favourite of the entire month, but I also had the least time available to work on it before the deadline so I had no opportunity to scrap it and start over, which I sorely wanted to do. The likeness is terrible, but more than that the base anatomy is off, the pose is stiff, and the lighting/colours are cheap. I wish I could’ve done better by this character; but, I am glad I had something finished at all.

Day 29 - Skin

This was probably my third attempt at this picture and I’m still not happy with it, but again, I had to finish something. I almost considered scrapping the concept entirely and choosing something easier but ended up seeing it through. The concept itself is actually recycled from an older piece of mine for an entirely different fandom, because I didn’t think I did it justice then, either. Would still like to revisit this concept with this character and take more time.

Day 30 - Trust

After a few days of feeling really dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the art I’d been making, I finally more time to dedicate to a piece, and I’m overall happy with how this one turned out. I decided to go for a different medium entirely with pixel art, which also gave me the opportunity to try and animate it. I started off confident and then started to get worried towards the end, but all the elements came together when I added the portal colour effects. This is an alternate reality version of one of the player characters, who appears through a portal and allows that character to escape the facility she’s being kept in, encouraging them to trust the “voices” she hears which are actually versions of herself trying to help her. This piece was retweeted by the official Apex Legends Twitter account!

Day 31 - Freestyle

I had this planned out early in the challenge and I’m really, really happy with how it turned out. It’s probably tied with my favourite along with the very first piece (how fitting). I was worried about how I was going to capture the movement without over-complicating the lineart, having so many people in one image, etc. before I realised the focus was entirely on gesture, and then everything clicked. I went for a thicker brush, which forced me to conserve my lines, and tried to simplify each character down to the bare minimum needed to recognise them. They’re also all wearing new non-canonical outfits so I used their familiar colour schemes for the same purpose. It’s not perfect, but I love it, and it’s everything I’d hoped I’d be able to end the challenge on.

I really, really enjoyed the entire month and the way it tied in with my new time management schedule. It gave me some achievable short-term goals which added up to this long-term achievement I can now look back on; I learned a lot both about balancing my energy and about technical skills, I found ways to stay motivated, and most importantly I learned to not get caught up on the individual slip-ups and pieces I didn’t like as much and to instead focus on the bigger picture. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and supporting this event! I found so many other incredible fanartists, writers, and content creators through this challenge and I can’t wait to see the bonus content released over August!

[moonanagames]

I love your game and hope that you don't mind me asking about how your sprites were animated so fluidly. Is it easier to animate lineless sprites or lined sprites?

Thank you so much!!! Glad you loved my lil’ game T_T!!!

General thoughts on how to do animations will guide my thoughts better, I think, I hope you can bear with me a little bit.

I started doing animations on my own with anglerman giving me tips here and there (for the rpgmaker demo)! The “tips” can be translated as him coming at me and saying it was very ugly/looked like poop and why. Getting a honest friend that will say your stuff sucks and why will help you improve faster and get rid of the ego as well! That’s my first tip!

Now anglerman joined our animation forces, and that person is a god, he learned animation extremely quickly (in comparison to me, this slow ass taurus person), and he says the only way for him was that he already knew a shitton of anatomy. By knowing anatomy you kinda know how bodies work, essentialy, which makes you to skip around like 10 steps to make good animations. A lot of new artists overlook anatomy, but anglerman and I as well, took a long time only doing anatomy sketches before trying to do final products (in school I would fill up whole notebooks with anatomy poses, drawings of arms, hands etc). Anatomy is key to understanding movement, and further, making animations. Another key point too, is as someone who is new to anatomy, doing overly exhagerated animations will be better than subtle ones. This means redrawing each frame taking attention at each detail and the details being VERY different from one frame to the other, but not making a illustration at each frame. It can be all over the place, tbh, animation artists vs illustration artists are very different minded people xD usually animators have more of a rough sketch, more fluid from the get go, more interest in cool poses than beautiful final touches and 8 hours of lighting retouches.

Lined sprites are easier as they can go in any BGs, but more difficult as you have to draw all of them and that’s a fricking huge hassle omg, I would never do that unless I’m in look for pain! But I’m lazy and like to do things quickly/swiftly! Non lined sprites will mingle with BGs at some point, you either are a carefree person who accepts that and goes forward, or you suffer forever and try to match every bg of your game to your character. A nice idea is making some stylistic decisions before producing, like a set palette for backgrounds! I didn’t do that, now I suffer :D

some other tips that i used for learning!

these vids here about the 12 principles of animations

this talk here by skullgirls animator

checking old fighting games to check their keyframe animations!

and this is a vid of a animation being done for vvtz!

Hope this all helps! It’s not much, but was exactly what I used when I started! xD

[izahunny]

your local hunny’s art tips

So yeah, I’m actually gonna commit to this. Note that my experience is different to everyone else’s, I’ve officially drawn for 6-5-ish years, and my style of drawing may be different. I’m just a fucking baby and maybe this is some obvious shit. But yeah, I wanna give out some tips as a thanks to the SMITE community and such. 

1) Take small breaks in between, step away from the art and do something like go on your phone or eat shit, before going back into the piece in your own time. It's obvious shit, but often we can't help ignoring the urge to take a break.

2) Draw to your aesthetic! Draw your faves w/ instagram wavy eyebrows or glossy eyeshadow, or draw them in your favourite or dream outfits. The enthusiasm and the excitement provide the perfect motivation to do things like being more productive or experimenting and getting more creative.

3) The brushes I use for painting at the present moment are here, for my lineless art, I use a solid ink pen and this blend brush.

4) When it comes to blending, it's better to use an acrylic brush with high blending and low opacity, and the colour picker. It's more realistic when the blending has texture - especially when it comes to the skin.

5)DON'T HESITATE BITCH!!!!! ! ! Don't be afraid to use different colours for shading (it's more vibrant), experiment w different poses and expressions and techniques. In traditional art, I go ALL OUT by drawing w ball-point pen and messily scribbling w copic markers.

(If you want more examples of not hesitating bitch, ive got a handful of traditional art on my art insta)

When you don't hesitate bitch, you earn more confidence and your works look more fluid and have more character. If you mess up?? Girl ur good, learn from ur mistakes :*

6) A friend was the one who told me this, and without this bit of advice, siiiiiiiiis I'd be NOWHERE. It's basically 'You know you're good, know your worth. Yeah, validation is great, but don't go looking for it in order to believe your art is good."

7) Super fucking obvious, but alter your drawing environment that optimizes as much productivity and comfort as possible. For me, I need bg noise, I have a playlist w songs that get me in the mood, I Skype call or go on Netflix/Stan (I like watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, 1000 ways to die, 50 ways to kill your lover, RuPaul's drag race, or deadly women)

8) You know how they say that in order to prevent same face syndrome, you use various shapes? That shit works. Do it. That was how I finessed thru my smite requests

8) *WILL BE UNDER THE READMORE, THIS IS THE ONE I WANNA TALK ABT A LOT*

Aside from using references for what you'd normally use refs for, I use references to mainly diversify chars.

I'll explain fully, when I draw certain POC chars, I find an appropriate model/face claim that suits them - this helps me to 1. Make them look more realistic/unique and 2. POC w/o shooting in the dark. This is usually for adapting the char to my art style, so if its an irl POC then I’m good. I don't use this for just POC chars, often I use models that look as close to my ideal idea or look for a character or poses that I like. Usually I keep the likeness or I exaggerate, as long as I have a visual reference of my idea. 

Mainly my ‘models’ are actors or models, often from Instagram. I like using poses from older paintings or Instagram photos. Basically, I use Instagram a lot.

An example of using a POC to help model another POC.  I like Lucy l.iu for nu wa bc of her elegant and mature look, also I like her facial structure. (Also she doesn’t look completely like Lucy but it was during the time where I was still getting the hang of likeness). Comparing her to the model I used for Chang’e, you can see different shapes and facial alignments.

I wanted to capture Chronos’ jawline perfectly so it caters to my style, so I use my insta crush bc he has the jawline I need. I find the post w the right angle and use it, then I thought he wouldn't look complete w/o the large lips nopalitoss has, so I gave it to him. He looks cooler and the looks gives him more of a vogue handsome look while still maintaining Chronos’ maturity.

For Nu Wa, I used Justine’s (my other insta crush) poses so I could capture this Instagram ‘feelin’ myself’ vibes for the piece I'm working on. I use various and mash them together to get what I envisioned. Also Justine is my body reference for Nu Wa.

I referred to this guy in order to give Thanatos an appropriate hairstylbc I didn't want Thanatos to have the same hair style as Chronos. I also used him for Chronos,I used this pose for him which I thought looked neat. Same model, different purposes.

Of course this accommodates to my style so it may be harder or easier for yall to find refs. However I still think its important to use refs for drawing poc characters, so that you gain a better understanding of certain features pocs possess.

So this concludes my art tips, kudos to you for reaching to the end and listening to my ramblings. Hopefully these would help in some way, if not, then I hope it was a nice read. I’ll do one more part, it will be a tutorial so feel free to hit me up w what you want to learn/or know what I do in particular. 

[hsactomega]

You've probably been asked this 413 times before, but how do you emulate the art of Homestuck? Is it all completely from scratch, or is there some sort of sprite-building program that you use?

We have certainly not be asked this 413 times before. In fact I can only really recall being asked about this sort of thing once or twice. That being said, long post ahead I guess, so. Under the cut!

First off no, we absolutely do not use some sort of sprite-building program. For sure quite often we do re-use and edit assets either that we have made or that have appeared in-comic to save time, but only sometimes, and this is something that Hussie did very frequently as well, if you are paying attention. IMHO it probably increases the feeling of authenticity hahaha.

So yes! We emulate it from scratch. But the thing to note, first off, is that emulating Homestuck style in particular is no different from putting in the effort to emulate any other style. The exact same sorts of techniques are applied although honestly it really depends on the individual. There is no magic trick to getting good at this sort of thing! If you develop your skills as an artist and keep at it, you will be able to develop the kind of observational skills required to emulate a style. Some will probably be easier than others but everything just takes time.

The second thing to note is that homestuck style is particularly unique in how much of a consistent style it really isn’t. The style of almost any given panel throughout the entirety of canon varies WILDLY not only because Hussie’s style developed over time, but because he obviously had plenty of guest artists contribute, and put different amounts of effort into different things. (In fact which sorts of styles he switches between, when, and why is also arguably PART of the style. Less of art and more of telling a story through a comic, though.)

I mean at first almost everything was in black and white, things had bold outlines and sprites were used the majority of the time. Then things started gaining more and more color, “hero-mode” drawings became more common, and whether things had lines or were lineless started to become more or less random? I’ve examined panels a whole lot and I have yet to find much consistency or logic between lineless and lined art.

“Hero-mode” drawings started out with these long, lanky limbs with highly distorted perspectives for style and appeal. Then things morphed and changed until now hero-mode consists of these soft little bodies with round heads, noodle-like limbs, and bubbly hands with 3 bean fingers. Backgrounds, effects, animations, etc etc - it’s basically this hodgepodge of different techniques.

The thing with Hussie is that he is an INCREDIBLY skilled and talented artist. Like….holy crap, just take a brief look at literally anything he’s made outside of MSPA, it’s insane. The art he put out for homestuck is something extremely simple that he could churn out really really fast, occasionally putting in a little bit more effort in order to make things stand out, and mastering ways to save time through photoshop shortcuts. Hell the photoshop shortcuts are also a part of the style, in my opinion!! There are also a lot of animation styles and shortcuts that he has that I’ve tried to pick up on and emulate both in panels and flashes.

On a more personal note. I can’t speak for anyone else, but before I ever even got into homestuck I had been finding that my own personal style tended to already drift towards drawing characters with round heads and big round eyes. So for me it wasn’t too hard to tweak how I drew things.

On the right, a doodle of the main character from my thesis film. On the left, doodle of Kanaya. I swear to god I was like the exact opposite of a homestuck when I designed her, I hadn’t read any of it and had been stubbornly REFUSING to read it, LOL. 

Granted I don’t really have much of a “style” that’s particularly distinctive I think. I kind of pride myself on being adaptable, which is a necessary skill for an animator like myself to have. But round heads with big oval eyes are pretty easy for me to do and get a lot of mileage and expressiveness out of.