#but when do you ever look at my art for correct anatomy

[dio-the-thot-exterminator]

Does Waspinator escape this ass whooping?

[meanbossart]

Any tips for new or returning artists?

I’m hoping to discover my own art style this year (from scratch, no references) by just throwing myself into learning anatomy, drawing random characters, and praying I can figure out how to add depth to pieces.

I have very minimal artistic experience and my work has improved significantly from where I started years ago, but not even close to where I’m hoping to be.

I can freehand faces and tweak the anatomy accordingly but I feel limited. Maybe it’s (in part) because I’m using an iPad, apple pen and Procreate? I recently added the paper-feel screen cover and that’s helped significantly with control.

Do you draw on paper to help your muscle memory? Honestly, ANYTHING helps. I watch videos on anatomy and art all of the time — I just don’t know if my brain is absorbing it correctly 😭

Hello! I don't know if I can say anything in particular to the returning aspect of your situation since I've drawn pretty consistently all of my life, but if someone else has had that experience of picking the skill back up after a long break, feel free to share your thoughts in the replies!

I'm not fully sure what you mean by "hoping to discover my own art (...) from scratch, no references", but if it means trying to whip up a style from thin-air and blocking out all outside influence or take any inspiration from existing art that you like... Uh... Don't do that! I don't see the benefit. All art is a derivation of a derivation, I can assure you that by compiling a folder or collage of your favorite works, borrowing and reworking aspects that you like, you WILL land on an original style and have learned so much more about it in the process than if you hadn't done that at all.

Also I can assure you that drawing on procreate/ipad is not a hindrance whatsoever, plenty of professional artists prefer it over display tablets. @wolfskulljack-art comes to mind as someone who has created several incredible tour posters for Metallica, all in her ipad.

I must have drawn on paper a total of 10 times in the last 5 years, I have no idea if that's bad or not... It Probably is, but I'm at peace with it, LOL. Generally when it comes to improving ( and I know that this is a frustrating answer) the secret is to just draw a lot. There is no class that is going to take you from amateur to Caravaggio, it takes time and takes making "bad" art. A lot of bad art. When it comes to learning anatomy, I think the best thing you can do is draw a lot of real-life human bodies from reference while consulting an anatomical diagram or model of some kind. Otherwise you will just making a bunch of lines without ever understanding their purpose.

I don't think you need to be an expert at the human body AT ALL before jumping into stylization and making confident, art, but if you do something like this whenever you draw I think you will end up learning a whole lot. Muscle memory (no pun intended) will come to you naturally!

I also have a lot more tips in my #tutorial and #advice tags that you can look through if you want to, otherwise, I would tell you to just do more drawing and less looking for the perfect tutorial or golden advice. A lot of artists get very boggled down in learning in the most correct and effective way, and while there are pointers that can be given, they tend to be very straightforward🤷 and the rest falls on you to follow through with!

[moons-of-dewclan]

could I ask how you draw the comic bubbles? Maybe a Speedpaint please? They’re very unique looking and I want to make my own comics. Also is it okay if I ask how do you draw that line less style? It’s very cute and I’m looking to convert my art to something more simpler so it’s less time consuming. I saw your tutorial on this before but I still don’t get it. How do you get the shapes to look anatomy correctly? Like when it comes to muzzles and bodies? That always seems to be something I struggle with. Sorry for the long questions I’m just very inspired. I haven’t drawn in a while and this gives me new ideas and such. I’m also sorta new to art so I want to find out how to do this because it seems like it will work best with what I want!

NYELLO

UHAAAA do you mean the speech bubbles or the panels? either way, speech bubbles are just a blob and then i erase around it to make a better shape!

ANNND the panels are made with https://ittaimanero.gumroad.com/l/UltimateComicToolkit?layout=profile THIS LOVELY SET. (idk why i don't use the speech bubbles. just the.. panels. but yknow) i got it on a hefty sale a long while ago. makes cutting the panels out very easy

i'm sure there are free alternatives if you search around, too! then i just cut out random shapes out of the panels with the same tool to give the panels a fancy shmancy, yknowmsayin

LINELESS STYLE.. AAA i'm not sure how to explain past the tutorial, sorry! i'm not sure how else i could show how i do that outside of the speedpaint and step-by-step :(

anatomy is a whole different beast and not much to do with the style! the only way you can get anatomy to look correct or recognizable as the species you're trying to draw is to study it and actually know what you're drawing / how to draw it! studies and reference are the only answers. past that there aren't really any tips it is the old tale of 'study and practice'. i've been at the art thing for many years and literally just drawing over and over is the only way i've ever improved LASKDNLKASD BUT! there are definitely methods you'll have to find out on your own, that make learning easier and more fun. some tutorials don't help me at all bc they don't teach in a way i learn well from. others, BLAM, something clicks. but it's different for everyone

best i've found is, during a 'study', use simple shapes to trace some photos of real cats. block out their limbs and their bodies, and their heads and see what makes those simple shapes still translate as 'cat'! then use your studies as a reference while you freehand some stuff

things will look wrong without referencing if you don't already have an understanding what's been drawn, and EVEN THEN, they might still look wrong if you're very critical of your own art. so just keep gong for it!

[marciaillust]

How long does it take for you to finish drawing?

I'm an artist (beginner) and i unconsciously set unrealistic goals for myself and need a reminder of how long it takes to complete a drawing, Thanks.

Hi! In the context you presented it in, that is a really interesting question, so I'll try to approach it thoroughly. I hope I won't make you roll your eyes too much.

Where to start, where to start... I guess the first thing I should say is that there is a difference between time I spend preforming the action of <drawing>, and the time I spent <working> on a particular piece. The first would be counted in hours, the second one - days. I'm a big believer in slowing things down, and giving things time - going through options, gathering research and references, taking breaks every 1h of sitting and drawing - and seeing things through until I achieve the goal I set at the beginning of the process.

The goals are usually different each time: "quick design", "character exploration", "analysis of an artist's linework and experimenting with the knowledge gained", "creating an aesthetically pleasing image", and so on and so forth. Of course I don't write these down like it's a school assignment, but knowing in the back of my head what I'm actually doing helps me manage my expectations. I also enjoy being conscious of why I create - when I was younger regardless of what I was doing I had the thought "AND IT MUST LOOK GOOD AND PRESENTABLE! BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL LOOK!" ...and I think that obsession is the cancer of creative process.

Since the goals for each picture are different, the time I'll spent on achieving each one will be different as well, because the "satisfactory results" lay in different places. For example, the Marcile sketchpage was created in one afternoon, and took approximately 3 hours. The goal was to play around with a brush that has no opacity forcing my lines to be more decisive. I did that and so it is "finished". There's nothing else I want from it.

On the other hand, the cover of Asterism took about 10 days to create, the goal of which was to make "an aesthetically pleasing cover picture taking colour inspiration from the works of (specific list of artists)". I took my time designing it so that it looks aesthetically pleasing, made sure the anatomy is "correct" (a nebulous statement when it comes to stylised humans), took my time masking, and picking colours, and shading. I wanted it to "look good" to my own eyes so if something was not working I would go back, change it, alter it, move it around... that's the wonderful thing about personal art, you can take as long as you like making something satisfactory.

The funny thing is, with what the Asterism cover actually is (a cellshaded image), it could have been done probably in 4 days by the me 4 years ago. But that person was willing to sit 8-10 hours a day to draw with no breaks, she had little social life, and treated herself as a little circus seal performing tricks so that people clap around her, and the clapping was soooo nice because it meant that people remembered her and she mattered. And it worked for her! For long 10 years! Until her arm gave out, and the reality of never being able to draw again became more tangible than ever, and it's been following her like a fog ever since for the past 4 years. The me today works about 4 hours a day and every hour I take about a 30 minute break. I also don't post half the stuff I draw. There is also another aspect that dictates the speed of creating and that is familiarity with the subject matter. The less you know something, the fast you'll draw it! But as you get to know the intricacies of the process, and see all the building blocks, it will start taking *longer* because you will start accounting for every block. But then you'll eventually get familiar with the blocks and so the time spent on a picture will go down again! The cool yet overwhelming thing about art is that, there are always hundreds of building blocks. Form, composition, ambient occlusion, saturation, hue, light balance, line form...... and those are just the *some* of the generalised *categories*. And each category will have it's own subsection of building blocks! And then those blocks will interact with each other to create completely new area of expertise! This is crazy! Marcille sketch page took me only 3 hours to create because I am already quite familiar with linework - I have drawn 3-4 comicbooks worth of linework. This also means I am familiar with believable anatomy, more or less, which got utilised in the Asterism cover - the main bulk of linework got created during a 3h livestream. So.... what's the answer.... "It's all relative" is so unsatisfactory and probably not what you looked for. But you can draw something in 3 days and kill your body over it. Or you can become an expert in a field and dish the same picture out effortlessly in 8 hours. You can also split that 8h block over multiple days bringing you back up to 3 days. You could even add a whole day of visual research which might make your picture only marginally better. And even if we calculate it in terms of raw working time, pen-to-paper, like a self-inflicted capitalist tumor, that time can fluctuate still due to personal visual library and knowledge base. If I asked Tom Fox how long it takes for him to create his sketch pages his answer would probably be downward of 30 minutes. Yet I need whole 3 hours to create something *less* anatomically correct than him. And so here we are at the end of this perhaps unnecessary essay. And all we learned is this: it depends. Dry, not nuanced tl;dr, my personal timings: single sketch - 30mins; single linework pic 1-2h; Cellshaded illust - 16h; Rendered illust: 20-25h.

[lemon-lime-behavior]

Do you have any references for your older zoro? I’ve been looking for the more plump muscular references and can’t find any ;-;

I apologize in advance I got a bit rambly.

So usually when I'm drawing bodies I'm not necessarily looking at a single reference. I sketch the pose I want first and then start digging up things to help me get certain body parts right, other body parts I'll just bullshit based on memory. I've spent a decent amount of time practicing, studying anatomy, and doing figure studies, so I can usually pull off something that looks mostly correct just off the cuff, but references are very helpful for bodies or poses I'm not used to and also to keep me from getting too much in a rut with my own knowledge and developing bad habits.

Here's the general process:

Now how I found those reference images was googling things like "shirtless man leaning forward" and "arm grabbing other arm" and "man squatting" and then just being persistent in my digging. Sometimes it takes a while!

All this to say, I don't have just one reference photo for what I used when drawing Zoro, it was a combination of a few of them and just what I already knew offhand. I can share some of the images I used in that drawing, though it's not all of them (I deleted them from my files as soon as I was done with them and I couldn't find all of them again)

I definitely hear you though, on how it's stupidly difficult to find good reference photos for body types that aren't underwear models. They're there if you dig around though, and if you want thick muscular guys in particular I would recommend looking up wrestlers and dudes who compete in strongman competitions.

As for the second part of your question, I mean like, sure, I can't stop you, but I would caution against it. Like I said earlier I tend to bullshit parts of my anatomy and... well did you ever play the game Telephone as a kid? If you use my art as a reference you'll be copying any mistakes I made, and the farther away from the source material it gets the more distorted it becomes. Using someone else's art as a reference is okay if you're deliberately trying to study that person's style, but in most cases when creating original work finding photographic reference material, or better yet in person reference material when possible, is best.

My number one piece of advice is to just draw as many bodies as you can, of as many sizes and shapes as you can. If you want more varied but still muscular body types try looking up different sports players, that's always a pretty good bet.

Some good websites for finding varied body types I can recommend are: https://www.fatphotoref.com/ (you have to apply to gain access but it's free) https://www.adorkastock.com/ (A very large catalogue, an old dear friend of mine) https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing (Leads you through your own timed figure drawing sessions)

And of course you can't go wrong with doing some studies of bones and muscles!

Good luck!

[barbatusart]

how do you make your art so expressive and fluid-looking? do you have a technique or is it just how you've trained your hand? I try to get my figures more fluid but they always look so stiff! even practicing figure drawings...maybe because you draw so fast that helps? idk man...any advice? thank you!

thank you first off for such a compliment!!! fluidity & shape are the things i prize most in visual art to the point where ive given up gunning for "correctness" in favor of chasing the preservation of motion lol. gonna put my response and my Full Visual Art Journey to where i am now under the cut as it's an image-heavy one and a bit long winded (shocking for me to be long winded i know LOL)

so i absolutely used to have the exact same problem many years ago of my stuff being too stiff, ie my sketch would be loose and fun but my inks would be nervous & tight & not as fun to look at as the sketch

this is a super old thing from 2011 when i was still on my anatomy journey (you can tell cus the sternum and nose are, uh, interesting LOL) but you can kinda see what i mean - the sketch underneath is fun & has movement as sketches do, but these little fineliner inks are so visually Nervous. the issue for me at the time was that i was subconsciously exactly that: nervous of messing the picture up, and that fear of making a mistake telegraphed loud & clear to my inks. using fineliner tools 100% did not help me either, as microns & the like have little to no "give" to them; you put the pen to paper and you get what you get, and you have to sit there & meticulously build the line up to get any kind of lineweight.

i was ultra dissatisfied with my output so i made 2 changes a few years after this: i stopped doing pencil sketches and started just doing straight inks, and i swapped to a brushpen

these are from 2012 or so & some of the first things i did in straight brushpen inks with no pencil, and theyre a total mess but they are LOOSE AND FUN! i had 100% no idea what i was doing with the brushpen and had no control over it because i was so used to the thin lines pencil & microns gave me, so everything i made was sloppy & out of control as i was struggling to keep control of the tool, but honestly it was absolutely freeing for me. now i had the looseness of the sketch right there at the forefront. the issue was though, how could i get enough control of the brushpen to make something that wasnt so messy? even if i had freedom, if i got too wacky with it, itd just turn into a black ink mess. i was completely done with pencils at this point and didn't want to go back & risk losing this looseness & freedom, and then i realized like - what if i just do my straight ink sketch like this & then figure out a way to go back in & "carve" into it to clean it?

enter the next tool in the arsenal, the white gel pen. this was my first experiment with it & it was legitimately a complete game changer, because now i could slop on my inks as much as i wanted & go right back in with the gel pen & literally carve out the black lines to as crisp as i pleased while still preserving the motion & energy of the ink sketch. i noticed even with tons of layers of gel too there was no way to fully get rid of the ghost outline of my corrections, so at this stage i leaned into that quality even harder & changed from white paper to exclusively brown

at this point i wanted to showcase loud & clear to myself exactly what i was cleaning up, i LOVED how this looked. i even went a step further & got some really translucent red ink for a second brush pen (had to fill the cartridges with the red ink manually in the sink lol) so i could do an even sloppier red sketch underneath, half precise slop on black ink on top of it, clean it up with the gel, go back in with the black, forever and ever and ever

and like this was an absolute physical mess of material but it was beyond fun. id completely given up on anything being clean or correct, because i could always clean it & correct it & have a blast showcasing the journey of start to finish as preserved in the materials. i basically gave myself permission to like, be imperfect, treat inks like clay, & draw with complete abandon like a kid again

eventually utrecht stopped making the kind of brown paper i loved (these brown paper books were HEAVY DUTY & could take so much punishment, when i was done with a book id legit flip it over & start drawing on the backs of the pages) & then all the available material physically couldnt handle the amount of medium i was putting on my pages, like legit the paper itself was just ripping & dissolving lmao. so at this stage i got an ipad (i could never wrap my head around a tablet & not looking at my hand and the tool touching the artwork) & pivoted from trad to digital in like uhhhh 2018ish & just did the exact same techniques of slopping inks down, carving with the eraser, going back in with the inks, carving more with the eraser, and so on. and now since it was digital & i never had to worry about my paper literally melting underneath my brushes LOL i could just go forever on one thing

early attempts while learning the new medium in my fury road era

tail end of the SAD SACK roughs in like 2019ish (SAD SACK really was what got me locked in with my digital technique & how i wanted to attack it)

tail end of the SORTIE roughs from like 2021, at this stage i think my style got so fuckin crazy because i wasnt worried about my pages getting destroyed anymore so im like Violent with the ipad lmao, that & it got Really fast bcus since i wasnt bothering with correct anymore & had no medium-being-destroyed barrier i could just gunshot-speed get these down

and then most recently DE RERUM NATURA from like january of this year which i think showcases what im currently doing pretty accurately

this got long whoops lol POINT IS: i dont worry about being correct (because i can fix it later), i dont worry about being neat (because i can clean it later), and i skip the sketch stage entirely by slop-inking & eraser-carving interchangeably, which lets me fix and clean all i want while preserving the energy & action of the first marks. plus, going straight inks all the time i think trained my hand & eye to A. put down the marks i want correctly in the General Space of where i want them, and B. do it faster & faster lol

after all this my advice to you is this: swap to a new tool! try a brush, try paint, try a medium you have no control over but something that forces you to improvise and remember whats so fun in the first place about making a mess on your canvas of choice. remember that any mark you make, you can tweak, fix, carve, shove around, whatever. i think a lot of people get stuck in the rules they have set for themselves with art (i know i did!) and we tend to forget that there are no rules. try & remember that feeling of being little & just going wild on paper without any care whatsoever about being Right. go for it, because you can always tweak it - even inks arent permanent 🤓

[xuune]

I'm a pretty young artist and I'm not sure what I need to start off with.

Anatomy or color?

tl;dr there's no correct answer for this.

but you can start off by asking yourself what do i want to draw? what do i want to draw right now? depending on your subject, what style you want to learn/do (painted, linework) then that can determine how you think while you draw.

however, you won't and never will learn one thing into completion and then move onto the next, its a continuous process of learning and relearning.

you can learn either anatomy or color one at a time, or dedicate time split for both. imo, you learn both best together. either way, you learn both continuously for the entire time that you will ever engage with drawing. there's always a lot to learn.

i feel like a lot of beginner artists get wrapped up on thinking that one should be prioritized over the other, so my answer to this question is long:

the usual route people go to for this question is to focus on fundamental studies. in the few semesters of fundamental courses i had, our structure was this:

learn solid forms, shape, lights, grayscale values, perspective AND gesture/figures

continue building on gesture/figures AND start learning color(traditional painting)

continue with gesture/figure + start learning anatomy AND continue learning color (digital painting)

we start off with many other basic building blocks first before getting to anatomy/color, but those basic blocks are essential to building up how you think when practicing both. but where do you put this in practice while drawing for fun? this is time dedicated for studying fundamentals, after all. schooling helps, but a majority of us start out as self taught, especially since there's a multitude of free learning resources online.

if your preference of learning is to do things one step at a time, then maybe dedicating your time to fundamentals is the way to go. there's lots of educational resources out there to help build these fundamentals. at the top of my head, here's a few resources for anatomy: proko, sinix design, glenn vilppu (great for gestures). if there's anything to take away from this regarding anatomy, its to practice perspective, form, gesture, and figure first and foremost. anatomy dives deeply into more complex forms. start simple before you get overwhelmed.

unfortunately, i dont have many resources to give you in terms of learning fundamentals for color. i primarily learned off of experimenting and studying off of other artworks. i've already covered a lot on my thought process behind how i think when painting, so that post might be insightful the moment you get more into using color.

now, im gonna assume that you haven't had formal schooling in art (either not yet, or won't), but you spend your time drawing for fun. and now you want to dedicate a bit more time and practice into anatomy/color. i started off self taught, so i can relate.

earlier, i mentioned this question:

where do you put [fundamentals] in practice while drawing for fun?

when looking at your question again, i think of this: do i want to practice fundamentals as i draw for fun?

there's definitely a difference and spectrum between "going balls to the wall crazy and drawing for fun" and "using my drawing time for studies/practicing fundamentals."

if your answer is yes to that question above, then you're on the right track for seeing how this works in practice the moment you participate in both "drawing for fun" and "practicing fundamentals" for self practice.

in any drawing i do, i want my subjects to be posed as [xyz], but i also want the final illustration to look like [xyz] for color.

i gather references for both posing and color, and while drawing i look to study both at the same time. with posing, im looking at refs to study anatomy as i draw. sometimes i may only use one ref photo, or multiple, but either way im checking for various information like what are the proportions, how might the skin fold, what areas of body have soft/hard edges, what might these limbs look like when foreshortened, etc. with color refs i study them to analyze how another piece of artwork is doing something that i'd like to achieve in my own art. this goes back to things i've mentioned here.

in short, the time drawing for fun is also a time to put fundamental practice in place that helps build your skills as an artist. either way, my advice is to learn as you go and have try to have fun while you practice.

in the end, this is my perspective when i look at this question. others may disagree and have a different opinion, but at the end of the day, everyone has a different process on how they practice and grow as an artist.

this was lengthy, but this is an extremely broad question that goes beyond choosing one or the other, and there's reasons why that is. i hope i explained this well enough and that it answered your question in some way!

[juniebugs]

assigning marvel heroes engineering majors (1)

i tried to write this so it makes sense even if you don't know much about engineering!! this post has my headcanons for peter parker, steve rogers, tony stark, and clint barton!!

as a preface, i am very aware that most of the marvel heroes would not in fact be in school for engineering even in an alternate universe. unfortunately, my fixation on both superheroes and engineering knows no bounds.

please feel free to ask me any questions about eng or for further explanation my reasons for these picks!! i am only in one type of eng but know many people in other disciplines so hopefully i'll be able to answer :)))

Peter Parker - Mechanical & Biomedical

I truly, truly believe the correct peter parker engineering take depends on what portrayal of spiderman you are looking at. like tobey's spiderman? would not touch biomed with a pole let alone mech. ... that peter parker is so far from engineer...... i dont even know where i would put him. materials? pls send your opinions if you have them.

BUT MCU, tom holland, spiderman would definitely definitely be in mechanical & biomedical. i actually got this from an irl friend, so if you see this somehow pls say hi LMAO

mechanical is one of the most common streams of eng and, while absolutely not something i ever want to touch, is really neat. it centers around keeping things in motion (contrary to civil engineering where if something is moving you're in trouble). it applies physics in really cool ways which i imagine would be a draw to peter just on the sole basis of personal interest. mech also plays with materials as it explores elasticity, deformation, fractures, yield strength, and other materials things i have blocked out LOL. when i think of that aspect i feel like it matches really well with the designed suit, the webs, and, if you listen to the science jargon he throws around in the movies, some of his prior knowledge.

biomedical engineering is actually used by some (the insane) as a gateway into med school. it covers human anatomy and genetic engineering (radioactive spider????). i do not believe peter would do med school too (because that student debt tho) but i also can't imagine him not trying to apply what he learns to helping others. i am personally partial to applying engineering principles to physiology and i can just imagine him implementing his mechanical knowledge into making prosthetics. if i had the brain power for this degree i would love to do that.

Steve Rogers - Civil Engineering

.... listen. steve rogers would fight a war before sitting in an hour lecture about dirt. i know this and acknowledge this wholeheartedly. HOWEVER,,,, I have a friend in civil with a special interest on sustainable design and you cannot, cannot tell me that isn't steven rogers coded.

civil engineering is not architecture, like at all, which i think is a common misconception if you don't know engineering well ( totally understandable!) unfortunately, i don't think civil caters to his artistic side that well but as someone who likes art but only does it as a hobby next to eng, i think thats okay.

civil engineering is kind of the mother to environmental engineering in the sense that they both look into wastewater treatments, geology, and even environmental planning (in some cases) but civil will also go into more detail with structural components and design of buildings. you'll find civil engineers involved in every building being made and in every town council ensuring clean drinking water and working sewage systems. typically they specialize into one or the other but shhhh ignore that for this post.

what i am trying to say here is that this would give steve a shit ton of wiggle room which i think he would use to help both the environment and people. paying engineers is expensiveeee especially for qualified, capable ones. i think steve would find deep satisfaction in working either for free or for the bare minimum cost (not that you should - know your worth :) ) and i think that he would actively use his work to call out designs that endanger communities or their environments.

this man knows his local engineering ethics code and WILL call someone out.

Tony Stark - Engineering Physics

when i started writing this section i thought it was going to be the easiest but unfortunately i did in fact have to phone a friend. tony stark is THE engineer so narrowing him down to one discipline felt impossible. my friend suggested engineering physics so i went with that.

the thing is eng phys is THE engineering degree. it is wonderful because you look at almost every thing mech, elec, and comp related (will explain more below) without specializing too greatly. it is also difficult because you don't specialize. for tony stark, who did not have to go into that internship grindset mentality, it would all be net positives.

to make the suit i immediately knew tony needed to have an extremely good knowledge on BOTH electrical (circuitry, coding, wires, magnetism, fun stuff) and mechanical (explained in peter's section!!). i was considering a double major but then was stumped because i love my elec and mech friends but they have no desire to produce a new element and also... creating an arc reactor??? plus AI's??? while likely related to software, it he would have bare minimum had to have had a good computer engineering (kind of how it sounds, engineering related to building and using computers and components of computers, lots of overlap w/ elec) background.

to wield the amount of science knowledge tony stark has an be able to apply it in an engineering context he would either have to be a genius (which like canonically he is so yknow) or take every course offered to engphys students (and some).

i think as a student he would have also enjoyed that not having to specify aspect. i imagine him always in the pursuit of knowledge. yay eng physics!!!

Clint Barton - Materials Engineering

If you've read the reasonings for some of the characters above you have likely thought to yourself "wow, such clear arguments, time must have been put into this" which like yes but also no because for this decision i am going exclusively on vibes.

materials focuses on, well, materials. it looks at both composition and properties (plus how composition effects properties). my friends in matls tell me its pretty research heavy which doesn't really fit with clint, i am aware. but every person i have met from this faculty i am convinced would get along with him.

I KNOW THIS ISN'T GREAT REASONING. i think that engineering would always be second to other things or interests in his life (even when he's a student) but I think the promise of a stable job and the hypothetical applications are really interesting. matls and mech can be surprisingly similar and i think he would find more satisfaction in manipulating materials to better fit his goals than in being stuck within predefined constraints.

plus, imagine creating a new material for like the tensile strength of your bow. incredibly cool

I'm thinking i'll work on doing more of these as i find the time!! i definitely have a few ideas for other characters, i just need to figure out how to articulate my reasonings haha.

if you have any ideas or shared interest in engineering and superheroes please let me know!! i have also been recently into the bat family, as you could probably tell by my reblogs, and am thinking of doing a version with them also!!

[bgsdraws]

another year woah, i need to start playing stardew valley again nice to see more of my ocs here. i want to draw thwm more and develop their stories next year Now, me being angsty and mentally unwell (vent) under the cut :

Honestly? Looking at this makes me feel a little bit sad and tired. It's just that I've always had this ''cycle'' I go through. I go from loving my art and being on the top of the world, the greatest artist who has ever lived, holy light comes out of my wacom drawing tablet, to hating and believing I've lost all the skill I once had and will never be able to do something like it again; I switch between these 2 mindsets every few months. And it's just so annoying. (I want to make it clear that I know these thoughts aren't true and I don't really think like this about myself. It's just how I feel when I'm in that part of the cycle.) I just feel like a failure who has never learned how to do anything good, even with years of practice, that I've stagnated, regressed, that anything good I ever did was just pure luck, and I will never be able to create something I like and that brings me joy ever again. It just hurts so much because I don't think I can do that; I don't think I can go back to being someone who just observes other people's art. I would honestly rather die; I probably would die. I need to be there, to create it; I need to feel happy and look at what I'm creating with pride. I want to feel good about the stuff I do. And I do When the other half of the cycle begins When that happens, it always feels like some of the best moments in my life, and I'm so happy with my art, and being happy with my art makes me even happier; it's euphoric. Why can't it always be like that? Because I do love my art, I recognize my skill, and I'm happy to create what I create. So why does my brain do this to me? Why does it decide to cast some sort of spell every other 3 months that makes me hate it and see no future in myself? There's no trigger, no inciting incident; it just happens, every time with no failure. Always the same ''routine.'' And noticing its coming doesn't make me able to stop it. I've tried, but I discovered I just need to ride it out. And even though I know what's happening, I know it's just another half of that damned cycle; it doesn't make all those thoughts and feelings feel less true or correct at that moment. Knowing better doesn't make me feel better. And after it is done, after I've finally started being able to feel and think ''normally,'' there's always this wave of shame and embarrassment for how much I overreacted to certain things. I feel guilty and embarrassed about being aware of what was happening and still believing those thoughts. ''You should know better; it's always like this, you know it.'' Right at the end of the most recent ''my art sucks and will always suck and I should die'' phase (that just ended, by the way; I've been feeling like that since October, I think), I sketched a thing for a friend. In the middle of drawing it, I was feeling horrible; I was so happy to start something that would make someone I love happy. But everything just looked awful, gross, the ugliest thing that has ever graced this earth. And I just kept thinking, "Where have all the years I've dedicated to learning anatomy and rendering gone?" Was I always this bad? Were all my good grades and compliments a lie? Was all of it in vain?'' I ended up just crying and going to bed. And then, the next day, I opened that file again, preparing myself to see that monstrosity on my screen again. And it was fine; the drawing was nice. I have no idea what my eyes were seeing that last night, how distorted they had to be seeing it to think that it looked ''awful and gross.'' It makes me feel so stupid, so overdramatic. All of that for this? Really? For something that really didn't have any problems at all I just wish I could always see my art as I can see it now. I love it; why can't I love it all the time? It's just not fair.

[discowingneckline]

reasons i hate rhato pt1

this pertains to v1 #1, so expect more at some point when i can stomach looking at it again. this is exactly what the title says. hey, do you like rhato? great, fuck off and don't read something that is going to upset you. i don't care what your good opinions are of this. the run sucks, and it deprives almost every other character of their personality for the sake of jason's character.

why does jason not have clothes on? why is his stupid little cute jacket not on him? why didn’t anyone give him underwear? if there’s clothes for kory, there must be clothes for him! if kory took off his clothes, it makes little sense why she wouldn’t put some on him where he isn’t injured at the very least. 

why didn’t kory keep his gun farther away from jason, and also why wouldn’t a seasoned hero at the very least not take the bullets out of his gun like be so for real. she clearly doesn’t recognize him here (for some fucking reason)

why does kory look at jason and think of her and dick post sexy times?? why do you fucking think the first thing on her mind for memory is that shit? fucking weirdo.

also why is kory so white-looking? fucking weirdo. why is she stick thin?

i don’t like the relationship here of dick and jason. i am a jason todd is a nice good robin. like yeah a bit of attitude but um…ew

also why is kory here in the first place and living like this? she is a woman of class, thank you very much.

if kory had “male clothes” the entire time, back to a previous point, why didn’t she put them on jason (since she already took off his clothes to treat him) or at least keep them near jason for when he would wake up? it’s giving that scott lobdell just wanted excuses to have jason nude for like all of this issue and to dumb kory down to be super sexual. 

also kory’s proportions are so weird and off. and also, let’s be so for real, they took away her curves and like body fat? like she was super strong, buff, hot before man. what the fuck.

“they appear to be the correct size” which one? the robin suit? the nightwing suit? which nightwing suit? also this is giving, based on previous panels, “jason has to face his horrible brother’s suit and take his mantle, but this time (super edgy shit) he makes it his own!” get a fucking grip.

the amount of jason calling kory “orange” when he knows her name and her title!! it’s giving fucking racist behavior. and it’s just rude. he literally got called out about it a second ago and he made this huge apology, just to do the same shit repeatedly again. speaking of that, comparing her to something from national geographic is giving…dehumanization. 

where did kory get these clothes? how long has she been where she is? what the fuck. also, not that kory wouldn’t wear stuff like that, but?? i don’t see why she has so many changes of clothes that are almost carbon copies of the same shit. 

what is that flashback she has with nightwing and arsenal? first off, what the hell is that roy? second off, why is kory’s body shaped like that? also this suit of her’s sucks. worst i’ve seen ever. my irl friend also complained about nightwing’s shoulders and the overall anatomy of the art. said it was shit.

why is jason handling guns and weapons with no shirt on? why are they so set on not giving this man clothes?

“she obviously loved dick grayson—almost as intently as i hated him” be so fucking for real right now. get a fucking grip. is this where the bulk of “bad sibling dick grayson” comes from for jason todd fics? because lmao be so for real.

what is jason’s anatomy this page specifically? what the fuck is it?

oh my fucking god. why does kory go to kiss jason?? in the water?? at night?? at fucking all? like kory isn’t shy with her sexuality, but jfc. you’re trying to tell me after she was so hung up about nightwing (??) that she just throws herself to whatever man is available? be so for real. she has fucking standards, and jason todd will never meet them. it’s giving that someone (scott lobdell) had a thing for a character (kory) and was using a self-insert (jason todd) to get that. 

also what is with all of her thigh gaps?? give my princess her body back please holy shit.

…i read more, and what the hell is: “it is one of the ways my people assimilate language, knowledge—you said you wanted to talk, i only assumed…” kory was literally talking to him for several days in english. why the fuck would she kiss him? again, makes no sense. you’re making a very intelligent woman fucking stupid so jason can seem cool and smart and desired. it’s gross. 

…why does kory’s power look like that? um…ew.

“sometimes they are crazed vigilantes pretending to love us like a son” be so fucking for real. as though jason and bruce didn’t have a decent relationship at the bare minimum. also?? what the literal fuck is “pretending to love us like a son” bruce does love jason, and of course dick as well. perhaps he isn’t always the best at showing it, but he does. and if this is another jab about bruce not killing the joker? literally get off of it. that is not fair for jason to say shit like that. it goes against everything bruce has ever stood for since he was a child, and it’s insane to expect bruce to do whatever jason wants when jason is going out killing a ton of people and overall just being a piece of shit.

why is jason talking about friendship and romance when it pertains to kory?? be so fucking for real. i do not believe for a second that kory would get with jason after their talk if jason truly talked to her about everything (because she would know that she was/is in love with dick, and i don’t take her for being someone who would throw herself at his brother). 

…i wonder what “qurac” would possibly be a stand in for. also why would roy harper just be sitting and taking that? also why is it just jason who is going out to get roy and not, oh i don’t know?? his fucking family??

if you guys want to see the panels from the points i gave, just let me know and i will reblog with them included.

[lemongrass--tea]

Good morning and Happy Friday! You are an incredible artist! I've been browsing your work (on here and on Pillowfort!) and I am amazed by your mastery of anatomy and how you infuse character in each of your pieces.

First, I saw through the #sdv elliott tag how you were asking about drawing other fans' farmers. If you're still interested, I happily offer up mine! You can DM me for references if you so desire.

Second, I want to know more about Elliott and Connor. What's Connor's story? How did he and Elliott get together? What do they love best about each other?

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I've inferred from some of your art that he is a tengu, or at least a related entity. That's so neat! Tell me more about that. 😁👍

Hee hee heee this came out so long lmao I tried to be concise but I’ve written the epistle of Connor and Elliott lore😩

(And I would love to draw your farmer I’m gnawing at the bars of my enclosure like a rabid animal)

Connor is certainly similar to a tengu in the sense that what he’s based on is a similar mischievous spirit fae species type thing. I combined two Caribbean myths for him, chickcharnie and gaulin wife.

Linked some info on the two, but I’ll say the gaulin wife telling here isn’t the exact one that I remember, there’s this one telling that has a song in it that the wife sings “oh what a foolish man, he married the gaulin” BUT IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR WEEEEKS I can’t find it it might be lost media🥲. I also can’t remember the EXACT way that version went since I heard last it when I was like- 11 lmao. But the concept is pretty much what’s in this version.

SO that gets us to Connor, I wanted him to have the whole monster bird fae elements of the chickcharnie to have a reason to be feared or distrusted by his home town, but I also REALLY love herons (hence the gaulin bride) and the whole jingle from that tale. So I was like, what if everyone around them (mostly from Connor’s home life because bird man cryptid is par for the course in pelican town I think lmao) would think Elliott to be like, crazy for wanting to be with a fae. So they’re like a twist on the myth where instead of the man seeing this perfect spouse that turns out to be a trick, everyone else EXPECTS a trick but they’re just hopelessly in love.

I hope that makes sense

So Connor has 2 sisters, Cara his “twin” and Khipz their younger sister. If you’ve ever seen that writing prompt where a fae asks a mother to pick which is their real child vs the fae’s copy and she responds like “they’re both my children” that’s kind of what happens here. I think it fits considering chickcharnie are known for like, kidnapping and luring little kids into the pine forest, fun stuff, so a baby swap sounds about right.

The real twin was stillborn/terminally ill, but their mother has connections to the local fae through her family (grandpa from the actual canon) having a good relationship through the time they lived in the valley. So she begs for a way to save the kid, and they grant this favor by doing a little swap, they take the baby and give her Connor.

The father is not quite so tolerant to fae activity, so he DOES NOT vibe with Connor, pretty much seeing him as like not really theirs, but ofc Connor’s a baby he has no way to understand the hostility here. But he’s willing to let him pass as long as he’s able to keep up appearances. This man is all about reputation and appearance, he wants that white picket fence life, hes a major business man in their town he expects perfection. But the cultural context of the fae being dangerous and uncontrollable he does not want people to know that he’s connected to that. So they raise Connor to suppress his magic and such, he has to keep up appearances as fully human, perfect little identical copy of his twin (which includes being raised feminine since the original expectation was two girls so that’s what Connor’s default appearance was)

At a point though a kids going to start developing their own persona, so once he hits teen years he’s not really comfortable being constrained to copying Cara. He’s allowed to shift his presentation to his current male presentation, but it does kinda throw a wrench in his dad’s perception of him. Every disagreement and every personal decision is more and more strain as Connor’s less willing to conform, which raises his dad’s concerns about his nature as a fae. Not to mention he becomes more of a liability reputation wise because the harder he tries to control Connor the harder he pushes back, babe is prone to reckless behavior (but really in the childlike skipping class and launching a dirtbike off a ramp into a lake or something way), and their dad does NOT know how to handle it besides meeting that energy with anger especially if he’s roping his sisters into his antics.

ENTER STAGE RIGHT OUR BABYGIRL ELLIOTT

I love the concept of him being an ex-trust fund rich kid that left to pursue his own desires. So they meet in like 9th grade or so, when their parents are meeting to discuss whatever business deal they’ve got going on. And they hit it off so much cuz they’re both starting to explore being their own person and discontentment with expectations and conformity, but at this point Connor does not tell him that he is not human due to fear that he might have the same disdain that his own dad has, especially considering even his SISTERS don’t know. His mother’s been telling him all these years you can’t let anyone know, we don’t want anyone to get hurt right? It’s just not the right time, I imagine there’s an element of him fearing HIMSELF a fair amount, especially since he’s not in practice of taking his bird forms. All of his focus goes into keeping that side of himself suppressed.

But time passes and yknow young love, they’re close friends and romantic feelings start showing up, they end up sharing their first kiss and Connor is unable to stop himself from just letting all those inhibitions go. He suddenly sprouts little baby feathers and the starting nubs where his horns would grow in, tail wagging a mile a minute, but while Elliott’s taking this in because WHAT HAPPENED Connor’s dad finds them in whatever room they’d snuck off to and man is LIVID because as far as he’s concerned his biggest insecurity just got outed and being fresh to his investors son, what are they gonna think of him, so improper, how dare you. He gets dragged off to get berated and such and gets banned from being allowed anywhere near the company lest he cause more problems.

Elliott loses contact because like, neither of them have any means of contact and then he gets sent off to a boarding school to finish high school, and he brushes off the whole thing in his memory like maybe I was just hallucinating. Fae aren’t common around the city so he wouldn’t be too aware of that being an option.

Connor has the whole thing in the back of his mind like oh he probably freaked out and hates me now just like father dearest said he would, especially since Elliott never got the chance to react beyond the initial shock.

DECADE PASSES

I mentioned before in his last lore post that there’s more mounting hostility and eventually Connor decides to cut off completely, his mom gives him grandpas land so he moves to pelican town.

And like imagine his shock to see Elliott there, standing on that bridge, he’s internally freaking out then he turns and smiles at him with the opening line “oh you must be the new farmer everyone’s talking about, it’s a pleasure” and he politely kisses his knuckles and it’s like a complete parallel to their first kiss where he just loses it all over again. And like in that time he’s had other relationships other flings, and he thought he was in complete control because NEVER after that first time did he ever have a slip up again, then Elliott comes along and just KNOCKS EVERY WALL DOWN with a fleeting GREETING of all things.

Then there’s like this pause of realization from Elliott of oh my god it’s you.

I’m so unwell for them. Elliott gets his proper explanation of him and it’s like, the first time he’s not pressured to have to hide himself anymore, he thinks it’s **fascinating** and beautiful not something to be feared and reigned back. So they get to rekindle that long lost friendship and all those feelings come tumbling back into the equation.

They definitely build their relationship off emotional support and shared experience, two bros against the world frfr

[miiukkaa]

How do you replicate the Rise style so well?? And animate so well??? Do you have any animation tips???

OOH POG POG, OKAY SO!! (also thank you ahh!!)

replicating a style

i feel the need to first point out that no one should do this to quote unquote steal someone's artstyle. being able to emulate a specific style is a good trick to learn for jobs in which you have to do just that (animation, comics etc.) i personally love being as canon compliant when it comes to fanart so i go crazy:

studying the source material! in general with drawing, you think you know what something looks like but when you draw it out, it may look weird and off!! this is when you're gonna want to hoard a lot of screenshots from the source material to study/draw over/redraw based on them. as you're drawing, you may realize that "WOW okay so i didn't know that part was so angled and sharp, i thought it was a near perfect circle!" (me when i first drew mikey's head fr).

repetition!! don't avoid drawing simply because you're thinking you're not good enough yet. art is something you get good at with trial and error so you'll only ever get better if you draw, draw and draw!!!! not only do you learn more with each drawing, you'll also get more comfortable with the overall process :)

(gonna throw in a mystery number three which is not really tied to replicating styles BUT!!! doing anatomy studies is a good way to improve your solid drawing skills fast!!! im linking my pinterest folder that i use for anatomy studies every now and then below the line to help anyone get started!)

animation tips

i'm like, 90% self-taught so i may not know the correct terminology for everything... but you're definitely going to want to study the 12 principles of animation!! there are a LOT of youtube videos available on this particular subject!! once you have gone through each principle, you may want to try and do little animation practices with these in mind!

i think ROTTMNT really kickstarted my personal learning curve as i'm just SO ridiculously eager to learn anything and everything i possibly can, i mean i have never in my life been so excited to just learn! i heavily recommend following the rottmnt animators' online profiles and go through their galleries/portfolios to study their work! it's all so amazing...

tldr, STUDY the source material and REPEATEDLY draw/animate and take active notes on what you could improve on, still. you got this!!! >:]

some links that other people have kindly compiled with lotsa references/tutorials and tips. i recommend eyeballing through them and checking out anything that interests you! :]

[yours-the-author]

Hey, so...

Does anyone remember this post I made recently?

.

.

.

I made some art for it...

If you wanna see it...

Here it is:

I'M SO MAD AT MYSELF IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SURVIVING THE MANSION BUT I DIDN'T REALIZE UNTIL AFTER I FINISHED IT AAAGGH

...Aside from that little oopsie, though, I'm actually really proud of how the logo came out? I based the font off a style called "Micro 5 Charted". Thank goodness I was using graph paper!

I'm not sure if that Kanji is correct; Google Translate doesn't seem to like the word "oni" or "stick", especially together, so I spelled out the Romanji in the English box and then tried to copy the characters Google offered me as closely as possible. I think I'd be more surprised if I got the Kanji correct, honestly.

Henry Stickmin title screens usually have two different fonts for the verb and the noun, and I thought about trying to make "Mansion" look like an actual house, but that made my brain hurt to much to conceptualize, so I stuck with different colored fonts. Hmm, that clock sure is there. I wonder what it means gets hit by a bus

-----

Anyway, here's some theoretical scenarios of what the main gameplay would look like! This one stars General Hubert Galeforce and some other guy:

Option 1: Shoot

Result: The monster hears you move as soon as you pull your gun from its holster. No time to defend yourself.

FAILURE (DiE!)

Option 2: Backup

Result: Your radio refuses to work, even though it was just fine before you entered the mansion. The monster waits until you've realized this, then goes for your throat.

FAILURE (No one will hear your screams...)

Option 3: Time Out

Result: The monster does not hear you and goes into a separate room, out of sight and out of mind. Galeforce survives... for now. But what was that thing...?

-----

I don't know how feasible it would be, but I imagine this would be a cross between typical RPG Maker-styled games (pixels, speech boxes with pictures of the characters, moving around a set floor plan, puzzle solving, etc) and typical Henry Stickmin-styled game play (cutscenes, choices, possible interactivity [grabbing items/bios], the occasional quick time event, etc) (voice acting would be a stretch). Most of the gameplay, like exploring the mansion, puzzle solving, and running/fighting the monster, would be RPG style, and then occasionally switch into a cutscene that requires you to make a choice; usually with just one correct answer but possibly others that could result in diverging dialogue/interaction/paths/endings? Something to think about.

Anyway, Galeforce! Poor man has no idea what he almost walked into, haha. I experimented with perspective and limb placement here, which was exhausting but also a lot of fun! Dynamics are hard with stick figures, but considering that they're they only character medium I've ever been decent at, I made it work.

And the Oni... I tried to give it some sort of anatomy, but quickly realized that I do not have the skills to pay those bills. I opted for a more of a shadowy figure looking thing with a big smile instead (you can see some of the lines where I tried to make it have arms, I think). I opted for Ao Oni's purple-y blue color scheme verses HetaOni's gray alien look. Back in the day of fan made Ao Oni games, people would usually try to put their own unique spin on the Oni sprite, with HetaOni's being the most unique I ever saw (keep in mind, it was one of the few designs I ever saw, so there might be cooler ones out there, who knows). In theory, a game called Sutikku Oni would use a stick figure shaped monster, but with my current art skills, that would just look like a normal stick person with a big head (look! Geoffrey Plumb's cousin!). I think the less we see, the better; all good horror games know when to leave things to the imagination!

-----

I also made a second one, featuring my boy Dave Panpa!

...Dave, I'm so sorry... *MAKES HIM PEEP THE HORROR*

Option 1: Call for Help

Result: You call for help...

FAILURE (...but nobody came.)

Option 2: Run

Result: You tense your muscles in preparation to run. The monster is faster.

FAILURE (YoU... wOn'T... eScApE...!)

Option 3: Pretend to be a Piano

Result: Frozen with fear in front of the piano, it's all you can do to hope the monster thinks you're also a piano (a sopping wet piano, but still). It's deadly quiet. You can hardly breathe, and you're afraid to. The monster stares at you for an uncomfortably long time, before walking away, out of sight and out of mind. You stay still a little longer before collapsing to the ground. Dave Panpa survives... for now. How on Earth did that work? Or... did that thing let you live out of pity...?

-----

UGH the piano! Pianos are so hard to draw! Luckily, I had an almost head on reference that I was able to use for the first picture. For the above view shot, I had to do some wild guessing. The red stuff near Dave's head in the second picture is the red stuff he was referring to. Is it blood? Paint? Something else? Who knows! But as we all know, any self respecting Ao Oni fan game needs a piano puzzle!

I imagine Dave was dragged along for the ride when the Toppats decided to find the treasure of the mansion (or something to that degree), fully intending to leave him there to die if there was, in fact, a monster inside. Poor Dave... Maybe there could be an ending where amends are made? Or maybe not...

I mostly put the smile on the monster's shadow as a means of showing that, indeed, it is the monster, but now I'm wondering if the monster's mouth glows or something? Hot fires of Hell, delivered right to you! Can you beat the heat?

-----

Thank you all for coming to my fixation ramble that absolutely no one else except me finds interesting! Any thoughts before you go?

(A cricket chirps, then leaves because it's in the wrong conference room)

...Yeah, I figured.

[pierrotsmoon]

Love (and Logic)

Chapter 1- Temple of Love

(crossposted from my Ao3)

Going to Miskatonic as an art student is tough enough; the pretentious boy in Y/N's anatomy course is somehow making it worse.

A/N: I researched bone structure for this, any skeletal enthusiasts feel free to make corrections. Also character's thoughts will be italicized.

Herbert West x Fem! Reader

Warnings!- Enemies to lovers, harrasment, dr. Hill being creepy, first day of classes, budding friendships, DAN AND HERB RESPECT WOMEN!!! tell me if I missed anything!

Going to Miskatonic as an art student was what Y/N had wanted for her entire life. The prestigious institution allowed her a full-ride scholarship, probably because they needed more fine arts students to keep getting grant money. Best not to dwell on negatives! As Y/N opened up her backpack, she shoved in her sketchbook, textbook, pencil case, and field watercolor kit. Swinging the pack over her back, she broke open her apartment door and sauntered out.

Y/N opened up the pink class schedule she had written, anatomy, wonderful. The medical students at Miskatonic seemed good at first, but tended to look down upon the arts, especially during classes often shared by both majors. As soon as she walked through the door, the eyes of the few students inside turned to her. The instructor came up to her.

"Good morning. I’m Doctor Carl Hill, and I'm pleased to meet you."

The doctor smiled at her, and Y/N felt a chill climb up her spine. This man did not leave a good taste in her mouth, and she didn't like how he placed his hand on her shoulder. She quickly found a seat next to a young man who was glaring at the doctor.

“He’s such a creep around girls.”

The man whispered to himself loudly enough for only them to hear. Y/N looked down at her watch; it was 20 minutes until class  started. The brunette in scrubs turned around to look at the young woman, giving her a (far less creepy) smile. He wore gloves on his hands and appeared frazzled, with messy hair and untied shoelaces. 

"My name is Dan, and I'm a medical student; what are you studying?"

Dan gave her a boyish smile, and the young woman smiled back. 

“I’m Y/N, I study visual and fine arts.”

The boy looked momentarily amazed, like he had stars in his eyes. He looked at her casual clothing, sweater, a skirt, and Mary Janes—and he knew he had finally found a friend in his least favorite class. The two of them began making small talk as the sound of footsteps broke the conversation.

“Good morning doctor, is the skull functions quiz today?”

The professor visibly tensed.

“Dr. West, a pleasure as always.”

Y/N turned her head around to meet the eyes of a scrutinizing figure, almost glaring at her with lips that slowly sunk into a frown. 

She immediately looked away, annoyed by his insistence on looking at her like she was Satan.

“Is she even in proper scrubs?”

The eyes of the entire room, which was now rather packed, turned to Y/N. She looked back at him with fire in her eyes.

“I’m just a spectator from the arts department, I hope that doesn't bother you too much.” 

He gave off this perturbed hmph before sitting down in the only chair left, right between Y/N and Dan.

“Come on, Herbert, she’s nice!”

Herbert pointedly turned his head away from his roommate’s incessant whining. He didn't need to become friends with art students. What would they ever do for him? The girl would just be another squeamish failure; why should he tolerate that? He turned forward to see the skeleton model come out of the industrial closet, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl rapidly flip to a clean page in her sketchbook. ‘So unprepared.’ Herbert was aware that the few art students in the class would leave after this semester, when the lessons on bone structure and anatomy concluded. He'll be glad that his routine will be back to normal.

“Does the femur support more than the leg bones and knees?”

Herbert looked to his side again, polished shoes tapping impatiently on the white linoleum. ‘ Why was she asking such easy and insufferable questions?’ 

The professor animatedly stepped closer, leaning over her shoulder and answering intently. Herbert sighed ‘a plagiarist and a creep.’ He was getting ready to go back to his own clipboard, until he saw the professor's hands begin to get closer and closer to her hip, horror filling her already scared eyes.

“Professor! Could you assess these notes on the pelvic joints?”

It disgusted Herbert to see how he looked genuinely disappointed at the prospect of not getting to harass a young woman who looked close to tears. Dan noticed the spectacle, looking around one more time to see that everyone else was focused on their work. He gave Herbert a pointed glance, a non-verbal good job.

   ★

The students all gave their half attention to the professor when he opened up a filing cabinet, grabbing a manila folder and opening it. He handed out a copy to each student. 

“Alright then! A new semester with new students allows for another project. Since our new students hail from the arts sector, I’ve planned an art project for the class.”

‘Oh God, why?’ Herbert was well aware that he didn't have a good reputation with Dr. Hill, but failing a project would result in a significant drop in his grade; after all, art had never been his strong suit.

Dr. Hill began listing off all of the pairings, most of whom were rather excited to get to know one another.

“ And Y/N with Herbert.”

The two young adults turned around and stared at one another, shortly before Dan broke the silence.

“Just make sure you two keep it quiet.”

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

the future chapters are gonna be better

[entryn17]

I LOVE YOUR ART !!!!!!!!!!! 💛 Do you have any tips on how to study for art (references, anatomy etc etc) I want to get back into it but it's soooooooo hard......

thank you so much!!! to be honest i don't know if there's a "correct" way to do studies cause i've kind of done whatever i felt like doing?

like getting an image and recreating it side by side by picking the colors, doing the same but getting the colors right by myself, drawing on top of it and so on. this is more for color studies though.

anatomy i learned by using references in different ways just like with the studies. start basic - trace on top of the picture; sketch out a pose in 30s, then a minute, then 5 minutes, then 10; draw what basic shapes makes a pose or person; kind of just observe people? how bodies fit? how the elbow looks when it bends, what curves make the arms and legs, even the little line in your skin when you look at the wrist from the side, where the ulna juts out (that one's my favorite to draw ever)

there's sometimes these guidelines you'll see about the distance or size of certain limbs compared to the body but they can get a bit... too much to remember? and obviously it'll vary from person to person? so i only bother with a few especially when it comes to drawing different ages because the proportions change a lot. like how kids' heads are big compared to their bodies and so they have little shoulder room. whereas the length from one shoulder to the other with adults can start from three heads lined up side by side. hyperspecific but since i draw the UTDR kids a lot it's something i've learned to keep in mind? or how with adults the hands are the size of your face? stuff like that

[strijdi]

It Was the Best of Art, It Was the Worst of Art!

Decided to do a little look at my past four years of ArtFight, and picked out what I thought were my best and worst attacks each year, in hopes of seeing if both categories got better over the years. Worst will always be on the left/top, best will always be on the right/bottom.

ArtFight 2021 (Team Cyberpunk):

Left belonged to NexusCryptid | Right belonged to Fayesephone Commentary: My first year, I definitely made strides between the worst piece and the best piece ^^''' This was back in my 'color all the linework except the outer lines' phase. Both of the backgrounds could use some work, but overall I'm happy with posing/movement in both! Unfortunately, the face and proportions of the worst piece are what landed it in last.

ArtFight 2022 (Team Wither)

Left belongs to Flat-san | Right belonged to photinus Commentary: Second year, still making similar mistakes and making similar strides! For reference, the worst piece you're seeing here was after an initial correction. I was also at the time having trouble with coloring lineart due to some issues with my workflow. Also baggy pants will forever be my enemy. As for the best piece, I loved the way I used color and posing, and it had a decent background! Was still doing the 'black outlines on the outside' thing.

ArtFight 2023 (Team Vampire)

Left belongs to PeterPandora | Right belongs to eryxerite Commentary: I would say things definitely got better this year! Finally moved on to coloring all the lineart, and the fact that the left is my worst piece I think is a significant improvement (suit pants continue to be an enemy, but the derpiness of the face and the anatomy of the right hand... oy.) The best piece, in comparison, went through multiple revisions until I was finally happy with it, and I was so proud of it that I downloaded it to my phone and looked at it multiple times a day for like. A while. The shading really works, and I love what I did with the tears, fabric, and crystal hair!

ArtFight 2024 (Team Seafoam)

Top belongs to GhostKiwi | Bottom belong to Lunarah Commentary: This year was my favorite year of ArtFight so far -- I did less attacks than any previous year but still got a higher point total than any previous year! This was also the first year that I consistently also shaded the colored lineart (which was just copy/pasting the shading from the base colors onto the colored lineart lol). With the worst piece, I was happy with the background, but I think the scaling of the character to the background was off, the face was wonky, and I was largely unhappy with the way I did the hair crystal reflection onto the skin. I also could've chosen a better pose, I think, when taking the background into account. As for my best piece, this piece (originally three separate attacks) certainly takes the cake as my most elaborate and time-consuming attacks ever! The shading, hair, posing, and lighting all fucked HARD. My only regret is that I couldn't get a consistent style across all five characters, since each individual character was drawn separately from the others and then combined. Overall takeaway: I think I need to get better at being consistent with style. And, glaringly, side angled faces are my biggest weakness. I need to bone up on that before next year, methinks. And I still think I have a ways to go with improving on clothing folds. Nevertheless, I'm very happy with my growth over the past four years, and I hope to grow more next July!!

If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read my little self-reflective musings. Also, if you noticed anything else in these pieces that you think could use some work, I would welcome constructive criticism! No assholery obvi please.