#first time doing lineless art whoo

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

At least in this lifetime, we're sticking together.

[butterfly-winx]

Hi, This isnt about the butterfly au but i was wondering do you use any apps to draw your art on and if so which ones due you use? also do you have any tips?

Hey there! No worries I'm happy to talk about art in general as well!

I use Procreate (I think currently V5) on a first gen iPadPro to do most of the art and photosh*p cs2 for any edits, or compiling files when my layers overflow. (I'm not gonna lie, that is the major bummer with Procreate, but the app is well priced and I got no complaints about it otherwise.)

As far as art tips, go I wanted to acknowledge that these are tips I would and also do give myself, so it I am not an expert in any of these, but they are cool things to strive for.

1. Find the workflow for what makes sense for you. Not everyone has to do 2 sketches a lineart, flats and render in that order in every single piece. Experiment around, find what works for you, which parts of the process you enjoy, most importantly. I do very clean sketches on top of loose pose puppets and hate lineart. So I usually don't do that, but I get away with it bc I like doing the detailed sketch phase and "line sculpting" so I just go straight to colouring most often. Maybe you don't either, but for you a lineless style would work better. This is also how you can build style very easily!

2. Experiment with programs and find the one that supports your workflow best. I started off with a pen-tablet and PS/Corel painter and that didn't work for me for the longest time - I guess I never had the necessary hand-eye coordination for laptop and pen-tablet setups. Drawing ON the screen however, whoo boy my improvement skyrocketed. So I would urge everyone to look at what they struggle with while making art bc it might not be you, it might be the setup you use. Sure I could have spent a million hours fine tuning my lines to be straight, but I cold have also switched to a program that supports stroke stabilisation, you know? Also look into available shortcuts and pre-sets: the better you know your program the faster you are, the less likely you are to burn yourself out on a piece.

3. Build skills, but let your interests dictate what skills to focus on. Sure practice is key and you need to draw a thing a 1000 times to understand it, but I'm saying you are only going to draw something that many times if you like it. When I was into series that featured many male characters I beefed up on male anatomy; when I was crazy about a live action show I practiced copying the features of real actors; now I am neck deep in fashion refs and drawing different types of fabric. Find your passion and let it drive you! It does make sense to identify shortcomings and get comfortable with art basics like shape, light and colour, but if you don't find a way to apply it it a way that sparks joy, you risk your hobby turning into a chore (so this advice is mainly for hobbyist), so try not to do that and instead focus on eating your "veggies" and "dessert" as well if you can. Do sketches all day if you want, but you will need to face drawing the other eye or that hand on the hip if you want to see eventual improvement.

4. Collect inspiration with a goal in mind. It's fair and well to have endless lists of inspiring art and photography saved in your likes, pinterest or wherever, but it is good to sit down sometimes and examine why you saved a pic. (This is not for direct references btw). Ask yourself what you like about the individual piece and whether what you like about is something that just appeals to you as a beholder or whether that is something you would like to reproduce in your own art? It's actually a huge difference. I am drawn to stylised shapes and bold colours in art, but I like to paint like that? No. On the other hand I like looking at guache paintings and really taking apart how they were painted, bc that is the rendering style i like to push for in my art. It's a good idea to go cross-media in your inspiration: from traditional art to photography to industrial object design, you can find a lot of things to learn from outside your native art medium. If you found something you really like, you can do a master study of it (absolutely fair to share with public domain, classical pieces, if you copy a contemporary artist, do it for the sake of study and don't post it).

5. Don't compare yourself to others. Yes, I know this is the hardest. If you find yourself unhappy with the reception of your art online, it impacting your joy in creating art in the first place, it might be worth taking a step back. That's what I did. I was doing winx doodles for almost a year for myself only before I made this blog, (and this is far from being my first art blog on the internet btw). This may not be the right decision for everyone, but I wanted to say something other than "just don't give up", bc when you are in that spot it feels like utter bulsh*t. Social media has us comparing our skills and success to a million other people every day, and as harsh as it sounds, it's just not worth breaking yourself up over it. There is also no need to monetise every hobby you have and become the absolute best in it, especially when you are young.

So, to sum it up: