#i dont usually color doodles that much but I'm considering it

[sl33pyn1ght]

Warmup doodle - Bunny Call

[slavhew]

Any advice for doing back grounds?? Shits mad confusing im tryna practice drawing like characters actually in them and im going insane

ouu i can't say im a good authority on this, because I never did much in lieu of backgrounds except painting some sunsets. I do have some theoretical knowledge but i struggle putting it into perspective, because depth is hard.

I feel like the hardest thing really is making the characters look like they belong in the environment, and that sounds like your problem too? I think ? So it's what I'm going to try and address here.

One that is in my opinion by far THE most important is to start a composition with the background in mind. It is always going to look somewhat wonky if you don't

(Rest under cut)

(exhibit A)

(this is the reason why I often don't do backgrounds, because a vast majority of my work starts as a doodle that i polish up later) (and also I used a game screenshot here, I didn't actually draw the walkway)

compare this to the drawing that was my inspiration, and the difference in flow and focus is astronomical

A good background can be either super simple, just a backdrop or something your characters actively participate in; in both these instances, it will be much easier to draw it if you start out with it in mind and being able to adjust early on is a massive lifesaver

Second, and most often repeated I think, is to think of the space as 3D, and use some geometry to help yourself out

the most useful part of this to keep in mind imo, when it comes to scaling characters, is that they will also follow roughly that line of perspective that in reality "runs parallel" to the rest of them, but in perspective looks as if it gets smaller

There's probably plenty of tutorials on getting a feel for this out there, but looking at other people's art (and the classics) and sketching over them can help

this is only linear perspective examples, but there's lots of them out there! point is, the character, and many lines of the environment are going to "flow" into a point. It's usually demonstrated with tiles and suchalike, but as you can see it has many applications, depending on how exaggarated you want to make the perspective.

You should also be mindful of the perspective of your character versus the environment. A few things to keep in mind are their lines, and their color/shading.

Colors are relatively simple; keep the source of light in mind so the shading feels in line for both the character and environment (perspective lines help with that too).

(this is definitely not to scale but just, to illustrate my point)

And keep in mind that with especially pieces that have great depth, like landscapes, the color of the environment changes the further you look. The lines blur, the details are lost, and it fades into more solid colors. A character and their palette will be affected by this environmental lighting

With keeping the characters consistent with backgrounds, lines-wise, it really helps to block them in first, because you can easier keep track of how they look in relation to backgrounds, and fix accordingly early on.

it's good (and painful, honestly) to keep in mind how bodies are 3D objects too. I had this great reference for this point, that I forgot where i saved, so we have to do with my amateurish recreation:

These lines are going to get distorted and effected by the perspective too. To avoid the characters looking flat against the backgrounds, try to keep them "on the same level" of exaggaration, so to speak..

And lastly. USE REFERENCES!! there is NOTHING more needlessly painful than drawing something as complex as environments out of your head.

All these things contribute to the complex thing that is. backgrounds. Now, please dont take my word as gospel, considering that even keeping all of this in mind, this is about the best i can do offhand to demonstrate my knowledge lol

I wouldn't be surprised if all the things I said here aren't anything new to you, in which case i genuinely apologize, because I'm also a huge beginner with this 😭 but i wish you a lot of luck on your journey practicing this!! It's a lot of work to be sure.

As sort of a PS, a few pieces with cool bgs showcasing some of my points *a lot* more competently, that I have saved in my bookmarks on twitter:

[x] [x] [x] [x] [x] [x]

[sporksaber]

Gravity falls scooby doo au.

Dipper is velma (not just because he's the brains, but because mystery inc started with velma debunking her parents mysteries and that's just. Perfect.) Also bc it's more fun when velma isnt a skeptic and wants very much for ghosts to be real.

Mabel is fred. The obvious choice. (Also, dipper cant drive in this au and mabel teases him anytime she can.)

Scooby doo is soos in waddles body. (Everyone knows, noone acknowledges it.) He also tends to strangely be the most emotionally mature and the most loyal friend.

Now, here's where it's difficult to decide. The options for daphne and shaggy are pacifica and gideon. I went back and forth for awhile, because both are rich. Post season 3 gideon could be shaggy. But that's not what I ended on.

Gideon is daphne. Rich material girl, but can get shit done. Far more up to mysteries than Pacifica.

Pacifica takes shaggy's place after being cut off by her parents. She doesn't have the messy habits but tends to hang with the pig, as he is least likely to get her murdered.

I had written this first half a month ago. I started doodling and their designs lined up better than I thought. It's not done and I probably wont finish them. But:

I gave dipper his vest as a zip up turtleneck with an orange long sleeved shirt underneath.

Mable got a button up underneath her sweater and a ribbon like daphne's in her hair as a mix of her headband and his ascot (it also gave me room for an extra color since their color schemes don't line up).

Pacifica wears green instead of purple (she says she likes green in the ghost episode). Her outfits are put together but down toned and practical (there were only so many pairs of shoes she could ruin before other people noticed her lack of her parents credit card.)

Gideon was the hardest, like mabel his color scheme doesnt line up and his hair makes a headband difficult. So I gave him an ascot and decided to add purple where it could fit with his usual blue.

Soos is a pig (which, apparently, I cant draw). He has a green collar with a question mark and brown spots that are shaped a bit more like scooby's. I did consider giving him a vest instead though (I thought a collar would be easier to draw, but we'll never know since I couldnt get passed figuring out pig proportions).

I also think their shipping dynamics line up pretty well despite me not considering that when I chose who was who. People dont really ship fred and velma (would've made for a whole yikes in this au). They also dont really ship daphne and shaggy. People ship fred with shaggy while daphne likes fred, just like people ship Mabel and Pacifica while Gideon likes mable. And people ship shaggy with velma like dipper and Pacifica are shipped.

Anyways, two other things:

1. This isnt meant to be a one to one thing, I'm aware not everything lines up and it's a bit wonky.

2. I wanted to keep it to characters in the same age group (with the exception of soos, he was the second one decided bc scooby needed to talk), so no wendy or the other teens as part of the gang. I also knew I wanted to use pacifica, which left one slot open. I didn't want one of characters so I had to choose between gideon, candy and grenda. Splitting up candy and grenda dodnt feel right and working in gideon seemed more fun.

2b. Using candy and grenda both without pacifica leaves dipper kind of isolated. Which could work, either as velma being an awkward nerd or dipper instead as shaggy mostly hanging with soos, but it wasnt the vibe I was going for.

[arsquare]

5, 10 and 13 For the art ask game!

Hi Malz <3

least favorite thing to draw

LOL there are so many things I don't like to draw... backgrounds... cars... guns... the list goes on and on... (not quite related but. perhaps you've noticed that despite my voluminous contributions to birdmen fanart in recent times I've casually dodged out of drawing the birds transformed time and time again. there's a reason for that. it's too hard. the markings drive me insane and the wings make creating compositions hell on earth </3)

But! If I had to pick ONE thing that I dislike more than all others, I would probably choose complex cityscapes! More organic landscapes I can just freehand, at least to a certain degree, but cityscapes require a more refined use of perspective and idk. me and the CSP rulers kind of have a long-standing rivalry, I still don't like it that much, which makes cityscapes a huge pain

how many different sketches do you usually have until your piece is finished

LOL... if I have more than one sketch before I do the linework I'm already like "that's way too much". I'm super impatient...

Like for Breaking Stasis I basically used my storyboards as the rough sketch (don't do this lol) because I needed to go fast. Here's a couple of examples...

I went from this kinda messy sketch (storyboards as well in a certain sense) directly to the clean lines. idk what's wrong with me tbh. I'm just lazy I guess

It also depends on how well I can draw the character in question. Like my birds?? from birdmen??? I could probably draw rei eishi takayama and umino pretty well freehanded (kamoda. my bald son kamoda. you're so hard to draw. the line between A bald guy and MY bald guy is razor thin and I often end up on the wrong side of the line)

If I've never drawn the character before? Lollll I probably have to do more detailed drawings...

Sometimes my sketches will be my final as well LMAO. just depends <3

Even for paintings I think I usually go sketch -> colors LOL

^^ shitty pencil sketch that's been tweaked a bit for the sake of composition

^^ directly painting without intervention like a madman????

This one is the one I had the most sketches for in recent memory. It's cause I have a hard time keeping them all in scale with each other (and STILL I failed to take into account how the various platform boots would change their heights. dont think about this too hard please don't think about this too hard), and also because these aren't outfits I'm used to drawing (so not collared shirts or suits, basically...) I had to do a rough and a clean before the final

so yeah anywhere from 0-2, 3 if we're REALLY pushing it (the question asked how many sketches, not how many layers... I do have more layers but I consider them all part of the same sketch)

how long do you usually take on a piece

LMAO THIS IS SUCH A HARD QUESTION. WHAT IS "A PIECE". DEFINE A PIECE.

The fastest stuff are my MS Paint doodles like he is eating raw cloves of garlic like jellybeans or food service Shichiro. I spend no more than 10 or 15 minutes TOPS per illustration on these. like I'm moving fast okay. it's like milk left out in the kitchen it's gonna go bad and stop being funny if I spend too long on it!!!

The next fastest would be short comics in the same spirit as the MS Paint doodles except it's just. not in MS paint it's in CSP instead. like does eishi support birdmen rights or takaeishi horror movie night. I think the cap for these are probably closer to like, 20 minutes per illustration/panel. but these are also almost explicitly always for funnies and again. the joke spoils if I spend too long on it!! gotta be quick!! gotta be speedy!!!

the next fastest stuff is probably colored sketches like Kekkaishi dress sketches or Shinichi birthday kisses. the time starts to get more variable as the complexity changes.. I think maybe an hour to an hour and a half for these?

Beyond that I have to split things up into multiple sittings and it gets harder to time them. Lined and colored artwork maybe takes... four to ten hours on average?? Like for Yoshitoki vibes, ganbare shinichi-kun, and the Lower One's Eyes thumbnail. I'm guessing around 15-20 hours for lineless paintings like Conductor Robin and Reieishi Tattoo Kiss? (<- idk the ship name for them because I don't think it exists actually)

For actual like. big projects. idk how to even measure that chief!! Breaking Stasis was completed in 2 months but I was working my ass off that entire time. like close to the end, like the last week or two I was basically drawing the entire day to crank it out. I don't know how many that is, but hundreds, perhaps? LOL

The music videos too, they're taking up QUITE a chunk of time but I have no idea how to measure that LMAO. oops </3