#i hope this advice helps

[vnmof]

hai hello! I'm trying to get into 3D modeling and was wondering if you had any advice on where to start? :0

hello hello 😎😎!! im no expert since ive just gotten into 3d modelling in blender like weeks ago and have been procrastinating but.. i might give some advices, i do recommend watching some youtube videos, i know all advices are like "yeah, go watch some youtube videos if you want to learn more" but it does in fact, really help i think for me, you should start learning how to remember all shortcut keys and the other controls if youre going to be using blender since im like a beginner like you, making low poly stuff to start making 3d models should be an easy start for you and the other beginners out there :D and a lot of suffering, trials and errors will come along the way, but hey, you'll get used to it ✨‼

[livums]

there's no way to say this without sounding like i can't take criticism (i can, it's something i had to work on like everybody else), but some people are like. really bad at giving constructive criticism and i think if you're receiving crit from someone that's not a bad thing to keep in mind for ur own sanity lol

[hansoeii]

Hello! Hope you're having a great day/night! I absolutely adore your art, you are one of my favourite artists. I love the way you shade and do backrounds. Also everytime I get into a new show I immediately see your art for it??

I was wondering if you had any advice on drawing more realistically (backrounds, anatomy etc) but still keeping a style?

Hey hey!

Thank you so much!

I have a pretty good understanding of facial structures, because before I got into drawing more semi-realisticly, I heavily focused on realistic portraits. Here are some example, these are from around 2019!

(yes, I was really into danmei and kpop back then, haha)

I just always loved drawing/painting faces and it was all I did. But at some point I realized that I wanted to do more than that because just portraits felt super restricting. So it took me around 2-3 years to somewhat find my style. Thought it would be fun to show a little timeline! Advice will follow afterwards :)

2020

I began working on my OCs in 2020 and since I didn't have an exact reference to work off of, I struggled a lot. My art from this year is super wonky.

2021

Still wonky, but the Lokius obsession was the jumpstart into finding my style! My work from this year is all over the place haha, I was experimenting a lot.

2022

This first ofmd piece is pretty much the first drawing where you can see where my style is gonna go, which I think is pretty cool! This is the year I made the biggest progress cos I was drawing SO much. These two pieces are only six months apart. The one on the right was the first time I gave drawing a background a proper go, too! It was a good year.

2023

And this is where I am now! I'm still constantly learning and improving, but I'd say I have a style you can recognize now!

Now here comes some actual advice, haha:

What I highly recommend you to do is to study your favorite artists as much as you can! I have like 5 A4 sketchbooks all from 2020 that I filled with sooooo many studies, where basically all I did was look at artists I like and copy how they draw stuff, to try and figure out how to stylize certain things. Some of my favorite artists are Ami Thompson, Velinxi and TB Choi. But I also liked to just scroll through pinterest and study all the art I came across that I liked! For example, if I saw a really great drawing of a pair of pants I would copy it many times in my sketchbook and try to learn how they stylized the folds. Doing this for a prolongued period of time will naturally improve your own work! It'll be difficult at first, but you gotta push through, it's gonna be worth it!

I also highly recommend studying unique faces to try and avoid the same-face syndrome. Find some cool looking people and try to draw them as simple as you can! Maybe even draw a little timeline where you first draw them as cartoon-y as you can, and keep going until you end up with a more detailed, realistic drawing. Maybe in the middle of it you find a step that feels the most fun to you, so you can try to build on that! It's a great way to figure out what kind of style might be the best for you.

Here are some cool faces I found on pinterest!

I have a pinterest board with many more!

One REALLY important part of learning how to draw all kinds of things is to understand forms and shapes and how to manipulate them. I have so many pages in my sketchbook filled with just shapes that I drew from all kinds of angles without any references.

This is a great video on it:

6 Ways to Draw Anything by Proko

Learning how to do this is so crucial! Young artists often think they first have to learn all kinds of detailed anatomy before doing anything else, but all that's gonna do is make you tired and hate drawing. Shapes are where it's at! Once you understand how shapes work and which ones to use for certain parts of bodies or objects, drawing is gonna get so much easier! Once you understand them, you can get into details such as muscles and bones!

And honestly the most important point is to just absolutely love what you're doing! I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for the fact that I get extreme hyperfixations on certain media that turn me into some kind of beast where I can suddenly draw 10 detailed illustrations a week, haha. Just be passionate about what you do, find something you REALLY love and go crazy!

I really hope this was somewhat helpful! My inbox is always open if there's any more questions :)

[reasonsforhope]

Hey adults: Why do you like being an adult? What do you like about your life?

A couple weeks ago I told the kids at my work that "Being an adult is pretty nice, actually," and they looked shocked, laughed incredulously, and told me I was the first person they'd ever heard say that

So clearly we adults need to talk about this way more often

The past few years have been hard for a lot of people, me included. Covid sucked. I lost three relatives and three pets in one year. Right after lockdown ended, I got badly injured, and ended up housebound for six months and (much more) disabled for two years, and that sucked too.

And you know what? Literally all of that was easier and better than being a teenager.

I like being an adult. I like my life. Even when it's hard, it's mine, and I am building to the best of my ability the a life that I want to live.

I talked about a lot of why being an adult is something worth looking forward to in my last post, so right now I'll simply say this:

I love actually knowing who I am now. I love that I learned and am learning what I want and need. I love that I have independence and autonomy and don't get treated like a kid. I love the fact that I'm the one who gets to decide want I want to do and what I need. I also love that I'm learning to sew. I love that I've had pet rats, and next will have a pet cat. I love that I got top surgery. I love the way I've decorated my room. I love traveling to visit and crash and even just hang out and do work with my friends, when I can. I love that I started reading good news every day, and that I actually have hope for the future, and that I started this blog and have been able to help give so many other people hope, too.

So, here's a call to action for my fellow adults: comment or reply or tag what you like about being an adult. What you love about your life.

Let's give some kids some reasons for hope.

[comikbook]

Im unable to go to school for art, bc my parents cant afford it and my family in general wouldnt be too supportive of it (I live with them)

I dont mind that, I still do art as a hobby, but it kind of hurts. I like what I am in college for actually, but I just love art

Is there a way to better my art while not having the tools art students have? I dont care if its harder, I would just like hope :/

hi !! so i can totally relate to this

i did not grow up with a wealthy family, i got into my highschool (which was a specialty art highschool) thru application. After that, i was kind of lost with art education. I had no money to go to a big art school, so i did community college.

here is what my art looked like in highschool

However, that was kind of a waste. It was pretty much a repeat of what i learned in highschool and to be honest the entire time i was in highschool i didnt improve at ALL. not one bit. This continued into college. In fact i didnt improve at all in college either except for the times i took a gap.

as of this point in the timeline my art looked like this

now i havent been in college now for a couple years, and let me tell you my art has gotten the biggest improvement ive ever seen. Hell i didnt even finish school, I owe money and cant return until i pay it. But honestly ? its hard to find the motivation.

What im getting at is all of my improvement has been done thru my own means. School did not help me improve. And everything you learn in art school can easily be found online via videos and tutorials.

So what made me improve so much out of school ? Honestly ? Passion. I hated being told what to do, I always have. I do not like cookie cutter assignments, boring studies, all of the subjects that are rinsed and repeated every semester. I stopped caring, and during the last bit of time i was in school, I went to my professor. I said I didn’t care, I hated the assignments, I had no desire. You know what she told me ? To ignore them then. She pushed me to make what i WANTED to make, she made assignments specifically for me, she gave me full creative freedom. THATS WHEN I IMMEDIATELY IMPROVED. School isnt what helped me, what helped me is being given an environment where i could be passionate and raw and make art i wanted to make. And you dont need thousands of dollars and a studio to make that happen.

You don’t need those tools. And remember, when it comes to art school, its never the students who are naturally talented or only have technical skill that succeed, its the ones that give a shit. the ones who love art, who love to create, and have a story to tell.

one you realize that it gets so much better.

Anyways, as a last update, heres my art now that im out of school and doing my own thing

[dimeadozencows]

This came to me in an early morning queer haze

Kissing my medics good morning (I am your husband heavy and I love you)

[zorangezest]

your art style is so cool woah,,,,,,, can I know what your coloring and rendering process is like?

yes! here’s a breakdown I’ve assembled for ya🫵🫵

[lilybug-02]

Hii! First of all, I absolutely ADORE your HK AU, the whole Idea and your art style are perfect imo!

If that's not too much to ask, could you please tell us something about your process of drawing humans (and maybe also bugs)? Dewi and his dad always look so adorable, I was hoping to take a peek at your drawing secrets

Hello! And thank you!!! 💕💟💗☮️

I wouldn't be the first to admit it, but I have trouble drawing humans, like- A LOT of trouble. My consistency is that of bread, as in it's different every time I make it 😅. But I have to remind myself that I draw for fun, not for quick improvement. Uh anyways-

When I draw anything, especially humans, I make a quick and simple rough draft of their position and expression. This helps me feel "prepared" for lineart.

Sometimes I'll do multiple rough draft sketches, usually if the final piece is going to be very detailed.

For my personal style of art, I give humans big eyes and noses, with very flexible mouth movements. Here's a neat speedpaint :)

Never be afraid to use references!!! (even if it's annoying and takes time -w-)

Humans (and bugs) can be challenging to draw at times, but its important to keep things basic.

And sometimes you can get silly with it, Charlie Brown simple style.

[aspiring-prototype]

Seeing all these posts on the DCA's bday and the 21st of September got me making this thing.

*sensibly chuckles to self*

Happy Reveal-versary to Sun & Moon and happy 21st Sept!

@crabsnpersimmons , thank you for the advice!

[slfcare]

Do you have any advice on doing it scared? I'm so scared all the time, i avoid doing anything that would make me more scared, but its the only advice anyone has ever given me. Your post hints you figured it out, somewhat? Do you have any further wisdom to pass?

I had to stop seeing fear as something I could run away from. Think of the situation you're in as a large, boxed room, and you're standing in front of the door to that room. You have to enter through the door, because you have to experience the situation to get to that room's exit (which is on the other side), and move on. Your fear is like the key to both doors - the entry as well as the exit. The thing is, it's a heavy key. For some reason, it's uncomfortable in your hands, and you know that opening the door would take a monumental amount of effort. You also feel like it's unfair that your rooms are locked at all, because other people don't even need keys. At least, you don't see them use any. If you wanted to, you could drop the key and turn around and forget about the room altogether, but you don't want that - because then you wouldn't be moving forward. You'd also rather open the door without the key, but to get to a situation where you no longer run into locked doors at all, you need to unlock this one, first. I started seeing it that way. My fear used to be a heavy key that I was embarrassed to need, but my unwillingness to stay where I was forever convinced me to bother, anyway. Later, my fear became a lighter key, and then a keypad, and now it's somewhat of a finger print ID. Most importantly, my fear is not what stops me, but like security if you really think about it. However much it annoys me, feels like it hinders me or embarrasses me at times, its most important function is that it's a tool that I use to open doors. I'm trying to forget others' lack of security systems and intricate doors, and focus on opening mine however I need to so I can move forward. Because that's the point. Moving forward. This makes perfect sense in my head but it might not in yours (it already feels really odd trying to put it into words so I wouldn't be surprised), but I really hope you get the gist ♡ Fear = tool!

[zabreus]

one thing i see a bit with disco elysium fan script is a conflation between a failed skill check and bad advice from a skill. one of the beautiful things about DE is the skills are not arbiters of truth; successful checks won’t always lead to the correct outcomes, and a skill level being too high can impair you. in that sense, a failed passive (“anti-passive” according to wiki) wouldn’t be a skill giving bad advice, but a skill failing to fulfill its duty.

(bad example ahead) so it wouldn’t be:

LOGIC [Trivial - Failure]: Stick a fork in the toaster.

but more like:

BREAD-TOASTER: You peek into the narrow opening at the top of the electric bread-toaster.

PERCEPTION: You find a slice of bread wedged between the filaments. Smoke wafts into your nostrils. It’s burning, and you seemingly have no way of retrieving it.

INTERFACING [Challenging - Success]: The metal fork you found in the cupboard. It should be both long and sturdy enough for the job.

You: Grab the fork.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium - Success]: The tips of your fingers tingle. This seems like a very bad idea.

LOGIC [Easy - Failure]: You are uncertain of the outcome here.

1. Use the fork to fish out the toast.

2. “This is beneath me.”

3. [Half-Light - Godly 16] Establish dominance. Fuck the toaster.

[no-psi-nan]

Disclaimer: Fanfiction is for fun times and it doesn't have to be "good" to exist and be shared!! Also just like all advice in the world YMMV (your mileage may vary) and the fact is that the best writing advice is whatever gets you writing!

STEP ONE of good characterization:

YOU ARE NOT THE CHARACTER. THE CHARACTER IS NOT YOU. STOP RELATING TO THE CHARACTER.

They do not think the way you think. They will not react the way you react. They don't have your morals, preferences, tastes, fashion sense, etc etc etc.

You are not the guy.

You must appreciate them as a separate person. Only once you have separated them from yourself in your heart can you start on the road to knowing your blorbo....

STEP TWO of good characterization:

When asking any question about the character at all, START FROM CANON.

If the exact answer is not in the canon, pick the CLOSEST scenario / fact / interaction, and work from there.

Example: Blorbo has never seen Glup Shitto held at gunpoint. But Blorbo was really angry when Glup Shitto's diary was stolen, and freaked out during another life or death situation.

Held at gunpoint is like 10x more fucked up than the diary so make Blorbo's like 10x angrier and similarly freaked out.

STEP THREE of good characterization:

For details that are not addressed at all in canon, use THEMES, GENRE, and CHARACTER ARCHETYPE/ROLE to create a believable rendition of the character.

Don't forget to include any quirks that significantly set them apart from similar characters when choosing these things btw.

Your BRILLIANT POWERFUL SCIENTIST may have dark polished hardwood furniture that speaks to sophistication but show her love of travel with tchotchkes from around the world.

Your ANGTSY MANPAIN MAN may choose military combat gear but wear pink socks because his daughter picked them out.

Your MANIC PIXIE DREAM GUY may love jogging with his cute dog in the park but reveals hints of a DARK PAST in his music playlist. And in the gun he keeps in his fanny pack.

Don't forget that other characters likely have their own knowledge and opinions of blorbo that you can draw from. If Glup Shitto is consistently wrong about blorbo and thinks blorbo is probably a good cook, make blorbo a bad cook. If Glup Shitto is blorbo's childhood best friend and used to play doll murder courthouse a lot, it's a good stretch to say that blorbo may have played doll murder courthouse as a child too, and this was something they did together.

STEP FOUR of good characterization:

DO A LITTLE RESEARCH!!

The character almost certainly hasn't taken the exact life path as you. If they are from a different area, look into cultural norms that may differ from yours.

No one is expecting you to be the foremost scholar on Japanese etiquette or British regional slang, but a little can go a long way.

People in places with socialized healthcare should not be worrying about medical bills, blorbos in tropical areas will not experience the seasons as much as you might, other cultures attitudes towards nudity/sex/drugs may be wildly different to yours.

IF you actually have relevant experience then feel free to use it in your fics. But don't forget that you are not the guy! Really think through how their perspective may differ even in the same situation.

STEP FIVE of good characterization:

PUT LOVE INTO IT AND HAVE FUN!!!

If you don't love Glup Shitto, don't write about them! If you're not having fun, hit the bricks!

Fanfiction is for HAVING A GOOD TIME and SHARING WITH OTHER FREAKS!!!!!!

Much love!! 💕

[teachyouhowtodothesponge]

How do you make home's eyes so expressive- every time I draw him he either looks like he's about to pass out or too hyper for his own good-

Home is a very hard character for me to draw (mainly because I am not the best at drawing buildings)! I have trouble with that too cause all his expression is in his eyes! I am not the best at art advice, but for Home, some things you could play around with are the eyelids (blinds), eye pupil size, and which direction he is looking. Maybe even squashing or stretching the walls of Home a little bit if you're going for a more rubber hose cartoony design!

Also, here are some messy Home doodles!

[erinwantstowrite]

Erin HELP. How do you get out of writer’s block. Please. I’m stuck and I have NO idea how to continue on and I’ve already rewritten said scene twice 😭😭

i have to break it to you now... writer's block is a bit of a misnomer. instead of a writer's block (or art!!) i would call it a "writer shift" or "level up," when you feel like everything you're writing is terrible, it's because you're growing as an artist! you're just seeing your art with a more critical eye, learning and adjusting. which i can probably get to another time because that's not what you asked

so!!! what is probably happening is that you don't like your outline as much as you think you do. this happens to me ALL the time. i go into a chapter thinking that i've got everything i want all set up and then i'm surprised when i procrastinate or i rewrite it several times (my record is 8 times). a good 86% of the time i end up changing my outline and trying again and it goes much better for me

if that isn't what's happening or you just REALLY like your outline, there might be another problem and here's some ideas:

go back and read your set up to that scene. you might not have given it a proper introduction/natural progression into what comes next, or you might be forgetting something

try drawing out a map of your setting and imagine your characters walking around it. there might be some white room action happening and it's bothering you

it could be something about your dialogue! try acting out your dialogue in a one person play and see if it feels natural for you to say (as in like, technicality. if you can't literally say the words then it might be hard for your reader to read) and if it feels like something your character would say

[canisalbus]

Hey, I’m new to Tumblr, but I’ve seen your characters around the internet and I love them so much!! Everyone has so much love for Machete and Vasco and your art is so cool to see! Do you have any tips for an aspiring artist and creative writer?

Hi! Welcome to tumblr! I'm glad to hear you like my dogs :]

I'm not really a writer, and I also completely lose my confidence when I'm trying to explain my art processes. So this is probably an obvious, unhelpful platitude at best, but one thing I've realized is that you should allow yourself to be self-indulgent. If you're the primary target audience of your own work, it generates passion and keeps you inspired and motivated. I like to believe that people who see your creations are more likely to respond to them positively if they can sense that you're putting your heart and soul to them.

[genericpuff]

I'm honestly amazed by how well you can imitate the LO S3 art style! Have you always been good at this sort of thing or is it a skill you developed due to your work as a tattoo artist?

ahhh thank you, but ima let you in on a little trade secret -

it's literally just referencing LMAO which is a valuable skillset to have! but one that I think a lot of folks tend to overlook because they think "learning to draw" means "I need to be able to draw everything perfectly from imagination!" Which sure, learning how to draw things without needing references might be cool, but it's ultimately not the sole defining feature of a "good artist" and I think there's frankly way too much emphasis put on "drawing without references" these days because it creates this unrealistic expectation of what an artist is. Referencing is part of the process! It's important! And it's a valuable skill to have so that you can actually grow your skills beyond your own limits! Referencing is as important to the process of creating art as research is to the process of writing, you can only produce so much new stuff if you're not taking in new stuff alongside it.

Though I use this skill a lot in tattooing as well, it's mostly rooted in my animation schooling which broke me out of the habit of drawing purely from imagination and taught me how to properly reference other material for educational purposes.

And I'm sure there are people in audience right now gasping at the fact that I simply cropped a bunch of different shots of Minthe from S3 and rearranged them like some surgical madman playing with body parts-

-but this is like, the actual majority of the process when it comes to learning other art styles and this process is taught as a skill in a lot of art schools because it forces you to draw what's there rather than what you think is there. This is the basis of master studies, to learn the techniques of other artists by trying to mimic them as closely as possible. Don't know what tools that artist used specifically? Try to recreate the work anyways with your best guess. Even if you only get close but not perfect, you'll still likely learn a lot along the way and may even develop some brand NEW techniques that weren't present in the original work you're studying from.

Imagination is necessary to the creative process, but it's only part of that process, you can't suddenly learn how to draw the way other artists draw through imagination alone because your imagination is limited purely by your own lived experiences. Our brains don't come pre-installed with these skills, they can't just magically unlock the capability to "do the thing". Just like how we have to learn to follow recipes as a means to becoming a baker or learn to read the alphabet to learn how to read and write, we have to learn how to draw what we see and reference the material around us if we truly want to expand our own innermost knowledge which will allow us to draw from imagination.

Here are some other examples of studies I've done, such as my attempts to learn the art style of The Doctor Foxglove Show:

As well as a background study from S1 of LO:

And of course here are a handful of the shitloads of studies I've done to try and "figure out" how to draw Hades and Persephone from S1 of LO:

Aaaand just for the fun of it, here are some completely non-LO studies, like the ones I did of Kazuma Koda's background work and Akihiko Yoshida's character designs for Nier: Automata:

And this sorta rotoscoped ??? animatic of Mitsuhiro doing the opening jig for Still Feel by Half Alive which is 100% not done and probably never will be LOL

I'm always progressively doing studies of both LO and other media in this way so that I can update my knowledge and continue to improve my skillset.

Though, despite my best efforts to mimic the original creator's style, works like Rekindled will always have my own stylizations present, as that's just an inevitable consequence of it being made by myself and Banshriek (and the fact that we just refuse to draw worse to look more like LO because jfc so much of LO's original art, even the stuff we love, is rooted in Rachel's trial and errors lmao), but that's a feature, not a bug :') <3

So the answer is yes, the Minthe S3 redraw was done through skills I developed over time, though not necessarily through tattooing, simply through learning how to actually practice properly beyond "drawing a lot". And you can too! Draw lots, but also remember that your brain isn't naturally just going to "get better" at whatever you're trying to achieve just because you really want to achieve it. I try to avoid the mantra of "just practice" because it oversimplifies what's truly necessary to learning - having something to learn from outside of your own imagination. If you don't learn how to practice properly, then you'll just wind up repeating the same mistakes and reinforcing the same bad habits over and over again.

All that's to say, if you want to learn how to draw like a certain artist, try and recreate their art for yourself ;0 (but like also please for the love of god remember that it's for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, I shouldn't have to tell y'all not to copy directly off other artists' work for your own because that's just deadass stealing lmao) I know this enters the ethical dilemma of tracing, and whether or not it's a "valid" way to learn, but there's a lot of virtue in learning through referencing other artists and building new skills through them. I'm sure folks will argue that it's a 'crutch' or 'training wheels', but that's all often being touted from the perspective that crutches and training wheels... are automatically bad things and aren't meant to help people ?

Like obviously if you want to create your own thing that isn't purely "living in the shadow" of the works that inspired you, you WILL have to make that leap into the unknown. But that leap's a lot less scary to make when you have a parachute.