#i like to have the Shape of the thing for my own reference

[theoldkyokodied]

Hello! I really love your art! I was wondering if you have any tips on how to capture the person the facial features of the person you are drawing so well?(!) Your Billy and Stu are is amazing! Although it is in your style (which I absolutely adore) you still keep their likeness/resemblance which is very hard for me to do when trying to draw them in my style! (Sorry if the wording is confusing, any tips?) Thanks!

Ah thank you so much and sorry for taking so long to reply, but I needed to figure out how to answer this.

I have put some general tips together, but I need to point out that none of these replace the time investment of learning art. It is merely a suggestion of direction for practice, and I don’t want anyone to feel discouraged if any of these tips don’t immediately make them into a master of arts. Art practice is not easy and it can be frustrating to not be up to your own standards yet, but you will get there! :) In the meantime: be kind to yourself!

That said, let’s get to the tips I can share:

1) Use references!

I usually create a reference sheet for any character I want to draw more often, with their face in lots of different angles. Being able to know how, for example, someone’s nose looks like from the side and from the front can be essential when it comes to recognition. You basically want to be able to create a 3 dimensional object with these references. I tend to need the references less the more I draw the character, after a while i just memorise their key aspects for drawing them from most angles :)

2) Figure out key-features of a person

Try to figure out how to simplify someone in a drawing. What are their most striking features that NEED to be included? Sometimes it helps when you try to think of what features a caricaturist would accentuate in a caricature of them. Here you have some features that I personally try to focus on when I draw billy:

As mentioned in the bottom right corner, the placement of these key-features is also important. Try to figure out where things are placed in relation to other facial features and mind their size as well. this becomes easier the more you do it!

If you struggle to find out what features are important you can also look up other fan-artists stylised work you like and try to see what they chose to highlight :)

3) Do studies!

4) focus on values and contrast before considering color

doing a study without a sketch by blocking in shapes can help you figure out the planes of a characters face

as you can see here, stu’s eyebrows kind of blend in with the shadows of his brow bone, which is why I usually draw his eyebrows pretty light/in a color that doesn’t have high contrast with the skin tone, it makes him instantly more recognisable in my opinion

5) Draw (a lot)

I have been drawing basically every day since I was a child, but my ability to actually draw someone recognisable has only developed in the recent years. And I don’t think I’m done with learning. In the undying words of Bob Ross: “Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do”.

I hope my tips can help a bit and and perhaps lend you some motivation for the never ending practice that every artist has to face :’) <3

[drag00ni]

hello! hope this is alright to ask but i was wondering if you have any advice on drawing armor? ffxiv is the first game i’ve ever been into with such detailed clothing; i’ve been trying my hand at drawing my characters but i’m still having trouble making everything look Correct. so would you have any pointers for simplifying things or breaking things down to better understand how the outfits work? if not no worries, i just love the way you draw armor and thought you might be a good source of advice! :-)

hi! this is absolutely fine to ask, no worries. I shall try to somewhat portray my way of thinking/working when drawing armor, and I apologize if I missed any points for this

I usually start drawing armor by drawing the body and then somewhat "pasting" it onto the skin. the important part is to understand the armor's shapes (use references!) and use 3D shapes to refine them in your art (the planes are very important). view the (ffxiv) character from different angles and watch how the shape forms around the body, and at what part of the body what kind of armor is used (like plates at elbow height, decorative spike somewhat in the middle of the arm, you can make up such pointers for yourself if you like)

(a lot of ffxiv armor is simply decorative with all the details but sometimes, if you feel fancy, you can watch out for things like belts holding certain plates together, or how one part inserts into another. which, again, may not always work for ffxiv armor. you could study real armor to get a general grip of How Things Work, and maybe also to get shapes down :) )

simplifying also works nicely, I do it a lot! and while my forms may need some work here and there (always some air up) they will really help to draw armor. I simplify by generalizing some shapes or "fusing" some together, leaving details aside and the like. if you want, you can also trace over a picture of the armor and fuse forms and leave out details, just to get the overall shape and silhouette down. often it works for me to draw with references once or twice and then drawing it from memory, but this is not something that must work for everyone, don't worry. <- this part may help you retain important parts of the armor while forgetting some details you can leave out. I like to simplify like that

another thing that helps me and makes armor look nicer is double lines. I use them when I want to indicate some detail or have certain spots that look nicer with them. honestly that one is just up to your tastes. double lines also help with indicating detail outside of armor btw!

the most important points: understanding of shapes (of the armor), understanding of planes (what plane faces which way and so on), reference and simplification by generalization. unless I forgot something.

apologies for the very long post but it seems I had a lot to say. hope this helps or at least gives you some more insight into how others draw armor! I am by no means a professional (yet) and you do not have to take these points to heart like some sort of instruction. experiment and see how you can make these things your own!

[cream-and-tea]

going to do the thing i did while plotting out book one and make a post committing to finishing the ghoststory booktwo outline so. watch this space.

[ryssbelle]

Drew a bunch of Marinettes in a bunch of different artists styles it was a lot of fun!!

Artists who's styles I mimicked: @buggachat @hamsternamedmarinette @ladybeug @sabertoothwalrus and @anna-scribbles all epic artists 🤟😎

[amphibianaday]

day 1821 - half a decade!

redraw of day 1, 364, and 1000, but with a twist - now it's also my frogsona :D

for now i'll be taking a (maybe permanent) break for at least the rest of the year! see you in 2025!

previous versions for comparison below!

[promiseimnotacop]

jsyk user genderyomi reblogs from ppl identyfing as baeddel/“transman-hater” (w their words). safe to assume she is one.

i do appreciate well meaning calling me out on shit i've reposted and whatnot but that does not to my mind warrant any kind of unfollow/deleting posts what have you

i have been seeing traces of this new wave is 'transmisandry a real thing/is baeddelism real and if it is is it actually a bad thing or kinda based' flooding my dash lately and have very deliberately stayed away from engaging in any of it/weighing up on one side or another.

thankyou for engaging here though in a more polite way!

[just-a-hooman64]

Dump of stuff in my Fortnite fanart folder, some stuff's being reposted, others are fresh out of containment, and then the Fish are back because I still love that image and I realized I fucked up exporting it so now the colours are nicer (Click on it for better quality, yknow how tumblr is)

[unjest]

won't be your biggest transformation (but itll be the most difficult one yet)

[darabeatha]

❝ Please do not wear glasses with wrong prescriptions nor purchase regular fantasy contact lenses if you have astigmatism ❞

[waywardsalt]

mmmmmm two sketchbook linebecks im pretty happy with

[starpros-sunshine]

My knowledge on culturally significant media is like. The only thing I have going for myself who am I if not the guy that knows fun little references about things...

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[talkorsomething]

realizing i am just a weeeeird shape

[runningwithscizzorz]

(1)Learn the rules before you break them + Gather proper references

(2) Understand what you want to break and how

(3) Can't do it? Find someone who can

(4) It's going to look really bad for a while

(5) Have fun with it!

(1) -Yes, I am that kind of artist. Yet, not in the conventional way. I encourage people to go in guns blazing when it comes to drawing something new, then coming out analyzing what they know, and what they need to learn more of right away.

-Here, I broke down the anatomical pieces of Nour and Narinder's face with the same labels so you guys can understand this weird invisible pattern that I follow in my work. Doing this with any animal you're attempting to draw greatly improves your line confidence when drawing different face shapes. Also understanding the biological function for why animals look a certain way helps you keep consistency.

(3) Time to throw any artistic guilt you have for heavily referencing people's art OUT THE WINDOW and start ANALYZING PEOPLE'S WORK YOU WANT TO BE LIKE✨ I've always done this, having a reference of someone else's amazing work right next to my own drawing so I can try and understand how they make their magic work! No shame, no embarrassment, nada. Pure, unadulterated will and spite that I would be just as good as the artist who made me so motivated and happy with their work! I couldn't figure out how to make Nour's face both sheep-like, and humanly expressive, so I looked at a LOT of Zootopia and old Disney art for help!

(2) With how I draw narilamb, I'm still working on it (as you can see) but I wanted to break Narinder's face to be fluffier and slimmer, while Nour's face would be shorter and flatter. If you look at it for too long, it's absolutely going to look weird, in the way that if you look at Anna from Frozen for too long she starts looking really weird. The anatomy isn't meant to be correct or consistent, it's meant to convey the emotion and energy I want out of the characters in that moment. If you're able to properly get that across, then you don't need to think about how broken something looks, as long as your eye is happy enough to trick your brain into thinking what you're seeing is canny.

(4) Yeah, I hate this part too. It's going to look like shit at first. I can't even look at my art from a few months ago when I was figuring out their designs... God, so fucking ugly. If it weren't for the shittiness of those drawings, I would have never gotten here! Wading through the "trust the process" stage always really sucks, but it's absolutely worth the relief of when you finally get something to look right.

(5) Art is work, yes. It's stressful, it's long, it's straining, its draining, it's exclaiming, blah blah blah. But, I try to keep my art FUN. If I find my artwork becoming slow as I depressingly drag my pen over my tablet, I'm failing. You MUST keep spirit and life in your work. The spirit of emptiness or the life of sadness can have a very meaningful place in art, but those can only exist with keeping work light, easy, and fun! If you're stressing how a specific thing looks or how you can't get something to look right no matter what, FUCK IT. Draw something to bring the flavor back in your work! I'm kind of rambling, but just, HAVE FUN!✨️ Be messy, scream, laugh, slash canvases, throw paint, smash sculptures, tear apart books, GO CRAZY

[pathologicalreid]

nicknames | S.R.

in which you meet the team for the first time, and receive your first nickname

who? spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

category: fluff

content warnings: reader is referred to as a girl. i have this headcanon where when reid's IQ gets slashed to 60, he'd get so distracted that he'd run on autopilot, hence the willingness to handshake.

word count: 591

a/n: happy finals szn! this fic has been rotting in my brain for weeks and i finally decided to flesh it out. and maybe you should like and reblog this if you enjoy it (no pressure tho)

You were still filtering through your entry paperwork when the rest of the team filtered into the bullpen. David Rossi, who had helped you land this job in the first place, nodded in your direction before disappearing into his office. “Hey!” Someone called from across the bullpen, “Y/N, right?” Emily asked, setting her go bag in the chair at her desk before making her way over to your desk.

Smiling in response, “It’s nice to finally meet you,” you responded, reaching your hand out for her to shake. It was nice to be in the BAU, complete with a promotion from Special Agent to Supervisory Special Agent.

JJ walked over next, waving, and introducing herself as the communications liaison. “I’ve heard a lot of great things from your old CARD team,” she said, “I’m sure your skillset will come in handy here.”

You nodded in affirmation, “That’s the hope!” You answered, smiling at the prospect of your old team singing your praises.

Next, Derek approached, reaching out his hand for you to shake. Of course, you obliged and grinned at him. Part of you felt like you were meeting celebrities, the BAU was a big deal in the bureau. “Derek Morgan,” he introduced himself, “How long were you with CARD?”

“Five years,” you responded, it was a long time for anyone to deal solely with child abduction, but your team had the best rate in the bureau. Besides, you found the work rewarding.

Morgan’s eyebrows raised in surprise, “that’s impressive.”

You nodded, “Thank you. I’m really looking forward to working with you all.”

JJ looked behind her, “Oh, have you met Garcia?” She asked, peeking around the corner to where the technical analyst's office was.

Glancing down at the cat-shaped stress toy that she had given you when you arrived this morning, you smiled, “Yes, she was the first to greet me this morning. I think I’m just missing Dr. Reid.”

As if on cue, the young doctor walked into the bullpen, he had a worn leather satchel over his shoulder and looked like he might be talking to himself, “Reid!” Emily called over, getting his attention, and causing him to change course, approaching your desk. “Come meet, Y/N.”

He adjusted the strap of his satchel over his sweater before you reached out your hand for him to shake. “Oh, he doesn’t…” JJ began, but her voice trailed off when Dr. Reid shook your hand.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Dr. Reid,” you said, smiling at him. It felt good to know you had finally met the entire team.

He gave a close-lipped smile in return, “Reid is fine, or Spencer.” He said as you each dropped your hands to your sides.

Noticing everyone looking back and forth between the two of you as if you had already managed to do something wrong, you gathered all of your paperwork in your hands, “I should get this to Hotch.”

The rest of the team got the message and started to disperse to their respective desks, Reid’s being adjacent to yours. “Welcome to the team, pretty girl,” Morgan said to you before turning to his own paperwork.

You hugged your paperwork to your chest as if you were protecting it. Quietly, you muttered, “I really hope that nickname doesn’t stick.”

Across from you, there was a short laugh, almost a scoff. “It will,” Spencer responded in the same reverent tone. For a second, you thought it might be a joke, but you could tell by his facial expression that he was serious.

[remxedmoon]

ohhhhhh ghostlight loop we’re really in it now

FANART FOR @ghostlightfic GO READ GHOSTLIGHT NEOW!!!!!! i’m so so normal about this fic i prommy. anyways!!!! greyscale version + some design notes below! because i’m very normal about character design 😊

ok design notes time!!

for once i actually am normal about colors here. this is just colorpicked from my normal loop design! which is in turn colorpicked from siffrin’s design. not much to say here!

i generally tried to make them more angular compared to sif? their hair is a lot spikier, the silhouette of their sweater is more pointed, just Sharper shapes all around. idk. hard to put into words

hoping the glowy hair comes across well here. i also tried to make their hair look a bit less messy, since they actually take care of their hair! no flyaways here.

ahhhhhh i Had to make the sweater Fucking Massive i can’t reject my nature. i wanted to have the vague silhouette of the cloak while still keeping it it’s own thing?? i feel like sif could have something like this somewhere. idk. i tried to make it look a bit weathered, since it’s a hand-me-down from sif and that bastard does not take good care of his clothes.

don’t. ask me whether they’re wearing shoes or not. my normal loop design has Built In Heels but you can draw your own conclusions.

not a design note but for some reason i kept forgetting whether or not loop had a scar???? i literally had their description in the fic open as a reference and i STILL kept forgetting to draw it. i’m so so good at remembering things

anyways!!!!!!! go read ghostlight!!!!! it’s really good go read it. anyways. greyscale version as promised 🩶