#i tried to make it easier on myself by doing a redraw but even tho i'm copying a pic i already drew its still difficult

[pekoeboo]

trying to work on art for antony's birthday today (he's 3 years old 😭) but i'm just. really tired and can't focus and it probably won't get done before the night's over :c

i know i can post some kind of belated thing instead but that always feels Bad to me hhhh. i just wanted to celebrate my boy on the day that he was initially created, you know? ;n;;

[lemon-wedges]

Hello!!! I love your art and your style. I'd love to hear your inspirations behind how you draw and, in addition, hear a bit about your painting process (I love the impressionistic look your paintings have)

ahh!!! thank you so much ;u;

Ill tried my best to break down my thought process behind my drawing, so i hope this all makes sense aahaha

undercut cause it came out real long

SO Karl Gnass is an instructor that i took an anatomy class with. and who broke down anatomy in a way that really helped me grasp space. like space a figure occupies. and from that i think my characters feel a bit more...grounded? im not sure what the right word would be but tangible is something people sometimes say about my art.

And i do think when youre able to make a figure look like its really wrapping its hands around something it makes character interactions a lot more intimate.

heres a few under sketches i do when i start a drawing (i am trying REALLY hard not to use my nsfw ones tho those are pretty perfect when it comes to showing u anatomy RIP)

after i got the poses done ill turn down the opacity and rough sketch out details on top of these. and once THATS done i move onto lineart. and the most important aspect of this step is NOT TO TRACE YOUR UNDER DRAWING!!!! thats what sucks the life out of your work!!!!

instead you use your undersketch as a guide. ilI actually redraw the simple anatomy underneath very lightly, erase where they over lap and then add line weight variety + darken up the details.

examples of this are gonna look a little messy but. Left is the original pose i drew out with rough details. right is the drawing i do on top of it. you'll see theyre not one to one and theres some lines i didnt fully erase out when redoing the anatomy. i find my clean up has a lot more energy when i do this.

the thing about my style is that you'll notice i never actually do actual clean smooth lineart. and thats because i HATE DOING THAT SHIT. like i did learn how to do it and consistently forced myself to do it for over a year. and while i do think i learned a lot about line weight and drawing clearer. i realized? its just not for me. I like a textured brush and i like being able to see those small lines i didnt get to fully erase out because i think they look cool lol and thats ok!! do what you want forever man!!! its your art!!!

Also before i move onto painting ill show you this neat little trick. you know those more "loose" drawings of mine that feel more gestural? the begining process is exactly the same. the difference is i use a chunkier pen and try to see how much i can simplify details + just feel out the energy of lines

NOW PAINTING.

man. where to even start.

the thing about painting is that its an entire different set of skills that need to each be honed on their own and will slowly build up together. ill break it down like this.

VALUE, COLOR, and TECHNIQUE

I've said this on another ask before but you'll notice ill do a lot of black and white sketches. and i do that to practice choosing how to group values.

like this example. how light is laios' wolf coat compared to his skin? or kabrus skin color compard to laios coat. when do you want to really push the contrast of light and dark and when do you let values be closer to each other when you DONT want attention

the next step from this is adding a light source.

and when you're working in black and white its a lot easier to pay more attention where you want your light/how its gonna look like hitting youre characters and how far youre gonna push your shadows.

and you know if you get good at this you can play with limited color palletes

this is literally just be picking out blues and hitting the bottom with the gradient tool to light it up

NOW COLOR

is a lot harder and also very subjective. I do a ton of impressionist studies where i just color pick the fuck out of a piece to see what colors masters used + knowing the history of paint and what colors were available during that time period. +knowing what colors = what mood + knowing what colors to use when you want to be more realistic vs when you want to lean into more stylized+ what colors YOU specially incline towards + AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

its a lot and im actually still learning myself

But when i do a painting i collect a LOT of refrences of the kind of mood i want my own painting to feeling like. I've show the first example in another ask before but heres one from my latest labru too

WHen i actually start a painting tho they look like this. The top drawings are just flat colors with a simple outline of where i want the light to be hitting. like in my value studies im just trying to get the idea down, seeing what values need to be darker vs what is lighter. and how the light source covers the character.

figuring this out in the begining makes the rest of the painting so much easier because youve essentially made all the big compostion decisions NOW. from here you can start playing with colors.

my second stage, youll see with drawings at the bottom, is when i start using my texture brush to lay in extra shadows and just play with variety.

and then? i start rendering

that would be TECHNIQUE

And well....thats also something thats gonna be very subjective.

With my own style im not interested in rendering everything to perfection. Im trying to figure out how to texture hair/skin/clothes in ways that make them feel like the materials they are while also showing the energy of my brushstrokes.

I dont zoom in while i paint btw. everything i do is zoomed out so i can see the entire drawing. it helps me not tight up my strokes while also letting me build up all areas of the painting equally. the only time i zoom in is when im lining out the eyes/mouth of a character. and yeah. it drives me insane doing this because ITS SOOOOO Tempting to obsess over paint 1 area forever then zoom out and see that nothing matches lol

The other thing about my style of painting. Is that im not gonna use the exact same formula for every piece. like this isnt cell shading. you can have an idea of how to texture skin/clothes/hair and sometimes it looks great and beautiful in one painting and then it looks like shit in another. ive overhauled a lot of paintings multiple times because what i thought would work doesnt and ive had to force myself to explore and play with my brushstrokes. and you know? i wouldnt have it any other way. it means none of my paintings are gonna look alike! and i think thats pretty cool :D

ill leave you with this in the end. a painting im in the middle of doing and debating to overhaul cause im just not feeling the strokes. who knows what ill look like in the end

anyways i hope this helped a little? even if you look at all this and go. IM NEVER GONNA DRAW LIKE THIS BOZO ahahah

BUT I WISH YOU LUCK ON YOUR OWN ARTS :DDDD

[nemo-in-wonderland]

So, as I mentioned yesterday night, I decided to share some of the stuff that I had created, back in 2007, for the Naruto Fandom.

Now, please, for the love of all that's holy, be lenient with me, because I was a bebe that just wanted to have fun and create her own little bubble in Konoha, playing with her own ocs and just have fun with different ideas!

here are 10 artworks that I chose from the old pictures I took of my artworks before leaving Italy, back in 2016.

I have to give credit to baby me, because she was more daring and less scared of making mistakes, but I have to be honest, it was much easier when I was doing all this just for myself.

Literally, this artworks have been seen only by my baby brother and my husband, when I met him (hilariously, through Naruto, because he had a Sasuke Pfp on his old Messenger Blog, and I was in full on Shippuuden hyperfixation when I contacted him), so I am a little nervous sharing them all here, in the open.

But they brought me SO MUCH joy, I loved them all SO MUCH, it's not even a joke!

So, here you have Yukaku Onikarasu Kureaki, my Demon Bird Girl, and Sayuri Onitora Kureaki, my Demon Tiger boy.

Sayuri has SUCH a special place in my heart, because he was the very first male character that I tried to draw, and I am still very proud of him to this day. I shipped him with Iruka, SO HARD. Like in my brain, they were OTP, and they still are to this day (tho, in later revisions, he is in a poly relationship with Iruka and Makoto Aoyama, a character from "Love Hina" another manga I absolutely ADORED).

Then you have small Yukaku, who was Sayuri's little sister, around the same age as Naruto, if a tad younger, and who I basically had hooked up with Kankuro, and moved to the Sunagakure, despite her basically being raised in Konoha.

Their whole story is rather complex, because they are siblings raised by different family (Sayuri in the Kumogagure, Yukaku in Konohagakure by Asuma and Kurenai). They were born as regular Shinobi, but because of who their parents were (and especially their mother - the one I portrayed in the last picture along with Tobirama Senju), they were tested upon, and infused with the genes of the Demonic Tiger and Demonic Crow, hence making them both, de facto, Oni.

This is just a very very VEEERY bare bone summary of who they are. As I said in my previous post on my main blog, the lore that I have going on for them is as extensive as the one I have for Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and if you know me, you know how freaking thorough and exhaustive that is.

(please, click on the pictures if you want to see them better!)

So, yeah!

Here you have a small sneak peek of what was going on in my mind during those years! 😂😂

Who knows, I might try to redraw them again, once I have my pen with me.

well, I hope you will like them just as much as I did love them (and still do).

--Nemo

[frenchiefieart]

How did ya get so good at drawing the turtles close too the series art style?!

I reallyreallyreally wanna learn that, can you learn it even? Do you have some ref pics you look after?!

I tried too find some on the web but i could never find some good ones :/

You art very amazing -w-

Ohhhh man thank you so much omg??? I’ve been trying to get better at mimicking the style of the show, so this means a lot ;o;

For me personally, I’ve been interested in working in animation for a loooong time, which often requires you to be able to copy styles, so I’ve been practicing that for years myself, with a variety of shows while growing up! Either drawing existing charas in the show, my own characters in the style of the show, or even trying to draw characters from other cartoons in a certain shows style! Just lots of fun little exercises. :D

For Rise specifically, and how I’ve personally been learning the style, here are a few tips!

1) Don’t be afraid to trace! You might hear a lot that tracing is a bad thing to do as an artist, and I would definitely agree in terms of posting those traced works, that’s something I’m firmly against. However, as personal practice to get a feel for the shapes, lineweights, etc it can be super helpful! I myself traced about five screenshots from Rise before I got comfortable drawing them on my own without having to stare at a ref the entire time. Speaking of refs tho...

2) USE REFS!!! USE A TON OF THEM! Get the characters your drawing in a variety of poses, expressions, etc...and make a ref sheet! I personally use pureref, it’s super user-friendly, and you can drag and drop images straight from your folders or online without having to save anything, arrange everything how you want, and even lock it as the top window so you can have it up while you’re drawing. I myself keep it on my top monitor while my drawing is on my cintiq screen, but you can work the setup to best suit you! (I’ll attach some pics of my screen with pureref up as an example!)

(with it locked as the top window, so i can work and it stays visible) ^^^

(and my messy pureref file for mikey just on its own ashdahsdj) ^^^

3) Study the shots by character layout artists on the show!!! A lot of them have some of their fave shots posted on their social media, and their job is heavily focused on redrawing storyboard shots to get the characters on model, and studying them has been a huuuuuge help for me in getting even more comfy drawing in the style of the show. You can prob see I have a few charlay shots up on my pureref window hHAHAHA

4) THIS HELPFUL LINK RIGHT HERE! Rise is big on gestures and extreme poses, and utilizes straights vs curves to really push form and motion. Once I got the hang of this, drawing the turts especially with their muscles became worlds easier.

5) Collect refs whenever you can! And keep stuff organized! This one is pretty optional but it’s so much easier when you wanna draw a certain character(s) and already have a whole selection of potential refs in different angles/poses/expressions. I just collect refs from the show excessively when I’m watching episodes or scrolling through twitter ahsdahjdjas

Hopefully that info can be of some help to you! I just really love rottmnt ;o; Love these turts

[mrfutureboy]

I would like to know when you started drawing and where your passion for fanart started 😊

Oh FUCK dude i did not see this i’m so fucking sorry this is so late 😭 damn you, tumblr, for not fucking notifying me!! Anyway buckle up this is gonna be much longer than you asked for <3

Honestly ive kinda been drawing all my life! I hope that doesnt sound dumb cuz obviously almost everyone drew pictures when they were kids, but i know that it’s been a consistent hobby for me since i was little. By the time i was in 3rd grade I was hoarding notebooks to draw in. Cuz that’s something fun about me: i had a real huge habit of drawing in things that werent sketchbooks. Through middle school and beyond I did buy/receive sketchbooks, but I started out with various kinds of notebooks. One I had from like 2nd grade was like a hardcover, stationary-type notebook that I drew cats in lol, and I have 2 velvet lisa frank notebooks from 3rd grade. In high school and college I had a really bad habit of drawing in the margins on my notes and on handouts the teacher/professor would give. Those classes where the prof just prints out all the notes beforehand and gives them to you to follow along? Oh man, I spent so many classes barely listening while I drew on them! I also used to draw on my physics homework and tests and sometimes I even got extra credit for them (thank you jeff :D). I actually have a folder of various drawings I’ve kept from that 8yr time period and a lot of them are on classwork 😂

Obviously, I’ve been doing a lot of digital art lately, which I’m sure is what u were more curious about rather than the shit about drawing on my homework. I got a surface pro as a graduation gift in 2016 bc prior to that i had a wacom tablet and a janky ass laptop, so the gift was kinda a 2-in-1: i can do schoolwork AND art easily! i like digital art a lot and honestly im still learning new things abt it every time i draw. I use Leonardo currently (i’ll skip that story) but I started out doing digital art on sketchfu WITHOUT the wacom tablet in maaaaybe 2012??? 2011??? does anyone on this site remember sketchfu? Honestly couldnt even tell u how i found that site hahah the internet was just full of wonders back in the day. RIP sketchfu. Once i got the tablet tho some time later i used sketchfu still (i think) but also gimp and krita i believe.

Oh i suppose I should mention that i took art all four years of highschool and also minored in it in college! So it’s something i did academically as well as for fun. I keep thinking about going to art school for realsies but idk. I’m already $$$ in debt from my first degree i dont feel like adding to that 😅😓

Ok now for the second part of your question: I’ve also pretty much always done fan art! Ive never really been one for OC’s, EXCEPT for the self-insert superhero double life “comics” i wrote about a poodle named Sassy when i was in third grade. And then the knock off “comics” i wrote at a later time which honestly it was weird that i did a knock off of my own thing rather than just adding them to the original or making it a spin off with at least one of the og characters. Cuz it wasnt a spin off!! But anyway there wasnt really much to any of these characters; i just needed vessels to get my weird ideas out.

So anyway yeah most of what ive ever drawn has been fan art or self portraits, because its just easier for me to take characters that already exist and bend them to my will (artistically). Well excluding art assignments in school i guess because i would usually have to draw something specific and therefore not something self indulgent. But yeah ive drawn for lots of fandoms like the earliest i remember is warrior cats. Then theres things like pokemon and warriors and random other books i read thru middle school (i used to read a LOT but now im practically illiterate); spn, sherlock, and marvel through high school; and then marvel and bttf thru the end of hs and beyond. Idk i also have always loved looking at other peoples fan art and so im like “shit i wanna do that too!”. Tho i will say marvel was my biggest fandom and the one i had the longest interest in, so that was probably where the passion REALLY came from cuz I was drawing marvel stuff for such a long time (tho not posting shdjsk u have to trust me), but ive been doing fan art forever :)

(Of course, a lot of the fan art i was making prior to recently was drawn in lined notebooks or on homework sheets or what have you, and I wasn’t posting really any of it, but i was still making it and a good chunk of it still exists. Oh i should also mention most of it was with pencils or ballpoint pens like i wasnt doing anything too fancy. There was some digital art in the highschool-college time frame but it also really wasnt…much. Honestly i barely posted any of it here but I know some of it’s on deviantart)

I cant pinpoint the exact time I started getting more “serious” about my art in general, but i know the first pandemic lockdown gave me more free time and i was less stressed about schoolwork so i just kinda had a good outlet. (Tho i will say that prior, I had been in a life drawing club for a short while, and i had also been working on a personal sketchbook project that had me pretty ~inspired~ to do art. Also i watched twin peaks around this time and it inspired a lot of Feelings and i was making funky collages and other art pieced that were sometimes related to that. Some of those are on deviantart)

Honestly I think the Big thing with my digital art was coincidentally getting back into BTTF the summer of the 35th anniversary bc the fandom here was THRIVING and i was like “oh shit wait i want to contribute!” But as i kept drawing i kept wanting to improve and that leads us to right now where im constantly trying new things (whether subtle or obvious) and challenging myself to do full body drawings with different poses, and doing screencap redraws and what have you for various reasons (backgrounds, proportions, pose, etc)

So yeah :) Basically I’ve been doing fan art forever (I didnt even get into all the mediums ive tried but that’s another conversation bc this is already so long and convoluted) and it’s kinda coincidental that ive suddenly really gotten back into it and have improved dramatically in such a short time. Thank you so much @rovermcfly for the ask and again im really sorry you had to wait so long for a response! Stupid tumblr

[jamiewoolleyart]

I was wondering how you make your animatics? They're very beautiful and I'm trying to make one and it's a little confusing how I should go about it

hey thanks! So, I’m not entirely sure what part of the process you’re asking about, but I can give some general tips? (BUCKLE UP)

For what programs to use/how to compile it, you’ll probably have to figure out what works for you/is available to you, etc. etc.

For actually coming up with an idea —> to actually executing it, it def depends on your creative process but I can break down mine?

1) I’m the type of person that will have a creative revelation mid car ride or like in the dead of night lol, and whenever possible I immediately begin scribbling down notes & ideas bc I don’t trust my memory not to pull a fast one on me. I posted these sketches on my twitter for my last animationatic, which I scribbled down in my car in the disneyland parking lot before meeting up with my family haha bless their patience

these can be rly rough & tumble wild and only have to make sense to you! this little sketch was my fave to rediscover later ahahahha:

2) Next is thumbnails!!!! Crucial!!! Usually!! A few times I’ve tried to dive right in without doing them and it just turns out to be a convoluted mess….. plus it’s nice to have a place to draw like absolute garbage & its just mentally mapping out your drawings. My one for my Strawberry Blond/Life in Your Shape Animatic was kinda unique in that I fit it all in one page & also that really most of it stayed basically the same!! Only a few things in the middle changed, rly

you’ll see I don’t bother with clean lines or even squares or like if only one thing is changing I’ll just draw the new thing and not redraw the whole panel (ex: snufkin during “I give you a grin”). I also scribble a lot of “what if??” notes in the corners and alternate ideas

3) actually drawing it out!! I work in photoshop and to keep things simple each panel is its own file. sometimes just Starting is really hard for me so I make myself just draw ANYTHING with the promise that I’ll come back later…… for example lol…… the first panels w/ them lying in the grass were originally sO ??? not up to my standard but I was like “UGH!! WHATEVER!!” and didn’t know how to draw them yet, and I didn’t revisit until I had drawn like everything else, and by then it was waaaay easier to draw them!!

A lot of time though I won’t really do underdrawings (the thumbnails are essentially my underdrawings, plus animatics aren’t supposed to be super clean!!) tho if something’s distractingly messy I’ll definitely come back to it and clean it up.

Oh also Quick Tip:

the best tool in the entire universe for me for animation is the WARP TOOL (in PS, right click a selection, choose free transform, right click again & pick warp) it saves soooo much redrawing time and is a super fast sneaky way to give a drawing way more life with minimal effort. Yeah baby. (Don’t over do it tho, & I usually have to do some clean up, but yeah really good for subtle movements and is basically exclusively what I use for anything wind-blown)

Anyway I’m already regretting how long this is but there’s no stopping me now.

So by now I’ve drawn out all my panels, and during the whole time I’ve had the folder open in finder (I use a mac, not sure what PC equivalent to this is, some people use bridge? I hate bridge LOL) to click through my files to see if they’re working. there’s probably a better naming convention but I do this to keep them in order:

I’m always going back and adding inbetween panels when needed ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I got called out in a recent class for having wack naming conventions eriuhgehgierhg BITE ME

4) ready to COMPILE THAT MF!!!!! I import everything into After Effects and do frame by frame animation there because I haven’t figured out a less tedious way where I still feel in control. I use a lot of comps & it’s a big process but very fun cuz then you can see it come to life!

5) At this point I’ll usually find big gaps in timing that I hadn’t realize and I have to go back and redraw/add more panels. orz ….. but honestly some of my favorite moments come from that!! This scene where moomin grabs snufkin’s hat was one of those… sometimes, despite your BEST efforts at planning, things turn out way different but that can be really fun!

Anyway that’s it, then i render & upload it Ha-cHa-ChA~!!!

(oh wait!! i forgot to talk about screen direction!!! ah well another time..)

Best of luck in your ventures!