#i used to do redraws when i was in an art block and idk why i didnt do it sooner fr

[arkos404]

theyre so divorced to me,,,,, huh? what do you mean its enemies to lovers and not exes to lovers? those are the same thing

refs

[seeminglyseph]

little bit of a redraw/redesign thing. I wanna shade it but also I spent multiple hours zoned out drawing her hair. I like feel super cringe showing the original but like it’s clear I used no reference, was more interested in silhouette than pose dynamics (I’m even being generous and cropping it, my ability to know what’s important to a picture is non existent) and also learned exactly how bad it looks to shade with grey. I did not use a reference and did not have the time or discipline to do the details I’m managing now...

I have this group of OCs I keep meaning to write... something about. I’ve been playing around with designs for a while (and not been very great at it, honestly looking at the old designs. They’re either really really bland or my concept of design and anatomy... can we just say I’m improving? That was meant to be lipstick but it was a bad choice and I definitely see it. I’ve also experimented with makeup in drawings. I don’t know how to mix it with the cel shading. I tend to make solid blocks of eye shadow, but it doesn’t work good for the really blush heavy looks. I’m trying to give her that like e girl style heavy blush and highlighter. My idea is that she’s like an anime and games youtuber/streamer? Her name is Tamara and she has two love interests and originally it was a werewolves are a found family story but idk if I have anything remotely werewolfy for them to do. also I don’t wanna draw wolves. I was gonna say ‘I just want werewolf dynamics without having to draw wolves’ but that’s just abo fic. which I am not above, I do love some mate bonding and like packs. it’s about a bunch of queer kids coming together and like doing stuff. when I was designing them I was super into Wet Moon by Sophie Campbell? So I was like thinking of just some just like intense character based journeys. Really original, “hello I would like to write queer found family personal drama?” groundbreaking. I wanna though...

Tamara’s kind of a sheltered baby of her family, she’s trans and her parents got a little hover-parent over it. She started her transition in her childhood so she was on puberty blockers and the whole thing, she was kind of a shut in because she’s shy and a nerd and didn’t get out much until she went to art school and the story starts. So she’s a shy lover of anime and cute things and she wants to be a manga artist and art school is going to be very hard because like why write a story about a thoroughly uneventful time? like I said I have no idea where the werewolf shit would fit in. I gotta admit this started focused entirely on the other main character Jon who has been through many incarnations but when they started being werewolves was like an uwu omega special werewolf mage.. so like there’s a confused disconnect between what was clearly self indulgent spank bait and what was supposed to be a lot of character drama.

which I suppose isn’t to say intense character drama can’t be spank bait but I think probably not with abo dynamics lol. though it would be interesting to play it straight and see if I’m a good enough writer to pull it off (I’m not) I do hears that there’s a market for it in the world of self publishing lol I just wanna write like batshit insane drama like a soap opera. I think part of me still misses the high of being into Teen Wolf, I just want extreme relationship drama and love triangles and found family and one night stands and shit combined with like monster of the week supernatural garbage. “Hi we’re a bunch of queer college age werewolves we solve ghost crimes” I want that. if teen wolf could get away with some prosthetics and eye effects, I can too. please don’t still be reading this I put it under the cut because I knew I was going to end up talking too much. I have to either say nothing about a drawing or explain my whole thought process, there is no in between.

Cutesy e-girl weeb goes to art school and maybe does supernatural adventures but definitely ends up the focal point in a love teetertotter between her best friend since childhood who went to college one year earlier and got like suuuuper attractive and it’s a little weird but she honestly couldn’t love anyone more, and the hot nonbinary fellow art student with like... depths. I know it doesn’t sound like it should be much of a fight but like just because a relationship is new it doesn’t make it less good. and theoretically the hot nonbinary artist is very hot so don’t give up on him yet. Though childhood friend is also theoretically hot. Everyone is theoretically hot because I wanna make them hot.

[curiosity-killed]

#ShowYourProcess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

ty for the tag @sketchyscribbles ! and also ajksdh props for picking the hardest pic I could do this for lmao 

tagging (if you want to but no pressure ofc!)

@tricksterkat209​ with this piece

@lookforanewangle​ with this piece

@littlewhitetie​ with this piece

Process for this yanqing piece under the cut bc whoo boy we wordy

Planning:

In general, except for bigger pieces, there isn’t...a whole lot of planning....ever. This one was a break from working on a large, detailed painting and the result of talking with @apaladinagain about yanqing AU thoughts so it was pretty quick and mostly just a kind of visual note-taking for myself.

I don’t have any of the WIP files/layers because I clean out my WIP folder at the end of each year but based on memory and knowing myself, the initial sketch would’ve looked something like this (this is done with my trackpad and a sore wrist but honestly...probably not that far off. my sketches are uh rough):

Creating:

I work in Paint Tool SAI (but like. a slightly fucked up version. idk why but it’s been janky since I got it ANYWAY) with a Huion tablet. My usual process is a little weird but goes:

rough sketch — usually a very rough scribble of where heads are and other important features (in this case, the lotus and fire) on a canvas around ~1500 px on the short side

clean sketch — the actual base of the piece, where I fully draw out all elements of it (except fingernails lol) and also set the composition. On this one, the original sketch was flipped, which felt much more stagnant, so I flipped the canvas in order to have more visual interest/direction. I also wanted to be more intentional about placement of hands so that each of them should roughly correspond to the upper dantian (Wen Qing’s right hand), middle (Wen Qing’s left, with the flame), and lower dantian (Yanli’s hands with the lotus). I don’t totally remember the thought process behind this but I do remember looking at a lot of pixelated diagrams. as u do. this part’s usually on a slightly larger canvas (~2500 px short side)

lines — I use a custom brush I made a long time back but it’s basically set up to emulate like...a micron pen? might be the closest feel to it so smooth, slightly softer edgers, etc., and I always size up the canvas so that the shortest side is at least 6000 px so that I can downsize and have extra crisp lines

colors — block in colors roughly to get a sense of color composition (for bigger pieces, I often do a rough version of this before I go into lining it), then clean them up so they’re all within the lines. Once all the main color bodies (so like: skin, base color of each set of robes, etc.) are in, I always go in and add facial details first (blush, nail colors, eyes, lips, etc.) mostly out of habit and also as a treat to myself bc it’s one of the easiest ways to start seeing the piece come together

details — after that, it is clipping layer central! in this one, I think (based on squinting at it lol) each robe has at least 2 clipping layers for details such as the difference colored collars on Jiang Yanli’s and the pattern on Wen Qing’s sleeves. I tend to organize layers by color so like the dark red on Wen Qing’s robes would be one layer and the ombre pattern would be a separate one. This is also when I do any rendering, usually, which there isn’t much of here but would include the details on the lotus

shading — pretty basic multiple layer here. I p much always use desaturated blues and purples for shading unless it’s for effect. 

effects — glow baby glow! this is where i had to google “How to Paint Fire” bc it’s been 8 million years and then spent forever airbrushing on luminosity and overlay layers. also added a luminosity effect to the lotus for the shigs. Also added an overlay layer for the highlights from the fire here

signature — pls don’t ask me how many times i redraw my signature for each picture. it’s embarrassing. i’ve had the same signature, with slight variation, for like 10 years and yet. orz

fussing — on very rare occasions, this translates to me actually checking for errors and making sure I haven’t forgotten anything but most generally, this involves me staring unblinking at my screen as I slide the saturation and hue bars back and forth and contemplate whether I should start exclusively drawing at 100% saturation. in this piece, the background was originally a lovely deep blue but at this stage I decided to turn it green both for the contrast with all the red and for a hint of unease/eeriness coming from a highly saturated green + the donghua’s use of green ghost fires for yllz!wwx — basically hinting at Bad Shit Comin’. I have regretted that decision every time I’ve seen this piece since then :| it was such a nice blue...

Sharing:

At this point, I spend 15 minutes staring into the middle distance trying to come up with any sort of caption and then just throw down whatever I think of and post it on tumblr. titling fics? easy peesy lemon squeezy. captioning art? terrible death suffering time.

if i think abt it, i’ll post to instagram (unless i am defeated by the cropping curse) but i didn’t with this one...presumably bc I am p meh about it (the blue!! the blue ;____;)? but also possibly bc i just forgot

[simkjrs]

assorted fic/msa asks

Anonymous said: msa izuku while an Official Of The Law tries to stop him from doing his usual cryptic stunts: hey where can i go to file a complaint? its not formal. fuck you.

this is just the right level of irritation, sarcasm, and wit to come straight from msa izuku’s mouth. i love that

Anonymous said: someone asks msa izuku what he wants to be when he grows up. he stares at the floor angrily. "a concept. if even that," he says. no one knows how to respond. the silence stretches.

god this is PRISTINE. the silence stretches. im laughing you’ve captured the quintessential msa izuku experience!!!

Anonymous said: msa izuku's saving grace yet achille's attention-pulling heel is his ability to circumvent the powers people use to attack him, linear narratives, and any expectations placed on him

nfljsdfjsd yeah. his greatest strength and greatest weakness... it’s so funny to write. i love it

Anonymous said:  kirishima: deku we actually dont want to screw you over msa izuku: that sounds fake but ok

YEP! thats pretty much it

Anonymous said: Thinking about the wording of MSA!Izuku's deal with Kirishima, Kirishima might actually be able to take advantage of Izuku abusing the wording of the deal. So Kirishima could use the fact that he literaly cannot keep Izuku anywhere and that Izuku could ditch at any time in order to have an actual conversation with him. After all, Izuku always has a way out.

you fucking got me there. completely nailed it

Anonymous said: does msa iz/uku have to deal with shitty dreams too? like trauma from spirit shenanigans comes back to bite him in the ass in his sleep?

yeah there sure is a lot of trauma going around. like, look at this comment i got from crossy, i feel like this is one of the funniest things anyone has ever said about msa

Anonymous said: Okay... blink if the adult supervision in MSA is Aizawa....

you all know me so well!! fucking called me out!!!

Anonymous said: eyy u know that art u made of ritsu on ur art blog, "ritsu's range of normal human emotions?" the part where it said disattached from the social dogma? i imagines that as ur msa!izuku and skdnfsj o h m y g o d

im laughing!!! youre completely right. i need to redraw the panel now

Anonymous said: where is izuku's guardian spirit, you ask? theory: izuku is his own guardian spirit. he finds out and "well i must be doing a pretty shitty job. i hate myself. bye"

Anonymous said: ..... izuku is a gaurdian spirit but his ""quirk"" is being alive...... thats why getting his quirk shut off by eraserhead compeltely shut his body off

YOU ARE... almost completely correct

Anonymous said: since msa mido is like half a quirk himself does that mean he's his own guardian spirit? because if that was true and you told him that he would be so so tired. "my life's a sick joke already but thanks for that addition" or something. this poor child.

that’s pretty much the mindset he wakes up with every day!

Anonymous said: Ok so idk if im the only one who does this but whenever i read fanfic/any kind of writing i kinda come up with like a general color palette that fits with the whole story or like colors from a certain time of day or somethin as a general base for any fanart i might make for the thing but for Byggualom i imagine pinkish, orangey golden sunset colors with hints of plant greens and reds and for msa i imagine a lot of things happening in almost completely grayscale with gold highlights and-(1)

(2)- surreal moments where a bright/contrasting color is present(like the scene where the fox spirit appeared with the red eyes against the silver fur

that’s really cool! i love the sunset colors for byggualom, and the black and white is certainly a fitting ominous atmosphere for msa :^) 

Anonymous said: of fucking course fucking msa/villain izuku was there, MSA/villain fucking Izuku is always there. it’s like one of those universal laws of reality. whenever life takes a turn for the utterly insane, and or disturbingly lethal, msa/villain izuku is somehow right in the middle of it. looking innocent. like a fluffy bunny rabbit. with an innocent look in its eyes and an entire city reduced to rubble in the background, on fire. (I did both b/c I love both the dysfunctional dorks(and both made sense

i think this is more applicable to villain izuku. msa izuku will also be there in the middle of whatever chaos is happening, but he will not look innocent, he will look pissed and tired. you think YOU’RE tired of this bullshit? hah! you should hear about what he’s been doing all day. and no he’s not going to tell you, he’s just going to gripe about it endlessly while also furiously trying to fix everything that went wrong. 

other than that... this is rlly good. i love that. thanks for sending it in

Anonymous said: since i found out u listen to sea wolf the song "spirit horse" has just been violently playing in the background when i think of msa like thanks (not even sarcastically i love seawolf)

hell yeah, love that.... the song’s a bit too horse-y for me to put it on my msa playlist but you know what? its good

Anonymous said: Hey! Just wanted to let you know I ADORE your writing. Your OPM AU (that's what I always call it, I can never remember the acronym) is amazing and I've reread it twice. I decided to give your MSA story a try the other day and I LOVED that one as well. I was initially hoping for a OPM AU update but now I'm psyched as hell for MSA. Thank you so much for your amazing work. Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy both stories :) Have a great day

thank you! i’m happy you enjoy both fics so much <3 

Anonymous said: hi you’re an amazing artist/writer and I hope you have a great day :)

thank you!! i have been having some pretty great days, which is nice, i hope you are doing well too!

Anonymous said: ive reread msa for the like 5th time today and just wanted to tell you what an awesome job you did and i absolutely adore it and hope you have an amazing week!!!

i cant believe you’ve read it so many times!!! i’m glad you like it so much, and i hope you have a great week as well!

Anonymous said: Hey, *finger guns*, I really love your writing!

well guess what... i love you,

Anonymous said: All your stories are so good! I cryyyyy x

thanks! im crying also

Anonymous said: I'm so fucken hyped for literally all you bnha fan-fiction/head-cannons like seriously how do you even come up with ALL of it?!?!?!

mostly i just... actively put characters into situations that i think would be hilarious, or dream up bits of dialogue that spur me to craft an entire backstory just so i can lead up to the one moment. helps to have friends who encourage you to become increasingly unhinged from canon though.

Anonymous said: have *clap* a *clap* nice *clap* day

you too! 

Anonymous said: Okay you prolly get this loads but I freaking love everything you write! Everything is written so well and I die every time you update bc it's so good! I will happily wait five years to read any new chapter if it's written this well okay I'm rambling I love you have a nice day!

this is so nice.... thank you.... 

Anonymous said: HOLY SHIT, ANOTHER NONBINARY FIC WRITER!!! YO WHATS UP!!! WE'RE A P RARE BREED... HELL YEAH THOUGH!!! UR FICS R SUPER COOL UR SUCH A BIG INSPIRATION TO ME!! I HOPE U HAVE A FANTASTIC DAY + YOU NEVER GET WRITERS BLOCK + YOUR HANDS NEVER CRAMP UP!!!

hello there!!! it’s fantastic to see you!!!! hell yeah [i try to dab but accidentally knock over the stack of papers on my desk instead]

Anonymous said: Hey, I just wanted to say that I think you're doing a really super job with trying to write and do school at the same time. I know (personally) that it's really hard to do even WITHOUT extra stuff piling on top, but you handle the blog with a lot of humor and clumsy grace and I just wanted to let you know that you brighten up my day a lot. Thanks! I hope you do really well!!!!!!

hey! thank you, i put a lot of effort into running this blog, as can be evidenced by the week-long stretches of time between short bursts of activity

seriously though... thanks... i appreciate this ask a lot. hope you’re doing well!

Anonymous said: I just wanna say thank you! MSA Izuku gives me life XDDD

hell yeah! im glad to hear that

Anonymous said: dunno bout you or anyone else, but i see your izukus as homoromantic demisexual(s), just wanted to share

nice... 

im cool w/ whatever as long as it adheres to my one guideline which is that izuku is a mlm

[hidden-otaku-stuff]

(1) Hello I am back!! I'm sorry it's been long, these past couple of weeks have had me swamped with homework :( and yet I still didn't do it all 🤡 also get ready for a bunch of messages because 1.) responses and 2.) my thoughts on Lockscreens. Spoiler: I am Emotional haha. Aww, thank you :') I used to think it was weird to give yourselves nicknames but I'm past that now haha. Another one I go by sometimes is "Lizard" because I stick my tongue out a lot when I'm talking??

(2) and people think I'm cold blooded because I get really cold easily and like to bask in the sun. I mostly just did traditonal sketches and a lot of screencap redraws. I want to get into art again, but I'm taking it slow for now and focusing more on my writing. And I feel that too LOL. I'm going to start a blog dedicated to reblogging x reader fics that I like because I'm too embarrassed to do so on my main blog (I tell all of your followers 🤡)

hey Honeymoon! as long as you’re taking care of yourself, that’s all I care about 💞 i’m gonna post my responses into two parts. a Lockscreens segment after you send in the rest of your thoughts and a get-to-know-you part for now!

(also I’M FROM CA TOO AND WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU SENDING ME MESSAGES AT 3AM OML)

ngl, i feel like the best person to give you a nickname is yourself! i jokingly gave myself the nickname ‘Daddy’ and that’s literally become my “rave” personality LMAO. but i can understand why some people think it’s weird 🤷 honestly lizard is a bad-ass nickname !! i’m the same way - being in the cold makes me sooo sleepy and i’d rather bask in the sun 😂

i’d love to see your artwork or writing sometime! please feel free to send it over 🥰

(3) Honestly even with all my issues it's kind of nice being a hopeless romantic! Like you said it gives me the chance to day dream haha. Maybe I have my head in the clouds a lot but sometimes it's nice to be there. There's so many, but I think it's a tie between enemies to lovers and friends to lovers. I love the drama and comedy from the former but I'm so Soft for the latter, and that's highkey how I want my relationship to start.

(4) I think building that bond with someone before you even start dating them is really sweet, and having that connection by the time you commit to each other is 💓 I'm sorry you've been having writers block, that's the worst :( if it helps, the past two chapters have turned out amazing, I love them so much!! I think the closest I got to hardcore shipping something that wasn't canon was RinHaru? But there was also a lot of tension and affection in their relationship so I could see it being canon

there’s nothing wrong with having dreams! just so long as you can ground yourself at the end of the day. 

enemies to lovers is always the funniest for me to read TBH. because it’s such an inevitable cliche haha. friends to lovers though -- oooo my heart. 

the best relationships start with friendship. it’s the most authentic imo. like for me, it’s exhausting bearing my heart open to new people each time i want to get involved with someone romantically. but having someone who already knows you inside out??? swoon. what about a trope you dislike?

ah tyty, i’m glad you enjoyed them! the writers’ block wasn’t too bad for these chapters. i’ve had them typed up for a few weeks now :’) 

rinharu is so cute though! but Harukoto (or whatever the ship name is tbh) is super cute too. but maybe i just really like the best friend to lovers trope LMAO

(5) I just looked at their insta and !!!!!!!!!! that's so cute! I like bokuaka but I've never looked into it as much as others, but their art made me have Feelings lol. I think that is a good view to have on family tbh. I've developed a relationship with my blood family and we're close, but there's something special about the relationships and love you have for people you choose to stay with. I love Tiana!! I think she's a really underrated Disney character :(

(6) She really encompasses Disney's message of working hard to achieve your dreams, and she's a strong, independent woman without being closed off and rejecting her feelings. I think it's so cute and cool that she had that much of an impact on you :D Oof, I get that 💀. Men are gross 🤢 I don't get it very often because I live in SoCal and tbh to a lot of other people brown just equals mexican lol. They're right but I really don't look full mexican. Portuguese and Islander people can tell though

bokuaka art makes me have ~ feelings ~ i also really like @/liann1009 and @/maddox_rider on IG! (tbh idk if they have a tumblr whoops) liann1009 does a lot of OiHina whereas maddox_rider does bokuaka which is ridiculously cute too 🥰 

DUDE OMG YES!!! Tiana and Kita (from Atlantis) are under-rated QUEENS who deserved better!! we need representation out here in this b*tch!!! 

idek why, but some people think i look hispanic 🙃 but yes bby, men are gross and should be better!! i have yet to meet a man who deserves to stand on equal ground to me, imma be real. (2d men don’t count but y’know). does it bother you when people mistake your ethnicity? 

(7) Thank you!! Ngl it's kind of scary wondering about what the industry is going to be like because I'm sure I will run into a lot of biased people and sources, but learning to navigate that is just part of the job. Of course there's people who will read biased sources and attack you too, but you can't always escape those people :/ and thank you love, you're so sweet 💕 That's really admirable! It takes a lot of work and creativity to start a business, I'm sure you'll be successful 😊

(8) what kind were you thinking of? and psych is super cool too! Having that understanding of people and the world can be really eye opening and fun :D It's okay, he was one of my favorite teachers but looking back he was an asshole. He had his good/funny moments and did a lot for me, but he also abused some of editors in my journalism class, and some friends of mine :/ He wouldn't appreciate their work, sometimes insult them, and even encouraged my friend to not sleep for the sake of the paper

i’m positive that you’ll do just fine once you get out there! it seems like you have a pretty thick skin :) 

i really wanted to open a business to help support under-represented groups receive an education - with major focus on minority groups such as orphans/foster children, veterans, and the homeless. there’s so much logistics that tbh i’m too ~stressed~ to think about so i’m tabling that for awhile :’) 

bruhhh fuck that teacher. drop his addy, i just wanna talk real q 💞   if you can’t support all of your students, then there is no point in being a professor!! there is literally 0 reason to be rude when you’re in a position of power, especially when it involves someone’s passion, career, and/or education.

(9) I just remembered that there's a limit to how many asks you can send in a certain amount of time so if these suddenly stop I'm sorry! I'll come back when I can haha. I wouldn't say I'm all that great tbh, but I'm proud of a lot of my works LOL. My favorite part about it is using makeup and tools to just turn into something else. Wounds are always fun, but making yourself a gargoyle or some other creature is what makes it so interesting to me.

(11) I'm OBSESSED with the makeup and costumes from LOTR. It's my biggest inspiration. I can go on about it haha. That's so cool!! Being a part of the whole production, especially all sides to it, sounds so fun. Do you have any favorite memories from your time in high school? I'd love to hear them if you have any :O Confession: I have never seen any of those asdfkljvk. I know I really should though and it's on my to do list ! I've heard really great things about all of them !

imma be real, i didnt know there was a limits on asks LMAO. i did hear that they sometimes get eaten though, so i really hope that doesn’t happen 😅 

we all start somewhere. your first step will never look like someone else’s, nor should it. as long as it’s something that you can look back upon and be proud of and know that you’ve grown from, that’s all that matters! 

just imagining someone using makeup to turn themselves into a gargoyle has my head spinning  🤣 like ya girl can barely do her eye-makeup, let alone anything as intense as that! what’s been the most difficult project? 

DUDE, I LOVE MEDIEVAL-HISTORICAL WORKS! like the dresses from that Mary from Reign wears has my heart so softtttt. dfsnosdf. please!! tell me some of your fav things about LOTR  💖

omg high-school was so long ago, i don’t think i have any favorite memories from it 🙃 i think the opening night of a production would be the best. listening to the audiences reactions as the performers left their hearts on-stage, seeing all the pieces fall together, that was always absolutely incredible. wbu, what did you enjoy about hs? 

i have very strong opinions on those musicals LMAO. i can talk about them forever  🤩

[erratically-present-gengar]

How I derp-art. Alma Tutorial

So a couple of you weirdos keep asking me for help with how to art/draw gengars or what my process is because art is hard. Art is indeed hard and even with gengars can be a pain in the ass and I am mostly bullshitng my way through it, and my process can be stupidly long and I need to work on screwing with it so I can get shit done faster.

BUT

I put a tutorial thingy together, though first ever one I’ve done so more of me not knowing what I’m doing and trying to get things set up right to be helpful.

I put some steps in one image file and idk how tumblr is going to handle it, so if it’s a pain and you guys want the individual files set up somewhere else let me know. Can let me know if you want to know what brushes I use if that’s needed at all, but mostly this is to show how much I bs my way through things.

This is all in photoshop too though, so why I don’t use a lot of info for shortcuts besides the grouping.

To start with I try to get my damn circles/ovals shaped right for whatever I’m trying to do.

Sometimes it takes me a lot of tries to get it, sometimes I just start all over and try something else, sometimes I use the Ellipse tool, and sometimes I give up, find a reference, and start out over that for sketching with general shape because sometimes my brain just is full on dumb.

Eventually I end up getting out a sketch, usually using multiple layers in case I need to move a part or make edits without messing up some other bit. This is also why I like messing with digital more than paper because it makes this part of the process easier for me and can easily hide or delete layers or adjust transparency when needed.

I’ve more or less settled on what to do with Alma’s design, so not necessarily something to do with drawing Gengar in general.

Alma has very large/long ears and a tail compared to the usual for Gengar. I still have no idea what I’m doing with those damn spikes/fluff, but I add extra fluff around the bottom of her ears too. These are all definitely style choices I have for her.

I don’t really bother with the back spikes on her either because I end up having some difficulty getting them to look right to me, and usually blocked off anyways. I just go with the biggest fluff/spikes are on her head and around her ears, and then they shrink as they go down the back and eventually smooth out by the tail.

Arms are just like attaching them to a ball and figure out where they sit. Usually I start around under the ears and around where the mouth is going to be, but it’s a gengar, the things can do some weird things with their bodies so can probably have their arms just about anywhere if you really wanted, though personally I tend to get stuck with realism and wouldn’t be happy with doing too weird of stuff with the arms so just shift them around closer to the front or lower depending on what I want to do or if she’s got her hands in front of her.

Hands and feet I usually just do 3 digits, but can have more or less if you want. Most times I just draw 3 lines for where the fingers may be or general triangle shapes around it. Fingers and toes have their own layers too in case I want to change them and then don’t have to mess with the main limb.

But definitely different shaping compared to the usual gengar shapes. It’s just a personal thing. I don’t recommend copying off Alma’s features for your own gengars, and it would bother me somewhat. First try out figuring out how to work with the basic gengar shape, and then play with the form to figure out how you want to draw it, if you want to go with ball/balloon with limbs and spikes.

Once the main body is done I try out faces, since half the time I only have some idea for what I want to do with it, and I may also figure out something better. There can be a lot of trial and error with this, and a lot of extra sketch layers.

The stylistic thing goes with her eyes and being shaped a bit differently than the norm to soften her looks so she doesn’t look so scary. She can look normal for eyeshape, but as she tries not to seem intimidating most times, it’s normally just different than the usual.

Once  I’ve figured out what I want to do with the face, I group up the Sketch layers and use the pen tool for neater lines, because I am terrible at getting my lines right and clean with a regular tablet, so I cheat for the base part of it.

Each part has it’s own layer, especially if lines overlap so that clean up of the lines is a bit easier. It also helps with making some adjustments for parts I decided that looked odd to me with the lines that don’t get noticed as much with the sketch layer. Even for art that I don’t use the pen tool on I will usually separate the lineart in to their own layers. It can help if I want to change a limb or hand’s/foot’s position, or just minor changes without messing with the rest of the drawing.

Yeah that last part looks pretty terrible, huh?

But I can just go through the layers and erase lines I don’t want, fix up some of the ends so they’re pointed, longer, shorter, or whatever.

When it’s cleaned up I use my main brush for the outside lines and look sketchier and/or add line weight so the lines look more interesting. I’ll also use a smoother brush for the face since a little bit of a harder edge for those parts than the body.

After that I duplicate the group I have for the lineart and merge the 2nd group to help with color borders, slap down my colors, use the selection tool for the outside of the lines layer, and modify/expand by 1 or 2 pixels, move back to the body layer, and then just hit delete to get at least most of it.

Sometimes I remember to clean up around the lines more because my sketchiness can still trap the color where I don’t want it... In this case I didn’t remember until later, but oh well.

After that I make some layers for the other parts that need coloring. In Alma’s case she’s pretty easy since it’s usually just the eyes and sometimes teeth or something involving her mouth. I’ll make some layers for each part’s shadows and highlights, then group those together out of the way.

When I’m done with that I’ll use the pen tool to try to pretend I know what I’m doing with how shadows work and put down some guidelines for shadows. They’re usually not great, but I’ll mess with them afterwards.

New layer for the shadows. It’s a whole lot of bullshitting my way through them and pretending I know how they work. I’ll use my brush at a higher transparency at the start and then lower it to mess with edges and soften them, or use it in areas the shadows may not be so strong. I’ll also do a lot of erasing along parts and usually use the sponge brush for the eraser. I keep playing with it until I figure it’s good enough.

To clean up around outside of the lines I just go to the body layer, fix up the areas around the edges, then select the white space, go to the other layers that need cleaning up, and just hit delete as I go through them to erase the stuff outside the lines.

Next I work on highlights. Again this is a whole lot of me pretending I have any idea what I’m doing. The little brighter ones get their own layers, and the body highlights get another. I’ll move one of my sketch layers up over the color ones sometimes to try to help me figure out where I want to put a highlight over the main body so it looks rounder. I spaced and used the wrong color for highlights at first but adjusted them for using the purple I had for it already. Usually I use the lighten or screen layers for it. One thing I’m trying to remind myself of is the secondary lighting and how light bounces and can highlight the outside of an object too even if that part is otherwise in shadows. It can help separate parts too, though not really needed if you guys don’t want to. I just like it myself. The extra highlights I keep in their own layers too. .... I use a lot of Layers

I’ll usually mess with the floor shadow too, to show if she’s on the floor or in the air, and usually to me it makes the image a bit more interesting instead of blank white, since I usually am lazy with backgrounds and I suck at them anyways.

Just copy the body layer and distort it to wherever it looks good and at least semi matches the main lighting direction.

After that I darken it and, while it’s fine like that, I usually mess with it a bit more for style stuff and have a few duplicated layers to mess with it until I like it, rather than accidentally messing up the main part of it.

When Shadows are done I’ll throw on a bunch of unnecessary bullshit using a grunge brush because I like the idea of a haze being around her, though it’s not needed and more just a style choice and I like using textures. I have a few layers of it until I’m at least alright with how it looks, make some last minute adjustments with liquify for somethings that are bothering me but I’m too lazy to redraw the lineart part of it to fix it, and there I am.

There’s my likely very long process for how I draw Gengar/Alma.

Aaaaand that’s about it for what I do with them.

Pretty much why it takes me forever to get art done when I have the free time, and don’t post daily with art. With the jobs and health I just can’t do it.

and I def need to work on simplifying things.

I have several boards over on pintrest now to help with learning some things like lighting, shapes, etc. It’s largely either objects or people kind of references for most of the boards, but it can still help with learning faces or people if help is needed with that too

https://www.pinterest.com/Kalooeh/