#i'm getting more and more attached to krita
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the gears ain't turning
#huhhh#doodles#oc#ferngle art#beetle#i'm getting more and more attached to krita#i reallyyyyy like this one pencil brush#is very very nice
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The urge to create smth more elaborate/decorative from the original base design vs both the desire to keep it simple enough to draw repeatedly and the need to have it read clearly, all while keeping it distinct and recognizable 🙃
#aka I have a couple of ideas for comics involving canon ponies and I'm trying to nail down something a little more unique#but also recognizable to the source material; all while remaining easy to read; easy to draw; and being appealing#all for the sake of only two? three?? jokes so far LMAO#I still don't know if I can run the browser and krita at the same time without knocking out the internet lmao#idk why it does it but boy does it ever lately#it's. annoying. I want to be more productive#that and I've got a massive backlog of videos to tackle still#that are admittedly more for listening to than properly watching; and are usually perfect for smth to listen to while drawing#good news is that the most expensive the exact model of adapter I have on this computer is only around $30!#bad news is that I Do Not Have anywhere close to $30!! not to mention I'd have to pay the guy™ to install it for me#and idk what he'd ask for in the vein of a service fee... also I still want that different antenna that I can move instead of just#screwing into the back and hoping for the best; it still screws in mind you but the ports are attached to cords#that are attached to a base that holds the antennae; so that I might move it around a little#that's around $20; at least for the model I looked at. tho I'd also have to check to make sure the parts are compatible#luckily I could probably just ask the guy; and if I have enough on hand I could probably buy one from him since he sells stuff like that to#oh yeah. also on the shortlist is external storage. I need at least as much as my computer can actually hold for backup purposes: 2TB#and I want more later so that I can actually maybe have less shit on my computer and more in appropriate places lol#someday I want a newer better computer actually. tho ideally we'd have abandoned this rotted log of a house by then...#I have other plans and needs but these tags are getting too long as it is lol
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hello.
welcome to my perfectly normal tacky techy typewriter-esque page. i am your humble host, PainCaat, here to bless your eyes with absolutely wonderous works of art. pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure!
a bit about me, i'm an aroace breadcat who sold their soul to the overlord of cursed content and am now obligated to ruin everyone's eyes. i recently learned about the hellaverse just as hazbin released and made a tumblr blog for the first time shortly after to shitpost and make actual art about the show. somehow, this has devolved into a blog for cursed content. i have no idea what the fuck i'm doing. free me please.
Tags
🍞🐈⬛ - personal rambling
cursed nun cat alastor - this monstrosity
there will probably be more cursed ones in the future. stay tuned.
caatdoodles - doodle posts
FAQ
Why did you feel the need to make ___ cursed post?
Can I repost your work?
generally for personal use yes, but please ask first and include credit! the only exception to this is if you intend to use it with NSFW intent (ex. NSFW RP, commentary etc.). Just dont use my work please. it makes me highly uncomfortable to have my work attached to certain content and i will be blocking anyone who doesn't respect that
Can I request art?
feel free to drop them in my asks! i likely won't be able to get to all of them unfortunately so i will prioritize ones that i can make cursed, find funny. or can do quickly (just keep in mind i work over full time hours some weeks so there's a chance i'm not punctual with delivering depending on the nature of the request)
Commissions?
i'm still sorting out the details but i'd love to open them up! for now, if you want to commission me feel free to send me a DM and we could work something out!
Aspec Alastor?
i personally don't enjoy seeing the majority of alastor shipping content and will never make any serious shipping art. for cursed reasons or crackshipping? sometimes. (heck i don't even know how to draw a kiss properly).
that being said i do find onesided radiostatic funny at times and don't mind qpr radiorose. also its the internet, if you enjoy alastor shipping, be my guest. i just ask you to be respectful to my fellow aspecs and respect that this blog is meant to be an aspec-friendly space
Why is your art style so inconsistent?
lmao so i actually switch between using a bunch of drawing tools with varying proficiencies. i tend to do doodles on procreate or clip studio paint, and animate on krita. i would say that i'm probably best at using clip studio and krita since im more used to using a drawing tablet than a tablet screen. also i just like drawing in multiple styles for my personal art
thanks for reading - will update this as necessary :}
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I don't know what you want to do with digital art so this is just broad advice, but here are my tips!
Most drawing softwares or websites give you a white background. Change that to a muted, softer, color so that your eyes don't work as much. It doesn't need to be a dark color or even a grey, even just something around this area will do wonder for your eyes:
You can always put it back in white to check that your colors look good when you're finished, just don't hurt your eyes with your screen.
2. Speaking of screen, remember all those tips about how to work at a computer without hurting your back or your neck? Use them here too. One of the perks of drawing digitally is being able to just zoom in instead of getting the face closer to the drawing, I know that's not easy to get used to but trust me good posture is important.
3. You don't need any paying software or subscription, except if you absolutely need a very specific one, which most people never do. Digital art is one of the areas where the open source community works the most, there's tons of free software and material (and tutorials! there's tutorials for everything!) everywhere! My favorite is Krita because I like its options and tools (although I keep using the same handful ^^), but even something as basic as Paint can work well, depending on what tools you expect your software to give you. If you need Photoshop, you probably heard of Photopea already, I can confirm it also works really well.
4. Drawing time! If you have a tablet that has buttons, I really recommend spending a few minutes looking through a tutorial to attach your software's keyboard shortcuts to the buttons. Personally I have buttons for: switching between pen and eraser, zooming in, zooming out, rotating the image to the left, rotating the image to the right, and grabbing the image to move it. Also the basic Ctrl+Z. I'm planning to add the fill tool on the last button soon.
5. More tablet tips: your hand will probably not glide well on the surface of it. People usually buy a drawing glove for that, I still haven't taken the time to do that so I use a bit of fabric instead. Even just the end of your sleeve will result in smoother lines on the screen.
6. Many pens are pressure-sensitive! If yours is too, you can always begin by using one of the most basic pencils in the software that don't have pressure sensitivity, and work your way up to other pencils once your hand learned how to draw this new way. There can be other settings like angle of the pencil tip or speed, but those also take time to get used to and most people find them less intuitive. But do experiment with what you've got! You should be able to change the size of the pencils, and every other setting too, so if you like some aspect of a pencil but not another, you can just disable that other one xd
7. If you're not drawing with a tablet but with a mouse... Well I take my hat off to you.
8. This one's not specific to digital art, but I find that taking a few minutes to just draw lines and circles and waves works really well to get the hand and arm used to working in a new position. I do that every time I draw for warmup, but whenever I'm at another desk I really notice how much my hand needs it to get used to the new angle. You already know how to draw, your limb(s) just need to work on the neural pathways to become familiar with the new position(s). Thankfully cerebral plasticity works fast!
thank you!!
this is all such useful advice! i'm planning on getting into digital art again (my previous forays have been historically... not too successful) bc my laptop has a touch screen, i got a digital pen and krita is free xdd. it took a bit of fiddling around to find the settings and the brushes i wanted and i still haven't figured out where the ctrl+z is but eh, we're getting there. it's so different to traditional art though omg. but it does give very satisfying results i'll have to give that. thank you again, i will keep trying!!!!!!
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You guys sleep on their friendship too much 😔
Time-laspe (I tried to download the video and attach it to this post but I think it was too big and my computer is tired because it won't download. That is the link, you can watch it if you'd like too, I know I like to watch art time-laspes. It is around fifteen minutes though, I didn't know how to make it any faster so there's your warning)
(Okay so I'm just now realizing that the part of the video where I used actually colors got cut off 😐And I can't even fix it because I've already deleted the clip off my computer and emptied my recycle bin. I'm so upset now, I'm sorry 😭😭I'm not a tech savy person at all)
You don't have to read this if you don't want to, it's more of an artist's note to myself. If you want to know more of my thought process while doing this then you can read it though.
First, I just want to give credit to the base I used!
Second, I used Krita to draw and Canva to put the video together. I've never really used another drawing app/software thing before (I've used Procreate a few times on my sister's IPad but it's not like I'm going to draw anything South Park on there) so I don't really have anything to compare it too. It's free though so... how much better can you get. The only thing I don't like about it so far is that the fill tool kind of sucks but it's not too bad, you just have to go over the edges to get a solid color (at least from my experience). And I've been using Canva for a while now, I've put together a few videos before but not in a while so I was a little rusty. The only thing I don't like about that is that I have to pay for an upgrade if I want to download a long video.
I started trying to draw seriously in April and now it's July so it's been like two months (?). I haven't posted anything since May I think but I've still been drawing a lot, I just haven't finished anything worth posting up until today.
I started out drawing this thinking it was going to be bad. Then about halfway through I thought it might actually turn out alright. Then I finished it and I kind of hate it. I think it would be much better if I practiced shading and textures but I'm too lazy for that, at least for now.
I hardly know anything about art, whether it be digital or traditional. I don't know anatomy, color theory, perspective, none of it. You can see on the time-lapse that I basically traced the base I used, did the faces and clothes and then colored it and that took me ALL DAY! Granted I had breaks like when I made my lunch and ran over to my grandma's house but other than that, I've been working on this piece (along with Stan but I did most of Stan yesterday, I just colored him this morning).
I have mad respect for every single artist out there because this is so hard... but for some reason I want to keep doing it. I know it's going to be super satisfying to look back on my art work from two years ago and see how much I've improved (hopefully I've improved, please tell me I'll improved)
As you can probably tell, I didn't get everything in the time-laspe. Recording the process was so hard, I tried to do it with Stan yesterday but I barely knew what I was doing and I kept getting called by my mom to do stuff so I had to keep pausing and un-pausing so I gave up and tried again today. I think my computer is worn out by working all day because not only have I been drawing on it all day but I have also been editing the video all day. I really like when artists post time-laspes though because it gives me an idea of their process and it's really nice to watch.
But anyway, I ended up giving Jason eyeliner because one) he's metro, two) I headcanon him wearing eyeliner (same thing with Tweek) and three) he needed a little something MORE to him, if that makes sense. I orginally wasn't going to give him eyeliner because I was afraid he would look too much like Tweek but once the picture was done, I decided they wouldn't look too similar. I also gave Tweek and Jason both freckles because for Jason, it's canon and for Tweek, it's my headcanon for him. You probably can't tell that Tweek has freckles because I made them really faint (on purpose) and I like to think he'd only have a few on his cheeks and nose. I gave Jason a lot though because I'm pretty sure that's how it is in the show. Lastly I forgot to color Jason's shirt in so that's everything that's not on the video.
I think the hardest thing for me was the eyes and the clothes. I have a love-hate relationship drawing eyes. I love looking at how different people draw their eyes but when it comes to drawing my own eyes... yikes 😬Also I think it's the facial proportions that might make this seem off, I think I have a bad habit of making the eyes too big but that's what I've been doing ever since I was a little kid so now if I make the eyes small, it just looks off. And again, I didn't do anything shading so it probably makes the picture look flat. Plus I have no idea what I'm doing.
I also usually have a hard time drawing hair but today I had a pretty easy time doing it. I was really surprised. Also another headcanon of mine for Tweek is that he has platinum blonde hair. I love platinum blonde hair and just blonde hair in general and his hair is SO YELLOW, I feel like if he was older than he'd dye it. Also they are both teens in this picture.
Tweek looks really pasty here, I tried to give him pale skin but I didn't mean for it to be THAT pale.
I think that's all I have to say. If you read this and have any tips for me, I'd love to hear them. I'd love to redraw this in a few months or maybe in a year if I decide to keep drawing, I know there's defiently room for improvement.
Despite all the complaining I just did, I don't HATE this picture per say. I really like my art style, it's simple but cute (imo of course). I feel like if I learned more about shading and learn how to draw faces and clothes better than I'd do a lot better. I think Stan was a lot cuter but this is cute too.
Lastly, ignore the two random dots if you find them, I'm too tired to fix this.
Anyway, if you read all of this, I really appreciate you! Have a great day/night! ❤️❤️
#south park#south park fanart#tweek tweak#jason white#sp tweek#sp jason#sp twason#twason#tweek x jason#jason x tweek#this can be seen as platonic or romantic#metro tweek#metro jason#south park is gay#south park metrosexual#my art
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announcement time!
i have decided that i am going to begin to develop my art skills by tracing over reference photos. im using the art program krita - if anyone has any advice or photos to trace (all kinds are welcome! i may favor birds but i need to learn EVERYTHING) i'd be more than happy to receive!
i'd love to stream it once i've got my twitch account set up for that - I think I'd still need to attach some kind of payment method in order to stream? I'm not sure. The soonest I'll be able to start would be this Thursday, but truthfully it'll probably be a while before I get the channel up and going.
Disclaimer: I am tracing photographs! By submitting a photo you agree that I am allowed to trace it for (human!) training purposes, and that I am allowed to stream said tracing process, and that you are not entitled to anything that may come from said stream! End disclaimer.
Y'all can send in asks with images and/or submit them here. I ask that you send in photos that you've taken and/or photos that are commercially available, just to ensure that I'm not infringing on any copyright. If you've got your own art (original content) you'd like to submit, I'll take that, too - again with the caveat that I am allowed to trace them.
I will not be selling anything that I make due to the nature of the process - this is all just me learning how to make art and use my art program. Once the art streams are up and running, I might have some other stream ideas up my sleeve that are worth looking out for!
#yes im doing this with a mouse don't @ me#i have a tablet but i rly need to find it and learn how to use it#that shit's intimidating#my setup is gonna be absolute shit dkgjslkdgjlskjg#old-ass laptop. wire earbuds for mic n audio. usb mouse whose plugin is missing its plastic cover. no mousepad.#ill be lucky to even have a proper desk space dkgjlskdjgl#god i hope my internet connection can keep up#i only know how to use like 2 or 3 of the brushes#i only just yesterday found the hex code search thing to find exact colors#i keep accidentally drawing on the background layer dkgjlskdgjls#which mind you is my REFERENCE PHOTO#byrd chirps#byrd's silly art#strap in for the shitshow folks#byrd's twitch stream#if i do sell any art it's gonna be original art#not traced stuff yknow?#also if anyone wants to be a moderator for stream chat i would be eternally grateful😭😭😭#it's probably not gonna be crazy or anything right away but better safe than sorry dskgljlskdgjs#i can't guarantee any pay so it's gonna be volunteer basis until things get more official#idk if i'll be able to make a living off of this im mostly just doing it for funsies so like. sorry ksjgdlkjsgdl#if not i can manually moderate on my own at first#do chat moderators even get paid? they should#idk how to figure that out tho. help is appreciated#byrd's ask games
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Your stuff is so well-made!! I wanna do similar stuff, but I haven't quite sorted it out and I use Krita... Regardless, do you have any beginner's tips? Especially with stuff like transmuting dark colors to lighter ones :o
For lightening dark colors, you want to find a layer type called overlay or soft light (assuming apps work similarly). Put a recolor layer over top before hand to get a more accurate idea of what the lightness looks like. If there are 2 separate layer types called hue and color, they have an important difference: Color just broadly uses the saturation of the color you're putting over top, while hue auto-adjusts it to the saturation of the base area. If there's a magic pen/warping tool, it's very useful for making parts fit together better. Multiply layers are good for darkening, and if there's a Clipping layer button, that will make it so whatever you do on the clipped layer will only show up on the layer it's attached to. Also Overlay and Soft light layers interact with each other in different ways. An overlay UNDER a soft light will brighten much more than the reverse, and a pure black/dark overlay layer will increase the contrast. You can find most of the character art on the fandom wiki under the media tag for a character, and the discord server for the subreddit that acts as a general hub for a lot of editors (r/albedoscreations) has a channel for saving various useful bits like individual heads and body bases without obscuring hair. There are also some people there that are better at things that I'm not, like specifically making full character skin edits if you want tips on drawing things that match the in-game model style.
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Quick question: what program do you use for animation? Or do you have any tips on how to get started? I would love to animate something, but all the technical aspects confuse me.
Also, your animation of Picket was incredible! Fantastic job! *leaves kudos*
Hi!! Sorry for the delayed response, I was traveling. XD I'm so glad you love the Picket animation that makes me so happy!!!!!
I use two different programs for animation. My favorite is Toonboom Harmony, but it's rather pricey. The Picket animation was done in Krita. :D It works really well and is also a fabulous painting program, plus! It's free!!
My best advice for how to get started is to do just that- just start! Animation is really only something you can learn by doing, so jumping in feet first is probably the best thing to do. Don't get discouraged and just keep pushing towards that goal!
This post will be a good start to answer a lot of questions, as it had a similar question to yours:
There are a LOT of technical things and confusing things, and a lot of them are things I'm still trying to figure out lol but a lot of your questions can be answered by the book "The Animator's Survival Kit" that you can probably find at a library!
Also here is a link to the post I made about pencil animation stuffs:
Okay I have more to say but it will be waaaay easier to attach pictures from my phone so I will attach the rest in a reblog hang on XD
#thanks for the ask!!#I love talking to people about my favorite thing ever which is animation lol#ask#animation
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Hello! I'm here for the art ask! :) Can you please answer 2, 5, 7, 13 and 26? Hope it's not too much.
Arist asks
i think you'll find that nothing is too much for my brain that is set on overshare (also thank you so much for asking!! and welcome to this mess i call my art blog!)
2: How long have you been drawing?
Well, I know I posted my first piece of digital art on deviantart in 2012 Before that I did "fanart" and stuff traditionally of shows like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh or Kim Possible and before THAT I drew horses and dragons and wolves/dogs (because of course) All the latter of course in the way children draw and not actively going for it internet wise with any of that in mind
5: What’s your favorite thing to draw?
People in general (which is amazing considering I hated drawing people as a child when my favorite things to draw were dragons and horses and dogs) and anything fantasy like To be more specific I really love drawing eyes and hair And well, my love for dragons didn't leave either I also love designing stuff but by god I would never draw what I can come up with on the regular because the details could get too much (as a side note I do feel like this came by naturally because I just have and make so many oc's for whatever reasons, be it for my own stories or be it for "I need more people in this cat caravan art)
7: How often do you use references?
hrghdgs barely I more often use 3D assets in Clip Studio Paint I have nothing against references-they are amazing and helpful but I am too lazy to go find what I want (exactly how I want it) so I'd rather struggle with something until it's good enough I do tend to use them quite a bit when first drawing a character from somewhere just to get a feel for them and how I want to portray them in my style etc (and sometimes I come back to that when I strayed too far for what I like, and sometimes I don't because how I draw them just feels right for me and what I want out of that art) But yeah I don't really use them all that often for poses, or anatomy, or how clothing falls, or shading etc
13: Do you prefer to keep your art personal, or do you like drawing things for other people?
I think it's a mix? I wouldn't just draw something that I myself wouldn't like in general but I definitely have drawn things for other people that I didn't have any attachment to or knowledge about and it was also fun For the art I generally post here it's all for me, but it's amazing to see that yes, others like it and they share their thoughts about it and with those I get more inspired and the wheel keeps going I do post most of the art I make here with the exceptions of some too simple thoughtless sketches I just made for warmup or out of sheer boredom or because I forgot because I did them right before I went to sleep But yeah, most of the art here is just personal in some way or another considering all my oc stuff I post uncaring if people want that or not ;p
26: For digital artists: what program(s) do you use?
I used Paint Tool Sai before I brought Clip Studio Paint (now no longer Pro because I wanted to animate a bit more so I got EX as a treat for myself) and that's a heavensent Before CSP I also experimented with some free programs like medibang or krita but they all were missing something, and I never liked how the lines looked
#art asks#asks#advena87#adding onto the last one: i also use blender fo fun but i havent saved or posted anything yet#so it doesn't count buuuuut maybe some day eventually#bc 3d modelling is pretty fun!#also srsly don't worry about too much#i feel like any of my answers or comments are too much bc my brain just goes nyoom#jumping from topic to topic
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of mice and artblock
So, midterms happened and I abandoned this blog for a while. But now I’m back, and I come bearing mice.
*
I’ve been really struggling with finding subjects I like to draw. I’m happy to work on skeleton studies until Judgment Day to better understand anatomy, but I know I need to balance “homework” art with “for fun” art, or else risk losing motivation for learning to draw -- and I’m so used to writing fiction at this point that no subject really appeals to me artistically unless it’s got 5,000+ words of story attached (or at least some narrative/character ideas, yanno -- something for my brain to pick at). The obvious solution is to draw concept art and characters from my written stories, but I feel really intimidated by that because I’m such a beginner artist that nothing I create now will do justice to the vision I have in my head.
I need art OCs and concepts – things that I will only draw art of, and have never written a story about. Stuff that doesn’t have to match a previously established, written story, and that I can change as I learn more and my skills improve.
I ended up drawing a bunch of mice.
This was initially just a whim. Human anatomy requires a lot of skill to pull off, especially faces and hands, but mice felt more beginner-friendly to me. Admittedly, I was going for a more cartoony style as opposed to photorealism, so if you’re looking at this from a realism perspective then these are pretty poor mice. However, I don’t feel ashamed of them, which I am taking as a good sign.
I kept drawing one mouse over and over. I ended up calling him Leo just because it was funny – “leo” refers to lions, but here Leo is just a little mouse. But of course, giving him a name (and a gender, incidentally) is the start of a story. Via a flight of fancy, I got it into my head that I wanted to do a painting of Leo trying to catch a big snowflake. I made some thumbnails of what I wanted the scene to look like, and then cut out a roughly 7 inch x 7 inch piece of watercolor paper from a big sheet that I had under my bed, sketched the scene in pencil, and then finished with watercolor pencils (and a white gel pen for the snowflakes). The process probably took 2.5 to 3 hours.
So, now the lore is that Leo is a mouse living in a little house in an old tree at the edge of the woods, and he wears a red scarf. I did not like this painting. It seemed over-saturated and the colors didn’t quite work the way I wanted them to. I ended up watching a tutorial on color theory, and decided to redo the painting using my newfound knowledge of color schemes. I used this color palette tool to get an idea of what kinds of colors would look good together, and settled on a complementary scheme with bluish green and brownish red.
And then, everything went wrong.
I tried to redo the painting, still working traditionally. I rushed the sketch because I was so eager to get right into working with color. This time, to avoid over-saturation, I used watercolors out of a pan rather than in pencil form. Mixing the colors in the lid of the pan took a really long time because I was so picky about shades, and because I continued rushing I didn’t allow the layers enough time to dry. Leo’s scarf (now green instead of red) bled into his russet fur, and the mailbox was the wrong shape, and I tried to erase a pencil line and created a dark blotch over an area that was supposed to be white with snow – and then I gave up.
I had downloaded Krita, a piece of digital drawing/painting software, a while ago, but hadn’t had any success using it because my desk isn’t big enough to accommodate both a laptop and my small tablet. Using my lap to hold the tablet was an exercise in frustration, and I knew so little about how digital art works that I just felt really overwhelmed and lost whenever I opened the program.
However, Krita (like most digital art software) has an undo button that I find very alluring, so I decided to try it again, now on a shiny new desk from Ikea that is actually big enough to support tablet and laptop together. I think just the space on the desk really made all the difference, but also I was determined to get this artwork of a mouse to a place where I felt satisfied with it.
I spent a solid 5 hours working on what ended up being a very simple colored drawing of a mouse catching a snowflake outside his little house. I barely blended anything at all, and there’s no light source that required me to shade anything – it’s just flat color. However, I really like these colors, and I think I did well (for an absolute beginner). I want to go back and add textures/shading to give an impression of depth, but I'm not sure how.
Leo – like all of my figures – feels really stiff, so I also want to work on gestures/studies of mice doing things. And, thanks to the popularity of mice as lab animals and pets, there are way more reference photos of mice than I expected! Most refs depict the house mouse, Mus musculus, but I did find the work of a wildlife photographer named Dean Mason who spent 15 years photographing harvest mice (micromys minutus).
Unfortunately, all of the prior artwork in this post I had drawn almost purely from imagination, and I think it shows. I studied two mice from photos in pencil, then erased the lines until they were barely visible and tried to do the fur texture in ink (with a dip pen, so there is some unevenness when the pen was extra inky).
Left is my first attempt doing the fur texture. I was more cautious with layering pen strokes, so you can see the lines of strokes fairly evenly. Right is my 2nd attempt, where I was bolder with the pen. I like these mice more than the one I created in the digital painting; these ones (especially the right) feel more Beatrix Potter-ish, which is a vibe I like.
Do I want to go back and fix the anatomy in my digital art of Leo? Yes. I also want to take another stab at doing this piece traditionally, but this time, I'd go monochrome and try to do everything in brown. However, part of me is exhausted from drawing ten million snowflakes and does not want to relive that experience with a gel pen -- I've already done it once with a tablet pen, and that was enough.
I have a hazy, far-off goal of creating a comic of Leo having adventures with another mousy friend, but that’s so far in the future that it’s not worth spending time considering right now. In the nearer future, however, Leo’s friend might become a reality – I know he’s an albino mouse (name TBD) who either escaped from a drug-testing facility (I loved The Secret of NIMH movie as a kid) or else is a pet who was dumped into the wild by a human owner who no longer wanted him. Leo is outgoing and adventurous, and this friend is shy and cautious.
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I have a question!!! How long have you been drawing and how long have you been doing digital art? Was it difficult to start with? I'm looking at learning to draw, but I'm not sure if I want to start traditional or if I want to get a tablet. TELL ME!!!
Hey there! Sorry this took me a full day to get to. I wanted to make sure I had time to properly search/attach links and whatnot. Then I had to contend with bath and bedtime for Kiddo. I literally started this post at 7pm... It’s now almost 11.
I have been drawing in traditional mediums since I was a LITTLE kid. Really little. Before I was in Kindergarten. I broke away from it after I graduated high school but came back to it after I moved to Florida. Chibi Cullen was my first digital piece, though. So... technically since October of 2017. I got my tablet at Christmas 2017 and that is when I REALLY got into it.
To answer what you should learn on: That’s largely a personal decision and not one I can really help you with outside of giving you some info and some links to help get you started.
Bare bones basic info:
Traditional is cheaper but you can play and learn without restraint on digital. It’s just that the tablet is going to be a MUCH bigger deposit. To get started in traditional art supplies, you can get away with approximately $20. A tablet is going to run you at least $50, likely more.
Keep in mind: expensive equipment does not a better artist make. A graphics tablet will not make drawing easier. Sure it has tools to help, like line stabilizers and such... but only practice will truly make you better.
I expand on this stuff below but first, my opinion.
My humble opinion:
If you want to just dabble and see how you get on: go traditional.
If you absolutely positively KNOW art is a skill you WANT to pursue no matter the degree of difficulty it is for you, that’s when you can begin to entertain the idea of a getting a tablet, but make sure you weigh everything out.
I don’t want to see anyone shell out that kind of money and have it be used once. I cannot stress enough to make sure you know your heart before sinking in on an expensive piece of equipment like a graphics tablet.
The rest is under the cut because this is a long post and I don’t want people to hate me.
Digital
If money isn’t an issue and you have a decent computer, you can consider going digital.
FireAlpaca, Krita, and MediBang are all free to download digital painting software. I, personally, have FireAlpaca and I love it. But I have also been toying around with trying Krita out. However, all of these programs are good enough that I don’t think you’d miss not having PaintTool SAI or Photoshop.
I will sing the praises of my Huion graphic tablet until my dying day because it will honestly probably last me that long if I don’t upgrade to a more advanced one sometime down the line.
Seriously. The one I have right now has already been dropped (because I’m clumsy as fuck), thrown (courtesy of a melting down kiddo), peed on and subsequently washed and sanitized (courtesy of an asshole cat), and stepped on (because my guy tripped over the asshole cat and knocked a whole bunch of shit off my desk in the process). The thing still works. They ARE built to last.
The version I have is the H610 Pro which costs about $80.00. There is some hand/eye coordination that needs to be learned because you will be drawing on the tablet but the image will be on your screen. That can take some time to get acclimated to.
My H610 is not the cheapest tablet they offer... I know that much but I haven’t really done a deep dive into Huion’s selection. But there are other types of tablets as well. Wacom, Yiynova, Lenovo, Microsoft, Apple, and Samsung all have tablets for artists.
If you want to talk tablets with monitors that allow you to see what you are drawing where you are actually drawing, you’re gonna be looking at throwing down a hefty chunk of cheddar (a couple hundred at least). For Huion products, that’s the Kamvas series of tablets.
I have had my tablet for 14 months already and I use it All. The. Time. I tell you that to tell you this: I have not yet replaced the nib on my pen and don’t anticipate having to change the nib for another year at MINIMUM. The tablet comes with four backup nibs. So, at almost daily use, you can easily get a decade worth of art out of the set they give you out the gate.
Traditional
To just do some light sketch stuff while you are getting used to drawing, it’s cheapest to just get some cheap mechanical pencils or drawing pencils and some simple printer paper. If you want a sketchbook, go cheap.
Once you get into your groove and want to start branching out, by all means, buy more expensive supplies if that suits your fancy. But to just get started on basics: Go. Cheap!!! There is no reason to spend more than $20 (and that’s being exceptionally liberal) at Walmart or the local dollar store.
I cannot stress enough that to just start out you don’t need pro quality anything. Crayola or RoseArt is what every. single. artist. started on because most of us started in school and just kept going from there. Those companies are still around because they are the building blocks every artist started on (at least in the USA... I don’t know about foreign markets). Guaranteed.
I still, to this day, use Crayola colored pencils. Two reasons: 1. I’m incredibly cheap and, most importantly, 2. they work just fine.
Conclusion (at last, amiright?) and Affirmation
I know I sold my Huion tablet pretty hard in the digital section but that’s ONLY because there is more information needed to make an informed decision (like sturdiness, brands, etc.). There is a lot less to discuss for basic supplies to just get started.
I will suggest traditional more often than I will suggest spending boatloads of cash for a beginner.
The choice between digital and traditional largely boils down to two things:
Cost
Drive / ambition / want / dedication
For the average person/household, cost effectiveness is critical in this economy. Even if you know in your heart of hearts digital art is a skill set you want to achieve, if you can’t afford a tablet, go traditional at first and gradually save up for a tablet. If you aren’t sure you will like drawing enough to sink in AT LEAST $50- and that is a fairly low-balled price tag- go traditional.
I will only ever recommend a tablet as a starting point to those who know with 100% certainty that drawing/digital painting is a hobby/skill they WANT to pursue.
I know I cannot tell people what to do because, ultimately, the choice is theirs. All I can offer is my opinion and some words of wisdom and caution.
I will say this, though:
Art is a skill, just as much as writing, sewing, knitting, and so on. ANYONE can learn this skill. Some advance faster than others due to natural aptitude but anyone can do it. You just have to dedicate time and patience to learning it.
Every artist started with stick figures. ;)
Remember that.
Every single one of us started by drawing stick figures.
That’s not to say that’s where you will begin, but an affirmation that literally EVERYONE, including commissioned artists, starts in the same place. Stick figures in crayon when we were kids. We all evolved from there.
Do NOT under ANY circumstances beat yourself up if you set out to draw a cat and it looks like Ditto with whiskers. (It’s happened to me. Literally that exact scenario. It’s okay to laugh. I sure did.) This is a Ditto, in case Pokemon isn’t your thing:
Keep at it and you will improve. I promise. Regardless of which way you go. Keep. At. It. and you will improve.
Drawing/painting is a constant evolution, regardless of medium, be it digital or a traditional one. Once you get the basics down, you begin to develop your own style. And even your own style changes as you progress. Look at mine. I’ve drawn two things for you. Hannah and Satinalia Cullen. Both mine but the styles are lightyears apart because I worked and evolved.
Studies in anatomy, color theory, light theory, and the like will be your best friends. Good reference photos will be your best friends.
And always remember: art is 150% subjective. Look at Picasso and Jackson Pollock. They are nothing like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, or Georgia O’Keefe. All of it is art.
Abstract, Renaissance, Nuveau, Deco, Modernism, Fauvism, Pointilism, Impressionism and the rest... All art. All very different styles.
All. Are. Valid.
All started with stick figures somewhere in their history. You gotta start somewhere but keep at it and you will succeed.
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weekly fun stuff: comfort zone edition
hopefully can start doing digital art again tomorrow! tried to get more sleep and my eye is looking better. will start slow by just moving my 30min figure/hand drawing back over to Krita, but I REALLY want to be working on that Shepard portrait I thumbnailed last week.
I think I have to come to terms with the fact that I draw WAY too quickly and sloppily. Getting a 'finished' drawing fast (as long as it looks 'good enough') gives me a nice little reward ping and, conversely, taking my time on something to actually get it correct makes me very likely to get distracted, bored, and give up. I have a bad habit of going into autopilot instead of being aware of what I'm doing, which I think is really negatively affecting my ability to learn and improve.
I've been doing better recently, in my finished, higher-quality art, at spending more time on details and putting more effort into finishing stuff up - but I still struggle a lot with finalising sketches for them because I draw so sloppily and instinctively to begin with that the sketches are just plain wrong.
I drew a lot of hands this week in preparation for having to paint some in the Shep portrait - each page took 30 minutes, which just exemplifies the Sloppy Problem. I could have taken three times as long on each hand and actually gotten something well-constructed and stable instead of skipping 80% of the construction steps and coming out with these vaguely handlike things that don't actually look tangible.
One thing I did do this week that I think worked well was to use some of the referenced hand poses again in little sketches. I feel like I have a better grasp (pun not intended) of how hands can be attached to bodies now, at least (even though all the sketches are again waaaaaay oversimplified and sloppy). I'll keep doing this next week - just reeeeeeeeeeally need to find a way to make sustained construction effort fun or achievable. It's gonna be hard.
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