#i'm thinking traditional art might be the way to go for the redraws

[silvershadow1711]

Not old art, but art I feel is... lacking. I hadn't touched my tablet in years when I did these pieces earlier this year. I hadn't drawn anything period for months when I did the top pic. I had ideas, but my art muscles had atrophied too much to execute them at the level I wanted. Still, gotta get back in the saddle somehow.

These were intended to be "covers" for some fanfics I wrote. It's always the things you're proudest of that get the worst reception. I know it's my fault for posting non-porn on the porn site, but I honestly thought that since people liked the main fic, they'd appreciate some insight into the secondary characters. I was wrong, but I still wanna redraw these pieces so they fit more in line with the vision I had for them.

[vetyr]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[stepswordsen]

【Magi】 Judar and JuAli 🐈‍⬛🖤 ❤️ 💛

JuAli WIP doodles 🖤 ❤️ 💛

Quick doodles before I head back to my assignments

Been a while since I drew Judar and Alibaba together… I missed them!!! I hope to draw them more~

You can see the rest under the cut~

I wasn't sure if I should post my sketches here since they're so messy but I thought I might as well

I'll copy paste my old rambles too since I have more to add this time

2024 vs. 2022

(2024)

Comparison (2022 ~ 2023)

(2024)

Comparison (November 2022)

For the kissy one:

Wasn't sure which one I liked more tbh

1st one fits more...

Though for the 2nd one, I think Judar looks more efforted ADHSHDHSH

Since I excel at drawing meow meow mf charas

3rd one I drew in November 2022. The expressions are still cute in this one so I still like it, but my brush strokes improved a lot since then

For the hanfu Judar one:

Recent versions (+ the old one from 2022)

I've been playing around with the eyes~ I like these ones best. The eyes are bigger in the 1st one, and the others have them a bit smaller. The 1st one has a more innocent look. The 2nd has more slitted eyes and a "seductive" look?

Judar has sharp (tsurime) eyes and rings in his eyes, which are really fun to draw hehe 🤗

I'll redraw the hair soon! I just drew it quickly in like 5 minutes. It's finals season for me. I'm not fully free from this semester so I'm still quite busy, but you'll probably see small doodles from me 🙏

I'm definitely seeing art improvement (improvement in brush strokes and anatomy and proportions)

Ohtaka deliberately draws hatched lines near Judar's eyes to represent his eyeshadow 🤭 ❤️

I drew the hair quickly, so I didn't pay much attention to the shapes of the hair spikes so it's not as soft. But even with the quick doodle, the hair has better weight now. Once I get to refine things properly, I'll actually pay attention to the way his hair spikes are drawn.

I was recently rereading my old dialogue scripts from my JuAli AU and revamping them! I doodled Judar and Alibaba SO much in 2022. It's the Fire/Ice duality and Black Cat x Golden Retriever ship dynamic 🖤💛🐈‍⬛🐕

I wanna draw JuAli again soon and redraw my old doodles. JuAli is my main Magi ship so ofc I wanna draw lots of them~ I haven't gotten the time yet, but I want to draw my ships like AliHaku, SinJa, and KouMor eventually, too 🙏✨

Inspiration

Based on this black and red (Judar colours) hanfu I got~

Judar rambles

I originally drew Judar wearing hanfu in 2022! Still one of my personal fave doodles ❤️ Judar is my fave (no one is surprised, I have the most obvious predictable tastes in the world LMAO). A meow meow mf perfect for my tastes.

Judar fits perfectly into the highly specific Sen-core niche that my top faves all tend to fall under - Meow meow mf. C*nty sen-core bastard cat who's violent, threatens people, and ok with murder. Bloodthirsty. Monochrome aesthetic colour palette.

Manga Judar has red eyeliner (?) and anime Judar has purple eyeshadow? Both are good, but I like Judar with red eyeliner since black and red are his theme colours! 🖤❤️ I like how the colours pop, the contrast against his design, and how it matches his red eyes.

In my HCs, Judar wears a type of hanfu called Ruqun (襦裙). Ru (襦) is the cross-collared top of a hanfu, and the wrap-around skirt is called Qun (裙). The coat jacket is called Da Xiu Shan (大袖衫).

I want him to wear black, white, red, gold, hanfu & hanfu earrings, with red eyeliner and black painted nails 🤗

I still need to pick my headcanon hanfu earrings for Judar... I imagine they'd be gold with red accessories.

I just have to refine the eyes, redraw the hair and hanfu, and then start doing the lineart for it! I love the expression tbh

Additional rambles

I miss my sons, I wanna draw my HC designs of JuAli (with Judar wearing hanfu and Alibaba with tanner skin, wearing traditional Arabic clothes), as a fix-it for the obvious colourism going on in Magi's character designs of SWANA and South Asian inspired characters

I bought black and red hanfu back in 2023. I based my Judar hanfu doodles on it 🥺❤️ It's in Judar colours. Black red and white 🖤❤️🤍 I'm so HAPPY to get something that reminds me of my fave 🥰🤭❤️✨ I got it from the Hanfu Story~ They have such a large selection of hanfu and they're all so gorgeous~

Basically Judar themed hanfu~ I love traditional clothes, so it's my dream to collect them! Now I can use it as refs to draw him with the poses and lighting I want teehee. Hanfu & huafu look GORGEOUS to me. I also have Việt Phục like áo dài and áo tấc~

The colours are amazing!! I love black and red combo 😭💖 It's way too easy to fall into the fashion hole and collecting traditional clothes but I definitely want more in the future!

Magi: Ch. 110 - 111, Ch. 196 - 197, Ch. 239, Ch. 288

I love how Ohtaka stylizes and draws the shape of Judar's hair and braids. It's so clever how she simplifies the shapes. It just looks so good. It looks galaxy/tornado shaped… I love how the hatched lines above his eyes in Ohtaka's inking represents his eyeliner... ❤️

Judar's expressions from Ch. 110 - 111 are so unhinged… The Ch. 288 omake Judar is iconic. Fucking crazy ass LMAO 😭😂 Love you tho! 💞🫶

I'll be honest. I've thought about changing my PFP to this Judar again from the Magi omakes, like I thought of doing it as an April Fool's joke before, but I feel like no one would bat an eye cuz of how my faves are like LMFAO

Sen-core faves: Murderous, bloodthirsty, violent (or at the very least, has a disposition for violence), MAY eat people and/or their innards 🙌

JuAli core ship posts

And while you're at it, have the meme edit of them I made (1st image)

Anyways I made the 1st image's meme edit myself <33

Alibaba with tanner skin has such great visual contrast against his earrings~

I also wanna commission arts of JuAli at one point but I'd want to do it with my headcanon designs of them (Judar wearing hanfu and Alibaba with tanner skin wearing traditional Arabic clothes)

Art rambles

When I sketch, I draw out the expressions and decide which ones looks best (I either do it once or a few ~ several times) depending on whether I'm satisfied with it. I like the two most recent 2024 versions I showed~ The old ones are still nice... But I prefer the recent versions, because I think it shows how my art style and proportions improved.

These sketches are super messy right now so when I get the time I'll refine them more! It's just to make it consistent with my current style. I'm a little insecure about my sketches, so I prefer to keep most of them on priv for mutuals.

Since I'm not really a fan of the idea of my sketches/WIPs getting posted around when I'm bound to fix/refine/improve on them later when I get the chance to refine them. Though thankfully with my 2022+ lining style, my sketches look more "aesthetically nice" or "post worthy" to me...

Perhaps in the future... I do genuinely like my art style and I'm very happy with my art improvement, but I want to keep growing as an artist first. I want to reach the point where I manage to become more technically skilled and confident about my works (even my sketches)

Though since I posted the rest of the sketches under the cut, feel free to reblog them if you want!

[emmbrr]

What's a good place for a starting artist to learn do you think? Absolutely love your work.

thank you so much! i love questions like these, and i'm happy to give my two cents.

i would suggest starting with a sketchbook, an "ugly sketchbook" if you will (not like those ones on youtube where people are like 'sketchbook tour!!!' and it's the best work you've ever seen), and just draw anything you like. a lot of my old sketchbooks are filled with drawings inspired by tokyo mew mew and kingdom hearts, and they look terrible but there's joy in drawing the things you love, and it doesn't matter what it looks like right now. don't put any pressure on yourself if it 'looks good'! draw your hands, draw your friends, draw flowers, draw pictures on pinterest, draw your pet. studying others' work is a great way to learn! go to a museum with your sketchbook and draw the statues (that was an assignment of ours in art school), or redraw illustrations from old books.

you should focus on building your hand/eye/brain coordination to start out. and of course with all skills it takes time until you might be happy with it :) don't feel pressured to invest in an ipad and a drawing program. all the skills you learn with traditional media (even just a pencil) can translate digitally later, if that's something you're interested in, but imo it's harder to go from digital to traditional.

best of luck and let me know if there's anything else i can do to help!!

[illusioncanthurtme--art]

(putting on reporter hat/j) You mostly post the art you do with pencil but what other mediums do you enjoy using? Were you always drawn to pencils? Also obligatory compliment for your art, i love looking at all these lines ❤️

*ahem*

Thank you so much!! I love seeing your dexdark art on my dash as well! 💖

I honestly think my Thing with making pencil drawings started in high school, when I would bring my sketchbook to school and draw when I got the chance. Then later, I would post whatever fanarts I made to tumblr, or deviantart if we're going back that far. (I still think about DA and get nostalgic, but it's impossible to get a following on there so it's not meant to be :'( ) And people would give my gravity falls, steven universe, etc drawings positive attention, and that gave me motivation to make more.

So that's how the whole "making pencil drawings in my sketchbook, and putting in effort to make them pretty" thing started, but for a long time there, I was still making digital art pretty frequently. I think pencil drawing took over as my dominant medium when I started taking commissions. Because I used to offer digital comms as well as pencil drawing comms, but the traditional stuff was way cheaper, so it's what I did the most. And over time, my standards for my pencil stuff got higher and higher, and now it's like my Thing.

But I think part of the reason it stuck so much is just the convenience? I can take my sketchbook anywhere and draw if I'm out and about.

That being said, I think I should delve into digital stuff again, just because it would be a good change of pace! Digital illustration wise, I use photoshop. I used to do portrait bust thingies (I called them digital paintings). I haven't done that in a long time, and I might enjoy that more than I'd expect. Also, ever since I animated in toon boom, I've been so enamored with using vectors to make lineart. When I made digital lineart in the past, it could be so frustrating at times, how you'd have to redraw the same delicate curve over and over until it looked the way you want. So if I do something digital with lines in the future, I think I'll give the pen tool in photoshop a try.

[gzeidraws]

you create so much art so quickly how are you so fast

Alright gonna answer this honestly instead of just 'uhh i guess xD' lol

1. Work Ethic

(not sure if Ethic is the correct word) I think I have a short attention span, and also work better/faster in shorter bursts when I feel that itch to draw a lot. I try to work with this by setting a limit of the number of slots I think I can handle during this 'hardworking' phase and just going all out.

Also trying to be as disciplined as possible by working only on comms when I open them. This means during this whole time whenever I'm free, I only work on the comms. I only game once I head to bed. I don't have much social interaction or outings during this time.

I emphasize that not EVERYONE must work this way and it will not be healthy if you do this for the long term. I myself have overextended and burnt out (when I disappeared for that 1 year+ 😬)

In fact, many work better by taking short breaks or working on personal stuff in between, and still get things done. For me, I've always preferred to suffer through getting all the work done first and enjoying my break after lol. Just make sure your clients know your working style beforehand in your terms, let them know you might need breaks or just give them a rough schedule.

2. Art Style

Over the years my style has changed quite a bit. When I first started out I would do very detailed, painterly rendering with minimal lineart, or cleaning/redrawing the lineart.

Now I've settled on what I call a 'sketch-loose' style. It works with my working style above. it emulates a little pencil/traditional feeling which I like (so instead of drawing new lineart, I clean up the existing sketch to retain that roughness) , I get to be more loose with my brush strokes (for my impatience), and I think the overall end result still looks fine!

So yea consider having an art style specifically for comms if you want complete as many as possible. It can also be simply offering more options like 'sketch only' or 'flat colors only'.

And of course the more you practice/draw with the same style, the quicker you'll get at it! And the result will only keep improving over time.

Thank you for reading, hope this helps anyone!

[hikapoi]

This is from the Artists Asks List. You can just pick the ones you're interested in answering if this is too much lol.

1, 9, 12, 15, and 25

I've answered #25 over here! (= 1. Do you prefer traditional drawing, or digital?

AHHHHH this is such a good question.. I always want to say a real pencil in my hand is the way to go even after all these years doing digital art but last year I don't think I did any traditional art at all... It honestly makes me so sad that the only time I do any traditional work is during Inktober or Sketchvember.. when the months roll by I just think, "ah darnit another year goes where I only do traditional work as part of a game." Man I just think traditional is when I'm at ease and most relaxed bc I can just feel fluid if I'm drawing for fun, but with digital you can really clean things up to look really good. A part of the reason I enjoy doing the yearly holiday cards when I ACTUALLY SEND ANY is that it's a time I can do special traditional art for my friends to make them really happy. I think I'm good at digital art but am even better with traditional, but I don't think I can say that anymore if I haven't really touched a pencil in recent years. It might be the opposite now, my traditional work lacks the precision and finesse of my digital work but since I have art supplies I PAID for and HAVE TO USE I have a tendency to experiment with traditional media more. I am STILL buying loads of art supplies to this date..

9. How much time do you spend drawing on an average day?

HNGNGHGH it really depends.. Ah, average day? Hmmm when I'm on fire I might say at least 2 hours a day, whether it's to work on a quick doodle or to continue a more time-consuming piece. There are days where I might spend 4-6 hours. The craziest for me for one day might be 8 hours-- with or without breaks in between.

12. Is it okay for people to ask you about your process?

YEAH ABSOLUTELY ALWAYS it's no secret. I always did the circle/stick man base but when I really got into One Punch Man in 2012 or so when Murata-sensei was streaming, I noticed he skipped that step and went straight to defining muscles, limbs, faces, etc. I thought DANG if I could do that I could draw SO MUCH FASTER and SO MUCH MORE!! It was horrible at first and I hated a lot of my art while I was trying out this new thing but now I'd say I'm fairly decent and it does get me to do more art faster.

Anyway! My process is to start with a pose idea. The timing on this varies, but I usually thumbnail with little stick figures until something sticks. If there is one I like I might blow it up or redraw it on a larger scale. I always start with the face shape and eyes first. It helps me get a good idea on how to frame the hair. I cannot feel I am drawing the character until I get this right. I'll then detail until I color. I skip a line art step most of the time because I clean my sketches along the way ((I KNOW, RISA)). If it's a piece I'm serious about being a "best" I might seriously do a line art layer but I usually have trouble because I can never find a comfortable inking pen AND I feel line art makes my art suddenly stiff. I used to never color but I try to do it as much as I can because I have always admired my friends for their bold colors and I told myself that that's my own personal goal to have more colored work.

15. How long does an average piece take you to complete?

If it's a fairly simple/rushed drawing that is semi-refined that can take me about 2-4 hours? I can get a lot done in just 1 hour as well thanks to all those Mob Psycho 100 60 min challenges. But if I just take my time drawing something that I don't particularly hate I'd say 2 hours is a good average. For a more detailed one with backgrounds or groups or lots of detail, that could take me at least 8 hours of actually drawing. The hours spent into references/getting ideas/thinking of a background add to an illustration's turnaround time even if I am not actually moving a pen.

Thank you for your interest in me! I hope maybe I've said something interesting!

These questions are from this art meme if you want to do it too: https://hikapoi.tumblr.com/post/708522112589119488/artist-asks

[roxtron]

uh uh for the character ask game, Pearl from splatoon! With the questions 2, 12, and 23!

okay yay uhh.. 2. favorite canon thing.. probably her personality and style honestly, I know she wasn't really popular when splatoon 2 came out but I've always kinda liked her and especially her style in the art books and splatfest art.. i'll probably go find some while looking for question 23 lol 12. I usually have a hard time coming up with headcanons but the translation error resulting in all the he/him idol memes is kinda funny to me, i never turn down a good trans headcanon lol, gotta project onto my favorite characters <3 so i guess if anything I'd probably see her as genderfluid or bigender or something like that, (not sure which label would fit best) which honestly kinda fits with some of her official art outfits tbh.. 23. ok time to go search.

ok i have finished searching. there's probably way more cool art of her I'm not considering but I was looking for like an hour already so.. from what I found I picked some of my favorites <3

i think this is one of my favorites probably just because of the upper half of the outfit and the pose (ik this was supposed to be some nike promo but I couldn't care less about that, I'm not a brand person and I usually only wear sneakers if I'm gonna be walking a while so my feet don't hurt lol.) But I might also have a bias because I liked redrawing some of the splatoon official art when I was younger and I really liked the way that drawing turned out. It was back when I did traditional art so I'm too lazy to go find it but, it was a fun way to practice and figure out my art style and stuff, I've definitely been inspired a bit by the official artstyle. Unfortunately Marina doesn't look the best in a lot of the official art mostly because lot of people have pointed out whitewashing which sucks :( but I can't be too surprised considering one of the official or brand liscenced plushies was so heavily whitewashed I'd have thought Marina was white if I didn't know anything about splatoon and saw that plushie lmao.. anyway i found more art i liked so i'm putting it here too

I like her more casual style in the majority of official art and I'm definitely biased considering I also wear really baggy t shirts and hoodies lol. with the mention of gender earlier ofc she can still be feminine and obviously clothes aren't inherently gendered and all but. I dunno I've always appreciated these outfits as more androgynous to me even before I realized I wasn't cis lol. whatever gender people hc pearl as we can all agree these outfits slay <3 it's very gender to me in a way I can't explain

[genericpuff]

HEY SO I'M GONNA FINALLY ANSWER THE HANDS PART OF THIS QUESTION LMAO

don't get your hopes up tho, it's probably not gonna be that interesting because honestly?? I STILL SUCK AT DRAWING HANDS. ALL THE FUCKING TIME LOL I have little "quirks" with how I draw hands that make them evident that it was indeed I who drew them, and I still struggle with fingers specifically because I often have to redraw them during the process to make them look less like little freaking sausages. I owe that to my roots in cartoon/chibi-style art where sausage fingers were pretty much the norm, it drives me nuts when I end up with them on my normal-proportioned characters LMAO

That said, to me, "learning how to draw" whether it's hands, shoes, faces, etc. is literally just learning little tricks and secrets that help you understand the things you're studying better. And one little 'trick' I learned that helped me understand hand structure a lot more was from an Ethan Becker video talking about Loish's hands. I've been following the "when in doubtie one fingee outie" mantra ever since, it shouldn't be used as a default setting for fingers in every scenario obv but it DID help me understand more how the fingers moved relative to one another and how you could "trick" the complexity of hands into 1-2 easy shapes.

(if you've never watched Ethan Becker, don't take his style of comedy too seriously, he's not actually attacking anyone lol)

When it comes to my actual drawing process though, thanks to the way I draw Rekindled I've learned that I work a lot better by laying down solid shapes as my 'sketch', it works better for my brain to see immediately what's working and what's not, vs. a wireframe sketch that doesn't 'fill in the gaps' quite as much as solid color. So try that sometime, instead of sketching out a hand, just lay out the shapes with solid color. Personally I've learned the 'wireframe' structures or whatnot that you see in a lot of how-to-draw guides don't work for me because I find it over-complicates it-

(haha nope sorry too much for me, it's cool if this works for you but my brain cells are out on this one fam)

My brain thrives on simplicity and freedom of movement in my structures, so solid colors work a lot better for me in that regard. That said, what works for me might not work for you (and vice versa) so try your best to find new techniques and methods, you don't have to do the thing that people tell you you have to do to "get good". That's just what works for them.

And of course, do life studies! Here are some steps you can start off with that I think might really help for simplifying the life drawing process:

1.) Prepare a nice big canvas for yourself, if you're working digitally do not zoom in on that canvas, keep your fingers OFF that zoom wheel or the Z key or whatever you're clicking to zoom. Zooming removes the big picture and you need big pictures to break down.

2.) Pick a big brush size or a tool that can't become too detailed (so if you're doing digital, pick a round brush and bump the brush size up to a medium-large size, if you're doing traditional, get yourself a nice thicc charcoal stick)

3.) Rather than looking at other people's breakdowns of hands (which they made for themselves and their brains, not for you and your brain!) go and find some pictures of hands and break them down yourself, trace over them if you have to, fill them in with solid color or just draw yourself some cute mittens like Becker above, just whatever you gotta do to break those forms down into shapes that are simplified and easy for you to understand. Try out different hand shapes and finger positions, eventually you'll notice there are ways the hands can and cannot move and that's going to be the foundation you need to actually stylize them with your personal flair down the road - learn the rules first, then break them. And yes, tracing is okay if you're using it for educational purposes like personal art studies and shape breakdowns. Just keep it loose and for learning.

Yes, it really does come down to "just practice" BUT you can wind up practicing the 'wrong way' if you're doing the same things over and over again expecting different results so make sure to step outside of your comfort zone a little and experiment with new techniques even if it means coming up with your own. You never know what will work for you until you try it!

Hope that helps! Happy hand drawing! <3

Omg hiiii, I absolutely love Rekindled! You're so talented, and the story you're making for Persephone is so intriguing! A lot more than whatever trashfire Lore Olympus has become.

That being said, what was the moment you stopped liking LO Persephone? Have you always disliked her, or was it gradual? Or just a specific moment that made you go "yeaaaaah.. she's not it ;-;"

(And bonus question if I can ask, but how do you draw hands?? I hate them with a passion, but unfortunately hands are pretty necessary T^T)

aahhh thank you so much!!!

honestly, I was a pretty big fan of LO up until the trial arc. Like, you've all seen me hate this comic with a fiery passion, but the only reason I'm able to do that is because before I hated this comic, I loooved this comic. I'd literally be counting down the hours until new updates, I loved the art, and I was too smitten by the appeal of the series to notice its writing problems, I just loved the romantic drama and the H x P ship, and yes, I loved Persephone, I loved her design, her personality, and I felt so 'seen' by her struggles, both with her trying to pave a path for herself and the SA plotline. I was even (regrettably) one of those people who would lurk in the antiLO tags and think "wow, these people are dumb, can't they see how brilliantly written this is ?? they're nitpicking!"

But then the trial arc happened which involved writing a plot that didn't put the romance front and center anymore - now that Rachel had to actually write something complex and logic-driven, the blinders started to fall off and I went wait... maybe Rachel doesn't know what she's doing. Persephone choosing her own lawyer? And it's Hades, one of the judges? Why are they suddenly establishing Thanatos as Hades' adoptive son? I'm not a lawyer, but I know that's not how any of this works and it really tipped me off that something was amiss, that Persephone was having all of her solutions conveniently handed to her on a platter and all of the other characters were suddenly being made to look like assholes just to make Hades and Persephone the heroes.

And then... Eris happened.

See, one of the things I loved most in the story was Persephone's character arc concerning the Act of Wrath. I write stories about characters with dark "personas" all of the time. So it was something I had frame of reference for, I really loved the premise of Persephone earning her name through this act of violence and while it was dashed with the opening of S2 revealing it was "all an accident", I was excited to see how the trial arc would bring about new information and confirm who was telling the truth about what "really happened" with the Act of Wrath. If the courtroom drama wasn't gonna be realistic, I could at least hope for some good 'OBJECTION!' reveal that would finally put to rest once and for all what really happened, and maybe Kore would finally embrace this 'dark side' she had.

So for the actual twist to suddenly reveal itself as... 'actually, this one goddess we've never mentioned before blessed you with wrath. why? idk she just did. anyways she's the reason you have wrath and that's what made you commit the act of wrath. problem solved.'

And that was where the twisting of 'faith' happened. When I went through the subconscious realization of , "Oh no, Rachel doesn't know what she's doing and it took me this long to notice. Oh no, maybe those antiLO freaks had a point-"

That said, there was a glimmer of hope in the midseason finale. Persephone was sentenced to remain in the Mortal Realm to carry out her mother's duties and I thought, "great! This will be Persephone's Rocky moment! She'll have to prove herself without the help of Demeter or Hades! This is gonna be awesome!!" During the hiatus, I was VERY excited to see where the story was going, I still had so much hope and I figured the mishandling of the trial arc was just a bump in the road. The series was still good, it was just going through a rough patch, these things happen.

And then it came back and it all went downhill from there. There was a 10 year time skip with very little insight as to what happened. Minthe and Daphne were just suddenly back to normal. They were referencing some food shortage or terrible event that happened during Persephone's reign that they never explained in explicit detail. And now, all of a sudden, Persephone was just returning to the Underworld, where Kronos had suddenly taken over. I had cautious optimism but throughout it, I was really seeing the cracks that were already forming opening wide. A lot of what I had to say wasn't positive anymore, I literally couldn't understand what the reasoning was behind these writing decisions and I couldn't find myself rooting for Persephone anymore, everything just seemed to convenient and easy for her to make her seem like the "strong and confident" character the comic claimed her to be.

The S2 finale was my breaking point and I think it was for a lot of other people too. That was pretty much where my 'transformation' from passionate stan to passionate critic happened, and it happened alongside the creation of the UnpopularLoreOlympus subreddit which would become my new 'home' within the community. After seeing how much the story had gone downhill, it made me realize in hindsight just how awful and one-note Persephone is, how she really never cared about anyone but herself and Hades, how her mother did, actually, have a point about her being practically groomed into a relationship with a billionaire slave driver, how she was very intentionally drawn to look like a child in ways I couldn't believe I had never noticed before, the list of "awakenings" goes on. And it sucked! It sucked to have that realization that the thing I loved wasn't just imperfect, but incredibly problematic in its writing and art choices. And just like when I loved the comic, I couldn't just let go of it, I had to understand to some degree why this happened.

It happened because Persephone was always being written as a one-note, easy to project onto self-insert character. A Wattpad protagonist. Not an actual representation of the Goddess of Spring, but a blank slate for the creator and the fans to imagine themselves as purely for the power fantasy of hooking up with a rich and abusive guy.

That was when I made my first piece of LO art intended to be an 'edit' - a redraw of Persephone's rebirth as the Dread Queen from the S2 finale, an ode to the Persephone I was hoping to see but never got. The rest from there is history.

I know I'm being SUPER dramatic about it but this was literally how it felt to go through the realization that this comic - and its characters - wasn't as good as I thought it was, and I think that's a sentiment that's shared by a lot of the 'haters' in this community. LO was a big part of my life and even some of my friendships with people, so when it went downhill, it felt like such a hit to the gut. It's still a big part of my life, albeit in the opposite direction, but I still wonder sometimes over the "what ifs", what if the series hadn't turned out this way? What if I had never realized its flaws? Rekindled is basically a love letter to those what ifs, satisfying the feelings I never got to keep with LO, and giving me a reason to count down the hours on Saturday nights again. I'm glad it's made that same impact for others, too <3

[toastedbuckwheat]

Hello! May I ask how you draw? I'm currently learning how to myself and would be highly interested into a step to step process by you! Like from sketch to the done thing (no color necessary)

Hello there!

I dunno how I feel about showing how I work/giving advice to someone who’s learning (and I say it as a pro artist who went through years of traditional art education) because when I do the illustrations you see here on my tumblr I BREAK THE RULES you’d learn though life drawing routine, and give in to bad habits, and my methods are rather unplanned and chaotic which makes it difficult to pinpoint significant stages. But I used my portable potato to take some photos during working on my last piece, so I’ll throw it here with a bit of an explanation of what’s going on.

Before I begin - and because you’re about to look at a mess of a WIP - I’d like to give you some general advice that generally makes life easier when you draw (again, things that I learned in traditional arts education - another artist might advise you the complete opposite, dunno!)

Work holistically. Forget them satisfying-to-look-at clips on instagram showing someone produce a hyperrealistic portrait starting from an eye, with each and every element emerging being finished before they proceed to another part. It takes a lot of talent, yes, but these are ppl redrawing a photo in a kind of a mechanical manner. Most artists don’t work this way. Especially if you’re working without a reference, or if you’re doing a life drawing - your process will be layering and changing and finding what works best to give an impression of what you’re drawing rather than reproduce the exact image, and your artwork is likely to look messy most of the time.That said: don’t start with the details. Don’t spend too much time on a particular part while neglecting others. Your goal is to keep the whole piece at the same level of ‘finished’ (even though it’s unfinished - do I make sense?) before you’re confident that everything is where it should be and proceed to the details. So sketch out the composition first. See how things fit, what’s the dynamics. You’ll save yourself from limbs sticking out from the frame, odd proportions etc etc.

Because it’s a game of relationships between different parts of the picture/scene. I ask you not to worry about finishing a single element before laying out the rest because you’ll find that said element will look different once the other part appears! For instance - you might think that the colour you picked for a character’s hair is already very dark. But once you’re done with the night sky background, you’ll find that it’s in fact too light, and doesn’t work well with the cold palette. You’ll have to revisit different parts of the image as you go to balance these relationships and make the picture work as a whole.

Give an impression of something being there without actually drawing it ‘properly’- because details are hard, mate. You’ll see that my lineart usually has hardly any, and my colouring is large unrefined stains, but the finished thing looks convincing. Like, fuck, I can never focus on how Crowley’s eyes are really shaped. So I just turn them into large glowing yellow ellipses crossed by a line, and heard no protests so far.

Don’t panic if you messed up (you probably didn’t anyway). It might turn out to be a completely unnoticeable mistake - because, remember, things work together to balance each other, so another finished off prominent element will probably drown that badly placed line that looked so visible and out of place a second ago. 

It might not look good before it’s finished. I’m mostly immune to it after years of drawing, and my recent illustrations all follow a specific method (ykno, my sunset glow effects and all that) so I can kinda predict the next stage. But I do my linearts on a specially picked crap paper, I don’t bother erasing the smudged graphite, and it looks messy af until I make the background white in Photoshop. Conclusion: you might have a moment of doubt as you work through a piece, but try to break through it - I often suddenly start to like what I cursed a minute before! - and try to finish it even if it’s meant to be bad. This way, looking through your past pieces, you’ll see the progress. And trust me, I can’t even look at my art from literally three months ago. It’s normal.

Now, pics! The sketches are paler in real life, but I increased the contrast a little so you can see something.

1. Laying out the composition! 

I wanted to just show them kissing, but I got carried away due to some Art Nouveau inspiration. As you might have noticed, most of my illustrations are quite self-contained (ykno - they look like a sticker on a plain background). So I wanted a tight swirl bordered by Aziraphale’s wings creating a sort of rounded, yin-yang like bubble around them. Consequently I made the whole composition revolve around their heads. 

2. Adding more details to the sketch. It’s messy af. It will be messy until I’m done. It’s fine.

3. These are the fineliners I use for the linearts! They are made by Uni-ball and come in light and dark grey. I also sometimes use the guy on the left - ‘Touch’ sign pen by Pentel, when I want more brush-like, wider strokes. I work in grey because when I scan it and do my usual boring trick with sunlight highlights - which is an Overlay mode layer in Photoshop - the highlights ‘burn out’ the lines too and make them vanish a little, and the lighting effect gets more striking. I also like to use the light grey ones to make something look pencil-y without actually using pencil, because pencil fucking smudges.

4. It smudges! So because I am right handed, I start inking from the right hand side, no matter how tempted I am to do their faces first.

5. You can see the composition directions here. I made it intuitively, but ofc some ppl actually use grids etc to lay out their drawings.

6. See how pale ans thin the lineart was at first? I kept adjusting it as new inked parts were appearing. It starts to look nice and consistent now! 

7. Finished lineart? There are some mistakes which I later corrected in PS. Notice that Aziraphale’s face has hardly any details on it - I tried to make the drawing suggest his expression rather than risk overdoing it. 

8. Photoshop time!! You can totally do what I did here even if you don’t have a graphic tablet. I used Curves tool to enhance the lineart, then Quick Selection Tool to select the background around around my sticker-like piece and filled it white (on a new layer ofc). I keep this white layer on top of the layer order so it works as a mask as I colour. I decided I did not like the hatching shading underneath Aziraphale’s halo, so I erased it with a Stamp tool (because I wanna keep the textured grey fill my crap paper naturally gives me!). It’s done roughly but won’t be visible once the thing is coloured. 

9. And the reason why I keep the grey shade instead of easily getting rid of it by using Curves/Levels is because when I set this layer to Multiply mode and colour underneath, it gives me this nice desaturated look like from an old cheap paper comic page. It works as a natural filter! But of course I can’t do bright colours this way, so all my glowing highlights happen ABOVE the lineart layer - on a separate layer in Overlay mode! 

Finished thing here!

_____

Commission infoBuy Me a Coffee - help me with my transitioning expenses!Prints and stickers and things on my Redbubble!

[ifievertoldyou]

the long awaited wip graveyard post

i thought the title was fitting for halloween :p

this post is an assorted collection of all my old thaw wips that i deemed not good enough to post, but didn't want to just rot away in my folder, so now they're here.

enjoy !

-

the Eye post

fun fact: i used the same seven colored pencils for both the thes eye and the tommy one, i just made the grayer shades more emphasized for the latter. thought that was a neat little detail.

q's eye here makes his skin look a lil more purple

i impulsively gave quackity an eyebrow when i didn't sketch it before, and the way it turned out bothered me >:((

not a wip because i absolutely would never give this abomination its own post, but this is basically what my scratch paper sheet looks like when i want to test out how different colors look with each other, and also get a really, Really rough idea of what the final product will look like. this is the process i go through Every time i draw something serious. 😭

peep all 7 colors of the chaosduo's eyes under the thes eye practice

LMAO AND THE THES FACE 8 SECOND SKETCH LOOKS LIKE HE'S ON DRUGS IT'S SO SILLY

can you see me struggling to figure out how to wrap the rune around q's pupil? and also how to make the rune not just Completely disappear bc of how dark his eye is? yeah. traditional art is a pain is the ass sometimes, but i'm still wayy better at it.

also shoutout to @alexanderwesker for giving me an idea of what the rune on q's eye looks like, because i like being as accurate as i can when i draw stuff, so that was very much appreciated!

the part 2 to the hero's journey comic

i went fucking Ham during the hero's journey assignment, so much so that i literally planned like 19 more panels than what you saw in the original post (27 panels planned in total). but then i realized that i had like Four Whole Days to do that assignment, and would definitely not be able to do that many, especially not without burning out.

so i instead settled for the very first 8 panels that i planned (though even then, i had to abridge a lot of it, and also cut slime entirely from it, bc otherwise those 8 would have been 14 whole panels, and i think i would actually die-), since that was just enough to show two different steps of the hero's journey (crossing the threshold and meeting the mentor btw. i could probably do a whole analysis on how wesker's stories fit into the hero's journey if i wanted to, but i'm lazy rn and this post is already pretty long), and that was the big grading requirement. (i got 100% on that assignment btw 💪and my english teacher still has no clue that he graded minecraft fanfiction fanart LMAO) but this one is what i would have included if i had more time on the project, and could include more of the story, but as it stands, i made this one in my own leisure, because comics are fun to do.

anyways, with that little rant aside, i tried my best to make q look younger than quackity, and really accentuate the difference between them. idk how i feel about how q turned out though.

i'm really proud of the paneling, and i'm also kinda proud of the first frame with quackity's face in particular bc i thought it looked cool, like an actual comic book or something. but i couldn't figure out the card physics or perspective and that's what ultimately made me choose to abandon it 💔 maybe i'll try attempting this page again when i'm feeling more daring (as well as the other panels that i still haven't even drawn yet), but this wip has been collecting dust for a couple of months now so i figured i'd share it here anyway.

Palido

i drew palido a bit ago, but bro got somehow managed to get crinkled in my bag, even while literally being Inside of my sketchbook 🤨

it's not Too awfully noticeable though, especially bc the fold isn't On the drawing itself, so i might be able to salvage him and post a finished version someday... but i kinda halted progress on him for the time being bc of it, so here he is. </3

"Am I Still Even Me?"

i 1000% want to redraw this someday, just because i think the idea behind it is so fucking neat.

honestly, this one wasn't too bad at all, especially since i did all of it (besides the bones bc i think my health professions teacher would be disappointed if i got them wrong, and also the rune bc i care way too much about accuracy) without any reference, which is a pretty impressive feat for me and my aphantasia. but yeahh i think it could definitely be better, and really, this drawing was ultimately something that i just drew in class to keep myself busy for a bit bc i had way too much freetime that day. it wasn't intended to be post-worthy or anything.

but i think that the idea behind it is definitely post-worthy. maybe i'll even add a thes and/or youngerbur addition once i get more information about them and just how they've changed yk.

i had no clue how to draw the bones in that position, i probably could've done more research but. yeah no i don't have an excuse, i just couldn't be bothered that day lmao.

i was also gonna bloody q's hands a bit if i ever got to the coloring stage. like a little nod to when he lost himself to Madness. is the blood actually there? who knows, we're seeing it from his eyes, so for all we know, the rune isn't even lit up either, and he's just remembering it being so. remembering the moment he acted so unlike how he used to be.

the bones are definitely there for charlie though, poor guy...

also can y'all tell that i drew the rune in like. 5 seconds. bc yeah.

i had way more wips to share but i have literally no clue where they went, and also the tumblr picture limit is getitng close so ig that's all for now </3

like for a part 2 (whenever i accumulate enough wips to warrant a post, that is)

[howuart]

Sorry if it's a lot, but –

💥, 🌈, 🖌, ☀️, 🌙, 🦋, 🍒, 🌺, ❌

I have a lot of questions but can't ask an artist in my family so I'll ask you <3

~ Cloud.

no need to apologize! I love getting these darling<3

💥Do you prefer digital or traditional?

depends on my mood and what I"m doing, for more serious art I want to look good, I'll go for digital, but if I'm just sketching I go for traditional, and if I'm trying to figure out a new pose i've never drawing before and don't have the slightest idea how to.

🌈Do you find yourself gravitating towards certain colors?

hmmm hard to say since I draw very color coded people, maybe be blue? but that might just be because there's so much of it. other than that not really I look at what kind of mood I want the picture to give and go for colors that match that.

🖌Do you create in one sitting or spread it out over a longer period of time?

Again depends on how I"m feeling but most of the time I"ll do it over a period of time, it helps not get burn out and so i can just have fun with the pic.

☀️What is something you have wanted to try drawing but has felt too intimidating to give it a shot?

hmmm well It use to be different poses but I've gotten more comfortable doing that, only thing I"d say now is...

animals

I suck at drawing them, been trying here and there to get better at it, but I still don't understand the anatomy of them..

🌙Do you ever look at your older works?

All the time, I like to scroll through my stuff and see how much I"ve improved, helps keep me motivated.

🦋Which of your pieces would you want to go back and redraw or change? What would you change about it?

hmmm proably this one? or one of my resent Diys, just kinda been speedruning them, and well think I have artist block right now too...

I'd want to change morro's position (the one with his back towards us ) and fix their outfits, they don't have all the stuff they're suppose to, and maybe work on the back ground more, and find a different way to draw his wind manipulation.

🍒Your weaknesses as an artist?

pshh animals and backgrounds, tend to not like to get to backgrounds trying to fix that, and well you can see above.

Other than that it'd be that I have a short attention spam and WILL ditch a piece if it's taking too long or lose effort on it...

🌺Is there a piece you wish you had never made?

No, all my art is just me in different stages of my life and what I like at the time.

❌Is there any subjects you would never, ever draw?

Nsfw sexual stuff and the like, and like too creepy stuff, cause it makes me uncomfortable.

hope this helped sweetcakes<3 you can ask me any time if you have a question I'll try and answer it<3