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sweepseven · 7 months

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Cirque du Soleil Alegría In a New Light review

So far the kindest thing I've done for myself in 2024 was go all the way to London to see this show. What a lovely, desperately needed reset. No need to linger on the preamble because team: this show continues to be damn near perfect. It felt like a true gift to be there. There are three total changes I would make if it were to suit me perfectly. Just three. That's insane. For comparison I love Ka with all my heart but I'd make probably fifty changes if given the opportunity. The three I'd make are:

Less clown time (though I swear the reason is different from my usual clown complaints)

Replace duo adagio

Reinstate Valsajoïa, the single greatest original song Cirque has produced since probably 2016. Possibly even 2008.

So let's talk about those three, and also the other one million reasons this is Cirque's greatest show in nearly 20 years.

Preshow animation: My friend and I had a time getting to Royal Albert Hall on time so I didn't get to soak in everything to quite the extent that I prefer to before a show starts, but the moment I walked in my guess that this show in this setting was the most perfect pair imaginable was validated. I don't think I'm even being biased because it's so recent - I genuinely think the only set that could maybe suit this theatre better is Quidam. The crown of the stage disappeared into the darkness above, creating an astounding sense of immersion and scale, and even the iconic mushroom acoustic diffusers look like they belonged to the set. The rigging was a delight to see too - I'm always fascinated by how they adapt the rigging to adjust for the lack of pylons. It wasn't as cozy as a Grand Chapiteau, of course, but the audience is so dense and extends so high, and the entire setting is so elegant, that the size and scope were a perfect match.

The animation itself was Fleur messing around with the Old Birds. Pretty unremarkable. He didn't shout Alegria! like in the original show, but then again I'm not sure I remember him doing it back in 2019 either. Bring it baaaack, it's iconiiiic.

Opening: Gonna confess up front that I was in tears for the duration of Mirko. The current singer duo, Sarah Menesse and Cassía Raquel, are incredible in every way. I'll talk more about them further down but it bears stating now that I was in shambles within the first five seconds. Details I never want to forget: the silhouette of the Nymphs' wings behind the curtain; the sharp, prim, yet commanding presence of the White Singer on the right side. I was completely taken by her in four notes.

Acro poles: This was a strong act five years ago and I think it's only grown tighter with time! This show wastes no time on ceremony and dives right into the action, which is a fun contrast between the old and new versions. The original made a grand show of parading and presenting the different factions. Here it's more bam here are the Aristocrats, bam here are the Bronx real quick, now everyone out of the way, we're getting right to it. Where the original was the story of forcibly overthrowing an old order, this one respects the structure of the past while willingly - if cautiously - making way for the future. This act does a very good job of illustrating that. The Aristocrats look like a fun, if slightly catty bunch! You almost want to be one... until you meet the Bronx.

Cyr wheel: I completely forgot Rinalto Vera is back for this act. I had only just recovered from Mirko and then this fucking song starts and I'm beside myself all over again. This is the kind of thing that makes me hold onto faith that the old Cirque is still in there somewhere - this, the musical refs to La Nouba in Drawn to Life... they know how to respect their old shows! When they bother, they do it beautifully! I only wish they treated their new creations with the same respect and care they pay to their golden era.

Anyway Ghislain Ramage is the only person I want to see on a cyr wheel ever again. I saw him work magic in Kooza and that was without the deliberate weight that comes from a non-rotational act. Something about him seems impossible - like he's too tall to be that lithe and fluid, or that you couldn't possibly evoke so much emotion from a cyr wheel act. He does. Every moment of it was mesmerizing.

It's the nitpickiest thing I could possibly say, but I do think something is lost in not having this act performed by an Old Bird or Aristocrat. Though since the mirror imagery of the original wasn't brought over to IANL, I suppose it's not completely necessary. Still. That was an element that really brought an inimitable quality to the original act and I wished there was an analog in this version. It could very well have made it the best act in the entire show. Yes, the entire show, which is crazy because you already know how I feel about.......

Duo trapeze: Fuck me, people. This act. It's a wonder I can be relied upon to behave rationally because it. is. utter. perfection. The only thing that holds me in my seat is the fear that if I move or blink I'll miss a split-second. I forgot the White Singer was onstage because I was too busy watching. That is fucking unheard of. My hands were clasped over my heart. I was beaming in awe the entire time. No other artist has had the particular effect Nicolai Kuntz has on me. Fucking this?? That relaxed, cross-legged on a goddamn trapeze gazing in admiration? That is shit designed to kill me. That is fucking lethal.

Anyway the skill level in this act is exquisite from both Nicolai and Roxane - another perfect act that has somehow grown more perfect with time. And what I love most about it is that though although they're a duo, although the song is called Querer, although the entire point is that they're impossibly aligned, it still feels just shy of romantic. The love being expressed here is not specifically for one another, but for flight itself, and the joy of sharing it with someone who understands. I might be projecting, since this act feels like a live illustration of my personal love for trapeze, but they have never seemed like lovers to me. More perfectly kindred spirits, and it serves the act beautifully.

Fire knife dance: Excellent! Impossibly high energy! The crowd adored it! We had one drop, which I've never seen in a fire act, but the artist handled it with fun and grace. There is nothing negative to be said for this act, but I can't not mention how exceptional Tuione Tovo was. Holding that against this artist feels like a teacher never giving A+s because "there's always something better." But there really was something undefinable in Tuione's energy and smile that isn't quite here.

Aerial straps: How many times can I say "a perfect act has become yet more perfect"? I've seen a lot of straps acts, people. Like, too many. I have immense respect for the discipline so it's not hard to impress me, but it's quite difficult to surprise me. There is a drop to ankles in this act that surprised me. I gasped. This act looks at every other romantic straps duo act and says "ok amateurs." The little smooch had the audience in raptures. The snow is used to better effect than the world deserves. It's just exquisite.

Hoops: I know Elena Lev is the queen, but I think this artist might actually be better! And she's so young! She's got her whole career ahead of her! This is probably the best hoops act Cirque has going for it right now, and that's really saying something. She does the "spin like fifteen hoops" thing better than I think I've ever seen anyone do it. Her control over her apparatus is unmatched.

Powertrack: OOO-EE! POWERTRAAAAACK. Top five act in the show right here, and it would earn that position through energy alone. And it's got a fuck ton going on for it besides. Every trick is massive. Every one is executed with fierce, tangible joy. Fleur has an excellent highlight moment that's indicative of a character adjustment in the new version (see below) that I really loved. I wanted to see Lucie Colebeck's triple bad (the first and so far only female triple tuck in Cirque history!!) but it was performed by another artist tonight. Still amazing. Watching this act makes you feel like you can run a marathon.

Duo adagio: The one and only let down of the whole show. I just do not like these Nymphs. I don't like their wings, I never have, and I can't believe Cirque is so opposed to returning to something just a notch closer to the luxurious feathers of the original. Their wings feel like a symbol of their overall impact on the show: kinda just there and we don't really know why. This act was the same. And it's a goddamn shame because Cassía's Vai Vedrai is power made musical. Slotting this act so late in the show makes it feel like a rotational act and it's just not fair to the artists or the song, probably the second most famous in Alegria's history. Last time I got handbalancing in instead and it was a gorgeous story of an Angel supported by a Bronx that was reiterated in high bar. Any sort of connection to the broader show is unfortunately missing in this act, which seems to only exist to remind you that the Nymphs are characters. I'd prefer to see this replaced with a return to the slow, luxurious contortion style of the 90s. Or imagine Dralion's ballet on lights here!! Or ribbon manipulation from the early days. Maybe a little too similar to hoops, but don't forget this is the show that has swinging trapeze and aerials traps and...

Flying trapeze: My light, my love, my delight. The Flying Tunizianis are immaculate. This is perfect flying trapeze act construction imo: some swings to let the audience know what's happening, an easy trick or two (planches) to prime them, then flips and twists galore to show what the fuck it's really all about. And! Importantly! A pause in the middle with a few styles and splits to bring back some grace and remind you trapeze is more than just guessing what the fuck you just saw. It is so, so good. For myriad stupid reasons I haven't flown in a month, and I'm so excited and inspired to get back at it after seeing this act. iirc the biggest tricks were triples and a double double (or full out? it all happened so fast!!). Either way, difficulty level second only to Mystere and I would argue better act composition overall.

However. I felt the removal of Valsajoïa acutely. It was nice to hear a little Icare, but if we didn't need it for aerial high bar's comeback, we certainly don't need it here. I suppose they were going for a more "daring" sound, but tbh I don't think it does a lot to enhance the act further, especially with the way the Tunizianis have choreographed it. The result isn't as graceful nor as impactful, even with the (tragic! teasing!) snatches of Valsapena and Valsajoïa still left in there.

I spent the whole act praying for some kind of suicide dismount and the very last was a reverse one and lost my fucking mind. My inspiration trick, my signature, my beloved!!! I gotta learn a reverse one bad.

Finale: What is there left to say? It's brief, it's gorgeous, it's effective: just like the transition from opening to acro pole, the transition from flying trapeze to finale is quick and honest, and the whole thing is over before you know it. It feels like a real thank you for joining the cast in the journey of the show. A joyous, magical feeling.

Music: I leaned back and scrubbed my face with my hands just now. That's what it's like trying to summarize what the fuck was going on vocally and instrumentally in this show.

It. Was. Splendid. I was utterly convinced that no one could do an IANL White Singer like Irene Lombard, and then here's comes Sarah with a flavor and characterization all her own. Where Irene was an angel, Sarah was a witch. She was sharp, she annunciated, every note was a call to action that drove the plot forward. Some songs were her strength (like Mirko), and some I prefer Irene (like Querer). At all times both singers' presences were impossible to ignore, and for a show with such a reputation for well-recognized, highly awarded music, the legacy is not lost.

This is also a very mobile band, which I always love. Accordion and cello parade around at times, sometimes even to emphasize character arcs (like the accordion following one clown after he's cast out of court to highlight his sorrow to both comical and emotional effect). Drums have a fantastic, well deserved Kooza-esque highlight moment during fire knife dance. Though you don't see them every moment, there's no point in the show that you can miss the fact that the music is live. They've struck an exceptional balance between highlighted and unobtrusive.

If anyone would like a recording of this performance's audio, drop me an ask and I'll be glad to share.

Clowns: My primary critique. Listen: they are so good. But I think Cirque noticed that and responded by giving them too much time. Their every act is strong but maybe 2-3 minutes too long, and it has the effect of pulling focus from the theme of the show and settling it on their shoulders instead. The result weakens both: they are not highlighted enough to carry a show like the Luzia clown main character does, and they take up too much time for the audience to realize they are meant to be one story among many.

Taken as they are though, the clown acts really are excellent. They are not tedious in the moment, only when held up against the broader landscape of the show. Their relationship still feels a little transgressive in a beautiful, comforting, validating way. Muted though the love story is, something about that adds to the honesty as much as the bravery. It deserves a ton of praise for that. Everyone in the room was fully invested in them. Snowstorm was beautiful and the music does so much to enhance the storytelling they give us.

(I did not remember the extended gun cleaning/masturbation gag from 2019 but that was the only part where I was like okay, let's move it along, boys.)

Misc.

Fleur doesn't seem like much of a bad guy anymore, and though I miss his old ornery edge, I'm not bothered by his current phase. He helps paint a picture not of a broken kingdom, but of a confused one, which leaves room for collaboration and acceptance reinforced by acts like acro pole and powertrack. There is room for both regimes in this new future. When it comes time to hand the crystal over to the White Singer, he does so without an ounce of reluctance or apprehension. It's a gesture of "let's do this together," not "you take the lead." It's very warm and effective.

Le Bal isn't quite as fun as it was in 2019. It wasn't positioned as a joking funeral march but rather just further hijinks between Fleur and the Old Birds. Like the lack of mirrors in cyr wheel, this wasn't a detriment to the show as it exists today, but it was a simplification of something that was once a little more dynamic.

Overall: As always I am exhausted just writing this. I beg you: see Alegria. Travel as far and as long as you can to make it happen. It is worth it. I live in fear that it'll never come back to do a full and proper North American tour (NYC deserves it, god damn it, it's been over six years), but if it never does, I'll know I made every effort, and I'll know it paid off in droves.

#cirque du soleil #alegria #reviews

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toughbunnyforever · 1 month

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So I came from your insta and saw that you improved quite a lot over two years. I’m in an art rut right now and was wondering your tactics for learning to draw different positions and poses? And fabric? I’m just curious since you don’t have speed draws on YT.

oh thank you!

in the past two years, i think what's helped me improve the most is learning the balance of keeping consistency without taking myself too seriously. i find that when i'm in a rut or i feel like i've stagnated, it's bc i'm too in my head and i'm forgetting to have fun. bc yes, technical skill is good to acquire, but creativity is, in my opinion, more important of a priority because that's where the art comes from. the technical skill is just the tool to help the art get made, so hone it, but don't treat it like it's everything. it's no good being able to draw a bunch of cool stuff if you don't have the spoons to draw any of it or if you're so burned out, you can't even come up with ideas.

on the more technical side though, for me, study and practice time are when i focus on repetition so i can build muscle memory. if i'm studying from references (and not feeling lazy lol) i'll draw each ref at least 2 or 3 times to get those reps in, drawing fast and sketchy, just doing as many as i can. this really helps with things you'll draw over and over again like clothing folds. my hand will start to just have a better intuitive sense for the shapes instead of agonizing over each one cuz i've drawn it enough times. when i'm sketching, it helps me to fall back on that muscle memory so i can put more focus to other aspects of whatever it is i'm drawing.

it's about finding a balance really.. if i study too much, i never actually implement the things i learn but if i study too little, then my work stagnates and all looks the same. finding that balance for yourself will go alone way! when i'm in an art block, what i need just really goes back to remembering to enjoy the process and finding that spark again. if i'm not enjoying my art, then i gotta switch something up.

here are some other things i like to do for practice:

redraw screenshots/stills from my fav shows or manga (good way to study poses, anatomy, and scene composition w/o it feeling too serious.)

or pick a show/movie/comic and choose a character i like. draw them 3-5 times, copying the art style to a T then draw them again in my own style to see what elements i wanna take away from it. (again, a good way to study without Studying. i end up leaving the experience with new staples for my art style)

find fashion photo references and draw my ocs in the outfits.

switch up what i'm drawing with. like if i'm mostly draw in pencil, switch to only pen. if i'm doing digital, i put my go-to brushes in a new folder, don't touch them, then sketch with a brush i never reach for. just change one little thing and see how it affects the process. usually i discover something new.

i wrote a list of things i like to draw on the front page of my sketchbook (just stream of consciousness, wrote down like 100 things i like to draw. ex: oranges, apples, snails, leaves.) and when i don't know what to draw, i close my eyes and point to something then draw whatever i comes up.

hope this helps!!

#ask

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domirine · 2 years

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You probably do a lot of life drawing seeing as how perfectly fluid your art always is so this ask might be redundant lol but,, i was wondering what kind of references you usually use? Do you just google similar poses, does it come from your mind, or do you have a go-to app to look through like pinterest?👉👈 i ask bc I struggle a lot with poses and usually when i look them up i end up drawing nothing bc its not. Ever good enough for me/what im looking for lol😔 still not sure how to even draw characters smoochin, rip

thank you, nonny!! i do a lil bit of life drawing, but man i really do feel the same way you do. while i'm happy to show some art when i get it done, the process can be a real struggle.

sorry this is gonna be long and all over the place lol hope it helps tho:

life drawing good: i recommend ditching the idea of finding the 100% Perfect Ref right off the bat. studying anatomy and life drawing (this site has a range of body types and fun poses) somewhat regularly, therefore growing my mental library so that i can try and make whatever pose is in my head happen later, has been more viable to me than spending hours looking for the Perfect Ref.

drawing a bunch of generic people skating without pressure of creating proper character art is good practice, and it primes me to then come up with a skating pose of my own.

ref hunting: i save pictures i might use as refs regularly in a browser folder - good refs, bad refs, boring refs - losing a ref standard can be helpful because at the end of the day it’s what you make with it, so it doesn’t have to be particularly mind-blowing to begin with. you don’t wanna reinvent the wheel or create the most never-been-done-before pose, you just wanna get a thing right.

pinterest is very good for poses, yes, though you have to know how to look for them - i.e. i found that typing out "dynamic pose" will not yield organic results, as opposed to looking up people in motion like athletes, boxers, skaters and such. for fighting, i recommend using photos or clips from (ideally staged lol) fights, as opposed to stock images where the models are standing for a while posing - the former preserves a lot of the movement. i also recommend looking up group photos from events or shows for interesting natural poses and people interacting.

best hot tip of all tho: what helped me most is to not treat references very religiously. don't be tied down by what's in your ref, or not finding the perfect one, because then you're focusing on accuracy and not necessarily on what you wanna communicate with your drawing. if you can't find what you're looking for in full, just use a part that you find interesting, and then bullshit the rest and revise accordingly.

idea-generating can be very hard but you can practice it like any other skill, because having a decent idea of what you wanna draw is helpful - you don't have to have the whole pose visualised 100%. it's the mood, body language and expressions, that i think are more important. looking at refs can help reveal your ideas and intentions, but i will not create them for you i’m afraid.

for example, speaking on characters smooching, i've drawn these using refs in pretty uptight way with no ideas beforehand - and i find them painfully boring because they're not rly communicating anything aside from a anatomical accuracy (more or less);

i was being too intent on staying faithful to the reference, and they're looking kinda stale to me. the only one that was done without any ref, was the bottom left - which i like! bc it's got spice and it’s portraying some emotion.

but i wouldn't have drawn it if i hadn't already started on the others, so maybe another good tip is to trust the process and not give up mid-work!! drawing stuff you’re not proud of is still drawing stuff, and not everything you create is gonna be satisfying. things are gonna click here and there, but you never know when, so don’t give up on your ugly artsy ducklings!!

#hope this makes sense. i need an editor #i hope you have an easier time and maybe some of these will be helpful anon!!

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herrscherofmagic · 7 months

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does anyone else get that weird feeling when you can look at a bajillion different art styles and go "yeah that's neat! love it! so cool!" and then as soon as you do absolutely any of your own drawing, there's just a constant alarm going off in your head saying "THIS IS INCORRECT AND IF YOU DON'T FIX IT, IT WILL LOOK TERRIBLE AND ANATOMICALLY INACCURATE" despite it being nothing different from all those other art styles you see and love??? like "uncanny valley" but w/ all your own artwork and almost all the time

like I was just thinking about this, because there's lots of awesome artists I follow on Instagram & Tumblr that have interesting styles that don't necessarily follow real-life human proportions. It's often different variants of anime art but that's not always the case, and across pretty much all these different styles you have different things like how the contours of the face are (i.e. chin, cheeks), or the size/spacing of eyes, or the way the mouth is drawn

but it's just occurred to me that whenever I draw, there's pretty much always a constant nagging feeling, that I have to fix every anatomical or rendering mistake and if I don't then it just won't look "right", and that's one of the biggest things that stops me from completing 99% of my art

like earlier today I posted a 10-minute sketch, and it was obviously not "good anatomy"- it was pure vibes, just drawing what felt right in the moment and immediately posting it without trying to correct anything at all. and as soon as I did it, it hit me- that was probably the first time I've ever just created a piece of art for fun with virtually zero concern about "accuracy". Everything else I ever work on is always constantly drawn-out and changed and modified endlessly because it never feels "correct" and I don't feel like I can proceed with it.

today I've spent more than 3 hours just practicing how to draw heads, and it was the same thing. I was doing okay, but it took ages to get through even the simple parts like drawing straight from an anatomy ref. and it drives me insane not just because of perfectionism or whatever... but the fact that there's not a single "correct" human figure.

There's a ton of natural variation in how people appear, that's why we're all unique ffs! Different people have differently-shaped faces, their noses look different, their cheeks are different, their foreheads can be different, the wrinkles or freckles or eyebrows or eye shape or X Y Z are all varied and unique among different people.

Of course there are certain basic proportions and principles, you don't put someone's eyes on the back of their head, but I know all the basic proportions at this point and I've made a ridiculous amount of figure drawings both live and from photo, quite literally hundreds of drawings ranging from 1-3 minute gestures all the way to 1-, 2-, 3-hour-long works.

So why is it that no matter who or what I draw there's always that piercing & uncanny feeling? that i'm never able to capture a likeness of someone whether real or fictional, whether I'm trying to draw realistically or stylized?? it feels like I'm still getting something fundamentally wrong all the time even when I've studied all the basics and so much more, and even when my own professors look at what I do and say it's correct.

it's probably the autism, since there's a ton of other things in life where I appreciate predictability and uniformity and certainty. math problems have correct answers, essays can have certain types of analysis, machines can be described in terms of mechanical principles. But art isn't like that, and I've had similar issues w/ my art classes before, I just never quite thought of it from this specific perspective. I knew I struggled with open-endedness in projects, but this feels like something even deeper and more infuriating than that >.>

going back to that sketch, I can look at it and see obvious simple mistakes that I didn't bother to fix because I kept it strictly to 10 minutes. the chin is an obvious one, for instance, and the eyes could be better too. but I don't want to go back to that artwork, partially because it's just a 10-min sketch and it's not really anything that profound, but also partially because even though I know I can make it better I'm scared that as soon as I start messing with it I'll never be able to look at it comfortably ever again because it'll always feel incorrect. Not incorrect because I didn't care but incorrect despite me caring so much. which feels so much worse than just making a silly mistake when you're drawing normally.

#rant post #vent post #long post #okay i think that's all the obligatory tags?#tumblr tags still confuse me tbh

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fainthedcherry · 6 months

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7.3.24 there was a deadline for a DTIYS my IRL friend, kobra_the_artist , hosted back around February!! I had like...3 days to finish the sketch I started back in February. It's...A pain being late to EVERYTHING with a deadline, but at least deadlines help me push finish a drawing, I otherwise would let rot in my WIP folder for almost a year (hell, some sketches are like 3 years old that are rotting in there now, that I'm self-aware about, yet still keep forgetting. ._." )

I don'ttt have too much to say on this one? Since it was a DTIYS, I recommend checking out the insta post simply, I'm not about to take my friend's artwork and cross-post it to somewhere else, I feel, that'd be scummy to do. :T SO LINK TO THE OG CONTEST POST! HUZZAH! plusssss, I think I yapped enough on my own insta post. :v

I just rlly wanted to draw Kobra, as I love her sona's design. I adore demon-anything, can u blame me LMAO. I need excuses to draw ppl's OCs willingly and gladly more. It's so hard to motivate myself to draw something at all for people anymore AUUUUGH

Somehow I won 1st place??? Don't ask em HOW, as I found other people's entries much better than mine ngl, butttt I'll never understand, that my art is actually enjoyed by some people anyway, ngl. Even years later, I still sometimes feel, like I don't deserve to call myself an artist LMFAO

I also added a little funne below, we both wanted to draw for fun, once we were in a call just rambling and stuff. On the right, has been drawn by Kobra!! (You can open the green, first link above, to her insta itself! She doesn't have Tumblr. No one in my friend group does, but I love Tumblr tbh. :"))

You should try ceramic pans. They are the best flavour. /lh

ANOTHER POST THERE IS! WHERE ART IS! I might post character concept-refs next. I'm running out of "good-looking things" to post, that won't make me look like a total amateur from the 2010s DA era. I've only uploaded these in my scraps on DA back then, so maybe you'll get weekly posts, as I draw concept refs basically weekly, to keep my chara-base up to date for comms and art exchange!

I wanna do a DTIYS myself some day!! But maybe in 4 years, where I dream of having paid off all my art-debt finally I've been working so hard to pay off on lately...

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the-pigeon-queen · 2 years

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I just binged like 3/4 of your comic (slowed my roll to save some serotonin for later) and. Oh my god?? The art style is absolutely delightful! So warm and clean and emotive!! The characters are all so unique and likable!! I have never met these characters before today but I would protect them with my life. The most wholesome, aesthetically pleasing, delightfully anti-authority thing I’ve ever read. I genuinely can’t think of a comic that I’ve been more instantly hooked on. I wanna see Fleet climb a mountain and live their best life with all their friends 🥺 Do you have any advice on learning how to draw?? I’d love to be able to create something half this awesome some day! Thank you so so much for creating this and sharing it with the world :D

:']!! That's so very kind of you to say!! And I'm super happy that you like my comic so much! Rectify has been one big experiment for me, in both art and story telling, so I'm really happy to hear that it's been an enjoyable read :'']!

I hope you like how the story continues! ^-^

Sorry I've answered this ask a little late, I was legit trying to think of art tips ^^;; I only took an art class in high school, and I've kind of winged it ever since. I don't think I'm the best at giving art advice, and I don't just want to reiterate the things everyone always says.

I don't know how new you are to art, so these may or may not be all that helpful ^^;; There's a lot of specific advice that can be given about learning how to draw specific things, but if you've just started learning, the best place to start are basics!

*** Disclaimer: I'm not an expert or even trained in art :'] But if you want to see what I came up with, the advice is under the cut

Just keep drawing

I know that's the piece of advice everyone gives, but it really is the most important. It's so easy to try drawing once and give up when a drawing doesn't turn out the way you envision it. Getting discouraged is easy, but you have to tell yourself that there is a right combination of lines that will produce the image you want to make - you just have to keep trying to find it.

Drawing is both 'making your hand good at shapes' and half 'your brain learning the way shapes should be made'

There's definitely a technical aspect to drawing. Your hand will get more used to making lines and shapes.

But a big part of learning to draw is learning how shapes come together to create something bigger.

The more you look at art, the more you make art, the more your brain will understand how things come together.

Art is something you learn, so it's something you'll get better at :]! Even a week's worth of practice will show improvement.

Draw from a reference if you're teaching yourself how to draw something!

Using a ref is NOT cheating! I use refs! I've googled 'man throwing baseball' or 'person running' or 'hand holding a mug' so many times

There is never any shame in using a ref

If you're learning, you should only be using refs

It gets you used to drawing in perspective, without you specifically practicing perspective

Basic Shapes!

Everything can be broken into basic shapes. Even people are just a collection of boxes and spheres.

So if you've never drawn, draw some basic shapes and familiarize yourself with their 3D aspects

Then try breaking down an object into it's basic shapes!

Basic Color Stuff

The color wheel

Again, not sure how new you are to art, so I'm sorry if this is super redundant

complimentary colors like each other. The big ones are blue=orange, red=green, yellow=purple. Every color has a 'compliment': Blueish greens like orangish reds. Purpleish reds like yellowish oranges.

Experiment with color! You'll naturally like some combinations more than others and the more you experiment, the more you'll find things you like

Hue = the specific color

Saturation = how intense the hue is. Don't make every color super saturated, or it might be too overwhelming.

So, gonna get more specific here.

If you want to draw people, and you are just starting out, I would recommend starting here.

Find an image of a person

Break that person down into boxes and circles. Circles for joints, and boxes for the rest.

Draw lines down the front of the person to help you orient them

This will get you used to how a body comes together.

These two examples used came from https://twitter.com/JookpubStock on twitter. I highly recommend checking out their catalogue!

Now, I traced these. Tracing is a tool used to learn.

(( This may not be applicable to you, but if anyone's actually reading this, here are the tracing no-no's I follow:

Don't trace another artist's artwork.

Don't claim a trace as your own original work***

Don't sell a trace***

If you trace an explicitly free photo or model (like above) drop a credit or link to the original

*** unless you traced a photograph or work that you yourself personally made or took )))

Tracing a pose can help you learn how basic shapes come together to form a pose. The goal is to eventually create your own poses!

Once you're comfortable with that, try drawing the pose without tracing.

The other most helpful thing I did in art class was gesture drawing! You don't trace these - you just find an image and you give your best quick attempt at it. You capture the gesture. There's no limit to how much time you can spend on a gesture drawing, but the idea is to make them quick and loose!

I hope these have been at least a little helpful :]! Art is such a wide field there is so much general advice to give. The most important advice I can give is just keep drawing and don't be afraid to try new things ^^ Don't restrain yourself to one style. Just make what you feel like making in the moment!

#ask #long post #art advice #art tips #i am no expert but i tried :']

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an-army-of-nightmares · 3 years

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Its mermay again! So here's a redesign of my siren Jekyll and a quick recap on the au! ⬇️

-Everything weird that Jekyll does is just accepted with people unknowingly making excuses for him and him just agreeing

-The story his classmates believe is that Jekyll was a rich kid who wasn't let outside much and always pampered. His parents bribed the college to let Jekyll in despite him not knowing alot of things

-The actual story is that Jekyll thought the doctor title sounded cool so he paid the college a bag of gold coins to let him attend

-You'd think with his limited knowledge Jekyll would fail but everyone is like..."oh cool, rich parents bribe colleges alot, heres some textbooks to catch you up. I can tutor you on weekends"

-Jekyll does have some general knowledge though! He has been studying humans for years

Oh hm, or should I give the au a different story?, I definitely could, but nah, I like making "He's a real fish out of water" jokes

And for general information about sirens-

Quite a few things I have retconned so this right here is your most reliable list

-Usually live in the deepsea and around the ocean floor

•Sirens•

-"Hair" is actually a bunch of sensory feelers! I'm hate drawing it and am greatly considering removing it!

-Can shapeshift

-You CAN eat them, but only if cooked by a professional (think pufferfish), there are no professionals

-Love meat, but can eat anything

-They like to hunt for their food

-Sirens hunting near the surface often shapeshift to look like merfolk, a peaceful species that often protect and trade with ships

-Sirens dont need to live underwater, because of this multiple people of died from what they thought was a normal animal

-Can turn people into Sirens, they prefer to just eat people though (People tuned into Sirens lose all memories)

-Sirens songs can range in power, some especially powerful Sirens can cause natural disasters

-Sirens never stop growing, especially old Sirens shapeshift to be smaller for convenience

-Sirens can live for a very long time (Immortal?)

-Some Sirens decide they're tired of being a Siren and shapeshift into a person

-Sirens are a rather neutral species that usually only attack if hungry or feeling threatened

-Siren personalities are as varied as humans

-Due to their shapeshifting powers it is VERY hard to kill a Siren, if you stab them they can just... shapeshift the stab wound away. Please dont try to kill a siren

-Merfolk are the children of Sirens and Humans. Unlike most fusion species(?) (Think ligers or mules) they are fertile. And most people aren't even aware Sirens and Mers are related

-As they can shapeshift, sirens also have natural forms that take no energy to be. Thus there are "Feather Fins" and "Deepsea Sirens"

Feather Fins: Very flowy, with wing-like fins! Colors and designs are based off of real birds, Jekyll is a strawberry finch

Deepsea Sirens: Very glowy! Im considering having their colors and designs be based off of real fish (or other underwater creatures) I've not drawn one in a very long time, so here's your best ref ⬇️

#my art #feather fin au #my au #eyestrain #ask to tag #the glass scientists #tgs #tgs jekyll

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scrawler-jay · 3 years

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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.

#beginner artist #OC art #mouse #art

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