#mcrmadness' art talk

[mcrmadness]

HOW on earth do people draw digitally??? How do people get the software or drawing tablet to do that thing where it looks like it was drawn with an actual pen or brush, and how do they get the pressure to affect the strokes?

I don't have a proper drawing tablet/pad. I just have this older-than-jesus and cheaper-than-anything tablet that I'm surprise my laptop's Win10 eve agreed to recognize. I do not know if there ever was any kind of pressure recognition in that tablet, I think yes, but Photoshop and Illustrator sure don't know that.

I tried to draw something for a school project, both by drawing by hand digitally as well as creating vector art by using shapes, but I just can't do that now. Everything looked worse than the previous. I need a way to get shadows the way I want them to be but I don't know how to do that because the gradient tool is useless, I hate Adobe's softwares in general, and I can't achieve the shadows with the old-ass drawing tablet because it looks worse than if I drew all that with a mouse instead.

I even did a small writing test, because this drawing tablet SUCKS SO MUCH and writing with the mouse is much faster and clearer:

Yeah, the only downside was that if I just clicked to add a dot with the mouse, it didn't register it as a brush stroke at all. Drawing is much easier with the mouse than the tablet.

My sister promised to borrow me her proper drawing tablet, so I think I'll see if that will be able to achieve the wished method better. If not, then I will take the hard route again and draw everything by hand with real pen on real paper. I just thought I would save time if I drew them on my computer, because I need these things for an animation. But if digital drawing still won't open to me even after testing my sister's drawing tablet, then I guess I will have to get out my pens and papers.

[mcrmadness]

Watching educational videos about film making for 3 days in a row has resulted in my watching a tv series and occasionally going "oh so they're using the ZOOM here to emphasize the emotions :oooo" or "ah they're filming the characters from a low angle - normally it emphasizes them being powerful but here it just means they're looking at downhill".

Like. Yes. Exactly why I am watching these videos. But I would also appreciate it if my brain would remember these when I am planning MY videos or video projects for school! But for some reason I don't remember even anything they told us at school. I only remember the stuff about technology, not the actual creative process or mood different angles or lighting and stuff can bring into the video.

I think I also need to focus more in the whole concept of this... I think it's "Freytag's pyramid" in English. In Finnish it's known as "the curve of drama". Basically it's just the main frames of a plot and how a plot of any story or media should go in order for the idea to be interesting for the viewer. And I have such hard time grabbing on this concept. I cannot really compare this to anything I have seen, I can't see where's the complication or climax or anything in a work. I feel like I get excited by things that are not meant to be those to get excited over. I feel that I enjoy more of plots that are complex and don't follow this in the exact manner, also plots that are difficult to understand and need you to rewatch the movie at least 2-3 times before it opens to you fully.

I can't review my own writing or videos and compare it to this pyramid, I don't think I have any of the elements there. It's either rollercoaster or a straight line. And I don't know how to even add those? Mostly because: I often don't even want to. It's cliché to always have a plot have this same frame, it's boring to me. But maybe that is why people have a hard time grabbing on my creations cos they are bizarre and might not make sense for others than me, or maybe they feel like they lack something because I have my own way of writing my stories. Maybe one of my newest might slightly follow this pyramid, I'm not sure, but it definitely was not intentional if so. It just happened on its own.

This is, also, a problem of someone who is self-learnt. Maybe this Freytag's pyramid is kinda similar to musicians who make music but have never studied music and don't know the music theory, but just do what they like and for some people it slaps and it's what matters. Kinda feeling this with my drawings because despite being to art school as a hobby as a kid, and having art classes in regular school, I don't remember ever actually studying arts and drawing. It hit me just last or previous year that wait, you can actually study arts and drawing. It was such uncanny thought that had never crossed my mind before??? I just learnt to draw on my own, using my own methord, making sketches in ways I came up with cos I didn't know about anything else. I still don't draw human heads with circles and lines. I find it confusing. My comic book characters start with shapes only to make it easier to see the size of the finished piece so I know it fits the paper. My photorealism starts with me just drawing the outlines without making any helping lines apart from the grid. I just find the regular way of drawing humans, difficult. I did try one way to do that a while back but nothing really came from it. I still don't know how to use that in drawing and just do that how I used to do with my art.

So in a way when we learn about all this at school, I kinda have these... mixed feelings over what we are taught. We are taught about technical stuff, but I'm someone who likes to break the norms. I like to add weird stuff, add easter eggs, do things that feel obvious to me but maybe not for the viewer. There was once scene in a group video where the camera shakes a lot, and teacher mentioned about it that it didn't look that good, so we pointed out it was on purpose because the person in the video talks about challenges in the studies. Handling the camera is one of the challenges and we decided it fits it well cos it just shows the challenged on the video, just not in the hands of the person who was talking. Altho the teacher didn't say it's bad, but that it's understandable and an artistic choice. So things like these, I like doing stuff like this and I think they are often considered unprofessional or bad or plain unskilled, when I have made a conscious choice to do something that looks very unskilled even when I'd have the skill to either make it invisible (such as cut the shaky camera bits when editing a video) or to not do it in the first place (such as drawing straight lines without the line looking shaky, but I just happen to like the shaky-looking lines that give a more relaxed mood). But I can understand that it can be difficult to sometimes tell apart it when someone's just unprofessional and/untalented (or just in need of more practice), and when something was an artistic, conscious choice. And the latter definitely usually has a smaller audience, but often a very loyal audience. I think Tim Burton is a good example here, since I also am a fan of his works but I also know he has quite a lot of haters, too. And for what? No idea.

[mcrmadness]

Something wrong with my art as usual but boy do I wish that I knew what is it that is always so wrong with my art...

And also it'd be so neat to know why my personal favourites don't do it for others, and then the ones I see as failures are the most liked ones. It makes absolutely no sense.

[mcrmadness]

I wanna know what's the secret for when people can look at a photo of someone and draw a perfect quick 'caricature' of them on the paper. Like, I want to know how people do that, how can they get the proportions right and what is it that they add that makes the drawing look like the person in the photo!

Every time I try to do that, I just stop being able to see. I never get the proportions right and I do not know what details are important for making the person look unique. I might see them in the photo, but I don't know how to capture them. I have to use the grid in order to get them right but it always annoys me because the grid looks ugly and is hard to get rid of, and I still can't get them right and have to use my PC monitor like a light table and find the lines that are not matching and correct those by either tracing or simply erasing and drawing again until they look correct.

I never have this problem with animals, only with human faces. I can make quick cartoony doodles of cats and still get them to look like the cat in the photo. I don't need the grid nor tracing. I can also look at images of people and copy the posture, or draw hands, anything like that without a grid but for some reason my brain draws a line between human faces and everything else. Hell, I can even draw horses without using grids and horses are the most difficult animal ever to draw. But I can't draw human faces because my brain says so. I've tried face drawing tutorials but those don't help either for some reason...

It's so annoying, because I really want to draw something that is a mixture of my cartoony comic book style and photorealism, but I just can't get the human faces to look correct. I really want to know if this problem is just in my eyes or brain, or if it's something I could learn eventually if I just tried. But I really don't know. It does kinda feel like my brain would be lacking a part that is needed for human faces. I'm partially face-blind, but I still can recognize people and tell them apart most of the time, and definitely can tell if my drawing doesn't look like whom I'm trying to draw. But I've always had this problem of imagining human faces. I have hyperphantasia but I find it really hard to imagine human faces, everything is always super clear except that faces often have from a mild to very strong blur on them. I remember in junior high how I had an aesthetic crush and often at home I was trying to think back at that person but I was not able to remember how they looked like, and when I found photos from school's website, I'd stare them and wonder if that's really what the person looks like. Nowadays I can remember the face, but I would not be able to draw nor really describe the facial features. I've also noticed that e.g. with fanfiction I imagine faces more clearly if I think of the thoughts like I was writing or reading a story, but without it the faces get blurred.

So, wondering rn if this is why drawing faces is so difficult, with or without references, unless I can do the comic book style with simple goggly eyes.

[mcrmadness]

A random arts medium urge vol 57834578275829: water-soluble graphite pencils. I think I need to get myself a pack of these soon, I wanna see how they work vs. coloured pencils and if making pencil drawings mixed with water would be fun!

[mcrmadness]

I absolutely love drawing and coloring with ProMarkers, but scanning the drawings is always the most annoying part of the process. I spend easily hours on that alone because for some reason my scanner does not see the colours the way they actually are, and there are always something wrong with the image vs. actual drawing.

Also the screens are an issue because right now, there is lots of yellow in my drawing, and on PC it looks correct on every scan and with every profile of my monitor, but when I made a test draft of it to Tumblr to take a look at it on my phone - the yellow looks way too orange. And now I don't know if the scan is wrong, or if my phone just is also changing the colours because of its settings...

And it's too late for checking that with my laptop, which also shows colours in a way different way than my PC monitor.

[mcrmadness]

Took a look at the prompts again and unlike last year, only like. 2 out of 31 give me any kind of ideas. There are so many adjectives and verbs now that it's really difficult to have any kind of mental images to pop up after those. We'll see if end up skipping it this year after all. The first word already is "dream" and wtf am I supposed to draw for that? It's such a broad term.

Oh shit I just realized it's already October here in Finland, and that means it's also the first day of Inktober.......... I need to prepare my sketchbook, I had so much fun last year so I thought I'd do that again this year :D

[mcrmadness]

Since Tumblr has gotten so many artists back, I am wondering if I should try posting my art here too again... I used to do that for some time but then the lack of interaction and horrible likes and reblogs ratio totally ate my motivation, and I stopped doing that.

It's insane how I have recently seen posts where people promote their new art blog and they already have gotten thousands of even tens of thousands of notes, so... maybe I could also have some hope? (But probably not when my fandom is as small as it is. I haven't seen anyone new in this fandom here yet.)

[mcrmadness]

Why is every 3D drawing reference tool a downloadable app OR something you have to pay for to use nowadays.

I just want something quick for drawing this hand I can't figure out without a reference but googling for references is annoying, and I cannot get a photo of my hand in the right position because it's physically impossible (I tried).

[mcrmadness]

Feeling like continuing my current drawin WIP but first I think I actually need to do some eye studies. This is the first time in years I'm drawing something photorealistic with colored pencils and while I do know how to draw the eyelids with graphite pencils or even fineliners, I don't seem to know how to draw them with colored pencils so that they would also look 3-dimensional.

In the current drawing the red area of the lower eyelid looks more like a scar or wound, and I need to figure out how to make it look like it was coming out of the paper rather than sinking into the paper. Actually, now because I'm writing this, I realized that's exactly why it looks so weird - the red color doesn't blend in properly with the skin color but still somehow looks more like a shadow than "highlight".

I think I'm gonna draw that same eye quickly with graphite pencils to kind of find from my muscle memory how I draw that with them, in case I would be able to use that with coming up how to do the same but with colored pencils.

Here's btw a (bad) photo of the current wip. It's that red area around the lower eyelid and also the whole eyelid that I still need to fix. It's just very difficult to draw on a white paper with so light colored pencils that it's basically like drawing with invisible pencils.

And yes it's Bela's eye again, aka yet another die ärzte fanart :D It's still very much a wip and will look different if I get that eyelid problem figured out, as well as the blending of all those shadows. This is a part of a "bigger" drawing project so it will change quite a bit once I get that far. It's just difficult when this paper apparently is still too smooth and the pencils don't like to get layered on top of each other after certain amount and it feels more like coloring a baking paper...

[mcrmadness]

*slides 5 dollars* how much for the fub doodles

I mean, I guess I COULD show them, if you really want to see them. Tumblr people just haven't really cared about artists much lately, so I kinda gave up on even posting any of my art here anymore. My art in general is not really that appreciated on any social media (apart from maybe like IG), so I've mainly been drawing just for myself for now.

But if you really are interested in seeing any/some of these doodles, maybe I'll make a post about them at some point. IF I can get over the fact that these just got to the level where it's all so fluffy and cute that I cannot stop drawing, meanwhile mentally shaking my head because since when I have been drawing FLUFF. All these look so damn embarrassing, and I'm internally screaming, meanwhile still enjoying everything I do with these doodles! :DDD

The joys of being a romance-repulsed aroace meanwhile being obsessed with a ship lol

[mcrmadness]

Ahhhhhh why do I have to learn so damn fast. I've been enjoying using markers for my art, but now I feel like I have mastered even that skill with just 3 drawings, and it's starting to feel like it's no longer fun cos I know what I'm doing? There is no challenge in that anymore.

At least I still get joy from working with them and seeing it all coming together, especially because you have to wait a few seconds that it dries and that's when it will actually reveal itself and if my work paid off. I hope this lasts for some time at least.

At least I'm going to try buying more ProMarkers whenever I feel like I have the money, I really want to try coloring actual comics with them. Right now I don't have enough colors for full comics, unless I mix them together with the colored pencils, so I have to really improvise if I want to get the correct colors or nice shading that still blend in. So, at least there's still that challenge with the set of markers I now have, but I'm still afraid it will become a "routine" eventually which is when it's no longer as much to work with them than what it's now as I'm still learning to use them even better...

[mcrmadness]

I feel like a maniac when I draw my comics or other cartoony drawings and laugh as I go because I just think I'm so funny.

[mcrmadness]

Lmao Farin was right, today's the time I'm listening to DUNKEL for the third time and this album really slaps different than it did on the first and second times! I liked the album A LOT already but now this is like... WOW. I barely can do anything cos I'm here like "o.Ô"

This also gives me so much energy for this drawing I am trying to continue. I just had to do a few other things first but I think I'm now ready to continue the drawing - and it's the DUNKEL coverart in my comic book art style. And I'm really excited because I think I'm going to try out some new things with this drawing (cos sticking to the same drawing after drawing gets really boring in a long run) and I can't wait to see how it will turn out!!!

[mcrmadness]

Who is your favorite dä member to draw?

Hello and sorry for a late answer! I have been thinking about my answer despite not answering earlier :D

So, I think I have to answer: Bela. Mainly because I have drawn him more often than what I have drawn the other two, and his face just is... easier to draw? Like, his face is naturally very asymmetrical so when drawing him, the bigger challenge is to not draw everything too symmetrically! Usually it's extremely difficult to draw e.g. two exactly the same looking and same sized eyes, but his eyes are not the exact same shape or position even IRL so it's kinda easier to draw both eyes the same way they are in the photo. Cos you're, like, drawing two different things instead of a mirrored copy of something you already drew.

I know I don't know how to stop repeating things but I am bad with words so I usually say everything 3-4 times before I feel I have written everything so that it can be understood correctly.

So yeah, Bela's face is already quite unique the way it's easy to pick up certain features that will make the drawing immediately look like him. Whereas Farin has very... almost basic looking face? Like, he does't look like he came from a factory that produces German men but his face is still symmetric and "normal" enough to make it REALLY difficult to draw! There aren't any very strong features with his face that you could use with a drawing.

Think it this way: when drawing a caricature of someone, it's so much easier to draw a caricature of Bela or Rod than of Farin, because a caricature of Farin could be basically anyone unless you give him some charasteristic emotion like a really wide teeth-grin, or the eyebrow thing he often does. But with Bela and Rod you can just draw them with a poker face and it will still look like them because of the tiny characteristics of their faces. Those are the things that are missing from Farin's face and that's why drawing him is very difficult because the drawings always simultaneously look and don't look like him. A drawing of Bela or Rod could still look different but you would still be able to tell who it is.

When I'm drawing my comics, I usually have lots of fun drawing Bela because there is always a new different hairstyle that I can try to learn to draw :D For Farin it's always the exact same hairstyle, just a bit longer sometimes. And Rod is still bit difficult for me to draw and I actually should practice drawing him into my sketchbook at some point to really find the things I need to focus on to make the character look like Rod. Right now I don't feel like that looks much like Rod, you can mainly tell it only because Bela and Farin are there as well, and he's definitely not how I would draw Sahnie. (In fact, I don't think I have ever even drawn Sahnie?)

But I also have to say that I haven't really drawn Rod that many times in general. I haven't done a single photorealism drawing of him? But I have done several portraits of Bela, as well as of Bela and Farin together. This year I did draw one in my new semi-realistic style which I think turned out pretty nicely! Especially for it being the first time I have drawn Rod for something else than just for my comics. Also, I did some eye sketches with fineliners this year and I was surprised how Rod's eyes were actually the easiest to draw and it was the first time I had tried drawing even something slightly realistic of Rod. But the man also has some facial features that are great for caricature type drawing! Which is why he might be the easiest of them to draw, probably have to try doing a pencil portrait at some point, just out of curiosity!

But the question was not about whose face is the easiest to draw, but whom I like to draw the most. And like I already said there - I think I have to say: Bela. The amount of times I have drawn him tells something already :D And I really like drawing light colored eyes! I also used to like drawing hair and it was always the easiest for me to do when it's black, but last and this year I also learnt some new tricks and now I actually find the light colored hair easier to draw than dark or black hair :D It's because with these new methods, black or dark hair it's actually difficult to make it look like it was 3-dimensional instead of a just... a black blob of void. Whereas with blonde hair I can just add graphite, blend it and then "draw" on it with a pencil eraser and I get a nice, realistic looking blonde hair.

But enough of that. Each of them has pros and cons when drawing and some are easier for comics than others, but I usually have most fun when drawing Bela, and usually it talks half or third the time than what I use for drawing Farin.

Almost forgot: thanks for the ask! I hope you got your answer XD

[mcrmadness]

So attempt number who-knows-anymore. I ate something, got tea and played a bit more Euro Trcuk Simulator 2 and maybe NOW I could try sketching some dä stuff. Let's see if learnt a single things from the video tutorials I watched today...