#needed a break from drawing like 2 sets of sketches for stuff so heres a breathe doodler

[dwcmarshalarts]

I adore your style and content - I’m considering doing masters studies of some of your pieces just to try it out, but I’m still fairly new to art. I was curious if there’s any part of your process or any particular advice you’d have?

Gave this answer before to someone who asked me the same question, and I think it still counts! 1) Build stamina. You can do this by drawing often- and with intention. Start your drawing with a warm up- something light, not overly serious. Focus more on the literal mechanical feeling of your hand moving to draw. Then focus on the heavier stuff after you’ve both literally and mentally warmed up, setting the stage for more involved drawing. Make this a routine and drawing overall will be less tiring over time.

2) Focus on replicability, not detail. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. A lot of people develop a kind of perfectionism early on, where they get overly attached to a specific sketch and don’t wanna budge from it, and put details until it “looks good,” even when the subject as a whole is wonky. I like to equate this to “too much icing, not enough cake,” or “building on sand foundations.” I’ve been there before, and it can hold you back. Instead of focusing on a specific piece and how you rendered it that one time, focus on how you render it such that you could do something similar, easily replicate the concept. Once you’ve built more stamina, you can open up the gates to tackling the same subject matter in different ways.

3) Mind your mark making. Some folks agonize over the tiniest detail, sometimes for hours. At the end of the day, that itself doesn’t necessarily bring improvement- that’s more of a test of patience. Unless someone specifically asks, you don’t- for example- need to draw every single ridge of every knob on a switchboard in great detail. These things can be implied through mark making. Remember, a lot of drawing isn’t about literally making something for people to see- it’s tricking the eye into believing what’s drawn is actually there. You’ll be amazed at what detail can be like even when you don’t define every part.

4) Drawing is more seeing than “making it up.” * Don’t be afraid to use references and such. It’ll help you render form than imagining it- sometimes the imagination can conjure things incorrectly. *Even seasoned artists who don’t typically use too much references need to do studies from life or books every now and then to reinforce skills.

One point I didn't add before for style things specifically is: 5) Look where the artist got their inspirations from if you want to learn from them. No art exists within a vaccuum, everyone has their influences. Trying to do a study from someone's art will only take you so far- because then it'll feel more like mimicry than actual, learned study. Research or try to see parallels with artists that you might think had a hand in influencing a given artist's style. Notice the patterns there- certain textures are invoked here, this form was defined like this, etc. A lot of folks confuse wanting "more of a thing" as opposed to "what makes that thing desirable/unique." If you'd like to know where some of my influences come from, I'd say look at the works of Squiddy, covers for Hellboy comics, and the Snowpiercer graphic novel.

Addendum: If you're looking to draw anatomy specifically- study from real anatomy, and learn how to do those before you begin to "break the rules" (exaggerate, anthropomorphize, etc). For resources on that, I'd recommend the Morpho books (all of them haha) and Dynamic Human Anatomy by Roberto Osti.

Hope this helps somewhat, feel free to ask if I missed anything.

[alena-draws]

Phew, I’ve uploaded some concept art on Twitter, breaking my chain of endless fanart with some professional seeming stuff, and I wanted to show you here, too:

These are sketches for the concept art I’m doing for my master thesis project! I’ve got 2 main settings in my hypothetical 2d movie, the Forest and the City, and I wanted to work out the visuals of the forest by going for some atmospheric drawings. Overall there is only few light shining through the branches, so the deeper and lower you are, the less light from the sun is there, until only mushroom will illuminate the area. I wanted to give it this vast, eerie feeling. Though at the bottom of the forest, you will find the ruins of the old world on which it is rooted, and the heart of the fungi network, a rather magical looking place that I wanted to make the setting for the finale of the story. I will make one properly worked out illustration for that place and then get back to the city, before I lose too much focus of my time frame that I still have left..

(for the fungi core, the bottom drawings, I am referencing the Kulturpalast Dresden, a philharmonic hall with quite interesting architecture! It fits perfectly with the stage and the different layers of the seats!

(on another note: everytime I look at other amazing art/movie references I get another cool idea how or what I want to do. I recently watched The Emperor’s New Groove and let me tell you, every background in that movie is just soo amazing, and the movie works so well with these stylised bgs, that I got the idea: Maybe I could go for smth more stylised, and not try to make the scenery seem so much like a “real” room, but more think about how the characters could be placed in it and then think about creating the better effect. Know what I mean? The more I learn and see the more I find out how little I know about this, but it’s all interesting and fun to work out! I just wished I had more time, not really needing a result in..uhm 2 months. *sweats* )

[3nigm4art]

Enigma, The Machine’s Masterpost

Ok, there’s a lot that I have to talk about, brace yourselves

Art stuff

La Gloire à mes genoux

Take Me Out

Detroit Become Human AU

Disco Elysium styled Q

Bond/Alec collab #1

Sandman AU

Lineless

Paper

Villain!Q comic

One line

Vampire

Shapeshifter!Alec

Leyendecker Q

Black and white

Paper gun

Elf!Q

Take care of yourself

Bond/Alec collab #2

Sketch dump

Bladerunner 2049

Goldo/Silver (Emilia's OC) collab

Merman

Wizard

Pixie

The Yellow King

Engie!Q

One day I'll return to your side

A KNIFE!

Alec/Boris

Silent fury

TOTK 00Q

Mood indigo

ポルノグラファー

透明人間18号

Be water, my friend

The Little Prince

I don't want to set the world on fire

00QAD chat night doodle

I never say goodbye

Quatre mains

Chess Grandmaster

Fics

I'm so sick and tired

Linked haiku

Non-art things

Incorrect quote 1

Incorrect quote 2

Incorrect quote 3

Incorrect quote 4

Incorrect quote 5

Q cosplay

Total points: 1470

!!!Rambling ahead!!!

So, I was captain for team villain this year, and I'm probably the youngest captain there ever was lmao. I tried my best and I hope I did ok.

But here's basically how my leadership went throughout fest

Yeah...

Prompt table ramble

I also made a prompt table. The "art challenges" one and surprise surprise, it's difficult. But when I made it, each square had a goal in mind.

Black and White only: the goal was to strengthen your sense for light and shadow.

One continuous line: Strength sense for form, some what like a blind-contour

Draw in a different style: Forcing you to do art studies

Based on a painting: Also forcing you to do art studies

3 colours only: Value studies

10 minutes: speeeeeeeed

Use a different medium: break your habit of using the same thing over and over again

Yeah. I was lowkey worried that no one was gonna do this table.

Art stuff ramble

I have made so much this year. And I have thoroughly enjoyed making people cry with my art. I don't wanna explain anything lmaoooo (I'm so tired).

Closing remarks

As of writing this, I'm recovering from a cold. I'm very tired, constantly sleeping at some ungodly hour.

I feel like I've improved a lot in terms of art. i pushed myself in terms of quality, but I am really tired.

I need sleep. I have a flight to catch tonight.

Thank you to everyone who have participated 007 fest 2023.

[rhan-hastur]

Hi! @velvetcloak asked me to do some kind of lineart tutorial/step-by-step, I'm by no means an expert so don't hesitate to ask if you need some things clarified! Always glad to help.

I use three different methods that are pretty much trial and error, depending on what works best for the artwork but I'll do my best to explain with screenshots - these were taken on photoshop, I draw with procreate, but I'm guessing the layer modes are similar on other softwares. (Also mine are set in french, sorry in advance for the confusion.)

If you're already familiar with digital lineart and softwares, this probably won't be of much use, it's very basic stuff.

Otherwise, more below the cut! (It got a bit long.)

I. Solid black lineart, with this illustration used as reference.

I used the basic gesinski ink brush in procreate, 100% opacity in normal mode to get pure black. Very basic, it's set on top of the colour layers, everything above that is just additional effects and filters + textures. Note that I always draw separate elements on different layers and fuse them later, it's easier to deal with details this way. The isolated layer looks like this (I changed the colour of a disappearing hair lock, more on this later):

And the colours without it, like this (my style relies heavily on lineart, lol):

Both:

Good! It's a bit harsh though, I like to add a second layer to soften things up, set in 45% opacity multiply mode right under that. I duplicate the main lineart, and add a gaussian blur to the copied layer (between 3 and 5px, values vary from one artwork to another, same with the layer modes.)

Not done yet! I use the blured lineart as a colour filter by locking it to pixels only and filling it with the tone I want. In this case, red. Isolated layer:

And the end result:

The second method, I tend to use more on sketches and loose drawings to get a better blend of lineart and colours:

II. Semi-transparent lineart, with one of these sketches.

Basic 6B brush in procreate (my fav), quite thin here but you can get great results with a larger brush. It's not really obvious looking at this scale, so here's a comparison between a black solid lineart (1 layer, normal 100% - the scars are on a separate layer because of the colour, otherwise it's the same setting) and a semi-transparent one (2 layers), especially visible in lighter areas, note how the second one lets hues show through. I find this to look a bit less stiff.

Now for the method! Since this relies on the layers underneath, you want your colours to a bit more precise than the previous example. Without lineart:

TBH it's also a two layers solution, super easy. Once you're statisfied with your basic lineart, set the layer to overlay 100%. You'll get something like this:

Then duplicate this layer, put the copied layer above the overlay one and set it to normal 70% (or whatever looks best, this is 67%) and you'll get the final result as previously shown! In this particuliar case, I erased the black circle around the iris in the normal mode layer to keep the blue of the overlay one. You could also skip step two depending on the desired rendering.

The third method is a blend of the other two result-wise:

III. Coloured lineart, with this illustration. (tw: a bit of gore and blood in the full artwork, I'll crop it out of the screenshots. Poor guy can't get a break. It's the only file in this style with a semblant of organization, don't be like me, rename your layers and use folders.)

Fountain pen toothy brush, from the MaxPack watercolor set. It has a bit of a texture to it, and isn't entirely opaque so it blends nicely with the layers below. The lineart is set to normal 100%, for this method it's preferable to have separate layers for each elements, since you'll be recolouring them individually. Here, the hands, skull and additional details are all on individual layers.

Just like the blurred layer in the first method, you need to lock your pixels (the little grid to the left on photoshop):

And either fill you layer with colour, or paint on it with an opaque round brush/a soft one depending on the desired outcome. (Some zones might need a gradient, or various colours.) You can also use another normal layer on top of a black lineart and set it as a clipping mask, same result, different method. But I prefer to keep the layers count to a minimum when possible. With the layers below, it will look like this:

You can notice a bit of lineart transparency over the skull colour layer, cool stuff. (The shading of the skin is set on top for some reason, I don't remember why but surely there was a reason.) However! In this illustration, I need a yellow glow for the fire so let's create yet another layer, shall we? This affects the whole rendering. I painted a diffuse light source using a soft gradient brush, and set the layer to hard light. Isolated layer:

End result:

All done!

Now go create!

[talesfromthegasstationexchange]

okay this is the whole rules tm for the exchange

To participate in the Exchange:

1) Fill out the application.

3) Confirm gift pairing within 48 hours of receipt.

4) Notify mod of all tumblr URL changes.

5) Complete a gift by December 22nd.

We recommend that you follow the exchange blog (here) for updates, however, this is not required :))))

Gift Requests*

No OCs or crossovers Alternate Universes are allowed

In the event that an applicant asks for gifts that are too difficult to fill or violate one of the above rules, mods will contact recipients for amendment.*

Gifts

Fanart: Must be a finished drawing, coloured, or rendered black and white - not a sketch. Fanfic: Must have 1000 words minimum, with no obvious spelling or grammar errors.

NSFW: out right im not allowing nsfw related stuff unless someone else wants to mod it. i will be allowing gore related junk since im okay to moderate that gore: although i am allowing it based off of what the source media is i am going to put a 16+ barrier on this one. you can also opt out of making content for these types of gifts if they come up.

Not allowed:

Hateful or abusive content like ship bashing, racism, transphobia, bullying, etc. spam applications will be blocked

Posting.

Put content warnings if applicable. Tag applicable characters and ships. Post between December 23th and 31st. DM or @ mention your gift recipient when you post! Mention @talesfromthegasstationexchange and use #tftgs23 in the first five tags! (Just in case.)

Gifts that do not meet requirements or break rules will not be reblogged.

some may be missed through time zones and tumblr being tumblr but feel free to reach out on here or through my personal in DM,

   What is the tftgs Exchange?

A Secret Santa-type event where like minded fans create content for tftgs.

   What kind of content is allowed?

Either a finished drawing (as determined by the artist) or a fanfic with a minimum of 1000 words.    Can I ask for my designs from tftgs to be used ? Yes you may do so. though you will have to have easily accessible references publicly available for your gifter to use     can I ask for another set of designs that are not my own ? again yes, of course but they do still have to be openly available online and you need to mention the artist/ blog that has them in the application

   Can we ask for gifts with tftgs ships?

You can ask for any ships, as long as it is with canon characters

Is N.S.F.W. Allowed?

hard lines no. i allow gore based on the source media but nothing beyond that. as well if the gift you create does contain gore it should be tagged and cropped accordingly, and the full piece put under a read more or linked off to another page

If you post something in violation of these rules, we will ask you to fix it prior to reblogging it :)

Can I ask for a gift featuring my tftgs OC?

No. ocs are super valid and i love them. but i do feel though it is very unfair to the gift maker to try and visualise a character they may not know well enough to depict.    Can I ask for a gift featuring book related spoilers?

yes! applicants will be separated out into 2 main categories, the audio series and the books. So that no one ends up getting asked to draw or write from part the either haven't read or heard.

  How are pairings made?

Applicants will be paired with other tftgs Gift Exchange recipients. it will take preference into consideration; further, i will not force people into making content for their NOTPs and hated characters. Outside of that, please be open to exploring new people and pairings to spread the happiness this holiday season.

   i dont want the same person to make for or to be given from last year

thats completely fine, ill try my best to work around it an make sure you get someone diffrent.

   I’m not sure if my recipient will like the gift I want to make them. What should I do?

Easy! Anon ask your giftee if you need clarification about what they would want.

If their anon is off, contact me explicitly explaining this, plus any questions you may have. We will reach out for you :>

    What if I have to dropout?

it’s sad to see you go!

In the event that you cannot finish your gift, OR something comes up that will delay your gift (even writer’s block!), please DM either ASAP so that we can find a substitute.

   Okay. You’ve convinced me. Where do I sign up?

Applications open November 14th! aka today

   I posted my gift hours ago, but it hasn’t been reblogged. What gives?

feel free to dm it to my main. ive probs just missed it because my brain is fried @theredheaddevil

Disclaimer:

i cannot be responsible for any applicant that falsley claims to be a legal adult, if you are found out to be lying about your age you will be removed and banned from any following years that i continue to run this. and your pairing from the exchange will be remade

[caelumforge]

sorry for disturbing you! i was just wondering what you use to draw? and your favorite brushes? and, um, maybe how you make your lil comics? or how you plan out your comics? - fellow shy artist

Absolutely no worries whatsoever, I love answering questions from other artists. ^_^

Art program - Like a lot of anime artists, I enjoy Ibis paint. It has a few limitations here and there, but I personally find it’s one of the quickest art programs to use because of everything being easily accessible and not having to do weird inputs or shortcuts to use different tools. It’s also super cheap!

Brushes - I use the same type of brush with different settings for sketch, line art and rendering. (Makes it way easier to convey the feeling of your original sketch when it’s the same kind of line weight and texture) Here are the settings I use on my wider line art brush in particular;

Comics - There are 3 main steps for comics, 1. Planning dialogue, 2. Mapping sketch and 3. Just polishing everything. (line art + proper speech bubbles)

When I make comics I always sketch out every page first before I line art anything, which might seem a bit obvious, but not doing it can lead to pretty bad continuity errors in poses etc lol.

Something that I don’t do (because I am very lazy) but that I would strongly suggest is making quick speech bubbles IN the sketching phase, so that you don’t finish line art and colors and then realize: “huh… I needed… another panel here…….” Speech bubble spacing and room to breathe in between sentences can make or break comics!

As for panel shapes, I am unfortunately not very good at that stuff, so you’d have to ask someone else. (；ω；)

My main tip for making a fun to read comic is different camera angles. Shift the POV based on what the person reading should be looking at, which character is talking or maybe what a certain character is thinking about. Having the POV be the same in nearly every panel gets very uninteresting to look at after a while, so it’s important to keep things fresh!

Sorry if this was a lot of text, but I hope I at least answered one of your questions lol. If there’s anything I missed or something else you’re wondering, always feel free to HMU.

[off-brand-adorabbit]

Anyways!

So I’m calling this little experiment finished. I learned a lot, and if you’d like to learn them with me I’m about to ramble!

:readmore: <- buddy. Why. Why don’t you work?

Starting with supplies:

Book, obviously

Sandpaper (I think I used 80 grit for sanding the edges of the pages before painting and 120 grit after)

Clamping device (I used a set of 4” spring clamps and it worked fine, just make sure you’re getting your pages as tightly together as possible for the best working surface. I’ll probably still get a book clamp eventually for that even pressure.)

Painters tape (taping off the headband and securing protective paper without damaging your book)

Scrap paper (this gets taped over the edges to protect them during painting)

Pencil (if you want to sketch things before you go in with paints. You could also just use a pen)

Watercolor paints (I managed to get a set that was entirely pearlescent. That’s not great if you want to do a hidden image like I did, but I don’t think it’s an irrecoverable mistake. Maybe don’t use them though to make this process easier.)

Acrylic paint (this is for gilding the edges of the pages. I saw recommendations to stay away from anything other than matte paint, but 0 reason outside of it making pages slightly harder to separate. So I used a bottle of Folk Art Color Shift in Silver Flash.)

Paintbrush(es) (for the watercolor, NOT THE ACRYLIC)

Sponge or sponge brush (for the acrylic (and maybe watercolor if you like? I don’t know you. Paint how and what you want, it’s your stuff and your vision)

The process:

I started by removing the dust jacket and clamping the pages of the book shut, getting all three exposed edges at a flat 90 degree angle. I sanded all of them until there were no bumps and everything felt smooth to the touch, then played with the inside pages until I liked the angle they were at. Forty-five degrees is the recommended angle, but I’m working with $25 bucks of materials from a walmart levels of material and also I was sobern’t. Slap paper and painters tape on the edges of your cover to keep them safe in the next bit.

Clamp your pages at an angle you can draw on, making sure that a tiny bit (like a millimeter it really doesn’t need to be much) of each page is exposed. Draw something. Do it in pencil for sketching, pen and watercolor for keeping. If you got to this point and realized you didn’t actually think you’d get this far, congratulations! Look up pictures of dragons, make em fatter, and pop those bad boys onto the edge of your book.

If you like what you drew or painted and want to be done now, congratulations! Let everything dry and then remove the clamps. Flip through the pages just to make sure nothing is sticking together, remove the protective tape, and you’re good to go! If you’re insane like me, take a shot and make sure every little thing you don’t want painted over is COVERED. Check your headband. Check it again. It’s a bitch, but make sure there are no gaps, tears, or breaks that could lead to you painting the cover, unless you want to do that. That’s not what this is about though this is pages.

If you’re painting the edges of all three exposed sides with acrylic paint, close your book so the pages are at a flat 90 degree angle again, and then add weight. You could use the clamps here, but this was where I was most worried about uneven pressure so I just stacked a bunch of hardcovers on top of this one. Make sure they’re covered if you’re a messy person, or don’t if you’re doing this at 2 am and would like to be done soon and you’re absolutely certain that stacking all these books on the cat scratching post will have 0 negative repercussions while you’re working with wet paint.

Get your sponge. Don’t use a paintbrush to apply your acrylic paint or else the bristles might encourage paint between the pages and then they’ll for sure stick. You’re going to use the sponge to drag your paint up and down the edges of your book gently to get an even coat on each page, making sure not to apply too much. Work slowly, take your time, make sure each page gets painted, don’t freak out when you paint over your watercolor or doodles. Too thick of a layer and you’ll just paint your book shut, too thin and it’ll just be a color dusting which could be cool too!

Let it mostly dry (like 95% dry, if you touch and the paint transfers, you’re still waiting for it to dry more), remove the weight, and open the cover. Keep the pages pressed together (use your fingers or pop some clamps on the corners if you want the extra security, and just give your pages a little wiggle. I don’t know how to explain better than that. Give em a wiggle to make sure they’re still bendy and to make separating them out in a bit easier.

Once everything is fully dry, you’re done! Go through and make sure your pages all cleanly separate from one another, and see if your hidden picture is still there. If you have any bubbles or lumps in the paint you can gently sand with some high grit sandpaper to get rid of them, just don’t apply too much pressure or you’re going to remove more than the bumps and bubbles. Remove your protective paper and tape (carefully!!!), slap the dust jacket back on, and voila! You’ve customized a book!

Enjoy!

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