#not a drawing tutorial just my personal experiences

[yet-another-haven-of-dollya]

can i ask advice ;; drawing wise ? how did you start to anatomy but also w stylization? did you bruteforce by studying every bone muscle etc in art school?

hmm...

First, you must distinguish between two completely different concepts: gesture and anatomy. The stylization and dynamic you often see me doing with my dancing practice is "Gesture". This is an excellent tutorial by Proko about gestures. I practiced gestures very soon when I started drawing, simply because I wanted to draw dynamically, lucky for me it was the right thing to do. This was the main reason why I'm so fast at sketching.

This is my gesture practice, 1 min, 2 min, and 5 min sketch. It's about the flow of the body and which direction each part is going, use "sharp and coherent lines". I practice until it becomes a "natural reflex", a habit when I look at people's interactions.

This below is something I drew 3 years ago (my anatomy was not good sorry), notice how I use many many coherent lines? At the thigh, shin, arm stretching,... all the bigger areas? That's the remaining of gestures.

It goes without saying. Try to find the flow of gestures, even for the hair or clothes. Heh, I drew this 4 years ago, how nostalgic.

You can see how I just create the flow with Lya's hair and body movement in the dancing pics too. Like with Kylar's pic her body is straight up one quite hard mass from head to toe. You know she's leaning forward, seemingly wanting to abandon Kylar with a "pathetic loser like you? With me?" attitude (ouchie sorry Kylar nation). While in Sydney's pic she seems much more relaxed and enjoys how her body parts seem to loosen and more in sync with Sydney's movements. Her hip and legs sway more, and her hair also sways back at Sydney's body, hinting that her moves are relatively close to his body. I don't think I have enough vocabulary to describe, gestures are always just "feelings" to me. If people see what I want to show, that's the success for me.

I know many self-learners started by finding random tutorials that have muscle breakdown or box-like proportions to try and mimic. Mimic is good, drawing is mimicking and remembering what you saw, but without good gesture practice, many people tend to make anatomy very stiff.

Then, you start to apply anatomy to the gestures you've practiced. One way to do it is by learning about muscle position first, and then trying to apply it to a figure, or a model. This is my homework and it's HORRIBLY WRONG IN MANY WAYS. My teacher fixed it for me but I don't have the after with me right now, so take this as an example of how to do the apply thing, DO NOT USE IT AS MUSCLE REF it's very wrong.

In my opinion bone structure is not strictly needed like muscles. Bones are for muscles to hang onto. You only need to remember some important "landmarks" like the collarbone, elbow joint, anterior pelvis, knee, and ankle,… to hang the important muscles to it. After you're familiar with muscles and gestures, you can start to stylize. Applying your knowledge to animated characters with cartoonish design is one great way. THESE HOMEWORKS OF MINE ARE STILL WRONG but ye hope you get the idea. I'm still struggling with anatomy.

One of my all-time fav are AFK ARENA artists and what they do for the game. Aki as the main artist, Kuri Huang, and another artist I suddenly forgor the name as home screen illust. I recommend researching their works if you want a direction on how to stylize your character with great dynamic gestures and shapes.

And

As much as I hate to say this, I was particularly considered a failure, a stone-head, who couldn't be changed for the better when I was still in art school - uni. My chosen major was digital graphic design, not specified in drawing but in designing, that's one thing I regret. I traded 5 years of my youth for doing the things I don't want to do. That's why the moment I graduated, I immediately went and signed up for an advanced art class specified in drawing. I'd be lying if I said the uni didn't teach me anything about drawing. They did, but almost everything I learned during 5 years of uni was self-learning from outer sources. I encourage self-learning the most when I talk with younger artists. Proko is a very trusted source to learn from, go to their YouTube channel, and you might figure out something too.

[txmxkis]

okay but where the fuck does one even begin to learn how to draw i-

[punkitt-is-here]

How did you learn to draw fat bodies but still keep it cartoony? I love how you draw different types of bodies and make them all seem normal instead of certain body types sticking out like a sore thumb next to others. I struggle to draw fat bodies without it looking weird with the rest of my art. Do you have a specific tutorial you followed or something?

This is a really good question! I'm glad you like my depictions of different body types, i worked really hard to get better at that so im happy folks enjoy em!! I didn't actually learn from a book or tutorial, it was mostly looking at fat bodies IRL and learning to incorporate those features onto what I already drew. As it turns out, we're all human, so if you understand the anatomy enough to draw a skinny person, you have the tools to understand the anatomy of a fat person.

So, like, here, this is my sketch of someone with a very average build. If I were to draw a fat body, I would still use all the basic principles I use here. One mistake I think folks run into is "isolating" parts, which can lead to things like this

which isn't necessarily bad, but if its not what you're going for, the issue is pretty apparent. Weight affects ALL of the body, not just the stomach or the face or the limbs. If you think about how that weight affects everything in tandem then you can start drawing fat bodies that work more in your style.

for this, this is the same quick sketch using the same pose and principles as the first one. but! I allowed the weight to be distributed across the body. Notice how the legs, belly, arms, etc all got thicker? The key to drawing fat bodies and making them look like they fit is allowing that weight to affect everything. without it, it just looks like you're adding on features to someone rather than considering everything at once.

my other tip is: don't be scared! things like fat arms or chins or bellies or stretch lines are not something that's bad to depict. if you want to draw fat bodies, you gotta not be scared to draw things the way they are. someone having a fat body is not bad, and you drawing that fat body is not bad either. Experiment! To me, art is about representing ideas, and the only way to get better is to experiment with how you represent those ideas. I'm by no means an expert, and I think you can also get a ton done by looking for resources aside from me, but I hope this helps, and have fun!!

[machveil]

You should totally do like a how to draw Konig tutorial for one of ur daily sketches

Chibi or not

But u should totally do it

I neeeeeeeeed ur process

-🦥

notes below the cut - additional notes can be found in this post where I give art tips from my experience

daily König sketch with bonus content♥️‼️post is a little late but it’s due to the info dump below haha, anyways, he’s a little nervous

hi!! thanks for requesting a little “my process” thing - super happy to do one<3

I’ll be using these pieces of him that I’ve done to go over my notes - this is just how I go about drawing him. I’d definitely recommend also going through this post linked above too for additional info because a lot of it carries over!

I think the most important thing for me when drawing König is spacing out his hood ratios. I always start out by just drawing where his eyes and eyebrows are, then I draw the cut-outs around them. after that, I start the stitched neckline - that’s usually an eye hole’s width above his actual eyes, it gives a good allusion to where his forehead would be

they aren’t hard and fast rules I follow, more like a silent guideline that can be meddled with depending on the drawing. I usually follow them because, to me, it looks the best with how I draw him. it’s flexible - same with the sleeves, sometimes they end below his eye cut-outs, sometimes I cut them short and they’re higher

I thought I’d do a step-by-step for the hood folds because just info dumping all at once sounded confusing in my head

I start by just drawing lines down from the corners of his eye cut-outs, then I loosely draw a slanted line to show some bunching of the fabric. the slanted line is usually around where his collarbone would be

best way I can describe figure 2 is drawing folds in a ‘U’ shape. the fabric is falling from his head and ‘pooling’. the ‘U’ shape adds a little depth

miscellaneous little folds around the hem. they follow the way his hood rests, slanting downwards towards the center

if anything, just study how fabric falls and bunches up! a lot of drawing is looking at reference material to figure the ‘why’s and ‘what’s - “why do the folds bunch in certain areas?”, “why is fabric gathering in that area”, “what’s causing the fabric to move like that”, etc

lastly is his body, and as we know, I’m allergic to drawing clothing (read “lazy”). I actually really recommend looking at the post I linked above for this because, in the last figure, I show the Pinterest reference of the man who inspired my König’s body shape (and went into depth on using references)

for arms, in figure 1 and 2, you’ll see me draw an oval inside the bicep and forearm - those are just to add the allusion to muscle mass. if I don’t draw those ovals, to me, it looks a little flat. in figure 3 I go over his waistline because of course I do

I always account for a prominent rib cage line because I personally like drawing a more pronounced rib cage in general. after the ribcage, there’s a slight indent at the waist before it flares back out - that ‘flare out’ is the line for the Adonis belt. again, just personal preference, but I enjoy making the curves a little dramatic so they’re more pronounced and visually appealing to me

I don’t know how helpful that was but I hope I got some information across - uuh, even though I don’t draw his tactical gear and uniform that often the advice I can give is to just look at his model haha. the only gear that gives me a headache is his helmet, but even then I just bs my way through it

for chibi König I just shrink all his proportions and draw a stupid little t-shirt for his head<3 he doesn’t need to think, he’s just a cute little fella. I draw chibi König the way I would draw a puppy, make him look cute without a thought behind those eyes

for additional reference material here’s the link for my Pinterest - I have an absurd amount of reference material for you to browse through

hopefully this was slightly helpful?? I don’t know, as long as you get something out of this I’m happy

[montesmithart]

May I ask for some tips on designing characters? Yours are so cool!! ✨️✨️✨️

AA thank you so much! I’m not a professional really, but as a hobbyist.. I could give you some advices that have worked well for me \o/

Tip 1: Don't be afraid to experiment and try something new! Use and mix the most chaotic colors, combine the uncombinable, and just have fun

(this is my normal process of creating designs tbh.. I just don’t think about it a lot and draw everything the way I feel xD)

Tip 2: If you’ll be practicing making designs all the time, eventually you'll start to feel and understand which colors work well together and which don't. There are also some win-win color combos that always look good - for example, plain black/white with golden parts, or tropical colors (blue & orange & yellow & red & green), or brown palettes with rainbow shades, or black & white & grey & red, etc. I personally found my comfort in rainbow accents, gradients and vibrant colors 💛

Tip 3: Mix different themes! I really enjoy designing reptilian characters and mix them with absolutely any themes I could find :D For example:

plush & cactus & raptor

dinosaur & kidcore aesthetic

peacock & dragon & snake & constellations

raptor & bat & cow and… wooden raptor?😳

…and so on!

Find your own comfort species & themes and mix them with everything you want ^^

Tip 4: If you got no ideas yet, but still wanna design something, I highly recommend using Pinterest for inspiration! It contains a lot of great images/photos which can bring you tons of ideas (not only for characters designs, by the way). I also use it for clothes tutorials, poses references, and lightning/shading guides sometimes!

Tip 5: To improve your visual library, look at others’ characters and adoptables. Analyze what exactly you like about these designs - it can be some special color palette or other unusual choices. This will not only give you an understanding of which palettes and design elements go well together, but also allow you to discover your own favorite elements/details you can use in your own work!

That’s it! There's probably something else I forgot to say, but for now.. that's all my sleepy brain could remember at the moment <D

[ranmagender]

Art Videos I've Learned From

Here's some art videos that i greatly learned from. i dont work well with things presented in a specific rigid fashion my brain just doesnt respond to it well so here's some that helped me.

Teaching Myself to Draw for 30 days by Leap Tries It

Even more so than the pewdiepie video this video was what made me feel like i could do it myself, he shows like every step of the way both mistakes and victories, its nice.

Pursuing Art at 30 (as a beginner) by Taylor Losch

This one resonated with me because I'm also 30 and while I did draw things as a younger person I gave it up around the time I turned 18 because my mindset was still that if im not instantly good at something i cry. Its a nice video and outlines his pursuit.

What to study to improve your art by bluebiscuits

lays out the fundamentals in an easy to digest manner. what i appreciate is that she lays it out without assumptions of you going for a realistic style which i feel too many art tutorials fall into on youtube

Draw boxes (correctly) to improve your art by pikat

Lays out how drawing boxes helps you be able to draw in perspective and build up your character to make them look less flat. Ive still yet to learn this but ive been doing exercises of drawing boxes so im sure its just a matter of drawing more and more boxes.

Can a beginner ACTUALLY learn how to draw in 30 days? by pikat

she goes over the pewdiepie video and does an experiment with her partner who doesnt really draw and is a math and spreadsheet nerd and idk i thought it was just fun and cute at times. It does also show some pitfalls.

Theres more but I think these are a good place to start, at least they were for me. Your experience may differ, people learn differently but hopefully this will help some

[salty-sadness]

Quick tutorial for my traditional art :). (Specifically how I made the comic)

I can do a more in-depth process later, but I dont currently have the setup for recording a long-term video yet.

First, I sketch some really loose thumbnail/storyboards. This is where I decide how the scene will look, the lighting, and where it is coming from.

Next, I sketch everything out with a pencil (im using erasable pens in this case). Then, line the sketches with colored pencil or black ink.

I only do this for the comic because a lot of planning goes into it. Typically, I just do some figure drawing sketches to warm up, then jump into a sketch with a pen without doing a draft. (Drawing without a sketch beforehand is good practice and gets your brain to think about where your going to place things!)

Dip pen and ink to line, watercolor, some white gouache, to color.

Painting/coloring is the last step I do and usually takes the longest.

After lining, I usually go back and make certain lines have more line-weight.

An example of lining with ink(without undersketch):🔽

For this one, I did the line-art with colored pencil (also without undersketch):🔽

After all the line-art is complete, I paint with watercolor, typically doing a wash with either a cool tone or warm tone for the underpainting (to set the mood/lighting) over the whole drawing and to make the colors more cohesive.

An example of this would be making the underpainting a cool tone for a snowy scene or making the underpainting a warm tone for a cozy or indoor scene.

(I dont have a video for an example of that because it's more of a long-term thing, and I dont have the setup for that)

Then, adding the flat colors, being mindful of where the light source and where it will shine on the person/scene, and where the shadows will be in contrast to that when shading next.

And Finaly adding the snowflakes overtop with Gouache.

(You can also do this whole process with other mediums, like marker, not just watercolor. Just find what works and looks good typically. it's not a strict process, I loved mixed media.)

Closeup example of finished product!🔽

I enjoy doing traditional art because it is more of a sensory experience, and I LOVE that. I have dabbled in digital art, but I end up liking the traditional process more, and feel more connected to my art when I have a physical version of it. (not all digitaly stored on a computer).

With traditional art, there is more risk of accidentally screwing up an artwork you spent a long time on.. I kinda like that because it makes it more exciting, and working under pressure forces you to sharpen your skills and refine your process, making sure you dont make the same mistake twice.

Also, I really love digital art and look up to a lot of digital creators, I try to replicate the digital look when doing traditional art, it's really fun! :)

[arealtrashact]

hello i LOVE ur art! ive always wanted to ask, do u like…plan ur really intricate illustrations? Like thumbnails, color comps, the whole shebang. Or do u just make a loose sketch, color block and go straight to rendering? ur art is so dynamic that i cant picture planning anything like it without getting stiff lmao. ALSO a loooooong time ago u mentioned making a tutorial thingy for CDQ that didnt get published. will we ever see the masters process 😔. feel free to ignore my rambling !

Hello. You are correct ; I don't create thumbnails or color palettes. I'm sure if I did, my art would appear much more professional.

In the case of the type of illustrations you mentioned, I do a loose sketch ( as you said ) and then I just draw on top of it a few times to experiment with character placement and posing. I suppose that's my version of thumbnailing.

This was the sketch phase of the Lavinia illustration. Even as I was coloring it, I was actively challenging the decisions I'd made in my sketches. For an example, Lavinia's pose went through a rather drastic change -- From constricted to open.

I guess when it comes to personal work ( that is, artwork that is not for a studio or client ) I don't want it to feel precious. I want to be able to change it at any stage in the process. I want to be able to scrap elements entirely and feel like nothing is lost or that I'm deviating from a plan I made beforehand. I always start these illustrations with an idea /concept, but I want that idea to remain malleable for as long as it can.

Regarding CDQ : Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing if they did eventually publish my tutorial in a different issue. If they haven't, I'm not sure I could post it. It was paid, contract work ( thus making the tutorial itself no longer mine. )

Ideally, I would stream my art, so I could show you my process but . . . I'm a little shy.

[beffalumps]

hi there! recent art school grad here and i was wondering if u have any tips on learning color + approaching backgrounds? even though i learned a lot, i still find myself struggling with these focuses, especially colors as i never had a class that really taught me that. thanks so much 💗 your work is so lovely

First off, congrats on graduating!! Backgrounds and colors have always been the hardest for me lol tbh I still struggle a lot with colors especially, so please take everything I say with a grain of salt!

Using adjustment layers helps me a lot (especially color balance to make things more unified or complementary).

Another thing that I think has REALLY helped me with color overall is actually switching between color and grayscale.

In photoshop I set up a custom proof profile and then am able to switch back and forth by using the hotkey Ctrl + Y. This helps me check my values which, I've found if you have solid values, colors tend to work so much better even if you don't know much about what you're doing lol. Another way to do this is making a solid black layer on top of all your color layers and setting the blending mode to "Color". Then you can toggle that on and off to look at the values.

One last thing I've played with re: colors is finding a reference that has the colors I like and "crystalizing" it and color picking a palette from that.

This can be super helpful if you're having a hard time visualizing or coming up with a color palette!

As for backgrounds, they became a lot easier for me when I started looking at them like their own character. Thinking about the story I'm trying to tell, adding little details that I think would add to that or be fun and fun ways for the character to interact with it.

That and doing value sketches/just a bunch of really quick and sloppy experiments. 9 times out of 10, they don't work out, but sometimes they spark something that turns into something fun and workable!

This has gotten really long for someone that really just bs's their way through every piece, but I will say one thing that was a big game changer for me (in my personal opinion, who knows if other people think so lmao) and it's just incorporating aerial perspective. Making things a bit more blue tinted (or whatever the sky color is) and lighter as they recede into the background. Has made a huge difference for me when it comes to creating depth!

I really don't know if any of this is helpful because to be 100% honest, most of my illustrations are just product of trial and error lol. But practicing and making a lot of really bad scribbles have (I think) helped me the most, so yeah my biggest advice with anything is just look at lots of art, just draw and don't worry if it looks bad because tbh, it probably will at first. But you'll get better!

@tamberella Has a ton of amazing free resources and brushes, so if you haven't checked out their stuff, definitely do so!

@iniro also has some really nice tutorials on color (and other topics) available so I'd also recommend looking at those too!

But yeah, sorry for going on about my hair-brained process, I hope at least some of this was helpful!

[mistylune]

How I manifested an iPad (without realizing it.)

Hello! It’s been a bit a time since I last made a post. I’ve been pretty busy lately, but when I was thinking about what I wanted to post next, I remembered a success story from a while back. This story is definitely one of my favorites.

So to clarify, when I say that I manifested without realizing it, I mean that I manifested before being fully clear about the law. Back then, I wasn’t a part of the community, so I had no idea that what I was doing was manifesting, nor did I know either of the laws. I’ve come to learn that we manifest all the time subconsciously, and now I know how it is utilized properly. But in this story, keep in mind that this was before I was on tumblr.

So there are two types of LOA. Law of attraction, and Law of assumption. I used to confuse the two all the time, so I’ll quickly define them. I know you all have probably seen them defined a million times, so I’ll keep it brief.

(Also please note that these are my personal descriptions of them, so they may not be entirely accurate, nor make sense, but this is just how I would define them.)

Law of attraction is the belief that your thoughts are what attract things into your life, and by focusing your thoughts positively into the things that you desire, you can attract them into your life. For example, bringing money into your life.

Law of assumption is the belief that your thoughts are what shape your reality, and thus if you change your assumptions about yourself and your life, you can change your reality. In this case, instead of bringing, or attracting the money in your life, you would already have it.

I ended up using a mix of both when manifesting my IPad, so when I say LOA, I’ll be referring to both of them.

So onto the story.

A couple of years back, I got back into drawing, and while I enjoyed traditional art, I wanted to branch out into digital art. Many of my favorite artists that I saw on social media were drawing digitally, and I wanted to experiment in the medium. But the only device I had was my phone back then, and a school computer. When researching on what a lot of artists used for digital drawing, I discovered that many of the artists I admired used IPads for their artwork. And so, I decided then that I wanted to get one.

I remember that I focused a lot on what I would do if I had one. I would watch digital drawing tutorial videos, make Pinterest boards for inspiration, I followed my favorite artists on instagram, and would get inspired by watching speed paints and looking at their art. I remember how I would bask in the feeling of excitement at the thought of having my own iPad and creating my own artwork, focusing on the positive feelings that would arise when I thought about having one. Just thinking about it filled me with joy and motivation. I didn’t think of how, where, or where I would get it. I just knew that someday I would get one.

A few months later, it’s summer and I’m offered a spot on a team for a contest. After accepting, I attended a lot of meetings discussing the competition and preparing, we left two weeks later to compete. We worked really hard, and I had a lot of fun being on that team. When we competed, I was super excited but also full of nerves because we each had a part and I had to speak in front of a crowd. But it ended up paying off.

When the award ceremony came, I was full of nerves again, because I was unsure where we would place, or if we would even place at all. I remember seeing that a team I thought would win got second. At that moment I wondered which team was good enough to beat them for first place. And it ended up being my team. I felt a rush of excitement and emotions as we went up on stage and accepted our medals. It was my first time winning a team competition, so it was fun celebrating with the people I had been working with for two weeks. It was rewarding knowing that our hard work payed off. But the kicker was what happened after that.

After celebrating for a bit, and heading to the awards banquet, we learned what prizes we would receive for placing first. We received three prizes, and among them was…an IPad.

Now, I was in complete shock. I had heard from my mentor that the tech prize would be a computer. But it ended up being an IPad instead. The very thing I had said that I wanted. I remembered thinking it was just a very lucky coincidence, and I joked with my parents that I had gotten what I wished for. But now I know that in reality, I had actually manifested my iPad.

Recently, when I was struggling with manifestation again, and feeling stuck in a loop of negativity, I made a list of all the things I had already manifested to pull myself out of it. Through that, I was able to remember this story. Realizing that I had manifested before I even knew that it was a thing motivated me so much, because I realized I was putting so much pressure on myself to do something I had already done several times.

So I think the best advice I could give is that if you are struggling with doubt and negative thoughts, please remember how powerful you are. You are capable of manifesting anything that you want. I know it seems unbelievable at times. It was for me too, which I why I first saw my manifestation as a lucky coincidence. I’ve realized too that putting a label on the law often adds this extra pressure, because we aren’t sure if we are applying it correctly. But we are the creators of our realities. There is no wrong way to manifest. Just do what works best for you. But don’t give up. If you do, you could miss out on receiving your desires. The law cannot fail, and neither can you.

Thank you so much for reading! I truly hope this post was able to motivate or help you in some way. I’ll see you guys in the next post!

With love,

Lune.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! Do you have some ideas in regards to facial differences and fun/cool make-up?

I'm planning to re-design a character, and was planning to give her a port wine stain during the redesign; she's also the type of character who'd really enjoy fun/cool make-up, like stuff that incorporates rhinestones or wild eyeliner shapes. I feel like she might enjoy incorporating her port wine stain into the make-up, but I'm drawing a blank as to how she might do that, and all google gives me is how to cover them, which is the exact opposite of what I and the character want. Are there any resources you could point me to? Or am I missing something that'd make it distasteful to put so much attention on her FD, even positive attention, since I don't have one? (I'll definitely try to have some more characters with FDs who are just, like, neutral about them/don't draw attention to them through make-up like that, but the character in question is one of the main characters so I want her design done before focusing on the more minor characters)

Hey!

I will preface this by saying that I'm a guy with close to zero experience or knowledge about make-up, if I misuse any basic terms or am ignorant about it, I apologize.

The idea of a character incorporating their birthmark into make-up is really fun. I definitely don't think it would be distasteful. I can easily imagine an influencer with a facial difference deciding to do something like this.

Some of the cool things she could do;

She could make it stand out more, rather than less - maybe make the color pop; make it more brightly red (or purple, or any other color hers is)?

Coordinate colors. Matching the color of her birthmark with her lipstick, or eyeshadow, or anything else. Or fun palettes; maybe a sunset gradient that incorporates the port wine stain's color?

Make fun shapes with it. If she has PWS spots, she could maybe turn them into stars, or if the whole thing is visible enough, maybe she could make it into a heart?

Adding rhinestones actually sounds awesome. It probably depends on where on her face it is, but maybe she could frame the stones to go around it, or point towards it?

She can of course wear regular make-up that doesn't put any additional attention to her PWS, there's no issue with that. Just don't make her cover it (but you know that).

Personally, the rhinestone idea sounds the most exciting to me. There's something high fashion, or maybe even royal about it that characters with facial differences don't really normally get. I would love to see that.

I think that, assuming your character has internet access, the lack of resources is an issue you could bring up in the story. A "why do I have to do everything myself, there's only so many ideas I can think of!" or "no, Unspecified Search Engine, not how to hide it- oh my god, why is it so useless" kind of scenario when she can't find anything new to do when she's out of ideas or hitting the artblock. I've been there when trying to find tutorials on drawing people with facial differences. This is how being a disabled artist kinda is.

all google gives me is how to cover them, which is the exact opposite of what I [...] want

And well, sounds like you got a lick of that facial difference experience =). Now, imagine if incorporating FDs into art was popular and this wasn't an issue- okay, I probably made this point in too many posts now, but if your body of work ever gets published/popular, it could have an effect on things like this. I love seeing facial differences shown as something to be proud of and not to hide. I also enjoy that you mentioned additional side characters with FD. Thank you.

mod Sasza

[willowisdead345]

50 things to do instead of binging!!

coming from personal experience from someone who has lost over 11 kg since I stopped binging a couple moths ago, these have worked for me

Remember binge urges don't last forever. It's difficult to resist them, but if you distract yourself or pass time, the urge can pass without the need for a binge. Stay strong, you can do it!

crafts:

Try embroidery/cross stitching

Make friendship bracelets, even better if it’s red (like the old ana bracelet lol)

Learn how to knit or crochet

Make a pompom

Learn how to make a bead lizard

Paint a clothing item with bleach

Make something out of clay/fimo/foam clay

Learn how to make a new origami design, there are plenty of instructions available

Try macrame, there are loads of easy instructions for it online

arts:

Paint, try painting with a different medium than usual to force yourself to concentrate harder

Draw something, you can use methods like the grid technique

Doodle! Try to fill an entire a4

Try to draw with crayons, have fun. For some reasons crayons make everything lower stakes for me

Make a children's story (not for actual kids though), write it and you can add pictures (bonus points if you make it disturbing)

Make a collage using old magazines, you can include motivational quotes

Make moodboards

Try making found poetry (for example with an old book or magazine)

ed-stuff:

Draw something, you can use your fave thinspo as a reference

Make yourself a diet/weight tracker for the next month (on paper or digitally) you can choose the theme of it yourself

write meanspo/sweetspo for yourself or find some

Try bullet journalling, you can make trackers for yourself (highly recommend one for not binging!)

Make your own motivational quotes, there are lists of “ana quotes” online, or you can go the funny route instead. A tip is to use lyrics from songs you relate to and adding a motivating picture as the background (maybe one day I’ll share my folder of these)

Write down your goals, make it look pleasing to you

Measure your circumferences with a measuring tape, you can write them down and compare later

Make an excel sheet where you can log stats and calories and stuff

Play with excel to make graphs of your weight loss or weekly intake! Lots of tutorials on how to make graphs, learning to use excel is a good distraction (has been really helpful for me to keep motivated and distracted)

Write a haiku/poem about your ed

Listen to triggering music

GROSSPO (ew maggots, mold and stuff like that)

Take bodychecks and compare to older ones

Watch other people binging instead of binging yourself

Calculate the calories of whatever you are craving, this always helps shock me and reconsider

Calculate your current bmr (base metabolic rate, you can calculate it online), calculate your bmr at your ugw too

self care:

Paint your nails/clip your nails. Toenails too

Take a shower or bath (seeing yourself naked helps a lot, and it helps pass time)

Put on a facemask

Do a foot soak

Try a new makeup look, it doesn’t have to look nice, you can even try to make the most ridiculous look ever

Apply body lotion throughout your entire body (again this helps you reconsider by making you self conscious)

get out of the situation and clear your head:

Go outside! And don’t take food or money with you. Just go outside to get yourself out of the situation making you want to binge

Take a walk, motivate yourself with cigs if needed (unless you're a minor). Or go sit and breathe in a forest or isolated area of a park

Go swimming! Yea in the summer, or in the winter. Ice swimming really helps shock your body out of binging

Exercise and do a workout, there are plenty of beginner friendly ones on for example youtube

learn new things:

Learn a new language, make the duolingo bird proud

Learn the alphabet in morse code! Or ASL!

Do your homework if you have any

Play with google translate and learn random phrases in random languages, or try to see what hilarious sentences you can come up with by translating several times

games and miscellaneous:

Play a video game, solitaire and firegirl and waterboy are my faves that are free through google, but find some you enjoy

Word searches! Or crosswords, or sudokus if that’s what you’re into, there are plenty online

Come up with your own list of 50 things to do instead of binging!! making your own list with things personal to you will help better

[thequeenofthedisneyverse]

Finally! Meet my spidersona, SPIDERBEAT!

Here's Omari without the skirt

(Click for better quality)

Moodboard:

As always, feel free to ask questions about him. Likes, comments, reblogs are always appreciated! And yes, you can draw them if you wish

Special thanks to @cherryvampiro for the tutorial and for giving me anough inspiration/confidence to finally draw her!

P.S Omari was originally going to be a girl, but then I wanted her to be a boy, then I thought...why not both?

I'll be adding more to this post (or I might do separate posts) so stay tuned!

Text (In case it was hard to see):

Omari Jewel Octavious is from earth 222A is Spiderbeats - A beat dropping, bars spitting, melodic singing, dress making, y2k sensation.

She's super optimistic and friendly, maybe a little sassy and snarky. Just think Poppy from trolls, Charlotte from princess and the frog, Veruca from Willy Wonka, Darla Dimple from "Cat's don't dance", and Bugs bunny. 

 Omari also has the ability to sing in two different tones, masculine and feminine. He started practicing at nine just for fun and now he uses his two different voices for singing and rapping. She also uses these tones whenever he is feeling masc or fem. 

Omari's parents are Olivia Octavious and Maxwell Dillon. Olivia is a scientist and Maxwell own's an Electric company. Omari also has an older brother named Marcus (19) who is studying to be a lawyer, and two younger twin siblings, Olivia (girl) and Micha (boy), who are both eight.

Right before omari was about to perform on stage he got bitten by a radioactive Orb Weaver Spider. (A CIA experiment lab was training spiders to act based on certain sounds. Over time, with a little biological adjusting, they started making webs that created music. Each strand had a different note attached to it and the spider would make sounds similar to songs they would hear the scientists play.) 

What makes him different?

The spider venom caused his brain  to change how he hears things. Giving him a version of MES “Musical ear syndrome” if you will. His brain now creates music in various ways and types.

When it comes to people he knows like family or friends she’ll hear their “theme song”. Basically just sounds/beats his mind makes up corresponding to the person's vibe. But the theme songs are always the same when it comes to a specific person, never changing. 

The theme songs are at a low velocity in the back of her mind like how we hear music in our brains but just a smidge louder. Villains also have a theme song of their own in her brain. But they are very loud, almost overwhelming (it works as a constant spidey-sense until the battle is over). The reason for this is because he’s going through an intense and frustrating moment so the music will be intense and frustrating in his mind. 

He can still hear regular music and even change it to her liking. She can add lyrics, switch lyrics to different songs, switch beats as well as even add and control different instruments. He can even speed it up or slow it down. 

She can make it stop but only if he manages to calm down and focus. Or if that doesn't work she'll use her headset. 

Why the headset?

Sometimes the noise becomes too much for him so the headphones are just noise cancellers. But they can also be used to drown out other noise so his spidey senses are the only thing she can hear/focus on. 

[pepperpepi]

Hey! I wanted to start off saying that your art style is a huuugeee inspiration and that I always try to learn from your osc art.

That said I have a few questions as I’m struggling to draw objects myself and I can’t figure out why :’)

What digital drawing app do you use? And with what brushes?

Whats a good tip you can give me to improve other than trial and error?

It has been quite frustrating-

Thank you >3<

Heyyy!! thank you so much!! :D For me, I use Clip Studio Paint! Although, you can use any program for drawing, as I sometimes like to switch it up in times of art block or burnout For brushes, I usually like having the most control over my art so I always pick out circular/square brushes that don't have any blending or transparency!! Basically opaque and solid as can be. I AM trying to switch it up a little but that's my main choices! It helps with making things more clean and sharp IMO

you should practice drawing 3D shapes if you're trying to learn how to draw objects. I'd DEFINITELY say if you're struggling with where to start on that point, don't be afraid to look up tutorials and references!!

If you're struggling with a complicated shape, I recommend breaking objects into shapes so you can better understand them more. For example, if I wanted to draw lightbulb, I'd have to break it into pieces

with limbs you can always look at how other artists draw them or look at object show screenshots for reference! pay attention to where exactly they're placed, how long they are, etc.

Personally for improvement, you always gotta get out of your comfort zone and try things you haven't before. For example, if you're not used to drawing certain objects, spend a hot minute practicing and looking at references of that object until you get it right/semi-right! I also like to look up specific tutorials on Pinterest if i just CAN'T get something right

also drawing everyday is important! although, if you draw the SAME thing everyday, you probably won't see much improvement. you gotta draw new things! don't be afraid to experiment or try different things

another thing!! DONT BE AFRAID TO LOOK AT REFERENCES!!! REFERENCES ARE GREAT!!!

anyway UHH don't take this as like a professional thing though this is just a few things I can think of at the top of my head

[demaparbat-hp]

hi dema! i’m learning how to do digital art, would you mind sharing your coloring process? coloring (and lineart) is the hardest thing for me to do T_T… what brushes do you use for coloring and how do you not make it look muddy? i’ve been trying to follow tutorials from different artists on youtube but i find my work to look so muddy… thank u in advance >__<

Hi, and thank you for thinking about me for advice! I'm honoured to share a bit of my process, nerve-wracking as that is for my shy self, and hopefully help you out as much as I can. Forgive me if I don't express myself very clearly—I have a bit of a hard time explaining these things. Now, let's get started, shall we?

I'll be using the first panel of this artwork as an example.

My process is pretty straight-forward for most artworks. Make a sketch, draw the lineart, and follow a self-made guideline for coloring and rendering.

Sometimes I'll throw the guideline to the trash bin and start experimenting with brushes and chiaroscuro and color palettes, but that doesn't happen most of the time and, when it does, it's more a challenge than anything else, and not really what I think you're looking for.

I'll include my usual steps here, however, and like I said earlier, these steps are more like what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.

(I just realized I didn't save the sketch for this artwork. Oops)

This is the lineart!

I tend to think that details bore me and are actually pretty exhausting to do, but then I go and make things as clear and detailed as I can. Because I'm a hypocrite like that.

I did try to keep things simple here, though, mostly because I had to go through three other panels and didn't want to burn out my fuel mid-process.

Base colors! The blush (and Zuko's scar!) I draw in a different layer in case I need adjusting the brightness or saturation later.

It's time for shadows!

Pick a color depending on the atmosphere you want the artwork to have. Is it a cozy, warm scene in a honey-tinted room, or is it a moment shared under the moonlight? The color choice should come as an answer to those questions—deep red for the first one and dark blue for the second.

Choose a color and make it dark and saturated. Then, play with the layer opacity! A darker shadow means harsher light, while less opacity works best for a softer look. See the difference? It's subtle, but it's there.

Of course, this is my personal choice. The way shadows are drawn and color is chosen depends on the artist and the artwork. I choose to play with a more simple coloring style, keeping shadows from blending into each other, but you may like a more realistic approach to shadows and colors.

My best advice? Try doing it every way you can, but in the end choose what works best for you. Whatever feels more comfortable, whatever you enjoy drawing the most. And then work to improve it. Love the little proof that you've gotten better, even if it's subtle.

And talking about subtlety...

I love to play with gradients. I use them mostly to give the artwork some form of atmosphere, and make it look cohesive and whole. A light gradient in the color and direction of the shadows will help the characters blend with the background, as will another gradient in lighter colors for the light.

Get creative with gradients! Use them so the lights feel brighter and the shadows darker.

Now it's time to work with the lineart again.

The pure black lineart makes the artwork look harsher, sharper, so I tend to give it some color to soften its edges and compliment the rest of the drawing. In darker shades as the rest of the colors, growing more saturated as the light comes closer.

I love to make the characters' eyes pop and glow! It's really fun what you can do by just messing a bit with the tones of the lineart.

Finally, I play with the level correction. A high contrast will help your artwork stand out and look brighter. See the difference?

And it's done!

Sometimes I like to add other effects or details, but this is the very, very rough shape of my usual process, and thus what I thought you'd like to see.

Once again, I'd like to point out that this is what works for me, and a large part of improving as an artist is just fooling around and messing up until you find the tools and tricks you're most comfortable with.

So keep drawing those muddy shadows and colors! They're only a step of the process.

[constarlations]

I wanted to ramble a bit about Ethan and Dawn as well as their whereabouts in the future but I get too scared to do it on Twitter due to the size of my account (It’s why I made my side sketch account but that account as well gets too traction for my liking so I decided to ramble my heart out here in a private space where my two friends can’t judge me for my trash) 

A bit of a warning: I’m very much a fanatic when it comes to the intricacies of Pokemon game lore as well as a stickler for the Pokemon timeline BUT I also like to interpret the games in my own way to interpret stuff with my own logic

((for example I see Hilbert and Hilda as 15 in BW rather than 14 (how they are referenced to be in Bulbapedia) or 16 (how they were originally designed to be) solely due to my own experiences of growing up latina and how turning 15 is a huge part of our culture plus the Unovan protags are all Latinos to me))  

I consider my own protag interpretation to be just that, an interpretation. A personal take on the canon like how the Pokemon anime and Pokemon manga are their own takes of the games. It might be wrong to something that happens in canon but that’s ok I’m just a dumbass who’s likes wasting time from studying to ramble about things.

Anyways with that out the way:

In my fictional canon Ethan and Dawn are both the main player character of their respective games. 

In the case of Ethan, however, I decided to give him some traits similar from his NPC appearance in HGSS such as having the Pokémon daycare grandparents.

My Ethan and my Lyra interpretation are actually a mix of their main character and npc counterparts  

Ethan’s mom is specifically the GSC mom as his mom while Lyra’s mom is the HGSS mom

Ethan has a Pichu and Lyra has a Marill. 

Ethan takes on the Lake Of Rage while Lyra does the rocket tower takeover quest. 

I basically divided it so both have main character AND NPC roles in the story but the true npc (catching tutorial npc) would be Kris who went on her journey 2 years prior (yes Kris exists in this story too as Lyra’s older sister and as Elm’s assistant) 

For Dawn however I solely see her as the protagonist of DPPt (sometimes I see her as the protagonist of PLA as well btw but decided early on to hand that role off to Lucas (his NPC version) because collecting Pokémon fit well with his theme of becoming a professor and researching Pokémon in the future) 

I usually draw all the protags loosely as teenagers but in the context of this specific story pre-timeskip hbhk are 15〜17 in my eyes.

15 is the age they meet in my interpretation in the PWT (around the time that the events of XY and BW2 are happening). It is also 4 years after their base adventure in DPPt occurred and when PLA takes place.

17 is the age where Ethan and Dawn start officially dating, is also the era when SM-USUM is happening.

The way I have them specifically meet is through the PWT in BW2 (under the champion bracket) when they are 15 and become rivals through that experience and later confess around age 17 so that’s the specific time period I usually draw them in (BW2-SM era).

The best way I could describe my version of HibiHika in terms of their dynamic is that I see them differently from their Pokémon masters counterparts so please allow me to explain.

The way I see Dawn in my interpretation is as a very refined, polite and mature young woman who’s very strict and hardworking. Despite her refined/strict aura, she can be sometimes brash or melodramatic at times but mostly keeps a level head. She often times comes out of her shell when a matter about something she’s passionate about comes up. She’s sorta a tsundere? But I’m unsure if that’s the most accurate term for it. Regardless she sometimes has difficulty getting along with others due to her intimidating nature but deep down she’s a sweetheart who wants to make friends. She’s extremely close with Barry cause he’s one of the only kids in her preschool class who kept dragging her places and reaching out to her as well as Lucas, her cousin.

When making my version of her when I was a teenager I sorta drew inspiration from characters like Dia Kurosawa from Love Live Sunshine as well as her Pokespe counterpart, Platina. I also drew some inspo from early Komi San as well (the aspect that everyone is intimidated by her at first glance).

In the hibihika story after the PWT arc, Lyra becomes one of Dawn’s first female friends outside of the gym leaders and Caitlin (who moved to Unova) and Lyra drags her out of her shell to places and the whole exchange is sweet.

The way she interacts with Ethan was first due to a small admiration due to seeing him on TV in the Lake of Rage report as the boy who calmed down Gyarados before her journey starts in Pt, then next it was due to hatred of meeting her idol meaning he was not what she thought he seemed (I’ll get to that in a second) but then afterwards they became proper rivals in the PWT and then kept in contact, eventually dating some time after.

(I actually have a AU of my stupid hc where they are pen pals as well during the whole PWT exchange so it’s like they know each other but don’t it’s really silly lol I’ll talk about it later or edit this later lol but in that au teen Ethan isn’t as toxic as I’ll describe now so ye)

For the Ethan side of things, Ethan is very laid back and amiable. He gets along easily with other people and is loyal to the people on his side. He is very selfless often putting others even his region before himself and has a slightly narcissistic side to him that feeds into the praise he gets lmfao. He’s flirty sometimes and very quick witted but overall. He loves Pokémon battling for the fun of it rather than chasing any fame or fortune.

but he wasn’t always this way (extremely bad fanfic territory incoming you can skip this if you want)

Ethan, upon defeating Red, begins to develop a massive ego as a teenager and gets mixed up with the wrong crowd who only likes him for his title and being the people pleaser he is he fed into that negativity and overall ruined his self esteem in the process cause he tied his self worth into his champion ranking rather than having fun in battles like he used to. He was lost in that spiral for the longest time that it made his closest friends like Lyra and Silver separate from him.

This is where the PWT would take place 4 years after their original adventure where Ethan, in the height of his toxicity, doesn’t put effort in training anymore cause he “always wins” and Dawn, disgusted with what her idol became sorta swept the floor and coldly admitted how unfun that battle was.

It’s sorta with this PWT battle, hundreds of miles away from home, that Ethan wakes up and goes what the hell am I doing with myself after seeing a news interview he did prebattle like after the battle. He calls his mom for the first time in ages and Silver and Lyra as well and goes back home and sorta detaches himself from the fame and fortune of being a champion and goes back to the basics. Keep in mind he does this change in his own will not for Dawn and doesn’t expect her to meet her again until a few months later they do meet again whoops but Ethan sorta apologizes for the way he acted and asks for another battle and Dawn accepts and even tho in this battle he lost again they both admit it was a lot funner than the last one and after a few more encounters sorta keep in touch bringing in a sorta friendly rivalry between the two. Despite Ethan completely changing his whole outlook there are some things that don’t change (Himmelism) but he is overall a sweetheart he just lost his way during his teenage years and needed someone to smack it into him before the damage was too done.

Once again this dumb ass fanfic isn’t necessary for hbhk stuff since I draw them as a couple anyways after Ethan’s asshole phase but I like exploring flirty characters with more to them in media so I accidentally made Ethan that lol.

Anyways would you believe me if I told you I based off his personality off of Sylvain. Lmfao. I love Sylvain he’s such a complex character sorry not sorry BUT mostly based him off of Himmel in terms of personality and how I draw him. I also based his asshole teenage phase from Gold Pokespe cause I thought that was the coolest shit as a kid but it has sorta changed over the years and I wanna separate Ethan from Gold Pokespe and Gold Pokespe fans as much as possible, especially after really liking his NPC self when playing HGSS myself as a teenager and feel not a lot of people sorta portray that and I wanna portray that.

So my Ethan is essentially both a mix of his npc self and some elements from Gold like his flirty outgoing loud personality so like my art style he’s sometimes inconsistent as hell but that’s ok that’s the hell I signed up for when I made up personalities but don’t write them down cause I’m too scared for being judged that my characters are inconsistent as hell 💔

maybe like when I wake up later I cringe reading myself this lol

I have more to write in regards to their dynamic with one another but I’m sleepy as hell

ANYWAYS TIMESKIP LITTLE RAMBLE AAAAA:

The Timeskip series, however, occurs 5+ years after the events of Alola so I have them as 22 (though I keep aging them up every year as I get older due to self indulgence so I draw them as 25 (cause in my head they were born in 1999) but they are specifically 22 for the sake of my story in Sinnoh 11 years later). 

In the timeskip series, Dawn is the champion of Sinnoh and a famous Pokémon Coordinator. She follows in Cynthia’s footsteps to become a champion that makes her region proud but due to her strict demeanor she comes off as scary to those not familiar with her.

Ethan is the Champion of Johto as well as the promotional face of the Pokeathlon! Lyra and Silver help out in the indigo league as well but I’m uncertain if to make Silver an elite four member or make him champion. Lyra is definitely the champion tho along side Ethan but handles more of the Kanto side of the region while Ethan handles Johto.  i have more to write so I’ll edit this later with all the lore but I’m worried there’s a tumblr word limit lol so ye