#omg this layout was so fun to draw I think I’m going to redraw my DL Chris this way HEHEEE

[onegroovyrose]

Going back to my roots! 😋✌️🌳

[paponela]

Etching process pt.1: sketching

hiii!!!! so!! as i’ve said i’m beginning a big etching project right now and i thought it would be cool to show a little bit of how i approach it simply because i love sharing my stuff online but in this instance i can’t anywhere else because it’s a secret gift for a friend!!!!! and also because as we’ve established with the etching fic i am a nerd about it lol

 so!!! a bit of the process under the cut!!!! including lots of pics and lots of rambling

okay so first things first. a decade old friend moved to a different country a couple of months ago, and right before he did we traveled together to say goodbye. i obviously miss him very much, so i wanted to gift him something nice. at first i was going to draw him some landscapes and that was it, but this week i thought wait a minute.. what if... i made an etching COMIC!!

and i thought this because when you print something you made in copper it leaves a very distinct volume on the paper that i though would look great as a comic panel, check it out:

but the problem is. copper is extremely expensive. and since im making a comic i’ll be cutting it in extremely specific sizes that are very, very prone to leave a bunch of waste behind. i usually sketch something on my sketchbook before i draw on the copper and call it a day, but this time specifically i wanted

to be extra sure of what i was doing

heavily trace pictures of the trip

have a cool digital illustration just in case something goes wrong with the etching

so i ended up playing around with the pics me and my friends took and ended up with a 6 panels A3 layout that looks like this:

(back reveal omg hi!!!!!)

as you can see some pics were just fine by themselves, but i meshed some things up to look better, and the first panel looked weird no matter what i did, so i took a pic in my room this week and photoshoped it on top of something else to represent the one hundred hours we spent snorkeling - which obviously i have no pics of lol - it worked just fine i think!!!!

but anyway. since we’ve established that i also wanted a digital illustration in this specific instance, i set the brush to a very, very small size (2px) and just... hatched the hell out of the pics. usually when i do my sketches digitally i print multiple copies throughout the process so i don’t waste time drawing things that won’t show up, but this time i just wanted to have some fun!!! not only would i have a cool drawing by the end but it’s always nice to like. test out how to draw something before you actually spend a lot of money to draw in on copper hgdkjhgfd the end result looks like this:

and the printed version looks like this, with my hand for scale:

while everything looks fine on the screen, the second and third panel have waaaay too much detail for them to really work on print, so im doing a simpler redraw some time later so they fit better with everything else. but for now that’s it!!! im taking the printed version with me to my uni next monday and i’ll begin the actual etching, and when i have one of them ready i’ll come back with part two and show how you both etch and print an individual panel!! i’ve never printed multiple plates at once, so obviously there will be a lot of testing around about that specifically lol. wish me luck!!! you’ll hear more from me soon ;)

[inotanzen]

hiii! i really admire your art skills. and the fact that you improved so much in just 6 months is inspiring! do you have any tips on how to improve? i'm 26 and i want to improve but i feel like ive neglected my art for so long and now it's too late. :(

THANK YOU SO SO MUCH OMG ?? oh man i’m so bad with feeling and gratitude but this seriously means more than i can express so i worked really, really hard on narrowing down my best tips! so here’s

Eli’s Top 5 Rules To Be a Totally Cool Awesome Badass Artist In As Long As It’s Going To Take (In Order) :

Most important rule of all is it should be FUN. be disgustingly self indulgent, draw what you want and LOVE, not what you think you should or what everyone else is, or how everyone else is! don’t vibe with doing sketches first? hate lining? despise complicated painting styles? find shortcuts, don’t do them!!! if you’re doing digital maybe draw your sketches traditionally first and scan them/take a photo to draw over, try a lineless style, cel shading, or mixing mediums, the options are endless! this is where your “style” will come from. all “style” is, is an artists shorthand.

You are your only competition. never compare your progress to anyone but your past self, it’s not a race in terms of how good you are at X age after X amount of time spent practicing. i saw it illustrated in this comic a few years ago (that made me cry at the time, because i hadn’t started drawing yet) as seeing your skills as a beautiful potted plant- just because some people are walking around with theirs fully grown and thriving, doesn’t mean your little sprout will stay small forever. just be patient, keep watering it, and eventually, it’ll be a beautiful flower all your own. ❀

Use references Obsessively. this includes tracing! (ethically) there’s a ton of resources out there, redraws of frames from movie or shows are great too! play around with it, try using the perspective but change the style or turn it into a character au for a fandom you love. (this is part of that first tip!) mashing together images past the point of original intelligibility is acceptable as well. the goal isn’t to obsess over accuracy or stop using references altogether though, just to use them differently over time.

Inspiration/motivation won’t be gone forever. don’t force yourself to practice drawing, or you’ll end up resenting it altogether. i’ve had my tablet and pencil since january but i say 6 months bc there were two (almost three) entire months where i had no inspiration and just did Nothing. take time to consume new media for ideas or look at what inspires you instead! keep folders of the things you find most appealing to pull up when you need them. art can be a freeing escape if you allow it to be!

Look at art you admire and think about Why you admire it. why does it look good, what catches your eye most? is it the colors? the lighting? the shapes and perspective? the varied line thicknesses or the overall layout composition? everything can be broken down into components, hone in on the ones you like most and try to emulate them. we’re all just flowing down the stream of shared inspiration together. :)

bonus digital art tip: you will always need more layers than you think you do. give each element its own layer like it’s the most introverted mf you’ve ever met, i swear on everything good in this cursed world you will thank me later. layer/item selection and transform are your best goddamn friends for life.

there’s also a lot of art related posts in this tag and on my art twitter ♡ thank you endlessly again and good luck on your journey!!