#orthographics

[shoomlah]

how do you consistently draw the same character without it looking weird or off every different time?? also how do i coordinate faces, i always make the eyes too far apart or too big or too small or make the mouth too close to the nose or chin edge. If you have any advice I'd really appreciate it since it looks like you have your art shit figured out 🙏

Oh man SO so much of it is just practice, and you're not alone! I honestly think everyone struggles with a sort of "generification" of their characters' features the more they draw them, even seasoned professionals. There's a tendency to just sort of average everything out into an unrecognizable mush over time, and it takes a lot of conscious effort to push back against that.

Here are a couple tips and tricks that I've found to be helpful over the years:

Make turnarounds and model sheets. There's a reason animation/game studios do this, and it is because we are all still bad at drawing a consistent face. Despite being gainfully employed. What are we, graphic novelists?? We wish. Anyway it's a great way to familiarize yourself with your character's face from multiple angles, and it gives you a single source of truth to return to anytime you need a refresher:

Gather real-life reference. Anytime I'm designing a character I'm pulling together a ton of reference of actual people who look, to some degree, like the character in my head. It's always a collection of analogues, never just a single person, but it can be a great cheat sheet for understanding how your character might move, emote, etc:

Make a 3D model. I know it seems daunting, but with the advent of programs like Blender and Nomad Sculpt it's becoming remarkably more accessible. Heck, even James Gurney was sculpting maquettes out of clay for Dinotopia back in the day! It doesn't have to be particularly detailed—just a sort of proportionate lump will do—but it's another great way to have dynamic reference that you can rotate and light accordingly:

Practice, practice, practice. Make expression sheets for your character! Either right there on the spot, just start drawin' expressions, or you can slowly collect drawings of your character that you like, as you draw them, and compile them all in one place for your own reference. Need to draw your character's head from a weird angle? Maybe you've already drawn it before and you can copy your own homework! Doesn't count as stealing when the call's coming from inside the house ��

I'd love to pretend there's a magical point where you can just immediately rotate your character's head in your brain like some sort of photorealistic apple in a twitter meme, but a lot of the time it's reference, hard work, and whole lotta repetition. 😐👍🏼

[208tinyhorses]

Most english orthographic reforms fail because they're trying to make the language better when they should be making it worse. In pursuit of that idea, starting in fall 2024 we're adding six new letters to make reading harder.

1. Reverse P

Completing the b-d-p rotational cycle and causing confusing with g and q (the hook on the q is now mandatory).

2. Lower i

Uppercase is a lowercase i and lowercase is an even lower i.

3. Left bracket

For it's hard work over the years, [ is being promoted to the alphabet proper. Lower case is a reverse h. Fuck right bracket.

4. Long M

Just like a regular M but two of the legs keep going. Long M is a vowel in all cases that Y isn't.

5. Reverse X

Like X but in reverse. To tell the difference we're adding these little curls to X, so regular X now looks like this

6. Reverse F

Uppercase is a reverse F, lowercase is an upside down v. Fuck you is why.

[cy-lindric]

Two little paintings : The Witch of the West-Mer-Lands, and the Twa Sisters

[achillesuwu]

Neil Gaiman needs to (never) stop writing flashback that are so lovely done and with such deep. It’s ruining me for all the other very lame flashback I’m used to see. Like. These are literally my favorite part of these show. I like them MORE than the rest.

Also the lovely songs that goes with these 😩

Under the Milky Way tonight 🎶

[schrano]

Fanart of Siffrin from @cinnamin-is-a-star's Villain Siffrin AU fanfiction To Extend our Reach to the Stars Above Chapter 2.

[artsandstoriesandstuff]

@geuretea Your mentioning of a Murray plush gave me the idea to model this guy! Even though it looks more like a mini version than a plush lol

I should model Lola too...

[aomorikat]

Finished Ezreal's Heartsteel bedroom!

[siena-sevenwits]

It has just come to my attention that I spell "defense" the American way.

Now as a Canadian, my culture is that the British way is preferred and more Canadian in a theoretical sense, but the American way is not incorrect, and many Canadians use it, and it really comes down to personal preference.

But I am horrified that I have this one spelling inconsistency when everything else (to the best of my knowledge) follows standard British spelling.

... And what if it's not the only aberration? What if I am spelling other words the American way and don't know it!?

[joeycbang]

I took a four week intensive on Scientific Illustration over the summer, and these are what I consider my best work. It was a very interesting experience and I don't think I've learned so much in that short of a period before.

Specimens:

Thylacine Thylacinus cynocephalus: Copy of WAM 13.2.16

Red Kangaroo Osphranter rufus: FUR 272

Euowenia grata: FU 2671

References:

Camens, A. and Wells, R. (2009) ‘Diprotodontid footprints from the Pliocene of Central Australia’, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 29(3), pp. 863–869. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1671/039.029.0316.

Camens, A.B. and Wells, R.T. (2010) ‘Palaeobiology of Euowenia grata (Marsupialia: Diprotodontinae) and its Presence in Northern South Australia’, Journal of Mammalian Evolution, 17(1), pp. 3–19. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-009-9121-2.

[elkement]

Finally making time for working on my backlog of digital art not yet uploaded to any galleries!

Three Four Five is now available on INPRNT (who still / again(?) seem to have a sale).

A three-dimensional Lissajous figure described by sin(3t)/sin(4t)/sin(5t) - highlighting its 2D projections.

It was fun to create something digitally, that I first did traditionally using ruler and compass!

Code art:

Initial traditional drawing:

Drawing (pencils, watercolor pencils, markers, gel pens) - using techniques of descriptive geometry.

Lower frequencies though, less intersection points - 234 instead of 345.

Showing two kinds of projections: The ones living in 3D, on the co-ordinate planes (just as in the digital artwork, blueish / greenish) and the ones in their "true size" (yellowish) that I actually used for the construction - creating the axonometric projection (purple) from the yellowish ones.

[nofacednerd]

in honor of MAWSM coming back tomorrow, here's some Clark's I had to animate for class this semester :)

[shoomlah]

Hey Claire! I was wondering if you had any tips, tricks or general advice for how the heck to do turn arounds? They're the bane of my existence (I just can't rotate features in my head for some reason) and I don't know if it's a good or bad idea to make a 3D model to help without having turns as references.

I answered an ask about this topic early last year, but YES totally a good idea to make a 3D model to help yourself out! So much of learning how to rotate a character in space comes from practice, and practice comes from studying how things actually rotate in space, and making a reference model is a fantastic way to jumpstart that process. Also super helpful for lighting reference as well! 👍🏼

[gncbozo]

[temiree]

I did this as a favor for a friend! I did the side view first, added lines for checkmarks in the design (like the tip of the nose), and then drew the front view. He's going to be turned into a model in a 3D program!

[je-suis-ronflex]

Je suis le genre de prof à me moquer des élèves qui galèrent à écrire des mots évidents mais en même temps j'ai dû vérifier le nombre de M dans le verbe amener..

[arishnea]

Nohrian Throne orthographic drawing or fake concept art that was used as a reference by 3D artist Danni Martin