#same old art different angle

[seanchaidh7]

Henry & Alex ❤️

[prinzunderground]

work in my mines boy

[djevelbl]

cOMING IN LATE BUT COMING IN STRONG LET'S GO DOUBLE POST

A drawing a day with word prompts for the month of October!

[ckret2]

So a while ago some friends were talking about fans who claim the Same Coin theory is canon. And I made the mistake of saying:

Do you know who also has tons in common with Bill? Mabel. Yet nobody claims Bill reincarnated as Mabel. …wait now I want a "same coin but it's Mabel" AU. Funniest Bill reincarnation option. The all-seeing arsonist is making macaroni glitter art. The omnipotent tyrant is crying because a unicorn called her a bad person.

And then I overthought it for two months.

So—AU where after death, Bill's soul shoots 13 years into the past and reincarnates as Mabel. I'll call it ✨ Sparkly Coin AU ✨

Don't leave yet. Lemme show you why it works. Behold the eerie amount of parallels in their personalities, dialogue, behavior, mannerisms, tastes...

I could have kept going but my attention span ran out. All right, we all on board now? Convinced we could segue from one personality into the other? Great. Now here's why you should be interested: the juicy post-Weirdmageddon angst potential.

As long as a small fringe of the fandom still thinks Weirdmageddon is Mabel's fault, why not amp that up x100 and have some fun with it?

Is everyone sold now? Great. Let's get into the details. I've got 8 more pieces of art under the read more.

So the AU starts the instant Bill dies. Thanks to invoking his deal with the Axolotl—one way to absolve his crime, a different form, a different time—the Axolotl gives him a new shape and shoots him thirteen years into the past. Apparently, the Axolotl thought it would be very funny to stick Bill in the family that defeated him.

Which probably made for a jarring transition.

(It's fine, she's like 10 minutes old, she probably can't even tell who she's looking at. Not being able to tell who she was looking at is what got her into this situation ayyyy)

When Dipper & Mabel come back from Gravity Falls complaining about this triangular jerk Bill, their parents mention that Dipper's name was nearly Bill. See, after they knew they were going to have a boy, one night their mom dreamed about a visitor—some kind of magic pink salamander??—calling her child "BILL." Then at the next sonogram they found out they were having twins, the girl must've been hidden at a weird angle the first time, and they wanted matching names, so they thought, Bill and Bell. But they didn't really like Bell; but eventually they stumbled on Mabel, so to keep the names matching they switched from Bill to Mason. Isn't that the darnedest thing?

(Of course, Mabel and Dipper assume Bill harassed their parents to try to trick them into naming a kid after him. To be a jerk.)

When Bill meets Mabel, he's unaware that she's his future self—Bill's notably bad at doing things like, say, double-checking to see whether he's going to die anytime soon—but like... he can tell something's up.

Naturally, before visiting Gravity Falls, there were echoes of who Mabel used to be—but nothing anyone would be able to identify without context. All her Bill-ish quirks either smoothed out with time (see: how between second grade and fourth grade Mabel went from being the "freak" to the popular girl in class), or else they were accepted by her family as Mabel-ish quirks.

After they meet (and kill) Bill, they have the context to understand some of Mabel's behaviors... and unfortunately, some of Mabel's latent Bill-ness starts surfacing after she's been directly exposed to her prior incarnation.

The part of the Pines family familiar with Bill thinks the worst case scenario is that maybe Bill's survived and is slowly possessing Mabel; but far more likely, they think this is just some weird way of trying to subconsciously process last summer. Mabel doesn't think she's being weird, you guys are being weird, stop giving her weird looks. They get attacked by one triangle and now she can't wear yellow or pick up macrame as a hobby??

(It's not all red flags and uncomfortable triangle imagery, though. When Stan asks her what she'd like as a gift for some important event, she shyly admits that she thinks she's starting to outgrow her plastic gem jewelry and maybe she's old enough to get her first piece of real gold jewelry, if that's not too expensive? And Stan's never been so proud of her. Thirteen years old and already thinking about buying gold!)

But of course, the real fun starts when Mabel finds out.

That's the face of a girl who's just discovered that she tortured her great uncle. Now imagine running into the brother she possessed.

But I've already spent a million words and thirteen images on this post. If enough folks are interested in the AU maybe I'll expand on it later. Let me know what y'all think.

[wickworks]

Lancer Tactics dialogue layout crisis of faith

(from this month's backer update)

Every so often, I'll run into something in development that eats away at me until it pushes me to a crisis of faith and I have a breakdown, burn down a bunch of work, and build something better from the ashes. These are moments of transformation and we're almost always able to come out the other side with something much better than what we started with.

This all sounds very dramatic until you take a step back and see the issue in question is just, like, the layout of a menu. But if medieval priests were able to have schisms over angels on pins I can have strong feelings about graphic design, dammit!

This month's episode revolved around how we're doing character dialogue. For reference the plan was to do a standard 4-slot visual-novel talking heads layout. I call it a 4-slot because there's usually four positions that characters can stand; two on the left, two on the right:

I had it ingame, and it was working. But... something felt off. Do you see the difference between every one of the above examples and this?

It's all about perspective, baby.

Answer: all the character art in those examples are drawn at a slight angle so they can be flipped back and forth to be made like they're looking at each other.

Trying to do this with the perspective we chose early — straight on — makes for a chorus line of weirdos who are looking directly into your soul as they ostensibly chat with each other. Credulity is strained; the illusion of these puppets interacting in the same space is paper-thin.

(I was skeptical of choosing this perspective for this reason, but we ultimately went with it to make the customizable assets in the portrait maker easier to fit together)

We tried a bunch of different layouts, but they all at least one of these problems:

they'd stare into your soul while ostensibly directing comments elsewhere.

they felt like text messages; this would be fine if that's what we were going for, but we wanted something that could represent face-to-face conversations. (Tactical Breach Wizards was able to pull this style off because they had little 3D dioramas to go along with it)

or, most damning of all, they felt like zoom calls.

So, my heart aflutter and spirit in want, I spent a day doing a research dive into various dialogue layouts (bless the Game UI Database!) to see if any other games had managed to pull this character art perspective off. I ended up with this massive non-chronological taxonomic tree:

(fullsize here)

The type of layout that particularly caught my eye was this style where each character had their own little box. These layouts borrow a concept from comic books called "closure" where the space and time between characters are left blank. Freed from the constraints of trying to simulate a single space, these layouts allow the reader to fill in the blanks with something that feels more true-to-life than anything we'd be able to render ourselves.

I was especially impressed with the dynamism of Tales of Symphonia and The World Ends With You; rather than sticking to single slots they would animate the entire panels moving around to indicate motion an relative position of characters.

So we threw out the old code and copied them. Here's what we've come up with:

We'll be able to have portraits interact, like smacking each other (I felt like a kid hitting two action figures together, lol)

We can also apply effects like princess-leia-holograms and full-screen "lighting" effects like warning banners:

Carpenter and I came up with a number of arrangements that the portraits can smoothly transition between:

I've also implemented support for choices during a dialogue, potentially leading to branching paths.

Overall, I feel SO much better about this system than our initial designs. It might feel a little more cartoony, but I think we're making a cartoony game so that's not a problem.

Whew. We bit a lot off to chew with this project. I feel like I just made a second visual novel game engine inside of the first. Fingers crossed that it all ends up worth it.

[heretherebeturtles-comic]

Hello! Many people have said this but ill say it too, I LOVE YOUR COMIC SO MUCH ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

I really wanted to ask you about how you do the backgrounds? (Something i struggle with) whats the process? Like from start to finish, also, to do the rise backgrounds do you use reference from the show and generally real photo of ny? Or do you come up with them? And last question- The shadow and light on the background- Like HOW

i know it’s a lot of questions but i’m just so curious qwq and wanna learn to be better, thank you again in case you read this and respond, in case you don’t, i hope you have a nice day and a wonderful life uwu keep up the great work! (≧◡≦) ♡

Backgrounds are a really broad subject and I'm always a little overwhelmed when asked this question. Just like drawing the human body, backgrounds take time, repetition, and practice!

My answer got a bit long, so it's going under a read more :) but if you digest info better in video format I found this on youtube

It pretty much goes over everything I wanted to say, but in a much better way. I wish I had found it before writing all this out lol

ok, first of all, I'm not a teacher nor was I built to be one of those cool helpful art tutorial people who do a full coloured tutorial filled with illustrations. This is just going to be a messy "how I do backgrounds / environment layouts from start to finish." kinda thing.

... lets start with a sight tangent.

Sketch from Life!!!

If you want to get better at backgrounds I recommend doing some sketching out in the real world!

When I was first getting into doing backgrounds I went to cafes and parks to just sketch the buildings and objects. Sketch rocks, flowers, clumps of grass, garbage cans, bottles, tables, street signs, etc. If you are drawing a tree observe how the trunks twist, how the bark flows, or how the leaves are bunched.

If you can't leave the house the same still applies! Sketch the interiors of your house, the walls, or common objects like chairs and bookshelves. How are objects stacked? items on the floor?

If you aren't comfortable with drawing outside or in public you can take some photos to draw from! They are good for practice and you can use them again as references later. Alternatively you can find pictures online of buildings and objects to sketch as practice.

All spaces have objects in them, it becomes easier to draw those kinds of spaces when you already have spent time observing and sketching them.

ALSO! They don't have to be good sketches! It's just to build out your mental catalogue and strengthen your perception of perspective.

now the actual thing...

BACKGROUNDS

(the pictures used for this are my own. I dug them out of my 2022 folder)

Backgrounds have slightly different rules based on what you are making them for. Videogame Environment Concept Art vs Animation Layouts vs Comic Backgrounds vs Illustration backgrounds.

They all follow the same basics, which I will go over here, but the intention and function of those designs are going to be different. It's all about how you set up the scene and what it's purpose is!

Brainstorming and Thumbnailing

I like to think about a location as though it is a character. An abandoned old house with creaky sagging floorboards is very different from a futuristic space ship with sharp metal floor panels. A gas station has a very different feeling from a library.

I usually start by asking what is this location's story? Why was it built and for what purpose? What kinds of things does this room need to fulfill that purpose? You don’t need solid answers, but its good to be thinking about it while you are working.

Next, sketch some ideas for how this place is going to look. For me, this usually involves drawing the idea from multiple angles and then making lists & small sketches of the objects I think should be filling the space.

Example: The main character of my original work is a Wanderer. They collect a lot of things on their travels, but those items have to be small enough to be easily carried in a backpack. I wanted his room to be in the corner of an attic, walled off by curtains, and filled with trinkets. You can see some of my brainstorming above.

References

I only look for references after I've done some sketching and planning; this is to solidify my idea first so that I don't accidentally copy anyone else's work. I will make a moodboard with pictures of lighting, colours, items, rooms with specific ceiling beams, old chairs, etc. basically whatever I feel fits the vibe.

Honestly, I don't use references as much as I should. For ROTTMNT fanart I look at backgrounds and screenshots from the series to study the style. I also reference actual photos of NYC to get a feel for how Rise condenses the visual information.

In general, it's good to have references of real life objects/locations, because there are so many details like cracks in pavement, stickers on polls, crowning on buildings, fancy fencing, weird chair legs, etc. that you might not think of. It's the imperfect details that can make a location feel more alive.

Perspective

Once you have your chosen sketch we move to.... the infamous perspective boxes. Doing backgrounds is just learning to be comfortable drawing So Many boxes and carving items out of them.

Many better artists than myself have made videos on perspective, vanishing points, and all the technical bits. Videos like THIS ONE and THIS ONE are helpful (this post is great too!!). There are probably a lot of classes to be found on Skillshare or Schoolism. I learned a lot of this in my college art course, so I can't give you a specific video which helped me.

You can get by and be a good artist without learning this stuff. There are quite a few successful artists who have admitted they never bothered to learn perspective (one of these people even made a whole graphic novel series).

I personally avoided properly learning this stuff until I was in my 20s because I thought it would be boring and difficult to do. tbh I really wish I had learned it earlier because it's so much fun to make those silly little boxes imo. It looks scary and complicated but, just like drawing humans, it just takes time, repetition, and practice to develop the knowledge and skills.

Cleanup

You have your boxes and lines! Cool! Now to make a scene out of it. Fill in the details, get everything placed were you want it! Generally, the lines of each item will point back towards the horizon line, but they can have different perspective points.

Generally you would want to clean it up and get your room completely sketched before doing the lineart. I tend to combine the steps (not recommended)

Lineart

I've mentioned how I do this before. Closer objects have thicker lines and more detailed inside. Further objects have thinner lines and less detail. I didn't quite achieve that balance with the image below, but it's close enough.

Colours and Shading will have to be a separate post. In the meantime, I highly recommend the book "Color and Light" by James Gurney. I used to borrow it from my local library and a good chunk of my knowledge was learned from it :)

[slickskullshock]

a list of random art tips i’ve learned over a long time

The elbows are near the same height at the belly button

the hands go about 1/3 of the way down the thigh

add fewer folds in clothes than you think you need

The colors of shadows look different depending on what color your light source is

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARD LINES AND HARD SHADOWS

if you don’t like doing highlights digitally in procreate, add a black layer over the whole drawing, then click the little N of the layer and scroll down to Color Dodge. pick a color for your highlights and draw. Use a soft airbrush to create glow, use a harder brush to create sharper lines

if something is out of your skill level but you really wanna draw it, get a reference! It’s ok to trace! It will help you get better!

think of objects and people as piles of shapes if you are having trouble with positioning

if you don’t like drawing the other eye: copy and paste, cover it with hair/hat/eye patch/hand/scarf/literally anything you can think of

try new styles! it doesn’t matter if it looks good or not, but now you know what you do/don’t like doing, what you’re good/not good at, and what you want to improve on!

when you’re drawing profile heads: add a little extra length to the back of the head. heads aren’t perfect circles. doing this will make the face, ear, and jawline feel much less cramped.

this is a personal preference, but i like to find old photos from like the 40s and 50s to use as references because people got really wild with how they posed and i find it helps with angles and positioning

heres an exercise i like to do to help with positioning: draw a few pairs of circles, make them at all different angles. then, so back and use those circles as placements for hips and shoulders and draw the first pose that comes to mind. keep it simple, but try to make it natural

(I’ll add more when I think of more)

[ohimsummer]

SATORU, your muse ｡˚✐~

— Satoru eases open the door of the house. You’re not home, so he doesn’t feel the need to make his usual grand entrance. Shoes are left at the door, jacket on the rack, and Satoru makes way to the bedroom. Once inside, something on your nightstand immediately catches his eye.

It’s your sketchbook; a now worn, leather notepad that he’d bought you months ago after the old one was filled. You rarely, if ever, let him see your artwork, so Gojo would usually resort to peeking over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of what you were working on. He always teased you for keeping your art a secret, but now that he has a chance to look at your projects uninterrupted, he hesitates. For a second.

Satoru flips open to the first page. It’s just random doodles of flowers and animals, ones he recognizes from the garden in the park you two frequent. The next page warrants the same mundane results: bugs and trees and the tops of skyscrapers and whatever random things that would grab your interest while you two enjoyed the heat of the sun.

The next page catches Gojo by surprise. It’s a bird, but not just any bird, he realizes. It’s a songbird, one he’d half-heartedly pointed out to you one day because he recalled reading about it online. You weren’t even listening to him, or so he’d thought. It’s kind of endearing actually that you’d take the time to draw it. And it’s not just the bird, either. It’s the macaroons he’d mentioned wanting to get one evening, a bouquet consisting of a flower Gojo’d randomly plucked and presented to you, a familiar pair of sunglasses resting in grass, dabbed over top with faded blue watercolor paint. Numerous doodles of such small memories.

Satoru continues flipping to look at your little illustrated photo album. Some of these drawings are of stuff he barely remembers talking about, like a cracked open piggy bank obviously referencing a story he told you in passing. Gojo doesn’t even remember why he brought it up, but you’ve immortalized it here in your sketchpad with pencils and ink.

The drawings only grow more detailed as he gets deeper into the book, and a proud smile stretches across Satoru’s face at your talent. Rapid sketches of buildings and passerby evolve into self portraits of yourself, and he thinks you look so captivating in all of them. Gojo takes note of the silly doodles of even himself in the margins of the paper. Him in his sunglasses, him wearing the flower crown you’d poorly put together, him surrounded by ice cream and candy and the plethora of sweets he so enjoys. His favorites are the inane drawings of you two together, tiny and inhabiting multiple corners of every page. Each one is a delightful surprise to spot.

Satoru turns the next page, and he’s sincerely taken aback. Drawings of eyes, and they all look alike. They’re so detailed, adorned with pretty lashes and shaded so beautifully. He doesn’t have to wonder long on whose eyes these are, the next page bursting with the color blue tells Gojo all he needs to know. He’s glad you’re not here to see his reddening face and the way his breath hitched. This page, the next few actually, are all dedicated to his eyes. They’re inked perfectly, some are at different angles, and you’ve managed to portray emotion into all of them. Satoru wonders if he could draw a picture of you and showcase the absolute adoration in your eyes the way you’ve done with his.

And it doesn’t stop there. Page after page, it’s all Satoru. Him sleeping with a mushed cheek against your chest, him drinking a soda, him looking out the window, him playing the game with Geto, when did you even draw these?

“Satoru?”

He quickly slams the book shut at your call, carefully placing it back on your nightstand and ushering himself from the room. There you are at the door, shaking the rain from your umbrella and leaving it on the mat near the entrance.

“There you are, love.,” you beam at his approaching figure, and Gojo squishes you in a warm embrace. “How was your day?”

Satoru kisses the crown of your head, and grins against your skin. He can’t wait to tell you all about today, maybe give you some more brilliant ideas to memorialize in your sketchbook.

[mellosdrawings]

I'm feeling like rambling about AI on main, ignore me if it's not your cup of tea.

So a while ago, I did check out those art prompts AI, because when I pester about something, I like to know what I'm rambling about. I like to do a minimum of research and, if possible, try the thing out before making my opinion. For AI art, my opinion was already pretty solid, but I still wanted to check it out.

I found a free prompt stuff online, asked it a super easy prompt, and asked for a handful of different images. Just to see.

The prompt was [character tripping]. Really. Super easy, right? I wanted the thing to have as much liberty as possible.

It's not just that though. I chose this prompt because it is something I did in art school. Our teacher would give us simple prompts, and we would have to draw doodles in 5 minutes or less. Imagine a class of 15 exhausted art students full of caffeine being told to draw someone tripping.

The 15 art students' results? Little boys tripping over tree roots, teenage girls falling while rollskating, business men tripping on their papers and burning themselves with coffee, old ladies cracking a hip, comical falls backwards with a leg up, realistic falls forward with pained expressions, etc etc.

See, our fast doodles weren't any better than AI anatomically speaking. We were missing hands and our faces were distorted and a foot was bigger than another, things that are also common with AI. But the DIVERSITY. I remember being flabbergasted by it. We all had the same prompt, but none of us drew the same thing. I remember drawing the good old banana peel slip from the old comics I read when I was a kid. My best friend drew a kid falling in mud.

We did several prompts like that as training, and I always loved to see what everybody was doing, because it was always so different.

Now, here was the AI result: 5 anime girls in a running position at an angle, making shocked pikachu faces. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. The angle and the running poses were the only things that changed, and even then just slightly.

The AI only did 5 times the same stuff. Art style changed a bit from one to the other, but always the same vibe, always the same composition, and always that godsdamned shocked pikachu face. It was very underwhelming.

I don't care about perfect anatomy and lighting. But I care about creativity. I love seeing things that I would never have thought to do myself. And the AI didn't provide that at all. Coz AI has no creativity whatsoever. If you don't further your prompt to be very specific, it will just reheat the same bland stuff again and again. It's just boring.

I have a lot of grievances about AI. Art theft, environmental blunder, artists being paid even less than they already were (as if people and companies suggesting to pay us in visibility wasn't bad enough). But even on an emotional level there's nothing. Yes, it's great to see one's character/idea brought to life when one cannot draw. But it'll be the blandest stuff ever. That's just a shame.

[villainbait]

Corvid Coeducation

Pairing: Sylus x MC (implied) Rating: G Tags: drabble, crack, fluff, humor, mc as a teacher, third person, 3rd person, painting, playful fighting Summary: MC teaches Mephisto how to paint. Loosely inspired by this image (I know it's a raven in the photo not a crow but it gave me inspo all the same♥). Word Count: ~500

“What are you doing?”

The girl doesn’t look up from the crow she’s currently giving careful instructions to. A small easel meant for a toddler or a small child was set up in Sylus’s bedroom, and a large old towel lay underneath it so paint didn’t stain the floor. 

“I'm teaching Mephisto how to paint.” 

Sylus sounds amused. “Do you know how to paint?” 

“I'll have you know I'm good friends with a…“ Maybe she shouldn’t bring up Rafayel here, but was too late and Sylus latches onto her hesitance. 

“With a what, kitten?” A different face came to mind and she was quick to offer Thomas up without hesitating. “...art curator.” she said quickly, busying herself with helping Mephisto dip his paint brush again. “So that’s a no.” Sylus sounded skeptical and his words dripped with disbelief and disappointment. 

She ignores him.

“Yeah! so I know how to paint–kind of.” She grumbles, before directing the unruly crow back to canvas. Sylus allows the little white lie, a slight smirk playing on his lips. She was getting better at this kind of game, clumsy as she still was at it. He should reward her for that. He crouches next to her, far too close, enjoying the way she fidgeted nervously at his proximity. They both watched as the crow attempted to make a masterful stroke, but all that came of it was a splotchy red blotch instead. 

“Remarkable job. Perhaps I should take lessons from Miss, too.” Sylus comments dryly. The girl shoves at him and they get into a tussle, the painting session forgotten while they grapple. She doesn’t play fair and manages to smudge Sylus’s face with a streak of red paint, her expression momentarily triumphant before he grabs her wrist and jerks her close. The tension is palpable in the air, heavy with anticipation. Sylus leans in, his trembling lips hovering above her own, but is startled by the sudden interruption of an angrily squawking Mephisto from behind him.

He pulls back with a wry smile, admiring how disheveled and flushed the girl looked. His voice is a little rough when he speaks and he clears his throat softly. “Mephisto says we are ruining his creative process.” She can only nod and Sylus crosses his legs in front of the tiny easel meant for a child, tucking her into his lap before she can protest. His hand reaches out to take the brush from the crow, who obediently hops over to offer it. 

“You’re putting too much paint on the brush,” Sylus murmured gently, removing some paint with a towel until only a thin layer remained on the tip. “Like this, see?” His breath flutters next to her ear and she struggles to focus on his instruction. “It will help him control the brush better if it’s not so weighed down with paint.”

He angles the brush between Mephisto’s beak and watches as the crow hops back to the canvas, his strokes more dramatically effective this time. For a while, the process repeats and the girl is content to sit in Sylus’s lap, their co-education producing a fine painting in the end.

Sylus holds it out, admiring it with the critically trained eye of a collector. “I’ll hang it in the hall where guests can see it.” 

The girl can’t bring herself to tease him about it, but she swore Sylus oddly looked like a proud papa.

[cereovo]

A set of very conceptual notes I drafted a while back for someone asking for advice on learning to draw humans. I'm entirely self-taught so this is less of a tutorial and more of a very rambling set of general principles I follow and ideas that helped while I was learning. I figured I'd post it in case anyone else could get use out of it!

I also recommend checking out:

Drawing East Asian Faces by Chuwenjie

How to Think When you Draw (lots of good tutorials in this series)

Pose reference sites such as Adorkastock

Transcript and some elaboration under the cut:

Img 1 - Drawing a face

The two most important elements (at least for me) when drawing a face are the outline of the cheek/jaw and the nose*. I often start with a circle to indicate the round part of the skull, then add a straight like and a 'V' to one side [to create the side of the face and the jaw]. The nose creates an easy template for the rest of the face's features to follow (eyebrows at the top of the nose bridge, eyes towards the center of the bridge, ear lines up to eye) and the placement/direction and overlap with other features is a very simple way to indicate dimension. [A sketch of a face that has been adjusted by moving its parts to create 3 different angles. The following text is underneath:] -Different 3/4th views can be created just by adjusting the position of and amount of overlap between the facial features. - The top of the ear usually lines up with the corner of the eye. Think of how glasses are designed [specifically, how the arms run from the eyeline to the ear] [I go on a tangent in these next few paragraphs] *One thing I see many artists do - not just beginners - is learn how to draw A Person. As in, one singular person with one set of bodily proportions and one set of facial features. It's an issue that runs a bit deeper than 'same face syndrome' because sometimes these artists can draw more than one face, they're just not very representative of [the diversity present across] real people. Part of the reason I'm talking more about how to think about approaches to drawing - rather than showing specific how-to's - is because there is no one correct or right way to draw a person. The sooner you allow yourself to explore variety - fat people, old people, people of color, people with [conventionally] 'unattractive' features - the easier it'll be! Artists often draw their own features honestly and without [harmful] caricature, so it's always a good idea to look at art made by the kinds of people you're trying to draw if you're ever unsure about how to handle something. In general, it's far more important to learn how to interpret a variety of forms than to learn how to replicate the Platonic Ideal of the Human Body.

Img 2 - Stuff that helped me

Jumping into drawing humans (faces or otherwise) straight from photo reference can be overwhelming. The trick is to simplify forms into shapes - but even this concept is sort of abstract and it may be hard to know where to begin. Good news - Thousands of other artists have already figured it out. [When starting out] I needed to learn from photo reference AND artists I admired in order to improve. [When looking at stylization you are inspired by] ask yourself: WHY does this simplification work? How can I translate it into a different pose? Instead of copying what you see in a photo reference exactly, try to focus on the general forms first. My two biggest style inspirations for humans while learning to draw them were Steven Universe and Sabrina Cotugno's art. SU gets a lot of hate [in this instance I was specifically referring to a time on tumblr when the art was knocked for 'losing quality'] but its style does a great job of simplifying anatomy in a way that still portrays a diversity of bodies + features. [Extremely simplified drawings of Lapis, Steven, and Amethyst] SU characters are still identifiable- and still read as 'human' - even when reduced to just a few lines!

Img 3 - Things I keep in mind while drawing side profiles

- Eyebrows + eyes close to the 'edge' of the face - Forehead needs enough room for a brain - Eye is > shaped from the sides - Mouth kinda halfway [between the nose and the chin] but closer to the nose - Skin/fat exists under the jaw [and connects to the neck] - neck is about one half the width of the whole head - the back of the skull always sticks out a bit further than you might expect - Sometimes less is more - contours exist on every face, but drawing them in may make your character seem much older than they're supposed to be. However, it's a good idea to use them when you *want* your character to look old! These are very general notes- every face is different and has different proportions [and playing around with them creates unique and interesting character designs]

[swampgallows]

i know 'video game lady sameface' is not a new gripe by any means but i cant get over how blatant it is on this war within promo art. for anyone not familiar with warcraft this looks like the 'i can be yuor angle or yuor devil' meme of the same character and it's not. i also love that they couldn't actually overlap the faces here because it would otherwise be giving warcraft 3 arthas implying they are the same person (which, again, they are not, not even in a 4d chess conspiracy theory way; if anything xal'atath designed herself after the npc inanis, chronicler of whispers, rather than alleria).

even sylvanas on the book cover looks more like two different women than xal'atath and alleria do in the promo art above (and hilariously these are all three different elves. one of which is not actually an elf. and alleria and sylvanas are sisters... oogh). also not sure why they went with the hyper-youthful redesign for alleria, the oldest windrunner sister stuck in some kind of ten thousand year interdimensional time loop fighting demons while maybe 20 years went by on azeroth, who is now constantly grappling with the whispers of the void. like maybe she can look a little haggard. maybe she doesn't need to look like a scrappy teenager in the key art

why did they moe-ify her

like maybe it's because i'm in my mid-30s now but like, on one hand, yes sombra overwatch can be 30 and look like that because women don't automatically become decrepit once they exit their twenties. but also maybe we should not be afraid of women who are literally tens of thousands of years old having gone through trauma after trauma (and in some cases literal death and decay) looking a teensy bit cooked. like why are the circles under jaina's eyes darker than sylvanas', who has the tears of anguish of undeath literally scarred into her face and has lived jaina's lifespan ten times over

[viiioca]

[ roevember day 4 - ship ]

From the journal of Estelle de Laussienne, 24th of the 4th Umbral Moon, 5 7A.E.

Is it not funny what tricks our eyes can get up to? Medical literature on the visual system has been coming out of Sharlayan at an efficient clip, but it's hardly the brand new frontier of study the Studium's psychology department is touting. We have known about its oddities since the first spearfisher discovered that water lies about a fish's location. Such progress in that time! Humanity has embraced this imperfection of ours with great relish. Traditional Ul'dahn religious art, for example, relies heavily on ambiguous images, with both Nald and Thal coexisting within the same figure at the same time, the dominant shape shifting with the viewer's perception; Thavnairian folk art, too, often employs similar tricks to depict the harmonization of Manusya and Mrga, blending man and animal two ways in a single piece when observed right-to-left or left-to-right. Even the cities we build delight in the simple joy of fooling the eye. The limited space of Ishgard combined with the nobility's hunger for grandeur has made forced perspective a popular architectural flourish; it is not uncommon to enter some immense gallery with a distant statue of Halone on the far wall, only for the illusion to break some four or five yalms into the room with the realization that the statue is all of two fulms high. Ala Mhigan muqarnas create phantom scales of depth, emerging or receding by the angle of the light and the inclination of the viewer. Sharlayan itself has tucked optical refinements inside its colonnades and entablature: the impression of sharp geometric perfection -- straight lines and right angles -- is a fiction told by its many hidden curves.

What a marvelous little engine we have in our heads. I've been thinking about this in the weeks since Raha has returned to us.

Physically, nothing has changed. He is a twenty-four year old man in fine health. The stasis was absolute: no growth to speak of in the nails and hair, no atrophy of the muscles, no softening of calluses or fading of scars that might indicate cycles of skin regeneration. It's as if he has simply slipped between calendar years like a city native knows an alley shortcut. And yet he is different. Like blinking away an afterimage, there is the lingering negative of something that no longer exists.

When the Coerthan cold gusts northerly into Mor Dhona, Raha will disappear into his thoughts, hunched over his mug of coffee, ambling about the Rising Stones' common room as if afflicted by a ghostly rheumatism, and I will think, There is the Exarch. How strange, then, to see him without the burden of his crystal; without the grey in his hair where all that lively red has bled out. There is a compartment of my mind that struggles terribly with this. Could it not be a glamour? A bit of Allagan showmanship? Then, hours later, I will watch him jaunt up the battlements of the Toll, flirting gamely with gravity as if it were a pretty classmate, where he will settle into a crenel to watch the Gloom roll in from Silvertear, and I will think, There is the G'raha Tia I knew. Unmoored from the moment, I will think -- Has Rammbroes banished him from camp again? Has he come to find me for that archery lesson? And then he will spot me from his perch, and I find myself startled back to the present by the royal red of his left eye. Is that the same boy? Surely not. That eye ought to be as blue as the waters off of Corvos. The future can't have happened yet.

Binocular rivalry. Two distinct images in competition. It's hardly fair to the man he's become, but I wonder, too, if this is how he saw me that day in Lakeland -- if his own mind fought to reconcile my reality with the composite of me in his mind's eye, patched together through secondary sources, blurred by decades and distance. Perhaps we never truly see each other. Perhaps it is time to find the same joy in it as our artists and architects do.

There is only one thing for it. I must correct my vergence. No sooner than it is announced that we make for Azys Lla, Raha leaps for the prow of Tataru's airship, and I do not see that young man of years past ready to bolt for the horizon; and he reaches back for me, to ensure that we are not separated, and I do not see the reserved elder who carefully accounts for each soul around him, made cautious by loss. With my eyes shifted just-so, with no expectations for the image I am meant to see, the man in front of me -- bright-eyed, wide-grinned, laughter clear and steady -- resolves into something new.

[cripplecharacters]

This might be a bit of a weird question as I know this isn't a drawing blog, but do you happen to have any pointers for finding good reference photos for drawing cane users? I'm having trouble finding interesting/dynamic poses, and the vast majority of pose generator sites I've found don't even show people with mobility aids. Stock photo sites and google are also limited in their usefulness, mostly giving me very stiff poses. If you have any tips that would be great.

hello dearest asker!

I tried to be an artists once upon a time so let me direct you to some things that might help! Here is an excellent post written up by @deoidesign shows how motion and functionality with a cane works. Here is a post by @sparrowsocks on the cane design itself and the practicality of it. Here is another "How To" guide that is a bit more simple but covers how the hand changes with different handles.

Here is a reference of hands gripping cylindrical objects that I think might be a little helpful. Grabbing a cane or just moving it are all things that go into it too.

If you're going for more a historical setting, Here is a library of sources of historical walking sticks and canes. That source is more novelty canes and not for practicality for a mobility aid, but Here is another source for History and it has more practical canes.

Also things like old photo rolls when film was just becoming what we know today could be something helpful too.

[Image Description: A black and white picture roll of two sets with twelve frames in each. The first roll is a side angle of a man holding a can and walking then taking a right turn and walking back. The second roll is a backside angle of the man walking with the cane and then taking a right turn and walking back.]

We can see for example in the first two frames how the opposite leg moves with the cane.

And of course we have more photos from the Victorian era of men with canes. Granted canes were used largely for fashion but a lot of people did use them for balance and such too. Also they're good references for poses while holding a cane.

Another thing I can recommend is just watching videos of someone using a cane. Look up disabled YouTubers or people who do physical therapy videos and they show largely how movement with a cane should look and more.

If you're looking for dynamic poses I would recommend looking up cosplayers or models who are disabled and use canes. But also looking up disabled actors that use canes or similar mobility aids and go through their filmography is another good way to see references. A lot of disabled people who are artists also post their own photos and videos for art references specifically too.

One last thing is how the character holds their body and what type of cane they need is gonna depend on how they are disabled. Working that out and doing more research is gonna change some things. But also even though there is a proper way to use a cane, some people use canes in different ways to suit their needs and comfort. The biggest example in media is House from House MD and while Hugh Laurie isn't disabled, he does a pretty accurate portrayal of someone using a cane in an alternative way. I personally (when I was getting fitted for one) would use my cane very much as House does, and other people have said much the same.

Hopefully this helps in some way and your fellow artists may be able to throw more help in the notes. Happy drawing!

~Mod Virus 🌸

[stepmarchen]

Ludovika vs Shuri, a facial comparison breakdown

While it's obvious that Ludovika and Shuri have their similarities, as pointed out by various members of the ASM cast, let's break down some of their differences, shall we?

But before we do, let's address a few things!

ORKA takes design seriously! We can't just chalk up slight differences to "one-off mistakes." As you can see below, she did a study on her OWN designs, micro detailing down to the curve of each character's eyebrows. But to be fair, we will only be using art from recent chapters, as ORKA's style has evolved since the early chapters.

Another reason why we will be only using recent chapters is to avoid differences that may be as a result of Shuri being several years younger than Ludovika. I will also try my best to take this into account as we go.

First things first, let's get the obvious differences out of the way. Ludovika has a lavender hair, parted down the middle and golden eyes. Meanwhile. Shuri has light pink hair parted to the side with green eyes. So you might be thinking, if not for the color differences, they would look exactly the same!

But that's not the case! In some instances, seen from Max or Johannes' POV, Ludovika and Shuri almost seem 1:1. However! We must take into account that given their history with her, they are unreliable narrators, and may show a warped perspective on their memories of both girls.

So why don't we remove all the color! Here we have Ludovika on the left and Shuri on the right down below.

Since we don't have a 1:1 shot, here's the two in similar lighting situations with similar expressions and another with a similar angle.

Here are all the points of differences I noticed below!

Ludovika's long arched brows vs Shuri's downward sloping brows with no arch

Ludovika's long, straight, and slightly wider nose vs Shuri's small pointed, upturned nose

Ludovika's narrow and long face with a distinctly V shaped chin vs Shuri's fuller cheeks and shorter face

Ludovika's full lips, distinctly her full bottom lip but also the way the middle of her upper lips under her philtrum has more volume, often highlighted with a tint on pink (that may be makeup) vs Shuri's thinner, almost pointed lips (almost in an elfy way)

Ludovika's narrower eyes that sit higher on her face as a result of her brow to tip of nose ratio being greater than the top and bottom thirds of her face vs Shuri's larger eyes and 1:1:1 proportioned face (though this may change with age)

It's so fascinating how ORKA illustrates the two to look so similar, yet different. Noticing these small details really shines in on the fact that the two are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

We've seen so many members of the cast chasing old ghosts that we're forced to compare and contrast Ludovika and Shuri. In reality, it seems like there are more differences than we initially thought, right?

[mspaesthetic]

what brush did hussie use to draw everything

He used the default hard round brush preset in Photoshop with the Pencil tool. Some newcomers to digital art might hear the word "pencil" and get confused, thinking it refers to a literal pencil texture brush, but it's a distinct tool from the typical Brush tool. In other programs, similar brushes might also be called the Binary brush or Pixel brush.

The Pencil tool is basically the same as the Brush tool, but draws the strokes with pixelated hard edges. The Brush tool on the other hand draws strokes with anti-aliasing, smoothing the outline of the strokes. This is done with semi-transparent pixels, something that the Pencil tool specifically does not use (hence why it could be called a Binary brush, because a pixel is either fully opaque or not).

Something to note is the version of Photoshop Hussie used: CS3. In CS3, if you had pen pressure enabled, the minimum brush size the strokes could go down to was 2px only (if the brush diameter was set to at least 3px). Setting it to 1-2px would not net you any benefits out of having a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet. In other words, brushstrokes can't taper off to 1px thin ends.

(Bear with me since I currently don't have a computer with Photoshop installed so I'm using these kinda shitty old demo gifs that weren't supposed to be used)

Photoshop CS3 brush engine

The brush engine changed slightly in versions after Photoshop CS3, however. Starting from Photoshop CS4, setting the brush size to 2px with pen pressure enabled would make the 2px brush size invert and jump up to 3px as the minimum brush size, while only going back down to 2px if you applied pressure or drew at an angle or something. (I unfortunately don't have any images on hand demonstrating this clearly.) Only setting the diameter to 3px makes the ends 2px, as you can see below.

Photoshop CS4 brush engine

You can still see this shitty behavior in Photoshop CC versions to this day:

Photoshop CC 2024 brush engine

Maybe this doesn't really matter too much if you're normally drawing hero mode panels, but it does produce slightly different results when drawing sprites.

Also if anyone tries to sell you on using a square brush, disregard them. They're an idiot, plain and simple.