#so I can start doing some gestural anatomy studies

[talesfromthebandgeekmafia]

Holy shit I love my job. Today is Tea loving her job day.

[unholybacon355]

Kinktober Day 9 - Ahn Yujin x M! Reader

Kinktober Masterlist

You were at the worst table in the entire library. Maybe that's why it was relegated to a badly illuminated corner of the building, behind some shelves with books that almost nobody read. But this time you have to. You have to do an assignment and apparently there wasn’t any better place to get all the knowledge you needed than in these old books.

But in fact you weren’t reading any book at the time, because there was something more urgent, entertaining, and pleasant to gain knowledge. Leaning on the table was your classmate and girlfriend Yujin, with her bare ass glued to your pelvis and with your hand covering her mouth. 

You werent’ working on the assignment because you were fucking at the library. On that poorly illuminated and forgotten corner, with other students also doing homework just a few meters from you. Just protected by the safety these rickety shelves were giving to you. 

Your trust were short but strong in order to not make any noise, after all you were in a library and you had to be in silence. The peaceful aura of this palace of knowledge should not be disturbed by your study of anatomy. That’s also why your hand was preventing Yujin from moaning as loudly as she likes. 

Your shaft was deeply on her wet pussy, moving in and out of her at a pace you knew was driving her crazy. The velocity of your movements wasn't enough, you knew it that, but this was the faster you could go without making wet sounds and that clap her cheeks. The idea of bend her over the table and properly fuck the shit out of her was so tempting, but you have to make this work if you don’t wanna get caught and expelled from the university. 

“Babe, wanna ride me?” You whisper in her ear as quietly as you can, and she moves her head in an affirmative gesture. So you stop trusting and holding her by the waist you sit down on the chair with her over your legs. Yunjin immediately starts reverse riding you as best as she can with the limited range of movement she has, but you feel her walls squeezing your shaft. You feel how wet she is, and how fast her breath is going.

The hand you have on Yujin’s waist travels under her shirt to grab her boobs. The soft flesh is easily malleable under the pressure of your fingers. Despite not having bombastic big breast, Yujin's tiddie fills your hand so perfectly that it looks like both were created for each other.   

“You like the risk, don’t you?” You whisper again. “These shelves are the only thing that prevents them from finding out you are a slut, and you love it.”  You feel how Yujin’s pussy gets more wet and tight with your compliments. The truth is you twoo love the risk of public sex, but so far this is the most dangerous place where you have had sex. 

“Come Babe, come for me before they notice how sluty you are.” Your words have the desired effect over Yunjin and her movement becomes more erratic as she approaches her climax. You wish you were able to explore her body more freely, use both of your hands to squeeze her boobs or ass, or maybe touch her clit and make her cry with pleasure. But you know it is more safe if your hand keeps containing her moans. Being heard is not an option right now.

And with all your praise and when the chair threatens to break a leg Yujin stops moving at the time she closes her legs very tightly, doing her best effort to not collapse over you when the orgasm hits her body. The feeling of her walls dancing around the soft skin of your shaft is amazing, and is wonderful that sends you to your climax. Your hot cum fills Yujin’s pussy to her brim, threatening to come out of her wet hole, making her moan over your hand once again. 

“Remember me to wear a skirt next time, so I can ride you properly. “ Yujin says between sighs once your hand leaves her mouth.  

“If you do that they gonna find us.” Both of you start laughlin louder than you should do there and someone protests a few tablets far away. Still laughing, but in a low tone you help her stand again.

Yujin’s legs are shaking from all the effort they just did. Her well toned thighs are wet with her own slick and maybe some of your seed. And you allow yourself to admire the absolute work of art that is her bare butt, with her perfect pair of round cheeks that makes you hard again, before helping her to put back on her jeans. 

[remidiy]

We Don't Gatekeep Art Resources | A Comprehensive List

Here's a list of some of the tools/sites I currently use or have used previously for works/studies. I'll separate it into Software/Utility, Reference, and 'Other' which will be just general things that could help you map out things for your experience with art. **[Free highlighted in pink, paid highlighted in green. Blue is variable/both. Prices Listed in USD]**

Software/Utility:

2D

Krita Painting app (PC) (my main digital art software on PC for 5+ yrs)

Clip Studio Paint [PC] [CSP 2.0+ allows for 3d modelling within the painting app and a lot of other cool features] [apparently allows up to 6 months free trial]

Procreate (12.99) [iPad/iPad Pro] (the GOAT)

Artstudio Pro [iPad/iPad Pro] (An alternative to Procreate if you enjoy the more traditional art app layout) -- I find this app handy when Procreate is lacking a feature I need, or vice versa. (you can easily transfer files between the two, but keep in mind Procreate's layer limit)

2D "Collaborative Painting/Drawing apps"

Magma Studio

Drawpile

Discord Whiteboard

Gartic Phone (Pretty decent for 2d animation practice, but has a hard limit on frames)

3D

Blender [3D Modelling, Sculpting + Layout] (PC)

Sculptris [PC] (it's an old unsupported version of Zbrush, but can help to get ideas out, and functions better than browser sculpting apps

Nomad Sculpt [iPad/iPad Pro] ($20) Works pretty well if you prefer a mobile setup, but it is a bit intense on the battery life and takes some getting used to

References + Study

Magic Poser [ PC and Mobile ] Has both free and paid versions, I've made do with just the lite version before

Artpose ($9.99) [Iphone + Steam]

Head Model Studio [IPhone] A 3D head, with both a basic blockout version for angles, and a paid version with more detail

Cubebrush [simply search "[keyword] pose reference pack"], they usually have good results + they frequently have sales!

Line of Action [Good for Gesture practice + daily sketching], also has other resources built in.

Quickposes Similar to Line of action, more geared toward anatomy

Drawabox | Perspective Fundamentals Improvement modules (Suggested by @taffingspy )

Sketchfab, this skull in particular is useful, but there is other models that can help you study anatomy as well.

Pinterest can be good, you just have to be careful, usually you're better off just finding reference pack if you have the money, sometimes certain creators have freebies as well

Artstation Marketplace can be decent [make sure to turn on the Aye-Eye filter so it doesn't feed you trash], a colleague of mine recommended this head model for practicing facial blocking, there is also this free version without lighting.

Local Art Museums [Unironically good for studying old "master work" if you're into that, or even just getting some inspiration]

Brushes + Other Useful software:

I personally have used both of these brush packs before making my own

(I actually don't know how to share my daily brush set because I frequently switch between Krita, Procreate, and ASP, but once I figure that out I'll be sure to do that lol)

Marc Brunet's Starter brush pack [Technically free but supporting him for this if you like it is ideal, there's some good brushes]

Dave Greco Brush Pack [$3]

Gumroad in general is a good place to find brushes and art resources. *Note; for Krita specifically, brush packs are a bit weird, so it may require you to find different packs, or import them in a particular way

PureRef [PC] - Reference Compiler/Moodboarding

VizRef ($3.99) [iPad] - Moodboarding/Reference Compiler

Artist Youtubers/Creators that helped me improve/guide me along as a self-taught artist from when I first started digital art to where I am today:

Proko

Marco Bucci

Sinix Design

Sycra

Hardy Fowler

Lighting Mentor

Winged Canvas

Moderndayjames

Swatches

Chommang_drawing

Marc Brunet (YTartschool)

+ Observing a lot of speedpaint art by people whose work I enjoy on social media/youtube, trying to dissect their processes

If you've gotten this far, first of all, congrats, you can read a lot, and second of all, thank you for reading and I hope this helps! I'll continue to come back and update this if I find any new resources in the future, or if my processes change :)

Much Love,

-Remidiy

[alkalinefrog]

Hey Alka, I had a quick question for you (whenever you have the time to answer or even if you have the time), I've been taking some storyboard classes and with my illustration background, it's been hard to really find a good shorthand for characters to really get that anatomy/gesture looking right without it being too sketchy and unreadable.

How long did it take you to find your storyboard shorthand, and what exercises would you recommend to try to find it? I'm sure it just takes time and practice, I've been doing a lot more studies and gesture drawings (currently following along all the free Glenn Vilppu videos I can find on youtube) but I wanted to ask you as well because I am in love with how fluid your anatomy is, and how clear your storyboards read. And those hands my god you're a wizard!!!

Thanks a bunch, have a wonderful day!

Heya Secret, great to hear from ya! Well, what you don’t see online is how gross the rough stage of my boards can get LMFAO. Most of the boards I post are actually overly cleaned up because I'm just doing them for fun and can afford the time! I'm not really sure how long it took to develop my shorthand, I've never really enjoyed drawing detail to begin with, so when I decided to go into boarding I kinda just leaned into it!

I’ve covered a bunch of gesture drawing exercises already if you scroll through my advice tag, but ***once you have a good foundation*** here's some stuff you can try!

First you'll want to build up an arsenal of anatomy hacks you can always fallback on, particularly for complex parts of the body. The less time you spend on details, the more time you have to focus on the overall pose and storytelling. Aim to find ways to draw with as FEW lines as possible. If I had to make a list to streamline what to practice:

Head shapes - find the most efficient way to draw the front + 3/4 + side view in as few lines as possible (the challenge is still making them look structured with dimension)

Eyes - are SO important for expressions! Unless your project has characters with dot eyes, you're going to need to find a quick way to do the circle and iris in as few lines as possible. Make sure you can convey where they're looking

Hands - fists (you'll be drawing a lot of people holding poles), open palms at various angles, foreshortened fingers pointing at viewer, fingers making grabby motions----protips: 1) half the time all you need is a vague triangle/rectangle plus thumb sticking up and that's a hand 2) if the hand is relaxed, you probably don't need to draw the knuckles. Save some time!

Feet - just learn how to make sure they look like they're standing on the ground, and do some studies of what they look like when you're running. Otherwise you can usually get away with a vague shoe or boot shape (just add toe lines if they're not wearing any)

----everything else you'll practice as you go!

Jump from SUPER rough straight into clean boards to really force yourself to be economic. I've done each of these methods for work before:

Before you start boarding with a character, sketch them a few times with the intention of simplifying their design while keeping them recognizable:

You'd be surprised how little you need to recognize a character:

Depending on the scene, you can adjust how much detail you want to include:

Stay loose/more generalized with action, especially for the "inbetweens" between key poses. Clean up enough to communicate movement and make the character recognizable.

If the character's small on screen in a wide shot, edit out most details and focus on the silhouette

Save the detail work for character acting, when you really want to be specific with their expressions and gestures.

But outside of all that, be bold and fearless!! Everyone has that stage where their boards look like spaghetti! Boarding is like handwriting; you could have really shitty chicken scratch, but if you're writing beautiful poetry, who cares!

god I love drawing hands you don’t even know thank you so much!! Good luck dude!! You’ve more than got this!!

[satoruhour]

Hiii!!! I absolutely LOVE your jjk racer au's and am dying for more!!! Could you do one of megumi this time? It can be how they meet or anything really<3 absolutely love all your works and hope your having a great day!!

a/n: hi baby yess thank you for the support <3 i know you’ve been liking my stuff pretty often but im so sorry to have taken so long to get to this! i hope you like it 🥹 / part of the racer!jjk au universe, megs and reader both in uni / 0.9k

[9:02pm, megs 🖤🏁]: hi angel. also you still studying?

there’s a text that comes in from megumi one school night, but you don’t see its contents when your head stays in your hands from the sheer stress of trying to cramp everything before an important exam tomorrow. nothing’s going in, however, from how distracted you seem to be with what questions would appear, whether you’d have enough time, if—

[9:05pm, megs 🖤🏁]: hey, look out your window

your confusion immediately melts away when you hear the rev of an engine along the barren road of the street you stay on, and your breath releases upon seeing the familiar head of black-hair peeking out from the window, a small smile etched onto his face. with a beckoning hand from you, his head tilts and you know what he’s asking. parents not home?

you shake your head, making out an eating gesture, went out for dinner.

it was unfortunate, how they saw megumi as just another bad influence, especially from how racing was still fairly taboo in japan. ‘give it a hundred years and they’ll still be bad for you, the culture, the pollution.’ you can’t bother to hear the rest of your parents’ explanation when you tell them you’ve started dating fushiguro megumi, but thankfully they’re too busy to care about whether your life goes to shit or not.

but you’re lucky megumi treats you like the moon treats the sun: taking the backseat while you rant about that annoying professor. he treats you like painters do to their muse: gentle, delicate, a million memories of your anatomy burned into his brain from how long he’s stared at you.

in a minute, he’s knocking on your front door and you’re there in half, smiling wide to welcome him, albeit with a tension in the corners of your lips. 

“let’s go drift, c’mon.”

you frown, not letting the calming brush of this thumb against the back of your hand change your mind, “i can’t, megs. got studyin’ to do.”

megumi has gotten bolder the more he’s been with you, although still with shaky hands and a speeding heart. he brushes the hair out of your face, knitted eyebrows and red eyes seemingly permanently there from how much you’ve looked at your notes.

“do you actually remember anything you’ve studied, my love?” he’s the one to frown now, fingers gliding down to your cheeks and jaw. it’s comfortable there from how you lean into his touch, and you want to stay there forever, but you only sigh, head falling forward to collide with his chest while his lips make contact with your hair — when you shake your head, you can only feel the smile growing on the other’s face.

“go put my jacket on,” megumi pecks your head and you roll your eyes beneath him because he’s always right and you hate it sometimes, but that reality check is good when you can’t shove the logarithm equations into your brain and your boyfriend is a racer, “let’s go for a drive, hm?” clad in the denim jacket you kept with you on your last visit, megumi’s cold hands hold yours as he drags you to his car, a 2001 Nissan Silvia S15 with some dark blue finishing.

within minutes, you’re already putting exams and notes and studying behind you, laughing in the passenger seat with megumi smiling too, easily driving to the mountain he’s always trained at. with a nod toward you, his eyes just look for yours, a mix of question and ardour that always seem to get the message across. ready?

the drift up the mountain is filled with secret glances and hurting cheeks and the screeching tires of his Nissan, experienced enough to look away from the road to return those glances to you every time he makes a turn and you’re looking like everything right in this moment. megumi can only hope it’s the same for you.

at the mountain’s peak, megumi can hardly hold himself back when you’re staring across the cityscape against his car, eyes sparkling from the moonlight and the blue finishing of the car reflecting against your jaw from below — he feels his breath be fully taken away just like the first time his father had taken him drifting, but it doesn’t (never) compares to whenever he looks at you.

with a hand pulling you away from the vast scenery, megumi fully believes his heart stops when your eyes are torn away from the city lights, focusing only on the other. there’s a soft smile on your face and he leans in, palms clammy and his heart going faster than his Nissan in a race — his lips finally meet yours before you arms wrap around the racer, humming into the kiss. megumi props you on the hood on his car easily, standing between your legs as oxygen begins to become scarce.

“you know we could’ve just kissed at my house, y’know?”

the tips of megumi’s ears redden and you laugh, playing with the neckline hem of his t-shirt, “yeah. well— i couldn’t have one night out with my girl?” 

it’s said so grumpily and quietly that you almost don’t catch it, but the tranquillity of the mountains provides you with uninterrupted silence, save for the chatter of the cicadas and the occasional call of the night birds. the little statement makes you only grin bigger as you prop your feet onto the front bumper, pulling him in by the belt loops.

megumi thinks you’ve only gotten more attractive by doing that, you shiver when his hands go back to your face — the both of you so oblivious to each other's desire for the other.

“yes we can, especially when i want to spend more time with my racer boyfriend, too.”

[vivipokedex]

Your animal anatomy foundation 100% feels very solid, do you have any books or online sources to recommend to budding artists?

thank youuuu :)))

im gonna be honest... i never really specifically sat down to study drawing animals, or followed any art-oriented books or guides about that or anything. tutorials tend to not be very helpful to me because they rarely deal with gesture and focus more on getting the proportions right, which by itself is only a small part of it. and live drawing classes rarely involve animals...

i think it helps to have an existing, like, sense and confidence when it comes to observation and capturing volume and gesture in general. at the end of the day pretty much everything can be broken down into basic shapes, planes, blobs. actually A Blob is a good starting point to draw pretty much any animal... draw a blob and then put a head and limbs and appendages on it. yknow?

another thing is to just be curious and have an interest in the diversity and minutiae of the animal kingdom. i know it sounds very basic but I Love Animals. there are some real crazy creatures out there. obviously i recommend looking up as many reference pics as you can, not necessarily to copy stuff, but to have a handy guide of where stuff goes. but just looking at pictures honestly isnt quite enough in my opinion... read up on the animal. get a sense of what makes this particular species unique among ones similar to it, how it lives and functions in its habitat... watch a nature docco. watch some footage of weird little shrimp. learn how to tell different species of aeshnidae apart.

also, yeah, youre gonna have to look at and draw some animal skeletons at some point. i dont think you have to like, study the skeleton of every vertebrate you wanna draw, but yknow, its good to have a general knowledge. it really does teach you a lot to draw a horse skeleton and the individual parts in it. ideally of course you would be sitting in front of either the real thing or a 3d model, but sometimes photos and illustrations have to suffice... it's just important that you pay attention to what you're doing.

as for books... well, a relevant point here is that photos arent everything. obviously theyll give you a faithful picture of the living breathing animal, but thats the thing, they wont always let you see the exact shape, all the distinctive details, and so on. so this is where i recommend getting into some old timey illustrated books. yeah youre gonna have to do some treasure hunting... but listen. ive got this awesome book from 1979 for example, which lists pretty much every species of bird that lives in my little corner of the world, along with amazing detailed illustrations. it's so inspiring and informative. it is the kind of stuff i really wanna urge everyone to get into.

[deoidesign]

Hi, how did you learn to draw Steve's physique?

Ohh what a complicated thing to answer...

When it comes to how I learned to draw anything, it's hard to say anything too specific since it's always a culmination of many years of assorted study and practice... but I can try to do my best to explain some of the biggest things that helped me learn, some tips I keep in mind, and maybe at least some places to start/delve further.

(just a little disclaimer it's not like my drawings here are going to be 100% medically accurate.. they're just to illustrate concepts!)

The main thing about learning various physiques is understanding anatomy. Which feels obvious, but I don't mean proportions; these are important, but perhaps more important is understanding the skeleton and how it moves and learning where muscles connect to bones and where fat grows on the body. When you understand how these function on a more mechanical level, depicting form and movement in a way that feels natural comes in tow.

For instance, understanding things like the pronation and supination of the radius and ulna, as well as the fact that muscles can ONLY contract or relax, will help you understand a bit better which muscles will be flexed and which will not while someone moves. It's inherent to the positioning based on the structural makeup of the body... It's not like you NEED to memorize all the muscles and bones, of course, but understanding and gaining at least a passive familiarity with the concepts really helps.

In tandem with this concept is the way parts of the body flow into eachother. Muscles ALWAYS come in groups because they can only contract. Whatever muscle is there to lift something, there is a muscle on the other side to pull that bone back down. What this results in is a series of straight edges next to curves, which gives us a lot of really lovely "s curves" and dents and folds and so on and so forth just naturally occurring.

I would suggest at least learning the "bony landmarks", which are bones (usually) visible on the surface of the body. things like the iliac crest, the great trochanter, the 7th vertabrae, the acromion process... These can be used to help you understand the parts of the body as angles and relationships, rather than trying to remember lengths and sizes, which vary immensely... (since you asked about steve, he can be our model... also study these on your own don't just take my word for it haha, these are the ones I personally keep in mind)

I've done the same thing with body hair... learning where it grows and in which directions... It helps me make up variations without needing reference, because I have a set of rules I can follow.

The biggest thing that helped me understand all this on a much deeper level was my ecorche course. I sculpted this guy. We started by sculpting the entire skeleton to understand the bones, and then we added muscles on top. Not every single muscle, of course, but the "artistic muscles" AKA the ones which directly affect the surface of the body. Doing this let us see where muscles connect, because we would make a shape, put it on the bone where it actually goes, and then you get to see how other muscles overlap that.

This helped me, perhaps, more than anything else. But I also didn't just start with this course, I had been drawing for years before I even took it. I had been in school for years before I took it. Not that I think it wouldn't be helpful to someone just starting out, but I do think that the more you know going in, the better an in-depth course like this will help you and stick with you. Classes are also expensive, though so I'm not really like... recommending you pay potentially thousands of dollars to take one... But it did help me a lot, personally.

I also, of course, have done many figure, gesture, and master studies...

These just help you quickly gain a stronger understanding of generalized anatomy, and gives you real life examples of and practice with of how people move and balance.

What all this does when combined, is gives me a very solid ability to depict movement and form in a way that feels relatively natural from my subconscious without the need for reference.

The rest of how I've learned to draw his physique is honestly mostly just stylization. I understand the body, and this is how I am depicting it for his level of musculature.

And as I move into depicting him in other ways, either moving in comics or in animation, realistically rendered, or extra stylized, these concepts inform every step of that process for me! When he keeps the same/similar relationships between parts, he gets to still look like himself.

It ALSO really helps when putting clothes on, because the way cloth falls and bunches and lifts is all directly related to the form it is on... So the more you understand that form, the more you can depict clothing and movement in a way that feels natural.

This is all, of course, true when I draw anyone, you asked about Steve so I'm trying to mostly show with him! But because I'm just drawing from raw information of general anatomy rather than trying to study one body type at a time, it allows a lot more "give," I think!

Like, here's most of the cast from TTA so far... actually, they're not as varied as I thought they were nevermind LMAO ignore this part

But, it also makes monster and alien design much easier! It's a lot easier to come up with non-human anatomy when I understand human anatomy, because I can manipulate the knowledge I have...

There is infinite more to study in the world of anatomy... The complexity of the human body goes extremely deep. For our purposes as artists, we need only depict a fraction of it, but more information rarely hurts the process.

I'm sure there's something in here that's wrong on a technical level, I'm mostly going off of memory. But that's kind of my point - I understand enough generally and conceptually that when I am missing something and need to find reference for it, I understand what I'm looking at. It's much easier than trying to learn AND draw at the same time.

I hope even one thing in here helped you! Sorry it's so long.

[blueskittlesart]

What advice would you give beginner artists?

it's fine to want to do more stylized art, but nothing will help you improve quickly like studying from life. even if you want to draw very stylized figures, life drawing is still going to help you understand how the human body works and then you can build your stylization off of that understanding. I also recommend studying specifically things you're looking to improve--if you feel like your poses aren't dynamic, ask your model to do some quick (1-2 min) dynamic poses and work on getting the gesture down. if you're looking for anatomy, ask for longer, more static poses and really study the contours of the body. this also applies for portraiture and character art--my expressions and facial structure improved like CRAZY when i started doing portrait studies from life! (note: i know live model sessions aren't accessible for everyone. i'm a huge advocate for nude models, if you can find a studio nearby that's affordable to you that offers sessions, that's the best you're gonna get. however, there are sites that will give you photos of nude models to draw from, too, or you can even just ask friends or family to pose for you when they aren't busy, that's what i did before i started getting model sessions from my school!)

materials are not everything but sometimes a good material can make a difference. it's important to know what's worth it and what isn't for your skill level. invest in some decent-quality supplies or a good art program, but understand that you're still going to need to work to understand your materials and use them to their fullest potential. (if you're a digital artist buy csp. trust me on this. get it on sale. it will change your life. also do not fucking use photoshop)

tracing is ok. listen to me. TRACING. IS. OK. tracing is how you learn. don't trace other people's art and pass it off as your own, obviously, but there is literally no problem with tracing real-life reference photos. I routinely trace references for backgrounds and the like. there is no reason for you to kill yourself trying to make complex perspective and shit up from your head when you can very easily just overlay a photo and get what you need.

in that same vein, USE REFERENCE PHOTOS. find pics online or take pics of yourself and USE THEM to see how your poses work. it makes it SO SO SO much easier. the understanding that you need to create a pose out of nowhere will come with time but you're not going to get that skill unless you have a foundation of understanding how the real human body works, and the easiest way to get that understanding is by copying photos of real people.

last but not least, there's generally a sort of 'rulebook' that new artists are expected to go by, especially online, when it comes to digital art. when i was first learning, it was all about lineart and cell shading, two things that I didn't really like. Nowadays it seems to be all about rendering. the single most important thing i can tell you is if it sucks you don't have to do it. if you hate lineart just color your sketches. if you hate shading don't shade, or find a different way to shade that you enjoy more. if rendering is annoying or difficult for you DON'T BOTHER!! art is supposed to be fun. if part of your process is annoying or upsetting to you, cut it the fuck out. don't torture yourself just to do art the "right" way. i guarantee your art will look better when you're having fun making it anyway!

[lemon-wedges]

Hello!!! I love your art and your style. I'd love to hear your inspirations behind how you draw and, in addition, hear a bit about your painting process (I love the impressionistic look your paintings have)

ahh!!! thank you so much ;u;

Ill tried my best to break down my thought process behind my drawing, so i hope this all makes sense aahaha

undercut cause it came out real long

SO Karl Gnass is an instructor that i took an anatomy class with. and who broke down anatomy in a way that really helped me grasp space. like space a figure occupies. and from that i think my characters feel a bit more...grounded? im not sure what the right word would be but tangible is something people sometimes say about my art.

And i do think when youre able to make a figure look like its really wrapping its hands around something it makes character interactions a lot more intimate.

heres a few under sketches i do when i start a drawing (i am trying REALLY hard not to use my nsfw ones tho those are pretty perfect when it comes to showing u anatomy RIP)

after i got the poses done ill turn down the opacity and rough sketch out details on top of these. and once THATS done i move onto lineart. and the most important aspect of this step is NOT TO TRACE YOUR UNDER DRAWING!!!! thats what sucks the life out of your work!!!!

instead you use your undersketch as a guide. ilI actually redraw the simple anatomy underneath very lightly, erase where they over lap and then add line weight variety + darken up the details.

examples of this are gonna look a little messy but. Left is the original pose i drew out with rough details. right is the drawing i do on top of it. you'll see theyre not one to one and theres some lines i didnt fully erase out when redoing the anatomy. i find my clean up has a lot more energy when i do this.

the thing about my style is that you'll notice i never actually do actual clean smooth lineart. and thats because i HATE DOING THAT SHIT. like i did learn how to do it and consistently forced myself to do it for over a year. and while i do think i learned a lot about line weight and drawing clearer. i realized? its just not for me. I like a textured brush and i like being able to see those small lines i didnt get to fully erase out because i think they look cool lol and thats ok!! do what you want forever man!!! its your art!!!

Also before i move onto painting ill show you this neat little trick. you know those more "loose" drawings of mine that feel more gestural? the begining process is exactly the same. the difference is i use a chunkier pen and try to see how much i can simplify details + just feel out the energy of lines

NOW PAINTING.

man. where to even start.

the thing about painting is that its an entire different set of skills that need to each be honed on their own and will slowly build up together. ill break it down like this.

VALUE, COLOR, and TECHNIQUE

I've said this on another ask before but you'll notice ill do a lot of black and white sketches. and i do that to practice choosing how to group values.

like this example. how light is laios' wolf coat compared to his skin? or kabrus skin color compard to laios coat. when do you want to really push the contrast of light and dark and when do you let values be closer to each other when you DONT want attention

the next step from this is adding a light source.

and when you're working in black and white its a lot easier to pay more attention where you want your light/how its gonna look like hitting youre characters and how far youre gonna push your shadows.

and you know if you get good at this you can play with limited color palletes

this is literally just be picking out blues and hitting the bottom with the gradient tool to light it up

NOW COLOR

is a lot harder and also very subjective. I do a ton of impressionist studies where i just color pick the fuck out of a piece to see what colors masters used + knowing the history of paint and what colors were available during that time period. +knowing what colors = what mood + knowing what colors to use when you want to be more realistic vs when you want to lean into more stylized+ what colors YOU specially incline towards + AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

its a lot and im actually still learning myself

But when i do a painting i collect a LOT of refrences of the kind of mood i want my own painting to feeling like. I've show the first example in another ask before but heres one from my latest labru too

WHen i actually start a painting tho they look like this. The top drawings are just flat colors with a simple outline of where i want the light to be hitting. like in my value studies im just trying to get the idea down, seeing what values need to be darker vs what is lighter. and how the light source covers the character.

figuring this out in the begining makes the rest of the painting so much easier because youve essentially made all the big compostion decisions NOW. from here you can start playing with colors.

my second stage, youll see with drawings at the bottom, is when i start using my texture brush to lay in extra shadows and just play with variety.

and then? i start rendering

that would be TECHNIQUE

And well....thats also something thats gonna be very subjective.

With my own style im not interested in rendering everything to perfection. Im trying to figure out how to texture hair/skin/clothes in ways that make them feel like the materials they are while also showing the energy of my brushstrokes.

I dont zoom in while i paint btw. everything i do is zoomed out so i can see the entire drawing. it helps me not tight up my strokes while also letting me build up all areas of the painting equally. the only time i zoom in is when im lining out the eyes/mouth of a character. and yeah. it drives me insane doing this because ITS SOOOOO Tempting to obsess over paint 1 area forever then zoom out and see that nothing matches lol

The other thing about my style of painting. Is that im not gonna use the exact same formula for every piece. like this isnt cell shading. you can have an idea of how to texture skin/clothes/hair and sometimes it looks great and beautiful in one painting and then it looks like shit in another. ive overhauled a lot of paintings multiple times because what i thought would work doesnt and ive had to force myself to explore and play with my brushstrokes. and you know? i wouldnt have it any other way. it means none of my paintings are gonna look alike! and i think thats pretty cool :D

ill leave you with this in the end. a painting im in the middle of doing and debating to overhaul cause im just not feeling the strokes. who knows what ill look like in the end

anyways i hope this helped a little? even if you look at all this and go. IM NEVER GONNA DRAW LIKE THIS BOZO ahahah

BUT I WISH YOU LUCK ON YOUR OWN ARTS :DDDD

[herrscherofmagic]

i've spent nearly 47 hours over the last ten days drawing nothing but kiana (and hov)

yeah.

anyways, since I've had about enough of drawing Kiana for the rest of my life (/hj) I'm gonna put a pause on this project; but I'll turn it from a sprint into a marathon and try and work on it occasionally instead of all at once

I want to draw other things again x-x

Close-ups of the drawings below, as well as the reference image set, and some other misc. thoughts

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Portraits drawn from imagination

Started the process by trying to draw Kiana's head from imagination; then after each drawing I'd pause, look at some references, see what mistakes I made, then put away the references and drew from imagination (and referring to previous drawings) again. I also took breaks at two points to practice drawing eyes & hair before going back to drawing Kiana

For the last 4 portraits, I'd draw a head from imagination as a warm-up to a drawing session, and then do another head much later on instead of doing it immediately. Around halfway through this "phase" I started the other phases at random points, and finished this portion of the process in the first ~10-15 hours of drawing time. The rest of the time was split across the other exercises

Also I gave her an angry expression because I felt it was the easiest for me to do from memory since I've drawn HoV more than just "Kiana" herself. I also used a boring level 3/4 view without much perspective because it forced me to really make sure I was doing everything accurately and with care.

Basically my thinking was that if I could make a boring level 3/4 portrait look good enough, then I'd have no trouble getting it to look good in other perspectives. That seemed to be true when I got to the stage where I was doing expression practice and had to deal with more head tilt and other perspectives, lol

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Studies of still images from screenshots of gameplay, character art, and stills from animated shorts

Did rough sketches first, then drew with solid color over the sketches on a separate layer. not much else to say here, lol

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Full-bodies

Started with an anatomy model loosely based on the proportions of Kiana's in-game model, and then two attempts at doing full-body drawings from imagination before realizing that it's bloody insane to try and do that much detail from imagination and I have much better things to do with my life than that x-x

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Color studies

yaaaay color! yippee!

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Action sketches/"gesture" drawings

"Gesture" is in quotes because I was way too slow with these for it to really count as proper gesture drawing, imo. But the intention was to start with gesture, and I got closer to that as I went on.

It's way too tempting to start adding detail so I had to metaphysically slap myself with a frying pan to keep myself from getting derailed by that >.>

To get references for this, I did screen recording of gameplay on the PC with OBS studios, then used DaVinci Resolve to play back the recordings.

On PC, when using the mouse controls you can hold the camera fairly still when doing an attack sequence, making it awesome for getting unique angles. For instance, when I recorded Void Drifter's attacks, I was able to get at least 4 different PoVs of her attacks: from the left, the right, behind & above, and in front & below.

Unfortunately, though, it was a bit of a hassle to get good recordings because I had to go into an actual combat stage to record it instead of being able to use an empty testing stage.

With DaVinci Resolve I could "split" clips to make cuts in the timeline that let me easily mark the spots where different attack sequences started, and I could also easily play it in .5x speed to help me figure out how the animations were going from one set of frames to another.

Plus if you close the program after saving, when you open it up again it remembers which frame you were last on and takes you straight there, making it easy to continue from one day to another.

I used White Comet, Herrscher of the Void, and Void Drifter attack animations here, but I also did recordings of Knight Moonbeam and Herrscher of Flamescion, and I might give those a try someday.

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Facial expressions practice

Started with the set of rough sketches (first image), then did some expression practice from imagination (second and third images) to try and get used to how the proportions of the face change slightly with movement of the eyebrows/eyelids/jaw, since the shape of the eyes and mouth is especially important when doing stylized faces (like the anime style that HI3rd uses)

Then this morning I started working through the original rough sketches and developing them one-by-one, getting through 8 before I decided to call it quits and wrap up the project for now

So the facial expression practice pretty much the culmination of all my practice. All the practice with proportions, the contours & forms of the hair, monochromatic shading, line quality, shape design, etc.

This was also one of the few times I've ever taken stylized references and actually adapted them to some extent instead of directly copying them!

This is especially noticeable in the hair, where I used a more standard style for the hair, in contrast with the variety of hairstyles and shapes used in the various manga references (i.e. black-and-white Escape from Nagazora Kiana's messy hair vs the neat and solid hair in the colored Gratitude Arc, AE Invasion, and Moon Shadow Kiana)

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Reference images

[mistercrowbar]

Heya! Firsr I wanted to say that I love your art it always makes me smile when I see it. I'm trying to learn how to draw, and eventually want to be able to draw stuff like yours. Do you have any tips/ advice on how to improve on drawing characters?

I could give the Fine Art Answer and go on about drawing from observation, from photo reference, making master studies, gestures, linear perspective, colour theory lightning composition etc etc etc but really

Let obsession grab you and ride it

I’ve known plenty of people whose art skills took off because they got into D&D and wanted to draw their OCs and they kept drawing and drawing and learning along the way. It can start as simple as, how do I draw my character making a really angry rage scream, and so you go to a mirror and make silly faces and draw from that. Then it can go to, I want to draw my OC and their party in that funny scene we RP’d at the tavern, so you start grabbing references for the interior of such a place, dabble in that perspective thing to lay out the bar, find references for the pirate NPC’s parrot, add some other elements just to frame everything nicely and bam, you’ve drawn yourself a full scene, got experience in drawing interiors, and learned some avian anatomy.

I do emphasise starting small and having fun. I illustrate full time for a living so that’s why most of what I post is silly sketches, I just wanna get the ideas out there without stressing myself. You wanna make art a habit, you want to make it something you look forward to doing, instead of getting wrapped up in thinking every new work has to be a masterpiece. Try to learn one thing at a time and add it to your repertoire instead of lumping a bunch of lessons in at once.

One thing specifically for characters, don’t jump right into making a reference. They’re likely to evolve the more you draw them as you get a better handle of what traits you want to emphasise or details that kinda get forgotten. Like, look at Aldiirn, I’ve had him for 3-4 months and he’s put on at least 30lbs lmao but also a bunch of other changes to emphasise round shapes like nose eyes hair. No one’s holding a gun to your head to keep things consistent.

So yeah! You can crunch and do the master studies and learn quickly, but if you’re just in it for you, have some fun! Draw your blorbo a million times and try branching out for one new thing here and there. If you are just starting out, it could be helpful to learn the basics of constructing a head and general body proportions. I don’t have any tutorials to recommend but I’m sure there must be something on youtube.

[sforzesco]

hiii so. i really really admire you because of the depth of research you put into your art (even as someone who tends to fall down deep research holes i'm in Awe) but also because of the art itself - and i wanted to ask if you had any recommendations for someone who wants to get better at drawing? (books to read, things to do?) especially for figure drawing as you have (to my untrained eye) one of the best balances of style realism and naturalness and in general just overall make some of the best art i've ever seen methinks

this is really high praise, thank you so much!

as for art advice and recommendations for getting better at drawing, I 100% believe in carrying around a sketchbook wherever you go. if the pressure of having nice pages is something that bothers you, get a stack of sticky notes because you can cover up mistakes and re draw over it immediately, and squares of color will add some fun to a page later when you flip through everything.

ideally, I think there's a balance to skill building and having a good time, and I tend to split my own sketchbooks between life drawing (frequently I'll draw windows I think look neat or my morning coffee) and doodling shit for fun. I try out a lot of different styles and draw a lot of nonsense just because it felt like a good time. I do a lot of edward gorey type stuff because the line work process is comfy.

one way to go about doing this is to pick a direction (so to speak) that seems interesting, and build along side it! when I first decided I wanted to take art more seriously, I started looking up pictures of renaissance statues and drawing those. trying to draw those. it took a long time to get my art to look anything like a bernini statue, but I had a lot of fun learning that I really enjoyed drawing hands! comics are another good one, naoki urasawa's work is fucking genius level to me, I regularly revisit monster and do studies off of literally everything he does.

(I also keep a separate sketchbook for figure studies. this is mostly because I really enjoy drawing the human figure, this is very relaxing for me personally: I rotate between doing gesture drawings, contour drawings, and longer anatomy studies)

finally, I have found reading books on art history to be critical in my own process. so much about art history will tell you how to convey a million words into a singular composition. idk how much of that will be of interest or help to you, but I personally found it helpful, especially in understanding how to read things visually, which in turn helped me figure out how I wanted to tackle drawing something

and! two books I've found invaluable for anatomy were george bridgman's constructive anatomy and michael d. mattesi's force: drawing human anatomy, although I might recommend morpho's books above them now, like oh my god morpho is so good.

OH the other thing. this is something I picked up from when I was taking an animation class in art school, but sometimes I'll put on a movie or show I really like and do thumbnail studies of the frames while I watch. there's a lot to learn in a frame! shapes are important. god I love shapes.

[binart]

Also SRY second ask. I know people get tired of the question "how did u get so good at blank" and the answer is usually practice. But did u do anything specific to get so good at anatomy?? and comic book angles??? Cause dayum

oh thank you!! that's actually something i've been wanting to work on even more (esp in the new year).

Lemme think here... i think there are a few things to keep in mind when looking to improve your art.

First, if possible, try to find something you're obsessed with! so for me that's keith/lance & catboys right now. if you're obsessed with characters/pieces of media then you'll want to draw them a bunch and that's HUGELY beneficial to improvement.

Secondly, go into improving your art with the understanding that it will take a while to see significant improvement. Pace yourself, and if you find yourself getting frustrated that's ok, but don't direct that frustration towards yourself. Art is a skill you have to work at, so don't get mad at yourself for not learning fast enough. Gentle mindset!!!!

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what was the last point i wanted to bring up.... OH RIGHT. collect inspiration and resources!! everything you need to improve your art is available on the internet these days.. it can be helpful to organize resources if you want to! but you can also literally just google "intro to anatomy" or something and start learning.

Oh actually, Stan Prokopenko ("Proko") has some excellent free youtube tutorials that I highly recommend checking out. I'm using some of his stuff right now for gesture studies.

anyway yeah practice is very important so that's of course part of it, but what i mentioned above has really helped me over the years. good luck in ur art journey!!!

[crazycometspecular]

Small tutorial or tips on poses/anatomy/drawing the body???? Please and thank you!

Your art is so satisfying!! <3!!

Hey thank you!!! I don’t have a tutorial properly made but I did do some studies a while back that I can talk about!

All these poses are referenced from http://reference.sketchdaily.net

I’m no pro but when drawing the body, I usually find myself doing it in simple shapes split off into sections:

starting from the head, the angle of the chest, and angle of the waist, then the limbs

Depending on the activity of the pose the torso kinda reminds me of an accordion with the chest and hips kinda sandwiching the abdomen together:

After doing these though, I kinda simplified the poses into their curvy and gestural forms just to make it easier to grasp how fast I can nail a pose down with fewer time spent on it

I think the best mindset to have when taking on anatomy/poses is realizing the power of shapes (it can rly help a lot!!)

Ofc there are other many other ways and processes of drawing the body, this way is just one I’ve grown to be comfortable with :D

[msbunnat]

Hi!! So Im writing because I have a question obviously, but first of all I’d like to tell you why Im asking you. So I basically bumped into a few of your arts on Pinterest (sadly) not posted by you, and none of them had your name on it. So I started to spend my free time finding your profile. (I also just downloaded tumblr because I didn’t have it before). My first thing after making my profile follow you was to ask you a question. So I’ve basically been drawing digitally for 2 and a half year now and I’ve been searching for my art style ever since then. Eventually I got better at digital art, but something still feels off about my current style. I was wondering if you could take a look at it, and give me some criticism or advice.

Hope this letter reaches you ^3^

Best best wishes

~your biggest fan

Hello! Thanks for liking my art so much! ;w; we cant scape the pinterest curse....

I like that your line have confidence, that helps a lot when impproving. Your anatomy is also in a good progress, maybe try more gesture drawings (I recommend quick sketches of more exagerated poses). Your colors look good, but I think you have a similar problem as mine, Its hard to try and play with colors ;w; Try to study some ligth references that do dramatic color changens (you can start with some blending modes to help, but after some time is good to do directly), so you can undertand how to mantain the ideia of the color you want to present without being stuck with monocromatic variations.

I really like your round shapes, but to not be stuck, try more square and triangle shapes on characters.

About you feeling something is off, this is totally normal, its part of the process. It means your eyes re more advancend tham your drawings. It will pass and come back, just dont let it stop you to do 'ungly' drawings, they re part of the pratice.

[petricorah]

Thanks for the ask, @strrwbrrryjam ! i'm flattered that you think I do a good job of that, because I'm still learning! (and I also struggle heavily with proportions. I have to resize my heads and arms so, so much...)

I'm afraid I don't have any secrets. I think the answer is to just practice, over and over again. But specifically, this is what I try to focus on as I'm learning:

references

quick practices - 30 second to 5 minute studies that help with getting a full scope of the shape and energy of the body, not meant to be perfect

studies - deep dives into certain anatomical structures (videos linked below)

Below the cut is how I use references go from this to this:

References:

Use a bunch of references! Pictures you take, stock images, from shows--practice real people. Even if your style is heavily stylized, it all starts from an understanding of anatomy.

How I Use a Reference When I Struggle With Proportions:

The first step I take while looking at a reference is to just draw a very loose sketch with a line of action that goes then entire length of the piece, and I try to section it out. I find if I don't think about the body as a whole, and just start drawing a head, the head will be way bigger than the rest of the image. So my first step is just really boxy and basic, just to get all appendages on paper. My first pass could look like this:

Okay, not bad. But the right arm is going way too far down--the forearm is really long. The head is too big for the style I want, and the left arm is at a 90 degree angle, unlike the picture. But, I have the general scope of everything on the page, so it's easier to adjust and look at the full picture!

Then, I try to focus on landmarks. I look at where certain body parts fall in the reference. For instance, Blackbeard's right elbow doesn't reach his belt, so his elbow shouldn't be near his waist. I can tell that his left arm is closer to being straight than at a right angle, and I can see that his head isn't as big on his shoulders as I have. I can also look at the negative space and see that the gaps between his right arm need to be smaller. So my next pass might look like this:

(I don't usually draw on the reference image, and I just "draw" the lines in my mind, but the for sake of things...)

Now it's looking a bit closer!

The next is the harder part. It's making things shapes, and is closer to the lineart stage. I try to follow curves, separate the chest from the torso, get the angle of the shoulders and head, etc. I have some video links at the end that explain this step much more in def.

You may notice that the head angle is a bit different than the image, and the shoulders are a bit lower. Sometimes, following a reference image completely either doesn't fit your style or, in some cases, the more accurate drawing following a reference can actually look "wrong" (anatomically) when drawn. Figure out what works best for you, and for the message you're trying to get across in the piece!

[sliiiight flashing in timelapse]

And here is the final timelapse, with a little refining and polishing of the anatomy. Not everything is completely accurate to the reference image, but I've created a believable image in the likeness.

I hope this helped! This was a quick and dirty post of something I'm still learning. Here are some youtube tutorial artists, resources, and books that I use to learn!

Youtube:

-ModerndayJames has lots of videos on creating shapes and understanding anatomy, and placing people in perspective. He has a lot of free videos, and then some cheap ones on gumroad that go more into it.

-Proko has lots of videos on anatomy!

Practice Resources:

-Pose Maniacs - figures in different poses. You can move the camera around to see different angles.

-QuickPoses has images for figure drawing and quick gesture drawing! You can even have different timers.

Books:

Morpho Series. There used to be the one on "Fat and Skin Folds" that was a free PDF download that was on tumblr for a while, but I don't believe the books are that expensive.

Taco's Books, published by Lezhin. This is heavily anime styled, but talks a lot about anatomy, and is a great resource!