#so you don't spend all your time erasing and redrawing

[abrilstevens]

i haven't drawn anything in over a year but i went into a fugue state and doodled god's favorite princess for three hours oops

[toy-sitting-anon]

It is funny.

At one point I decided that toy sitting specifically was evil and I needed to wean myself off it. I tried to draw a girl with a reasonable sized ass and figured having her be like, a dungeon delver eating treasure would be more appropriate. I made this character to be less hot to me. I could not. I kept editing her to make her ass bigger and never drew the dungeon-treasure. When she raised the shovel to deposit her finds into her mouth I could not resist. I drew them as toys.

I don't remember when this was but the paper is quite yellow now. It could have been before college or in the first year. In college I erased her hair to redraw it less like my crush's hair looked the day her image was seared into my memory, but it came out awful so i put it back. I liked her a lot. She became the icon of like, reckless consumption.

At the end of college I played darkest dungeon quite a lot. I named my A-list hellion Erica because she seemed like an Erica. I got attached to her which is what you're not supposed to do in that game. I edited the files so the red-clothed hellion had a bigger ass (quite badly for several of the animations.)

I played CDDA. I enjoyed, for a time, making a girl who loots the abandoned houses and builds a giant vehicle out of all the stuff, but was frustrated by the military/toughguy prepper focus of the game. I wanted to make characters that "eat" gadgets/appliances/toys with the furnace bionic but it felt off - there wasn't enough use for mass bionic power, you got too little from Cool items and lots more from busted up furniture, and it was a bad idea in gameplay terms to destroy the most valuable finds. And you couldn't sit on things.

I tried making Hellion-Erica as a character in the game but I found it pretty unpleasant to roleplay as someone that tough. I wanted someone soft with a big ass who crushes and eats hotly, unapologetically and rudely but not jockly. Someone like the icon of reckless consumption girl. I decided her name was also Erica.

When I discussed on my main teaching myself C++ and editing CDDA this is what I was doing. The options for json-data-modding this stuff were clunky. I wanted there to be a lot more toys in the game, and I wanted it to be possible to crush and eat them. I implemented these and a bunch of stupid marginal features. You could progress through a silly system of growing your ass and your girl powers with mutations that would all increase your need to eat and eat and eat everything. And these were all internally called ERICA_WHATEVER (the existing mutations in CDDA all have allcaps internal names.)

But I got annoyed at this project, left it behind, CDDA itself moved on and released worse and worse updates, C++ moved on and the libraries the old version I had forked depended on were deprecated or changed and it would no longer compile unless I went in and messed around with some of the lowest-level and likely performance-finicky parts of the game as an amateur.

This was in 2020-2021 that I was working on it heavily. The amount of time I was spending coding is insane to me now with the Brain Problems. It was not good code by any means but I was doing it. I had absurd ambitions and I was plugging away at them to make a world Erica could devour.

In February 2022, during a boring boomer conversation I felt like drawing something. I thought I would draw the sort of player-character I always made in CDDA (the unmodified version that I hadn't played in a while.) But I wasn't really sure how to draw, like, a rifle on a shoulder strap, so I ended up with just a girl in a jacket (storage volume is king) and cat ears (I always made my characters Stylish) and I tell you what. I was smitten with her. I was so smitten with her that I didn't give her bionics and stuff because I have boring taste in girls.

Her name was also Erica, of course. She watched from a clipboard as I shaved for the first time, because my parents never taught me and 2022 was when I decided I was going to metaphysically be a girl whether or not I had the right soul bit set. Here she is. I love her.

She eats toys too, of course. She eats and crushes and meows and is so so beautiful.

Later that year I decided I needed a name for myself. There was an obvious choice.

[hauntedtotem]

Do you have any drawing tips?

•When it comes to digital art, if you struggle making lines clean or sharp enough, using a textured brush erases that struggle because the whole point is not being clean or sharp.

^left is obvious where mistakes were made and had to be erased, looks choppy and needs cleaned up. right does not need cleaned up much. saves time and energy!

•if a drawing looks a little too bland or unfinished, but you don't know what else to do about it, adding a texture overlay does a lot, especially for solid backgrounds

•For both traditional and digital artists, do👏art👏studies👏. No, this doesn't mean sign up for expensive art classes, it means spend a page in a sketchbook just practicing one thing. So instead of drawing say, a character portrait like usual, have a page that's just full of hands in different poses (use references! Very important for studies!)

2016 example, but you can tell which ones had references (hint: only 3 of them did,but they're way better than the rest)

the only recent example I had was an unfinished page of bird skulls :/

Which brings me toooo

Learning to draw realistic skeletons can also really help with anatomy, if your character looks wonky, think "could a skeleton fit in there?"

Thinking abt how their skeleton looks can help notice things like the eyes being too high up or the mouth being too low, or having no room for a brain

*this is not a dig at people with this style! It's okay to have more exaggerated features and you don't need to draw realism! The skeleton rule does not apply to cartoony characters obviously. Just some advice from someone that used to put the mouth too low all the time

•if you get stuck where you feel like you aren't improving, try different art styles out.

•If you have art block and don't know what to draw, try the 'dtiys' or 'draw this in your style' tags and pick something there, or do screenshot redraws from games or shows

•If you usually listen to music when you draw but it's just not doing it atm, switch to something like long YouTube commentary videos or documentaries, and vise versa. Sometimes the brain wants music, sometimes it wants information or gossip. When you get burned out from one go to the other

•this applies to traditional and digital art too! If you have art block on one medium, switch to another! If digital isn't working, grab a pencil or paintbrush, or play with some clay! Sometimes the brain isn't bored of art, it's just bored of the medium.

•If you're trying realism and struggling, break it down to simple rules.

And I don't mean the shape thing everyone suggests, I mean things like "the inner corner of the eye lines up with the mouth, the outer corner of the eyes lines up with the ears, your nose bridge leans into your eyebrows, feet are the same length as your elbow to your wrist, use the collar bone to guide the shoulder position, the armpit curves into the breast, etc.

*this doesn't apply to everyone or every expression! Remember the mouth moves around and comes in all shapes, it's a very loose "rule", and people's eyes aren't always the same distance or angle, just keep the ear around that general eye area

Glasses test: can your character wear glasses?

carlos passes glasses test- a better rule for mouths is to imagine smile lines, even if whoever youre drawing doesnt have wrinkles, theyre a good guide for mouth placement

•doing color palette challenges can help practice composition and shading with abnormal colors, and helps understand color theory

•for digital, you can overlay colors over a drawing to make the palette more uniform. Don't be shy abt messing around with it

•Watch speedpaints! Watch pencil animation clips! It helps

•don't be afraid to use your art supplies. Ik the struggle of "but I don't wanna waste it", but that paint will go bad if you keep it on a shelf for years! Use it already! Doodle in the "fancy" sketchbook! Yolo!!

•use cyan and magenta for mixing paint, not blue and red. The "primary colors" rule doesn't always apply to all mediums.

•keep your old art! Do not tear it up or throw it out just because you're not proud of it, it's cool to reflect or even redraw it years down the line (backup your digital art somewhere, even the ones not posted online because your computer could just die one day for no reason and take everything with it. It sucks)

•IF you sketch on paper and then digitalize it later, you can draw the pieces seperately and photoshop them together. So dont worry if you drew a really good hand but it's at the slightly wrong angle, or too far away from the body. You can put it where it needs to be without having to erase and redraw it

[ssundayz]

there are not many people here and i haven't been updating this blog at all! sorry for that. but just so you know anyway, i'm going to wipe this blog clean! and i want to say a word.

most of you have probably/somehow heard of the situation with natlan and genshin, and i won't be touching on that. hsr has the same issue — penacony did not pay adequate respect to the black american creators of the jazz age. they were completely erased. as much as i love the game, i refuse to give these people my free time, my work and my respect. it is not a problem with genshin only, it is a problem with a company, and they've proven themselves to be anchored to their morals. therefore i will wipe this blog clean and possibly reuse it for something more worth my time.

no amount of headcanoning, rewriting, modding, redrawing, and editing is going to fix hoyoverse's racism. i am not against new and more appropriate interpretations, don't take me wrong — but you are simply putting a bandaid on a gaping wound, and doing the work that they can't be bothered to do, while they bathe in your money, attention and time anyway. for lack of better word, and sorry to be mean, you people delude yourself into eating the most putrid, bleached slop they put on the table.

even if you do not spend on the game, every time you talk of it, praise and recommend it, you are doing them a favor — free marketing, so to speak. i do not want my writing to serve them.

so i will take everything off. if you saved and repost my writing (as this has happened to me before;), that's up to you — i denounce you, but i won't stop you. if you're happy living with the fact that you endorse this, go ahead by all means. that speaks more about you than it does me, and i'm happy to let your actions speak for themselves. i don't care if anyone knows it is mine, or if i can prove it or even know it myself — but you will know, and i hope you remember what i said here.

bye party, maybe i'll see you when i repurpose!! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

[actuallytalldumbass]

Yeah that's something I'm sure most (if not all) people struggle with. I got back into drawing as a hobby like 3 months ago and let me tell you. It's amazing. I feel so fucking happy because of it and it gives me something to look forward to and work on instead of doomscroling and then blaming myself for wasting so much time.

For me one of the big blocks is, well, drawing in a sketchbook. There's this belief that they're supposed to be beautiful and full of amazing art, but that's such bullshit. Those are called art books. Sketchbooks are for sketches. For the ideas, the quick thumbnails, doodles, mistakes and lots of trials and errors. You might want to start drawing in a random notebook (or loose paper) instead of your sketchbook. For me it really takes the pressure off and I dont focus on making everything perfect anymore. Just choose some notebook, clean paper, dotted, ruled or grid. Whatever you like. You can decorate it a bit (but not too much/ in a way that will make you intimidated to use it!!) And just let loose. Starting is a hard part to get through, but one you finally do it, it will get easier.

And if you mess up, dont rip away the page or scribble on it. Just go to the next one and start over (I personally add little notes like 'not really what I was looking for :/' or 'kinda shit but whatever', so that whoever sees those can read the notes and think "oh okay, guess it wasn't his best work")(even tho literally no one sees those sketches💀 but whatever, it makes me feel better and more comfortable)

There are also some very important things you have to remember. And it goes for a lot of other things too! Not only drawing (or writing).

1. You're most likely criticizing yourself too harshly (belive me. That 'shaky' line is fine. And you don't have to erase and redraw the whole thing. It might be a good idea to just cover it up with some paint (but make sure it's still at least partly see through)(if you're drawing traditionally) or just change the colour of the sketch and lover the opacity of the layer (if you're doing it digitally) and start drawing over it! (on a different layer ofc)

2. Don't think about what others think about your work. Don't think 'but what if they won't like it?' Let them. The most important thing is that you had fun making it and that you're happy with what you did.

And definitely don't compare yourself too much to other people's works. We live in a time where it's so effortless to see what others and doing that we get overwhelmed with content, works and ideas of other people. It's easy to loose yourself in all of that.

3. You might want to try out other media/materials if you're stuck in one place. (Change is difficult! But can be nice) It can be very refreshing to draw your idea using different materials (even if you might not feel super confident in them)

4. I beg you. Dont push yourself too much. Take breaks. (Seriously) Once you begin something you get used to the way it looks and it's so easy to notice all the little mistakes (that might not even actually be there) (I once spend like an hour trying to draw a shape only to look at it the next day and think "wtf was I on last night? It's literally fine and how I wanted it to look." XD)

And the last one, that gives me a lot of motivation :)

5. There's always someone that wants to see your work.

No matter how shit you might think it is. No matter how much better it looked inside your head. There is someone that will look at what you made and it will cause them so much joy. Its honestly fantastic. The times I made smth that I wasn't super happy with but decited to still post it/ show it to someone and they loved it is bizarre to me. There will be someone that will see your work and think "i wish i could draw/write/whatever like that." All while you were looking at someone else's work and thinking the same thing.

STAY MOTIVATED AND KEEP GOING!! I'm sure you'll get out of the pain that's an art block and will make so many things you'll like

(You'll make it out. You always do in the end.)

idk how to get back into drawing i think about it everyday and when i manage to pull my sketchbook out i just stare at the blank pages

[cassthepilot]

Yo! It’s been a while, how have you been??

I was just wondering if you had any art tips and tricks? I’m looking to improve my digital art so I figured I’d ask (no pressure to answer of course)

aaa @edgynoise!! so good to hear from you again! I hope you've been doing well <3

and oh wow, of course! I'm not sure what kind of advice to offer but I'm happy to throw some things out here that might be helpful.

that said; here's some stuff that's personally worked for me

- spend a little time loosening up

this one helps me out a lot. if i go straight into a drawing from the start it's going to turn out stiff as hell for me every time so to combat this I usually spend about 5-10 doodling before getting into the actual meat of any kind of meaningful drawing. really helps wake up the hand meat muscles.

- get your thoughts down first and then tighten them up

i don't know if this would be applicable for everybody but generally I feel it's important to get whole of something down (no matter how busted it looks) before going in to correct certain things or agonize over anatomy. for me, the energy of a piece is it's foundation and that life is what everything else gets built around & up from. I find it much better to draw it messy & broken in the beginning rather than squeek through the whole thing erasing, redrawing & erasing on the same piece.. I feel a piece can just lose too much of it's energy that way. once i have the bare sketch worked out, I just set the sketch to a low opacity & redraw the lines for real-real on another layer over it.

- listen to music!

not always for everyone but i find picking music that matches the mood of what i'm working on generally helps me channel the vibe of something. for the mining piece above i listened to a lot of the old coal mining songs this was inspired by. i feel like it really helped me hit what i was going for.

- feel it out

so this may just be a me thing but when i do pieces i generally try to bring a lot of feeling and acting into them with me. if the character is concerned, i make myself feel that emotion while drawing them. If their face is sad or upset or fearful I make those same facial expressions myself in order to channel it into them. and if there's body language involved i'll sometimes even go the extra mile & act things out with my hands, depending. i don't know what it is about this but i find that it can really bring a lot of life to a piece. also just being aware of those facial muscles and how they feel in certain situations can make emphasizing & drawing them easier in general.

- try to vary your lineweight

this one really depends on what style you're going for but I find that, for myself, varying the line weight really helps add a lot of life to things. my lines in tend to run a little thicker overall but the general rule of thumb is broader / thicker lines where there's gravity, weight or in places where you want to emphasize the energy of something. (ex. bottoms of feet, arms, thighs, clothing, jawlines etc.) and then lighter/thinner lines for more detailed / finer areas like say the eyes, facial features, details in fingers etc.

not the best example but hopefully it more or less gets across what I'm stabbing at haha

as for digital / art program tips I'm not sure what I can offer that may be helpful but here's what I got!

- keep everything on different layers. this is a big one. 100% will keep you from wanting to rip all your hair out & setting it on fire. i'm not sure how familiar you are with layers yet but generally I set them up so that the lineart is on the top layer, the flat colors are on the bottom layer & the shading on the character is inbetween.

- when shading, try to avoid using straight black

unless there's a solid reason to shade with black (like say doing a strictly pen & ink piece) I generally try to avoid it. if you need dark colors for shading I find it's always way better to shade with a really deep red/purple or blue instead. even just that hint of color will make the overall colors in a piece far less dull & muddy.

- take advantage of the hue/saturation feature to adjust colors

this one's a huge time saver for me. basically if I have my characters shaded & i'm not really digging the colors or think they're popping off right I will select the layer or color & then use the hue/saturation function to adjust the areas i don't like accordingly until i hit on something that looks more harmonious. This is especially helpful if you're trying to find the right colors you want for something but just aren't sure what's going to look good. it's also super useful on things like your shading layer or if you're working with warm or cool light sources.

- deepen shadows / brighten up light sources

When a piece is near finished for me one of the small after effects I like to add is a light airbrushing in both the lightest & darkest areas. This helps add more contrast and if it's placed over top the linework layer it can sometime help to create ambient mood, depending on what you're going for of course. Anyway, for me this usually means creating a new shadow layer, deepening them up with a hit of darker airbrushing and then setting that layer to multiply & adjusting the opacity according to what looks good. For the light sources it's pretty much the same deal except the layer will be set to 'overlay' or' vivid light' whichever usually looks right to me.

- tie it together with local color

so this is a favorite trick of mine that i enjoy using from time to time & one i find can really help with pulling the colors in a piece together to make it look nice.

basically if a piece is finished & I just want to make it look more cohesive & tied together i will start by filling an entire layer with a local color (for example if the piece is warm i will make a layer of just straight orange), then i will move that layer to the top of all other layers where it can be king and then proceed to set the entire thing to overlay & lower the opacity to something between 8-25%. how much you lower the opacity depends on what you feel looks good of course but overall i find it can be a useful trick for quickly warming up or cooling down the tones in a piece. Overall it’s just handy for making an illustration look a bit more cohesive color-wise.

this examples a little on the extreme side but hopefully it can kind've show what i mean in the way of unifying the colors.

- study life

so this sort've falls under generic art advice but you can never go wrong studying from life. And I don't just recommend this in a 'it will get you good at drawing the human body' kind of way. What it will do is get you good at drawing people. Just observing the mannerisms people have, the way they gesture when they feel things, the way certain body types carry their weight, the body language that accompanies both stronger & lesser emotions, how people posture themselves to reflect (or reveal!) what's going on inside. When you really sit down & take the time to study & observe people you'll find that there's so much to take away from it. Everything from the way a person carries themselves to how they move their body can say so much about a person (whether they intend it to or not) and I've found that if you want to pull something really convincing out of a character then body language is where it's at. It's equally as important as facial expressions honestly & a good tip (if you're just looking to get better at body language only) is to draw the face last & force yourself to communicate emotions with the hands, body & posture instead.

- andrew loomis

so fun story back when i was studying art in college - one day my media teacher walked in & straight up told the class that if any of us had to drop out tomorrow we could basically just study creative illustration by andrew loomis & it would be the damn near equivalent of what we were all paying to be taught. To this day I've never forgotten that. And to this day it absolutely holds up. Really can't recommend this guy enough if you're looking to understand the fundamentals of illustration! And what luck! all of his books are free! :)

Fun With a Pencil (Beginner) https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Fun%20WIth%20a%20Pencil.pdf

Figure Drawing for All It's Worth (Intermediate) https://illustrationage.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/andrew-loomis-figure-drawing-for-all-its-worth.pdf

Creative Illustration (Intermediate-Advanced) https://illustrationage.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/andrew-loomis-creative-illustration.pdf

Drawing the Head & Hands (Intermediate) https://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Drawing%20the%20Head%20and%20Hands.pdf

study other artists!

one of my favorite things to do! if you like what someone makes - study them. I do this near constantly with a lot of different people for a lot of different things. Everything from the way one artist colors, to the way one artists handles lighting, to the way another artist draws hands - if there's something i see that I like in a persons art or their style - I study it. Even if it's outside of my current comfort range (or skill level) I find there's always something to gain by either attempting to emulate it myself or just breaking it down & figuring out what makes it look the way that it does. One thing I find that's really helpful is breaking apart .psd files whenever an artist will offer them. just looking at the way other people handle their layers or add effects to things can really help broaden my perspective & way of doing things.

That said; if it would be helpful you're more than welcome to check out my own .psd file here if you feel it would help you out any!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yigbm7b9b8eyb0g/run%20with%20us%20-%20full.psd?dl=0

At the moment it's one of the more put together ones I have so hopefully it can offer a better visual insight to some of the things I do. Again, if it's something that you think would help.

Anyway, I guess that's about it. Also wow this was a lot longer than I thought it would be so my bad if I got way too rambly or anything haha. Super excited for your future art endeavors here & think it's really awesome that you're exploring more! I'm so happy & excited for you <3 Feel free to hit me up if there's anything else I can help you out with.

[the-songs-of-my-life]

Shane Koyczan and the Short Story Long - Stop Signs

It's all stop signs. it's all lines that shouldn't be crossed. It's all interpretations that have been lost in translation, even when the meaning is embossed on something that redefines stop signs, something that erases and redraws lines for all the times curiosity get the better of us. But until it gets the best, we test the lines. Until it gets the best, it's all stop signs.

Now, all that you are, changes we love. While you are gone, I'll be waiting.

And then there's you, and I wanna kiss you so bad that I'd be willing to cut off my own head and just throw it towards your lips. And you'd be well within your rights to just swat it to the floor, but I'd redefine hardcore, lying there at the tips of your toes. Because god knows I'd be trying to figure out some way to roll towards them. And maybe that's crossing the line. Maybe that's a little creepy. If I knew you better than I do, I would know creepy's not the way to go. So, how's this? I wanna kiss you like a traffic jam. I wanna move slow. I wanna stop and go. Like, I know at least I'm moving towards you, and there's no use weaving through gridlock. Because every clock keeps poly ticking and tocking to tell me it's time for all the amazing in-between that's been seen and heard and each word that's passed between us like someone with somewhere to go.

And I know I hardly know you, so let's go slow like a turtle with a purpose. Let's not miss a single minute. Because every sixty seconds that contained within it are the two-hundred times I've tried to coax each smile to bloom into a laugh. And exact science of math can't begin to calculate half the time it would take to make misery turn itself into a punchline. One that was willing to mine past silver and gold just looking for something to tell you something that's never been told.

I wanna hold you like mine are the last arms in the world. I want them curled around you like the red and white stripes on a barber pole. And when I give you a lump of coal for Christmas and tell you that in a million years, it's gonna be a diamond. And will you wait for me until then?

Because that's when I'll be evolved enough to melt all the other brains of men on earth. And maybe I've got a shot it all that remains is two gazelles on a Serengeti plane and me. Of course, if you're willing to make sweet, sweet love with animals, I'll totally understand; I'm good with that. I'll ban together with whatever vegetation is left living. Me three weeds and a rubber plant will spend Thanksgiving saying "how grateful we are that you're happy."

Now, all that you do helps me get through, love. If you're unsure, I will show you.

I want you to feel like the banana peel under Charlie Chaplain's shoe. Because it's you that brings the house of this heart down. It's you that's the chamber of commerce in a town that's got nothing to offer but everything everyone can't find everywhere else under the sun. I'm done with all of the every that. Done thinking of where it is I'm going. I'm figuring about where it is I'm at. And that has got to be beside the one who's stopped me from trying to calculate the sum total of someone, as if this biological calculus has ever done anything for me. Other than the something that keep me seeking to self-providence that don't exist. Like a swat team sharp shooter with cataracts, I've missed the point more times than certain Americans have been elected to the oval office, which is always once too often. And let's face it, sometime two too many.

But this time, I'm willing to pay interest on a penny for your thoughts. Mortgage my mind, finance an expedition that will find me a better way to get to know you. Because I've read through the short story of my life and found that your name stands out on the page. Your slightest look unlocks the tumblers on my rib cage. And you can gauge my sincerity when I lift my heart towards you and tell you in a million years, it'll be less than dust. The slightest gust will blow it away. But you'll have to listen to wind chimes say that you still are worth waiting for.

Don't tell me you're not beautiful. You're the kind of beautiful that the blind would see if we could figure out some way to give them three seconds of sight. When you tell me you're not gorgeous, I want to pop out your left eye and show it to your right.

Now, all that you do helps me get through, love. If you're unsure, I will show you. All that you are changes me, love. While you are gone, I'll be waiting.

You're worth crossing whatever distance it would take. Worth building bridges to make connections because I've been secretly stealing stop signs, repainting traffic lines so I can only go one way. Because as far as I can tell, dedication is the better part of foreplay.

And I admit it, I'm committed. Everything I've done, I've done it to make you smile because it's been the largest part. Some long while since I've had someone do that for me. You feel like comedy after three years of being on the bandwagon of calamity. And I can't be bothered with a tragedy without trying to get to know you. I've been through enough wretchedness to know that some flowers can still grow through the garbage, and you make me want to take up gardening. Seeing sadness drain the spirit out of this history as if the worst is yet to come. Those that took the time to know me know I don't run. Partly because I'm not athletic, but mostly because that's life, and I've met it head-on! I've gone the distance more times than George Lucas looked at Jar Jar Binks and thought "fuck!"

And until I fit the bill, I will still fill my days trying. Because I'm yours, from bottom to the top. And I'm not just saying I'll be here for you, I'm saying I'll never stop.

[dahtwitchi]

Hello there! I absolutely adore your art style, it's clear enough that even when scribbly you can tell who everyone is and simple enough that you probably don't need to spend hours doing a single pose. Any tips for how to speed up how long it takes to draw characters? Or just drawings tips in general? Thank you for your time and for getting me thoroughly on the MadaTobi bandwagon, I've been coloring some of your coloring pages for them and they're always adorable.

When it comes to speed, there is only one way. Do it over and over and over again. Get familiar with the character, draw them in different situations, different clothes, different moods. Sometimes to hit just the right expression, I have drawn (when it's eluding me the most) upward twenty versions of the same expression and then still picked attempt #2. I've drawn Tobirama and Madara well over a thousand times by now. Doodle doodle doodle away without intent to make grand images, sketches you can be ready pick out one or two and throw the rest away, because they were just training for your hand and brain for when you actually do make those drawings you want to be the more refined ones.

(unrefined babbling under cut)

When I make sketch studies I often do so with a timer, and, important to me personally, a pen that can't be erased. What ends up on the paper ends up on the paper (spending too much time with digital tend to slow me down overall, way too easy to stop to fiddle with everything and make it into a habit x'3 for example go in and change the angle of an arm individually for half an hour, instead of having to draw the image all over again). Trying to get sketches down under five minutes, three, single minute, is a horror, but oh so useful and can be a real fun challange. The feeling when you finally manage more than just a head and an arm during the time is such a reward! I spent six very stubborn months a couple years back making speed studies every day. I barely had energy for any other arting, but built skill in a way that make me grumpy about not having done it again, but it is so exhausting and a chore... :p (I mostly made not humans, though. I chose weird things, objects placed together that weren't usual, emptied a penbox on the table, and so on, no pre-concieved ideas how it should look when you have some potatoes on a glass jar.)

Things like inktober or huevember or dogaust are good, too. To within a contained timeframe sit down every day with a very focused theme or excersise make a good difference. If one has little time, just make sure to pick something small enough to focus on that you can do it as many days as possible. A five minute sketch every day for example. Or just doodling, but always with the same tool. Or, as you mentioned characters, make something with the same character over a month. Drawing patterns help the penmanship, drawing dogs or cats every day will make a difference over a month. Arting a big full drawing everyday because a few fulltime or very very experienced artists do, when oneself tend to take a week or at least a cuple days and rarely make one on top of another? That's setting oneself up for failure. Set yourself up for success, it's more fun and better for the mental health <3 All the small repeated things matter a lot in the long run for putting tools in your skill toolbox for when you want to level up :3

The only times I spend hours on a pose, is sometimes for the elaborate full colour drawings. But, with those, I'm usually refining a sketch by redrawing it with small iterations of changes many times over before having a basis I'm pleased with.

Complete rambles, hope some made sense, and it wasn't too tiring hearing the same old omg DO EEET AGAIN AND AGAIIIINNNNNN x'p

[whypolar]

So if you don't mind me asking, how do you do your linework? It's really neat and tidy.

Oh my god I wrote a big long reply to this and then accidentally closed the tab, what did I do to deserve thisGuidelines and tips I use for myself:-While some people are already perfectionists and shouldn’t be encouraged to Obsess, if you’re a habitually messy liner it can help to not settle for your first attempt. Sometimes you will end up spending less time if you just bite the bullet and redraw a line, or a limb, or even an entire composition.-Being alert for unintentional tangents is a very good idea because they can fuck up somebody’s perception of even an otherwise very beautiful drawing. Better to catch them early than have to suddenly work around them when you thought you were almost finished.-If you want just a single curve, try to draw it in a single stroke instead of many tiny ones. -If you can’t do that for whatever reason, or if you need to correct a line that’s almost but not quite right, big canvas + zoom is your friend. Even messy lines that have been erased and scribbled over and reshaped can look nice if the mess is all buried at 300% view (and then you export the drawing to be even smaller!)-Practicing and using reference will often improve lineart intuitively. If you know what the thing you want to draw looks like, you can more easily figure out where to put the lines to give the impression of its shape properly.Also:-Find a drawing program you like. I drew in photoshop for years and I hate its default brushes for lineart. It’s also not designed for drawing specifically, so it lacks a lot of cool and useful tools that dedicated drawing programs often have.-I bought one of those artist’s anti-fouling half-glove things and it’s great. It reduces the friction of my hand against the tablet, which allows me to draw more easily with my whole arm instead of my wrist. Better lines and less pain. A++ would reccomend.