#something fun for sketches that I don't want to fully render

[pantstresbienn]

Instead of working on my many WIPs, I decided to color this sketch to try out a different way of coloring

[choochooboss]

Submas Sketchdump Vol. 4 July 2022 Part 2!!

I knew that particular month beat my all time record for productivity multifold but I had forgotten SO MANY PIECES from the original collection!! I think I finally got them all?? More stuff under the cut!!

BREAKMAS!! WIP of the first piece I posted of them, here's the link to the final version! I tried coloring this first but the black & white had ultimately more impact so I went with that!

TRAINS!! I like this base color version too! Link to the final version!

The top sketch is a direct reference to Cluedo! A spinoff game, "Missingo", starring certain familiar characters trying to figure out what happened to Ingo/trying to prove their innocence in the case! Also WIP sketches for these two Breakmas comic pages!

As you may know I adore butlermas! For the classy and stylish look which appeals to me in general, and coincidentally I had played PLA & got hit by submas train only one week before butler Ingo's banner rolled out! The pure bliss of finally meeting both twins in a game I felt was incomparable!! This moment in the Curious Tea Party event was really entertaining to me! We got to see submas get serious and stand up against this selfish collector thief! Two towering train twinks with commanding voices looming over the unfortunate guy was enough to make him change his mind ahah! They truly are the protectors

1-hour submas challenge prompt "Descend"! This is the actual one hour result before I continued rendering this!

Mmmmm not my first attempt at drawing them hug and definitely not my best OR last. I want to make that moment something very special when I finally go all out on it!!

Comic cover vibing~

The scrapped last page for this silly comic! Sorry the dialogue is all over the place on the first piece, might be hard to read! I wasn't happy with how I presented Elesa, I wasn't familiar enough with her character back then so I thought of her carrying a toy taser to threat her friend even as a joke was too much and I couldn't come up with anything else for it. This held me back from posting the other three pages for another 5 months! In the last panel

I prefer to not mess up the twins too much but my brain is still very curious and conjures some peculiar stuff like this sometimes.. I think I may have broken his arms there looking at the anatomy, ooops! I hope you don't mind the photo quality or the two weird guys in the corner, they escaped containment!

Idea of warden Ingo, being projected to modern era by his Alakazam, walking through crowd on a train platform & Emmet standing inside a passing train. Their eyes meet for just a few seconds...

Pokemas Ingo practise!

Another WIP of a piece I posted! I started this piece like this but then later I decided to flip the whole thing.

YET another WIP of something I already posted! No idea why I went and mixed up his suits but I like this sketch! They rarely end up looking this clean haha

Sketch version of the self-defense practise piece! I love getting creative with action stuff! I barely ever think of how difficult they are to draw, I just get so excited and fixated on visualising the scenes in my mind I just keep at it, pull out refs and pose in front of mirrors until it looks good to me! I want to draw more action scenes but besides being challenging to draw my brain comes up with more silly and cute ideas than cool ones unfortunately ahah

One more WIP, here's the link to the final results!! I really like how genuine their expressions look here even if the faces are a little off. I recall spending a long time figuring out this perspective. I thought it would be fun to you to see how all these pieces started and... looking at the sketch above and the stuff before that, you can compare some range of my style!

RANDOM SUBMAS MISSILES GO

OHHH looks like some nasty passengers got the best of them!! If I recall correctly there was no fight because they managed to paralyse the two before they could act. Fully awake yet completely helpless... how convenient unfortunate. Thank you so much for checking these out!! Not every sketch is that exciting but I'm always happy to hear your thoughts on these!

Previous posts: Sketch dump Vol. 1: April-June 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 2: July 2022 Sketch dump Vol. 3: August 2022

[kozachenko]

[Click for better quality]

Ok yay I'm back from my vacation yipeeeeeee. I started this drawing of Keiki before I left and I was half considering just giving up on it.... until I did a short study of facial planes and then got motivated to work on this again! I'm glad I didn't give up on it though, as I'm actually really happy with this one!

Artist's Notes;

So as I mentioned in my last post about Touhou 17, I wanted to finish this by the game's five year anniversary but with how progress was going I didn't want to rush this so I decided to take a long break from it. Mainly because of the face. For a while now I was kind of feeling like I was stagnating with my drawings, not really in the clothing but in the bodies. There was something about the way I was rendering them that I just wasn't happy with, and after talking with someone else about this issue, I realized that the reason I felt this way was because the faces were too flat and didn't match the rest of the drawing and that I needed to find a way to make the rendering of the face feel consistent with everything else. So after doing a short study of the plains of the face (I used this 3D head model from art station as a reference for my short study, please go give this person some love as they are a lifesaver) I went back into this drawing and applied what I learned here. It was only after that that I finally became motivated to finish the piece, and while it started off as just a simple character sketch like Saki and Yachie's were, the moment I added in Keiki's little fire dragon I knew I had gotten in too deep and now here we are with a full on background. OK it's not super crazy or anything, but it gets the job done and it's better than there just being an empty void behind her. It's rare moments like this when I use brushes other than the Clip Studio Default Charcoal Brush and use the Clip Studio Default Paint Brushes as well (god bless the oil paint and dry gouache clip studio brushes, they were amazing). I don't know why but painting fire has always been really fun for me, there's something oddly satisfying about it y'know? I do think that another reason for this problem was because I was drawing faces like I would in my more sketchy style that didn't mesh well with my lineless style, so I'm glad I've started remedying that.

After adding in the fire dragon I had an idea to kinda make it feel like splash art in the way the composition works... probably because I have been playing Reverse 1999 again and it has taken over my brain. I do feel like Keiki's tools get a little lost in the composition, and I didn't fully render the metal parts of them mainly because I didn't feel like they needed it, but that's just something for me to improve on later down the line.

If you guys are wondering where I went for my vacation, I went to New York and got to go to the MET and the Museum of Natural History. In both places I found Kofun period stuff and I was so happy to see it you have no idea. I remember one of the Haniwa I saw had some neat face paint under the eyes that I tried to replicate with the makeup under Keiki's eyes in my drawing, though I think I'll gave to figure out how to draw makeup on characters because this reads more like blush to me than anything. While drawing this I also looked up some references of Kofun period jewelry and really liked the stuff I found, which also meant that now she has proper Kofun earrings instead of earrings shaped like Kofun tombs. I put some of the things I referenced with a closeup of Keiki's face as well down below. I made her outfit more reminiscent of the outfit I gave her at the beginning of the year with the buttons and all, though I do want to try and draw her in some more period accurate clothing like the Haniwa I took a picture of at the Museum of Natural History. I wish I could find a way to make her handercheif look better though as I wish I made it a little bit bigger, though I think I'm saying this because I've looked at this drawing for too long lmao. Once again something to work on for when I next draw her. Also want to get better at rendering hair, as some details (like the little strands in front of her ears) kinda got unreadable due to the similarities in colour lol.

Now you may have also noticed the little cracks I added onto Keiki's face, and that's because I have fallen in love with the idea of Keiki's body being made from ceramic and that she crafted her body herself. While they aren't very visible I also tried to add some doll joints to her body, which is an idea I played around with in the past but never went to far with. I also want to get better at rendering cracks in ceramic, porcelain, etc, as I'm not sure how those read in the drawing. I also have a headcanon where the cracks in Keiki's face show up because of heightened emotions, and while Keiki is aware of this and does her best to make sure her face doesn't break off.... she will still end up with at least a few cracks during any given day, and she can often forget to repair her own body quite frequently so Mayumi has to remind her quite a lot. Mayumi even taught herself some basic sculpting techniques to help repair parts of her body that are so badly damaged to the point where Keiki can't repair them herself, i.e. if both her arms broke off, Mayumi would put them back together for her so Keiki can at least have something to repair herself with rather than nothing. I also like to imagine that if Keiki created her own body, if you took a look at Keiki from the beginning of her life she would look completely different compared to now.

BTW If you guys are wondering what a very very angry Keiki looks like....ok in order for this to make sense have any of you read volume 11 of Land of The Lustrous? Am I bringing back some memories for those of you that have? Ok good, glad we all got that mental image brewing in our minds, I'll probably draw a version of Keiki that is somewhat inspired by that one day as it's an idea I've had for a little while now. And to those who haven't gotten to that volume yet and are confused.... don't worry about it, just keep reading :)

[alan-in-the-outernet]

...

So. A certain someone just hit 300 followers on here. I don't even have that many on my main blog! So... wow!

That.. so many people have had or still do have interest in the stuff I do in AvA, whether that's my rambles, my short stories, my art... it just... blows me away, honestly... and you know what?

I thought... why not do a fun thing in celebration...

... :3

I'm gonna do a lil bit of a raffle!

So, here's how this is gonna go- from today, 1/2(Today), to 1/14- (the week after next weeks tuesday), you can either submit, reblog this post with, or send in an ask- a piece of art- and I'm talking multiple forms of art! Drawing, writing, music- etc.

And what will this art be of- my au's! But here's the kicker... I'm talking your oc's, in my au's! I wanna see y'alls characters translated! Of course, if you really want, you COULD do my character's or the canon character's from them- but I'd like to see y'alls!

And for each category you do(drawing, writing, a song, etc) you get an entry! A ticket, basically.

And when 1/14 hits, I'll draw names- and the three top names pulled will get something!

3rd Place - A sketch or snippet of writing from me

2nd Place - A full drawing or one-shot from me

1st Place - A fully rendered drawing or a gif from me!

Now, none of these can be gore, or anything explicit- but otherwise, that's the prizes! And if 1st place wanted something from 2nd place or something like that, I'll give the option of 1st place stuff to 2nd place, etc.

Now.. while yes, there are technically prizes for this- this is honestly just meant to be a fun lil event! Because I want to see how y'alls characters might translate- for the fun of it! And of course, no one has to participate in the end, but... well!

Happy 300 followers ;3

And for those who are interested in possibly participating- I can't wait to see what you do ;3

Open Categories for an entry point(Again you can do multiple!)

Drawing

Writing

Music(Writing a song up, etc, doesn't need to be sung or anything!)

Animating(Please... please don't put yourself through this torture /silly but I thought I'd put it up anywho!)

And maybe other's! I'll edit it if someone has another thought!

[dekkiidan]

I am in love with your colors and linework, how soft it makes everything feel and yet how sharp it all is. Especially for Dusty and Mohs, they’re so distinct!

Would you mind talking about your process a little, especially how you manage colors and rendering? I’m working on my own style right now so I’m asking some of my favorite artists how they learned and practice their own. What kind of practice helps you find the right colors for your characters?

Howdy!

First off, thank you so much for your ask, you've made my evening with your kind words on my art! ;A;

I'd like to preface my answer with a little note in that I am not a professional artist by any means. I'm a scientist by trade, so please don't take my words as gospel! I draw and create for fun and fun alone.

My process normally follows the following steps:-

Pose Reference - find, or create (mirror and phone camera my best friends), a pose you wish to use for your characters.

Use your reference to create your sketch!

My sketches are always messy, so I tend to do two or three passes before I settle on a sketch I'm happy with.

Lineart time! I . . . cannot describe my lineart process. Anyone who has watched me stream will tell you it's something. Basically I go over my sketch bit by bit with a cleaner pencil brush and add texture and depth as I go with different sizes and pressure.

Base colours! Just select and fill, nothing fancy here.

Shading - normally I slap a multiply layer on the whole piece, then erase highlights. Then I work up the values for more depth and lighting. I normally use my textured brushes here for more texture.

Adjustments! I'd say this is probably my most important step. I spend a lot of time adjusting levels and tones to my liking. You can use layer corrections for this!

Final touches! Time for some pretty dust particles, little highlights, and some splashes of final texture.

Note that if I'm making a piece with a full background, I'll tend to paint the whole background first, and then add the character. I find this allows my characters to feel properly embedded in the piece, and ensure I use proper tone and colour from their environment to inform their own palettes. When creating a background, I will create a composite image using photos, sketches, palettes etc. as a reference before painting.

In regard to my colour choices for my characters, I normally utilise a mix of real world and canon-compliant references, alongside random palettes if I find I'm struggling for inspiration. I find Coolors a really great resource for creating random palettes, but also to create a palette from a photograph or reference should you want something a little more focussed! Stein's colour palette, for example, is fully picked from a photo of some Namibian Pietersite!

When it comes to shading and rendering, my biggest advice is just to practice and see what works for you! I'm a huge fan of utilising texture in my work, which can be achieved with a variety of different brushes. For example, I enjoy using a mixture of hard and soft pencils for my lines (Artemus Pencil Pack on Clip Studio Paint), and then a gouache and round mixing brush (pre-installed as standard on Clip Studio Paint) for my shadows and lights. Clipping masks and layer modes are also my best friends - I love playing around with different layer modes such as overlays, soft lights and multiply layers to achieve a homogenous "feel" to each piece; but honestly sometimes it really is just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks for you! Experiment, play around! Find something that you really enjoy working with and make it your own. ::3

My final piece of advice would be, don't be afraid to reference! Look at characters and backgrounds in real life, animated movies, video games etc. etc. and make notes on what you like about those pieces - do little studies to try and emulate the style and then work on making it your own. A lot of my background inspiration (when I can actually be bothered to paint a full background!) comes from Disney features such as Bambi and Lilo & Stitch; and of course learning to draw Hearthians initially came from referencing the in-game models!

Thanks again for you're super sweet ask, I hope you find a style that you enjoy using! Look forward to seeing some of your artwork in the future! >w<

[elsa-fogen]

So uhhh quick question what would you do if you wanted to finish something (an art cough cough) but everytime you tried to finish it, your motivation just keeps flicking in and out and made you have a hard time finishing it and almost made you wanna give up and leave it unfinished?

Sorry for the long question but i have SO many unfinished drawings that i want to post so bad but couldn't for sum reason 😭

And you're the only artist so far that i know almost post around every 3-5 days

You don't have to answer this but can you pls give me youtube art tutorials that help you?

So very sorry for disturbing you 😅

i'm not the best person to ask for advice, honestly. Maybe it'll sound too prideful, but i consider myself a really special case. I don't hate myself and my art (mostly), i don't suffer while drawing, and i've never had an "art block" in my life. I've been drawing my whole life, and if you count all days when i didn't draw anything you'll get... well, maybe 2-3 years out of my 24. I think. so, anything i say may not be helpful.

Actually almost everything you see in my blog are just colored sketches, not finished art

woops haha

Maybe that'll work for you too? try to just color your sketches and post them as they are. When i realised that my works don't have to be fully finished, my life become much easier. And i was really surprised to find out how many people can enjoy my comics even if they're just sketches. Of course, comics with cool art and colors will get more attention, but in the end, you won't get any attention if you don't post anything. so i know for a fact that i can't pull out a fully rendered comic, and all i can do - just sketches, and in this case it's better to post at least them then post absolutely nothing. There will be people who enjoy them.

and very often stuff you did for fun has more attention then those things you spend much time and effort (like how my shitty meme got 10k notes out of nowhere)

but when i need to finish something i just make myself do it. Just breaking myself over a knee. And don't start anything else before it's done.

It helps when you have a date when the art should be finished, and consequences if it's not. Yeah.

And EXCUSE YOU, I ACTUALLY POST EVERY DAY! gee, no respect on this hellish site for my hard work /very much J

And i don't watch any art tutorials aha- i watch reactions or game playthroughs, or some blogger ramble about some cartoon while drawing.

so yeah, kinda messy, as all my text posts are... but hope it'll help you. Good luck with your art!

[persimminwrites]

ive said this before but cant stress enough how important it is to already have references picked out and even pulled up before you sit down to do art. while there are definitely times when its fun to sit down, find or see a random picture that inspires you, and then go create something from there, i think its best practice on a day to day to have a goal and a plan! now thats not to say that your art practice needs to be super structured and rigid. art can be so fun and gratifying when there is no end goal and you "find" what you want to create along the way. but when i don't do this (this = picking refs, doing some planning prior) i often find myself using the time ive allotted for art endlessly scrolling and picking out references that interest me. this typically ends with me having a varied assortment of references pulled up that may or may not have anything to do with what i wanted to draw or practice that day and by the end of that ive exhausted myself mentally going through a bunch of pictures on the internet and getting side tracked by tumblr, youtube, other social media, etc.

so! if you experience something similar, i recommend:

keeping a running list of things you want to create in a note somewhere

this is an excellent thing to do imo because if you ever find yourself wanting to create art but when you finally sit down you're unsure of what you actually want to make, having a list of ideas is so so helpful. the list can be very specific concepts/pieces you want to make, or it can be as broad as 'do more anatomy studies with interesting perspectives'. the entire goal of this bullet (and the rest of the list lol) is to cut down on decisions you have to make during your art practice time!

making conscious decisions or goals for what you want to create or practice the next time you sit down to make art

similar to the first bullet, the goal of this is to set intentions for the next time you sit down to create art. it can be as simple as an hour before you have time to make art you think to yourself 'i'd like to practice portrait sketches this afternoon' or 'i want to do 30 min landscape studies tomorrow'. i cannot stress enough that when you make decisions for yourself ahead of time, you will have a lot more energy to create when you next sit down to make art.

take some time BEFORE sitting down to create art to pick out references, decide color palettes, decide scope of practice (sketch? gesture drawing? fully rendered piece?)

so you've already decided what you're going to create and your goal for the next time you sit down to create art. if you have time, curate a specific set of references that you want to use prior to actually sitting down to create. and i don't mean decide that you will look through the board on your pinterest where you have all of your anatomy pose references. i mean - specifically pick out a handful of references you want to use or select from the next time you sit down to make art. you want to do anatomy studies? pick a handful of poses that you want to study beforehand. you have a specific piece in mind of your character from X media? have reference images of that character pulled up, have pose references that you want to use if you aren't just doing a portrait. doing a fully rendered portrait study? have your portrait reference pulled up and select a color palette if you can. fabric and clothes studies? pick a few you want to look at. you want to practice drawing noses? have! references! pulled! up! beforehand!

references are your friend! they really are! but sometimes they can be a hinderance to our art practice if we don't approach them with intention. i know that personally i get overwhelmed with all of the things i want to do studies of, things i want to draw, ideas i have, rendering styles i want to practice. i see other people's art online and feel inspired to create something similar. i see someone's cool outfit and want to draw my oc in it. the world is filled with so much inspiration and that's so wonderful but it can be so overwhelming. do yourself and your art practice a favor and try to approach things with intention. make decisions beforehand so that your art practice time isn't swallowed by getting sidetracked on the internet or getting overwhelmed by things you could be doing.

bottom line -> life is busy. there's a lot of information that you are inundated with every second of every day. if you can take some time prior to figure out the WHAT of your art, when you have time to make art you will have more energy to focus on HOW you will make the art

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA of I want art trades to be of equal time/quality?

this is a weird one but I had a spat with someone recently because they wanted to do an art trade, which i was open to do, but we hit a weird impasse. When I do art trades I like to put forth as much effort as my trade partner puts forward first, and would prefer that if i put art first that my partner reciprocates the same amount of time and care.

Art style, quality, experience, follower count means nothing to me in the exchange, just the level of effort. It feels unfair to me that I would put in hours/days of work on a painting to only receive something done in less than a few hours, especially since that would basically be doing a free commission. I'm willing to give smaller/newer artists with less experience or cheaper software more effort in my half on the account that I trust they're doing their best with what they have. It's meant to be fun!

This is not an instance of that. I've checked this artist's gallery and they were perfectly capable of producing extensively detailed pieces, so I agreed to do a more detailed piece, as long as they do the same.

This is where things get weird. They were perfectly fine with me doing something bigger and were very excited, and I brought up that in my listed art trade rules, I'd like them to do the same. They agreed, and we both went to work. I'm a slow artist, so it's been taking me some time, and I'm well into working on colors and rendering. in the middle of this time is when I get my half. it's just lineart with some shading. it was very beautiful, and I'm grateful! but it's not necessarily a level of detail that we agreed on. So I kiss my flat colors and rendering goodbye and just quickly rendered the lineart to match.

They get excited and ask when the final of my half will be done. Confused, now assuming what they provided was just a WIP, I say when they finish theirs. They go "oh but this IS my final :)" and I am... still very confused.

I brought up our agreement to do equal effort and they go "but I did that, this took me a long time" to which I point out I've been working for a few days now to produce a fully rendered painting, which wasn't even finished by the time they posted theirs.

They start getting defensive saying that exertion of effort varies from person to person which I fully agree as a chronically fatigued person! but I still feel really scammed that I'm putting in all this work and they can only provide what their commission form claims is a "colored sketch" (and on the cheaper end too.)

They keep getting weird and defensive and I decide to just call the whole thing off, giving them the art I did and that it was final. They get pissy and call me an entitled asshole for wanting to "break their back" over a free art trade.

I would be perfectly happy getting a rendered sketch, if that were what we agreed on in the first place!

I don't think I'm the asshole here, but being called "entitled" really got to me, especially considering we WERE doing work for free. So here I am. Am I the asshole for wanting equal parts effort? Or am I just being entitled? I'd share the art pieces we did here but I won't out of privacy for both me and the other artist.

What are these acronyms?

[genericpuff]

How long do you usually take to plan for a really long story/comic? Do you do a rough plan or a fully detailed one? Any apps you use for planning?

Thank you in advance!

It depends on the project. For my long-term series, it definitely takes me a good while to finalize everything from start to finish, but as a general rule, I try to keep my writing one step ahead of where I'm drawing, for two purposes: so I can have a goal in mind to propel the comic forward (I don't want to be writing or drawing on the fly more than I have to), and so I can have enough planned ahead for editing, because by the time I get to the thing I've planned, my writing has likely grown more and my perspective on it has shifted, so I'm not releasing "first takes", so to speak.

Usually I use LibreOffice and just sort of keep a few separate files for different purposes. I always have a "[story] shit" file of some kind where I just dump thoughts and notes that I don't wanna lose lmao but then I usually also have a file that's meant for outlining. I think Rekindled is the first comic where I haven't employed my spreadsheet method, which is when I'd use Excel/Spreadsheets to lay out panel descriptions and dialogue. So like this:

(Episode 14 of Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH])

Rekindled is more just note-taking, what I want to happen in each episode, and if there's any dialogue I come up with that I definitely want to include, I write it down in there. I've done all of Rekindled's process through Scrivener, which I learned how to use shortly before starting it. IDK yet if I like Scrivener enough to use it for my bigger projects, but it's been helpful for organization and keeping my files all in one central "hub" area.

So right now I have up to about Episode 70 drafted out like that ^^^ but things do change during the actual production of the episodes. Sometimes I'll write something in my notes that doesn't flow well in actual comic form. Sometimes I'll write dialogue during the sketching stage that I don't like anymore by the time I get to the final rendering. It's all a stage-by-stage process from drafting to final release.

The question of "how long" really just comes down to the note-taking process. I tend to work in bursts, the last time I did any written episode layouts was a few weeks ago and that was because I got like, 40+ episodes done in a day LOL So I'm all set for the next little bit, but I'll have to get back to planning by Episode 50 if I haven't done any before then. I'd like to have the entirety of Rekindled plotted out by the end of the year so I can get a more exact answer of how long Rekindled will be :' )

When it comes to software/apps, keep it simple, use what you know. I've been using standard word editors and spreadsheets for years now because it works for me. Scrivener's been fun to learn but as I mentioned, IDK if I'm gonna be able to stick with it for bigger projects like Time Gate because it feels like I'm wearing different shoes that I'm not used to lol But that's just me, feeling "at home" with my software is just an important thing to me, for others it might not matter so much. Scrivener definitely has the most features for drafting/writing/editing, but it's also not very beginner-friendly and there's a huge learning curve to really understanding how the software is designed and what it fully offers.

There's also Plottr which I've been using for [AFTERBIRTH], it's really helpful for people who need visual aids because it allows you to lay out story timelines through imagery. But I really only use it for laying out story beats from end to end, I don't use it much beyond that, any extensive note taking or scripting happens in actual word documents.

(idk if this is how you're actually supposed to use Plottr but it's how I use it so w/e lolol)

Ultimately it's all up to you, what works for me might not work for others so don't be afraid to try things even if it ends up not working out for you. Obv that might be a bit more of a "nah" when it comes to paid software like Scrivener and Plottr, but there are loads of tutorials on Youtube that teach you how to use the software that you can hopefully use as a glimpse into how they work to see if they'd be up your alley before paying money for 'em.

Hope that helps! ˋ( ° ▽、° )

[jaggybot3000]

Dude asking, for a friend but how the hell do you find the motivation to finish animatics/comics/interactions and stuff .!?! Your art’s so cool and very tasty i wish i could absorb the way you draw mouths specifically

helloo:3 oo thats such a good question lol bc a lot of the time i DO give up on many art pieces/ideas, most of which never even make it to a sketching phase...i have so many little blurbs from my notes app that just. stayed as little notes and blurbs. (it's also extra tricky bc i don't have as much free time as i used to as a teen lol, thems the breaks when ur a working college student...i gain better art knowledge but at the cost of money and free time...AUHG)

BUT as for motivation? hm, it's different for everyone, but some advice that helps me: break things down, set up a semi-deadline, and also be self indulgent as hell with your work.

for my post-juno incident comic- i almost gave up halfway on it! i'll share the fully process on it eventually, but long story short the second half was in a sketch/lineart phase for a longggg time (december-february...). i would just stare at it in my drafts. eventually, i came back to it one day and was like...let me at least clean up the lineart. so i did that. then i was like, okay let me at least color Mind. did that. okay let me color Soul...okay im just fixing their color palettes...okay just add that to every panel...okay let me get the background colors....slowly and surely, the comic was getting finished! i tried to tackle it one part at a time. it sounds simple, but i find it's very easy to get overwhelmed with how much you have to Get Done. breaking it down into phases and working through each one really helped keep me from burning out and staying motivated!

another thing that helps is deadlines! self imposed ones, to be exact. and those can be as soft or as serious as you choose, for any time you make art. say an anniversary is coming up, and you want to make something for it! that's massive motivation right there. and sometimes it's something you really to have to push yourself to make. i started my little spree week of posting on a specific day to end on the CCCC 2nd anniversary, and some of my drafts (like the comic and anniversary piece itself) weren't finished yet! insane motivation to finally lock in and finish. but of course, don't break yourself trying to make it either, a date is just a date, and you can meet the deadline as you please (reference). if you would be less stressed being a day or week or so late, by all means! sometimes it's just nice to have your own personal projects to work on in the background of whatever else u have going on.

finally, be self indulgent as hell in your work. find whatever you like to see/make in your art, and do it as much as you want! personally, nothing motivates me in making art more than wanting to see my own art. im pretty egotistical, pretty much all of my shared pieces are stuff i personally thought was cool and had fun making. my favorite things to work on are sketches or lineart, mainly revolving around character interactions, be it comedic or insane. i genuinely just love drawing it so much, i go crazy without it, sometimes it's not so much motivation as much as it is a compelling. which works too. and on the flipside, if you don't want to do something, you don't have to do it! for example, i dislike rendering, so i avoid it as much as possible. free will baybe!!

one final note, don't be afraid to walk away from ideas or pieces...you can always come back to them when the time comes! i make a lot of sketches, but it takes weeks or even months for them to get finished into digital works. and that's not a bad thing, in fact, it even helps you decide what ideas truly intrigue you enough to want to go back to, thus making motivation to keep working on them much more easier.

i ramble a lot, but mostly this is just some advice that helps me personally! follow it as much or as little as you wish, and good luck!! (and tysm for the compliment btw, feel free to absorb the way i draw mouths!!:3 ive studied it from other artists and implemented it in my art, and of course anyone can study from me and implement into their own works!! yippee!!!)

[genderqueerfuri]

Guess who's crashing the first every GR⚡️D GALA? It's Kamen Rider Aguilera of course!

Keep on reading for Hana's outfit sketches, as well as very rough sketches for Orteca and Julio/Tamaki's outfits and a VERY LONG RAMBLE ON MY DESIGN IDEAS.

(also crossposted on twitter here)

onto the sketches! here's the original sketch of the final design, as well as a variant where the cape was much thinner and she had much longer end sleeves on her dress shirt.

i ended up scraping the long sleeves in favor of giving her the world's largest cape. the centerpiece for the cape was also meant to be a golden rose, but i wanted to pay homage to her relationship with Sakura (and also i didn't want to overwhelm with the gold) so it became a Sakura flower instead!

unfortunately, i didn't have time to fully sketch or render out Orteca and Julio/Tamaki's outfits. so instead, here are some very rough preliminary sketches!

this wasn't something i planned initially, but all three ex-deadmans ended up having some sort of corset piece (Hana with the classic corset, Orteca with a tentacle corset, and Tamaki has a metallic ribcage piece under the vest he's wearing), so i guess that's the tying accessory for all three?

they all also ended up wearing heels or platforms of some kind, but that's less thematic and more of just me thinking everyone should wear heels.

some quick notes on Orteca and Julio/Tamaki's designs:

Since Hana had the bee motif, I wanted to stick to the squid and wolf motifs for Orteca and Tamaki respectively.

For Orteca, this is mainly shown through the tentacle corset, plus the incorporation of pearls since they're associated with the ocean. i wanted his design to be equally as dramatic as the rest without doing big cape or big hat again, so backless shirt and hanging pearls it was!

For Tamaki, the highlight piece is the gigantic fringe hat because i love a good hat moment. Also I love his original deadmans outfit (sans the haircut) so much I wanted to replicate it with the hat and the ribcage corset piece.

I don't know if ripped jeans and giant punk platform shoes are appropriate for a gala but they definitely help with Tamaki's wolf motif! It's hard to see, but he also has a stag beetle belt buckle and two metal horn-like things protruding from the finger stripe gloves to pay homage to him as Over Demons.

i've never considered myself much of a fashion designer, so getting the opportunity to design some high fashion looks for my favs was super fun!

defo a big thank u to @itmethanh for putting this art event together, i'll definitely be back next year :)

[artsyy-octoberr]

very different than what I normally post on here (don't worry I WILL be posting more bug art soon ! ) but I wanted to try some different lineart and coloring styles, and see how much the same picture can change with different styles. here are the finished pieces/ lineart alone/ and the original sketch :)

anddd here are close-ups + what I thought of each style:

first, a cartoony style with thicker/ solid lines and a simpler coloring style. not my favorite honestly but was kind of fun to do. making sure every line fully connected was annoying tho

next, my personal favorite, more sketchy lines with much more detailed lineart and a sort of painted coloring style. was veryyy fun and a lot closer to how I normally draw. you can expect more art like this from me soon ^-^

this one looks closer to like a western version of anime imo with the very thin but still detailed lineart and cell shaded coloring. it was a little difficult and not something I would really choose to do again, but it is a pretty style

lastly, a very painted style with no lineart at all. I kind of struggled with this one and even now I don't really love how it came out- I really like how the hair is rendered but the rest... idk

in conclusion,

it was really interesting trying different styles !! definitely something I'd like to do again eventually

[ozwuv]

I would like to draw more but I find myself overthinking it and then losing motivation. So, I was wondering if you ever had a similar issue and if so what do you do to stay motivated and not overthink?

Really good question actually!

What nipped the overthinking for me was just completely dropping the planning stage of drawing. I don't put much thought into composition, colors, etc. I don't have any solid ideas of how I want things to look before I begin. Obligatory disclaimer that this is from my perspective as a hobbyist and therefore not practical for an aspiring professional, & this is gonna sound like BS but hear me out lol

Most of the time the only things I have in mind are 1. What character(s) I want to draw and 2. A vague idea of the atmosphere I want the finished product to convey. And "finished" can mean a lot of things -- a messy sketch can be finished, a fully rendered piece I spent an entire day could be finished. A common pitfall people fall into is having an impractically rigid idea of what a "finished" drawing is and subsequently what they want their art to look like, all the bells and whistles etc, when realistically your art is never going to look exactly how it did in your head. But is that really such a bad thing?

I guess the overarching concept is to just fall in love with the process and enjoy the journey rather than the destination. This obviously sounds easier than it is in reality, but imo people focus way too hard on what they're producing rather than how and why they're producing it. Other people loving what you draw and praising it is wonderful, but if you don't enjoy the process, what was the point? Drawing (and I would venture to say most other forms of art in general) becomes a chore with that mindset applied.

A lack of planning may very well mean you wind up drawing a lot of stuff that doesn't seem interesting, maybe haphazard, difficult to parse, etc, but this is all your perception. It's cliché, but there is always going to someone out there that adores something you think looks like a dumpster fire, and that applies to the things you draw too. Over time, just doing whatever you want and enjoying the process has this trickle effect that will improve your output. In the same vein, constantly overthinking will also inevitably trickles into your output. You can often tell when someone enjoyed the process of something they drew vs when it was just a slog for them to get through (at least relative to their other works).

I would venture to say that you could spend your entire life studying and could be the most technically knowledgeable person about illustration ever in the world, but if you don't genuinely love the process, your work will never be as good as it could be if you did.

If you finish something and think it looks like shit that's always a bummer, but if you had fun with it, I think that was time worth spending. I've said this before, but most of the time I only truly dislike something I've drawn when I spent any part of the process frustrated with how it was going. It's counterintuitive, but I really think that placing so much emphasis in how you want the finished product to look is what ultimately is going to make it look like shit to you.

All that being said, once you do get past that initial overthinking phase, you can start to get more specific with planning and whatnot. The key is to just stop holding onto the idea of what you want and allowing things to develop as you go. Your art will naturally improve this way since you're actually enjoying it. To me, that's what people mean when they say they can tell something was made with love.

Side note: Let go of the need to be consistent/have a developed style. Just let yourself be inconsistent. You don't need strict consistency unless you're like an animator who needs to keep characters on-model or something. Experimenting is not only way more fun, but leads to improvement and discovering new things to implement into your process/style at large.

Tl;dr just get a lil silly w it :3c

[a-sunlighthouse-lamp]

"It won, I'm so sorry"?

Hi! I thank you so much for the ask! :D

Okay, this one is a tad bit strange so hear me out for a second.

So, @apho-sappho has a (semi-crack) ship called Warrahim that is Wars and Ghirahim and a little while ago I made a joke about posting fanart for it and having that be my first fully rendered lu fanart posted. I actually made a sketch for it, and it's probably going to get painted eventually. The reason behind the name is that the idea of painting something for it won the battle against me wanting to paint something else, ie all the other things I should be working on :P

if that sounds enticing to you, I absolutely recommend going over to Lanie's Warrahim stuff, it's both hilarious and actually works which is also so funny, anyways ye :D

I didn't think anyone would ask about that one, so sorry if you were expecting angst hahaha

OH NO now I'm having ideas about what that title could be if it was angsty and ummmm y'know the Zelda 2 death screen that says "Game Over; Return of Gannon" ummmm yeah that popped into my head to something Rulie related? hmmmmmm could be something with the idea that Hyrule's blood is the reason Wild's Calamity Gannon is so... that (I first heard that idea from A Terrible Fate by across-violet-skies (Glittercat34) you should also read that, it's so good :D ), and maybe it could be something related to that >:3 we all love the "Hyrule will eventually have to fall to the Eyes of Gannon because the cycle will continue" don't we?

WAIT NO what if it wasn't just talking about that, but the actual death! That would be absolutely evil and horrid, but... what if? >:3

Seems like you got to for the price (read: free) of one? the second on is very bare bones because I was coming up with it as I was writing, but it's still two ideas!

Bye! Thank you again Anon, this was really fun! :D

[the-admin-but-dumber]

"Upon entering the town, I can no longer save you from death, traveler. Do you understand?" They're silent for a moment, twitching and shifting on their perch before adding. "If he finds you, you will be on your own. Goodluck."

Guys I promise I'll fully render something for Wheatley or any character eventually, writing had just taken up all my time and I've been hyperfixating on Destiny... (Very fun game) Anyways, a choice thing, wow! Traveler is obviously The Player (Jesse/Jessie), may render a response to the most picked option and make some sketch responses to the other. If you have your own dialogue in response feel free to add that too, I've been wanting to do these little interactive things because they seem so fun and seem like a fun way to engage with the character.

Your actions have consequences.

[that-sweet-jester]

HELLO :D I have a few questions regarding your art-

First off- how do you render? Specifically when choosing the differences in material lighting? There’s just a sort of dramatic lighting that your art has that always makes it look extremely epic

Second off- What’s your method for anatomy? Like, Do you use a much of ovals/rectangles, wing it like a madman, or etc? And how do you define each part of the body? (Or separate hair segments?)

And Thirdly- how do you add volume and consistency to your work? Every design that I see of yours just looks like it jumped straight from a 3D movie screen, and really curious as to how you do all that!

Also- holy cow I freaking love your art so much- like I just found out you drew like half of my favourite art pieces out there. And I just love looking at it. It’s kind of like a golden caramel apple, if that makes any sense!!

And thank you for your time!!!

Thank you so much :DDD <333

Hoo boy where do I begin :'D

The first statement I need to make is that my main method is 'fuck around and find out'. Literally. Also sorry if some of the explanations don't make any sense, English is not my first language.

Here's kinda step by step of how my drawing process looks like.

Sketch, then rough cleaning and adding monochrome colors, it's totally unnecessary, but I like to do it just to see how the drawing would look later with dynamic lightning. Then move onto lineart, used to draw it on another layer on top of the sketch, but I switched to just correcting the lines and eareasing what I don't want from the sketch. It's kinda more fun and takes less time. Then come the base colors and adding shadows. What I most often do is add shading on the color layers and then on top of all of them draw a full shadow.

Like this, then multiply and fuck around with opacity. This makes the characters pop out even more and adds depth to them. Then add lightning, and sometimes effects from saved pngs. For example, I often use this site for material textures: https://www.transparenttextures.com/

2. When it comes to anatomy, I most often use existing pose references, not fully copying them but like putting them together like a collage. A head here, hands there, I have full boards on Pinterest dedicated solely to different body parts. In the past I was heavily using whole sketches and body pose references, but over the time I was able to somehow figure out the anatomy on my own. To some degree. I still have no idea how to properly draw hands. What I'm saying is that it's good to base your art on existing references (NOT COPY THEM) but use as a guide, until you get a hang of it.

3. Lately to do something more stylistic and to bring out the volume I started doing this notion in the shadows:

(also a sneak peak of next piece ;3)

I have no idea how to call it, but it makes things pop out.

Anddd I finally got around doing more dynamic poses and dramatic positioning. Bringing parts of the drawing forward, and leaning some further, going wild with blur filter and using black as guides and contrast.

So that might be why it looks more like screenshot of some movie, which is such a big compliment to me imma cry.

So, yeah that's kinda how I work :') Hope it helped and made sense to some degree.