#testing out a new art style and this is what i ended up drawing

[ghostlylicious]

GERALT WATCH OUT THERE'S AN EVIL, POWERFUL MAGIC-USER GOING TO MANIPULATE YOUoh wait you're into that

(press for better quality)

[dwcmarshalarts]

I adore your style and content - I’m considering doing masters studies of some of your pieces just to try it out, but I’m still fairly new to art. I was curious if there’s any part of your process or any particular advice you’d have?

Gave this answer before to someone who asked me the same question, and I think it still counts! 1) Build stamina. You can do this by drawing often- and with intention. Start your drawing with a warm up- something light, not overly serious. Focus more on the literal mechanical feeling of your hand moving to draw. Then focus on the heavier stuff after you’ve both literally and mentally warmed up, setting the stage for more involved drawing. Make this a routine and drawing overall will be less tiring over time.

2) Focus on replicability, not detail. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. A lot of people develop a kind of perfectionism early on, where they get overly attached to a specific sketch and don’t wanna budge from it, and put details until it “looks good,” even when the subject as a whole is wonky. I like to equate this to “too much icing, not enough cake,” or “building on sand foundations.” I’ve been there before, and it can hold you back. Instead of focusing on a specific piece and how you rendered it that one time, focus on how you render it such that you could do something similar, easily replicate the concept. Once you’ve built more stamina, you can open up the gates to tackling the same subject matter in different ways.

3) Mind your mark making. Some folks agonize over the tiniest detail, sometimes for hours. At the end of the day, that itself doesn’t necessarily bring improvement- that’s more of a test of patience. Unless someone specifically asks, you don’t- for example- need to draw every single ridge of every knob on a switchboard in great detail. These things can be implied through mark making. Remember, a lot of drawing isn’t about literally making something for people to see- it’s tricking the eye into believing what’s drawn is actually there. You’ll be amazed at what detail can be like even when you don’t define every part.

4) Drawing is more seeing than “making it up.” * Don’t be afraid to use references and such. It’ll help you render form than imagining it- sometimes the imagination can conjure things incorrectly. *Even seasoned artists who don’t typically use too much references need to do studies from life or books every now and then to reinforce skills.

One point I didn't add before for style things specifically is: 5) Look where the artist got their inspirations from if you want to learn from them. No art exists within a vaccuum, everyone has their influences. Trying to do a study from someone's art will only take you so far- because then it'll feel more like mimicry than actual, learned study. Research or try to see parallels with artists that you might think had a hand in influencing a given artist's style. Notice the patterns there- certain textures are invoked here, this form was defined like this, etc. A lot of folks confuse wanting "more of a thing" as opposed to "what makes that thing desirable/unique." If you'd like to know where some of my influences come from, I'd say look at the works of Squiddy, covers for Hellboy comics, and the Snowpiercer graphic novel.

Addendum: If you're looking to draw anatomy specifically- study from real anatomy, and learn how to do those before you begin to "break the rules" (exaggerate, anthropomorphize, etc). For resources on that, I'd recommend the Morpho books (all of them haha) and Dynamic Human Anatomy by Roberto Osti.

Hope this helps somewhat, feel free to ask if I missed anything.

[squidpedia]

Hey! How do you do lineart & Sketches???

You’re one of my biggest inspirations for drawing and I really love your art style!

UM??? THANK YOU?? I 🥺🥺🥺

I’ll try to word this as best as I can but I am honestly terrible at text descriptions/explanations sometimes, so I’m sorry if anythings unclear or odd. My process also varies sometimes depending on the artwork

Sorry for somewhat long answer ahead!

Usually for any artwork that I know will take a longer amount of time, I start with a really quick 1 minute sketch to get the proof of concept down. It doesn’t have to look good and the proportions may be very off and really messy but thats ok, my main goal is just to get the whole idea down and interpret it again later. I write notes next to the sketches sometimes if I have a specific thing I want to include later like for the coloring or lighting.

After that, I usually make a revised sketch on top of that and keep tweaking or redoing the sketch until I get something I like. This is also where I reccomend you start checking proportions and flipping the canvas. The first and third image had to be revised before I was able to make lineart I was happier with. Some other times I just jump straight into the lineart if I think the sketch already looks ok (but this is kinda risky as I usually end up having to resize a lot of the lineart later when doing this, which can end up dropping the quality of the selected area and making it slightly blurred compared to everything else. Sometimes I just end up redoing the lineart entirely for the selected area when this happens).

When coloring the lineart I try to mostly color lines that exist inside the silhouette of the person, but I’m also kinda loose with this rule and also will color anything on the edges if I think it looks better in a certain instance.

I’ve been trying to keep my lineart much thinner and enjoy using Procreate’s ballpoint pen for lineart. For sketches I usually use whatever feels most satisfying or convenient or just try a new brush for sketching to spice up my process every now and then.

In worst case-scenarios, if I’m really struggling to get something I like when sketching, then I just keep redoing the sketch and trying to figure out what I don’t like about it. The undertale the musical gif had something around 6 redo’s before I finally liked it enough to give it lineart

Sometimes I also try making quick messy color mock-ups of my sketches to plan out colors or specific effects for later to test what colors I like and what I think would look good for later. I also might write notes if there’s any extra details I think of that I want to include later

Thats everything I can think of, I hope this helps and sorry again for this being a pretty long answer, its the best way I could think to explain my process, but I hope its a bit helpful at least!

[kozachenko]

I've crawled out of my cave after playing Final Fantasy IX for a long ass time what have I missed?

Artist's Notes:

I'M BACK BABY! A while back I made a post with a new style experimentation thingy but I ended up deleting it because it was just kind of a boring face thing, I was planning on doing more art but then I started playing Final Fantasy IX and uhhhh yeah so that game has kind of taken of my brain for the past two weeks and I am 20 hours into the game because I love it so much. I wanted to draw Vivi because Vivi is just really fun to draw ok? I've kinda been feeling really burnt out with my lineless style, mainly because of how hard it was to do lighting. I'll show one of my initial art style tests on the bottom of this post. Again, used to have it be an individual post but it was just one face so it was kinda boring, so might as well include with this one on the subject of art styles. I wanted to kinda mix some aspects of my older style with the sketchy shading lines with a more painterly way of doing the lighting (mainly in the shadows). All in all, I think that's my favourite part about this drawing, it feels nice to finally be able to do some proper lighting again, and I want to experiment even more with my lighting and rendering in future pieces. Also, part of the pant shading got kinda lost in the sketchiness, so for next time I'll probably focus on the clarity of the more sketchy parts of the drawing, since I did go with my initial sketch for the final drawing. I also gave up on the background since I had no idea what to do for it, and I didn't put too much detail into the staff as I forgot which one I gave him in my current playthrough and I didn't want to risk spoiling myself via looking up references, but that's ok I like how the singular yellow circle on it matches Vivi's eyes. Also I was having a bit of trouble figuring out how to draw his body and how to pose him, but I like how the pose turned out a lot. It was inspired by his idle animation when in a battle in game where he does a little shimmy.

Ok I need to talk about Vivi's design because I love it so fucking much oh my god-

I absolutely love how his face is just in complete shadow and only his eyes stand out, it's so cool and unique and I love how they recontextualized the original black mage design from the classic Final Fantasy games. How they did it I won't say because I don't wanna spoil the game, but someone give this poor baby a therapist because he goes through a lot. Actually, same can be said for all of the FFIX cast, they all need therapy (again, I won't spoil anything, please go play the game for yourself).

While I do love almost all the characters in the game, even though Vivi is most fun to draw, my favourite character has to be Zidane (the main protagonist of the game). He's a really fun protagonist, and they could have easily written him as a misogynistic jerk who doesn't respect women but they didn't, and I really appreciate that. He's just an overall cool dude who's a really nice older brother figure to Vivi and also just has a cool character design (who I also want to draw eventually). Initially in the game I was planning on grinding levels for Vivi to make him the tactical nuke of the party, but then that title went to a different character (who was initially multiple levels behind the group since I grinded the party in the starting area way to much before they joined, but now they are two levels ahead of everyone and have pulled the team through a lot of tough battles, again I won't say who it is because it is kind of a spoiler and the way the gameplay actually ties into their character arc is just so good omfg). Once I eventually finish the game I'll probably write a full review on here, so no spoilers until then lol

Also, I've kinda been burning out a bit with making Touhou art, which also made me a bit burnt out with Touhou stuff in general (although I will continue keeping up with the manga) so getting into other things (i.e. Final Fantasy and even Fallout since I've watched the first season of the TV show which is a whole other post for another day) has helped me refresh and given me something new to think about. I've ended up in the exact place I feared ending up, where I would start drawing fanart for it not because I wanted to but because I felt like I had to, so I'm taking a bit of a break. When I do draw Touhou fanart again I'll try to draw for the sake of myself, and to all the other artists and fanartists on this platform (and on any social media for that matter), take care of yourself and don't forget to take breaks when you need to!

(Ok part of that last paragraph was definitley influenced by the good ol' "it's 9:00pm and I need sleeb, but the message at the end still holds up, always take care of yourself)

Oh yeah, and here is that one style experiment I did btw

Man I really fell down the "Yoshitaka Amano art enjoyer" to "Final Fantasy fan" pipe line didn't I?

[green-alien-turdz]

Art tips for beginners? :3

I'm gonna try n be helpful here, but please keep in mind that I've been drawing my whole life, so I can't give you the perspective of someone who is just startin out.

1: Don't give up. Cheesy as fuck, I know. But you are gonna get pissed n fuckin angry when somethin doesn't turn out how you wanted it to. Don't let this discourage you! Use your mistakes and errors to keep on improving. There's no need to tear up drawings or delete anything that you aren't 100% satisfied with because you are growing in your abilities. AND TRUST that it is so rewarding to see your progress over time.

2: Challenge yourself n expect to hate it. Try all sorts of styles (cartoon, realism, or even just photo studies), do few details, do loads of details, do timed drawings, etc. Test the limits of what you can do. Similar to the previous advice, you need to allow yourself to be angry n hate the product that comes from this because you will eventually start finding your own creative style n process.

3: Don't pressure yourself beyond belief. You will not be an 'amazing' or 'visually appealing' artist from the get-go. If you are gettin burned out, allow yourself to take a break from time to time. With this though, once you start gettin more comfortable, even when you're burnt out creatively- I HEAVILY encourage you to keep doing small drawings OR other creative things to keep your mind going.

4: Experiment wit different mediums n shit like that! Explore! There is so many different forms of art to fuckin enjoy. Digital, traditional, watercolour, acrylic, clay, fuckin anything. When you get into non-digital mediums, keep cost in mind, but there are plenty of cheap alternatives that are great when you're startin out (also once you get 'better', you can control these much better, n they don't look like the initial cheap product). I personally use a lot of dollar tree shit n I used to steal from the art class in my school (but that was more out of necessity, if you can avoid it, please do. You can get in HUGE trouble if you're caught). But the main message is to experiment n try new things because there's so many different mediums out there.

5: Take in the world around you. Look at everything n think about how you could portray that in art. Really study the world. The faces people make when they don't think they're makin any, the grime that most people ignore building up on everyday objects, how people's body language says a LOT about how they feel, the way light casts in obscure ways, etc. Instead of just viewing the things around you, really look and take in the experience of bein human. Even impressionistic art holds these intricate details. You just have to be open to the experience.

6: Appreciate, but don't compare. I cannot stress dis shit enough, your art is your own, it is no one else's, so there's no need to harp on "oh this person draws x,y,and z better than me" n blah blah blah STOP! Dawg, you are doin your own shit, don't worry about if you're not on the same 'level' as others, or don't have the same 'capabilities' as some mfs. When you see other people's art, appreciate the things that they can do, but appreciate what you can do too! Especially when you're first really gettin your foot in the whole art shit, it is important to not judge your abilities compared to others who may have a lot more experience under their belt. I think it's totally okay to look at art n be like "oh that's super cool, I'd definitely like to improve on things like that", but never use it to put down your own art. This shit is subjective bro, you'll get to where you want to be. It takes a lot of time, it's not linear, but you WILL. It may not be how you expected it to look at first, but that's okay! Give yourself grace. Art is for you, at the end of the day.

You are gonna fight with yourself n the art itself, but that's totally normal! Art is one of the best forms of expression n I really hope the best for you. I know I was vague as shit n this isn't no tutorial on how to draw a realistic portrait or some shit- but that's because there's no right way to do this. Go balls to the walls or just dip your fuckin toes in. Approach it how you want, there's no right or wrong way to do art. I hope that this was somewhat helpful n I wasn't just spewin shit outta my ass n I truly wish you a good art journey

[egg-noodle]

You have so many unique ways of stylizing you characters! How did you come to developed the very geometric one? Also, how do you decide what art style to use for each work? (Rooting for your recovery. Ganbatte!)

There's quite a long story behind this haha. I injured my wrists in my second year of uni and realised I couldn't continue with how I had been drawing up until that point. I had to have a very hard think about the direction I wanted my art to go, since I wanted to be able to create for as long as possible. So for 6 months I went full research and analysis mode into artists who were making minimalist work. Who was currently successful? What parts of their work did I like? How could I switch to drawing completely differently than what came naturally to me while still feeling creatively fulfilled? So I had all my research, and then I spent the next 6 months trying to test out as many styles and techniques as I could, to see what felt right to me. This was around 2012, from memory? Concurrently to all this, at uni we were given all these little drawing exercises to do, and I remember one of them being 'draw a character in 4 lines'. It was meant to be a gestural exercise, but it really resonated with me, the idea that you didn't need a lot of detail in order to communicate what you wanted. So that morphed into my overall goal: minimal output, maximum message/connection. Then in my third year at uni, we got taught the Point < Line < Shape hierarchy, which is how you can control what your eye is drawn to first. It was meant to be used for creating appealing compositions (e.g. draw a bird, a tree, and a mountain in as many different configurations as you can), but I ended up applying it to my character design, and I've never looked back.

I currently am a freelance animator and designer, and no matter the job, there's always a style that I need to emulate, so a fair chunk of my professional work also bleeds into the art I do in my free time. As for how I decide on which style to go with for what pieces, I don't really have a system for it haha. I use my Likes on all my social media as one giant reference folder, so I just scroll through those until I find a technique, a composition, a shape, a colour palette, etc that I think I would like to try. I'm still in the habit of researching and analysing other people's work constantly, so there's always something new I want to test out for myself. TL;DR I injured my wrists at uni and searched for a way to draw without injuring myself further haha.

[projecto2-game]

DevLog 2 - The Devining

well. it only took 3 months. but here is our new devlog! or however you call it... We did write a whole devlog for early march, but with school and work taking up most of our schedule, we did not post it, and most of our progress fell to the sands of time.

Snail (@snailmusic) -

Yeah I didn't do nearly as much as freep, so most of those changes will be down there. part of the reason though is that ive been doing a lot of work on my music (haha yes self promo) so if you want to check that out it'd be great! (most of yall are just from my acc so you probably alr know) (my current style of music is probably not representative of O2's audio style or vibe, still working towards that)

The main thing I did was improve trenchbroom (level editor)/qodot/godot interop, which can bring us closer to building some levels (and who knows, a little alpha test in the future ;)). It was actually realllyyyy annoying due to a lack of documentation for qodot 4 (and also ill admit it, a bit of my stupidity) so there was a bug that I couldn't fix for a long time but eventually it was fixed and now it works great!

I also started looking more into the art style of the game, and I'm even learning a bit of how to draw (thanks to my friends! I wouldn't be able to learn like at all without them lol).

^ guy on a cube

oh yeah speaking of outside help im getting this is (very slightly) now bigger than us two! the others aren't doing too much we can note right now (one doesnt have a tumblr acc either) but when their contributions come more into play we'll include them here.

See ya next time!

Freep (@freepdryer) -

Back in march, i spent a lot of time working on the AI, getting it to move… and run away, sort of. But more of that will come later. 

Lots of these last week or so has been on the character controller, and reinventing the wheel to introduce a state machine and get a lot cleaner code so its easier to revisit if we ever had to.

Im proud of the work that we've done so far, as we come close to a prototype with *Gameplay* 

New Things

Changed the look of the enemy slightly to remove the “amongus factor”

Rewrote the entire script for nav pathing

New enemy prototype can now feel pain / has a health pool that can be depleted using bullets from the player

Added a new line of sight for the enemy to check whether or not the player is in the area to follow

Added the ability for the enemy to hide - WIP - enemy can hide but isnt very good at it. Kinda like a child who turns away while hiding in the corner. 

Enemy can also detect when youre in a certain range, I will be adding more flags later on for detection (when the player shoots, sneezes, or explodes on accident)

New testing map!

New areas for target practice, line of sight testing, following and hiding

New player character controller!

Rewrote the entire script for the inclusion of State machines

This was painful.

Added 6(?) new states for several movement states

Added animations for 

Walking

Running

Jumping

Crouching

Fixed the stair problem

Whats next?

Continue work on enemy AI - finish hiding, add roaming, add attacking

Dunno? 

Fix the stair problem again, but more?

Weapons!

The end?

Thanks for coming to our devlog! We will be back hopefully very soon!

[emberfrostlovesloki]

Criminal Minds April Prompt List

All photo credits at the end

Good evening loves! We made it to March! I love the idea of the team during Spring time and I thought I'd make some March/Spring prompts because it makes me happy. This prompt list is inspired by the always amazing, @imagining-in-the-margins who always make the best prompt lists. I will link here new prompt list here once it comes out as well. For my prompts, I won’t write for all these prompts, but I will for at least a few.

The rules for using these prompts are that there are no rules! You could use any Criminal Minds characters, OCs, reader inserts, etc. You could draw, write, make mood boards, or imagine anything else. I have included 31 prompts for each day of the month. I also get inspiration from plain old words, so I’ve included 10 Spring words that might inspire something. Lastly, I’ve included a few dialog and art prompts too. You can find that all below the cut. If any of these prompts inspire you to create, I’d love to be tagged to see what you have made. This is all just for fun. I wish everyone a great start to the month. Please know I’m proud of you wherever you are right now. Love - Levi 🌼

You can find all the prompts below the cut

General Prompts

Rival April Fool'sprank war with Characters A and B where members of the team get roped into the pranks.

Characters A and B run into each other at a concert.

The cooling/AC goes out at Character A's apartment so they have to strip down to the basics while Character B fixes the problem.

Character A gets a text from a wrong number from Character B but they suddenly want to talk more.

Character A hates sharks and Character B agrees to watch Jaws with them for the first time.

Character A meets Character B on a cruise vacation.

The BAU men have a Bachelor Party for Character A.

The BAU women have a Bachelor Party for Character A.

Character A agrees to meet with their long-distance partner, Character B, for the first time.

Character A goes a bit overboard for the baby shower for Character B.

On a case at a sleepaway camp the team all have to bunk together in a cabin.

Characters A and B go camping together for the first time.

Character A reminds Character B that all bodies are swimsuit/bikini bodies.

Character A says they'd do anything for a popsicle, so Character B gets them one.

Character A gets back into an old sport and the BAU team shows up for their first game to cheer them on.

A big test has Character A stressed out more than normal and Character B comes and helps them study and feel more relaxed.

Chacters A and B chaperone the Sadie Hawkins dance together.

Character A quits coffee for a month and suffers which makes Character B want to be there for them more than usual.

Character A takes Character B to a place that is very important to them and explains why.

On a hike Character A becomes exhausted and Character B carries them the rest of the way back to the car.

Character A hears that Character B's child is being bullied, so they make sure to go and give the child some love and advice.

Characters A and B go to the roller rink together.

A case that takes place in a theme park!

A case that has a killer inspired by slasher films of the 70s/80s.

Character A asked Character B to be a model for their next drawing/painting/work of art.

Character A gets their identity stolen and Character B helps them out with getting it sorted.

Character A makes an OF account and Character B stumbles across it.

Characters A and B go skinny dipping for the first time together.

Character A gets a new tattoo/piercing and shows Character B. Character B is obsessed with it.

Character A falls in love with Character B; they have completely different fashion styles.

Word Prompts

Bonding

Park

Floral

Popsicle

Sunburn

Dancing

Fingertips

Full Moon

Show-off

Peaceful

Dialog Prompts 

“Sweetheart, you're so pretty, let me get a picture of you."

“Hey guys... I've got something to tell you...” 

“Do you want to go to the pool later today"

“_______ I swear if you don't stop teasing me about my hair cut you might regret it.” 

“________ you look sad. Would you tell me why.” 

“_______ can I have a sip of your drink? It looks so so good!” 

Art Prompts

The BAU sitting around a campfire

Any BAU member being starstruck another member of anyone at all.

A BAU member reading to their kid.

BAU members swapping clothes.

Text Break Banner by @cafekitsune

Tag List: @tgskitten @geminitapestry @silk-spun

Want to be added to my tag list? Please see this post, CM Tag List (linked)

Want to request a fic or mood board? My requests are open. Please see this post before requesting, CM Request Post (linked)

Photo Credits

Top: Left (@hotchs-big-hands) Center (@shakespearesdaughters) Right (@ur-daily-inspiration)

Middle: Left (@shakespearesdaughters) Center (@lilacprentiss) Right (@lovesdaya)

Bottom: Left (@thyme-in-a-bubble) Center (@kiernanshayemckay) Right (@aaronwhorechner)

[doe-prince]

Hi ratt, I popped in from the GS discord!

A question: where do you get your inspirations for the initial worlds/premise(s) of your comic works? Namely GS, I guess, but others too. Is it a specific few things or do you draw from more broad sources?

2: Do you have any advice on following through with said concepts to a full or consistent execution? I’m always stuck in the shiny new idea phase :/

Sorry I worded that weird but hopefully you get me. Keep up the stellar work please. I’m a big fan! ❤️

Hello hi!

I honestly don't know, sometimes a theme or thought starts haunting me and I need to make something out of it before it runs me insane. One photo can fuel the whole project, I think something like that happened with Corpse - photos of sheep with livestock guardians, the design of anti-wolf collar, religious imagery and upbringing being hacked into the back of my mind. For GS especially, a secret: I'm just into writing characters. The world, logics, customs, even the plot come later, and even those I like to keep vague to a degree. I think about what kind of characters I want to write about, and then what kind of events would bring their most interesting parts to surface. Godly missions with high stakes are just a stage for me to write about siblings with multiple issues and big bleeding hearts.

2. I can't offer smart advice, but if you want to try it like I usually do, just hold your nose and jump in. I often get incredibly invested in those shiny ideas, but if I notice I take too long to get into them or start planning too much, they fade. They're not shiny anymore, and if they're not shiny, I don't want to work on them.

I came up, scripted and drew Corpse in one month because I was so excited. I started GS with very little lore in my head, just because I wanted to test the art style and get to know my characters, and here we are five years later. (This choice has bit me in the ass a few times because the foundation was barely there, and despite me having a lot more knowledge and lore in my head now, I still have to build on the foundation ignorant little ratt made back then. It's wobbly! But with a bit of sneakiness and torturous brainwork you can always flesh it out later and make it carry its weight.)

Obviously just jumping in doesn't work for everyone, especially if you're a planning kind of person unlike me, but it might give you a kick to get truly invested. And when you're invested, you want to work on it to see where those characters go. You want to take them to the end and tell them they did a great job.

[sothasil]

Hi! You're one of my favorite artists ever, and I would love to do some studies of your art! What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done, and how do you pick your colors? There's a lot more questions that I could ask, but figured you wouldn't appreciate an entire list of questions XD

Hello and thank you, I am honored! Feel free to send me all and any questions! I'll answer these two, starting by:

How do you pick your colors?

As I change art style with pretty much every illustration project of significance, this varies a lot. Here are, from most to least common, ways I pick my colors.

Eyeballing it. Unfortunately my most common... What I will do a lot digitally is lay down a color background, and flats of a few colors, then manually adjust each until they look good together by selecting by color and using adjustements. I then paint over it all.

Using a limited palette, eyeballed. Same as before, but this time I force myself to only use a few colors. It helps me, as constraints do.

Using a reference, eyeballed. This happens a lot when I mimick an art style. My medieval drawings for example, are often done by looking at images of actual medieval art to get an idea of what colors to use to look medieval.

Using an existing image, pipetted. Rarely, often as a challenge or if I'm super stuck, I'll just take a pic with colors I like and pipet from it. This website automates this if you want a good easy starting point!

These can be combined around. I'll post examples now, explaining how they use each.

This is a sketch for a drawing I ended up doing way different. This is the first method - I used a flat layer for the characteres and three colors for the sky to test out atmosphere. This is how I plan out most full paintings, just trying to nail down a mood I have in my head. I fiddle around until I like it or, like in this case, fully give up and iterate further. Here, the composition was to be redone too as I did not like the body language. I was going for "bright hot sunny day under a weather that feels wrong".

For this comic, I combined a very limited palette and a photo ref to pipet from. I was looking for the stark cold/warm contrast of a mid-season bright night by a fireside. I took a google image photo of a campfire at night that was already edited. The photo itself looks unnatural but conveyed what I wanted. It's still on the file itself! From it, I pipetted a few colors I found "summed up" the palette and did all with them.

While my own habits make me prefer painting as you would in traditional methods, with directly picking the right colors, I will often digitally alter with overlays and layer blending modes some colors and gradients, etc, to alter a drawing to fix it's color palette. The following is a quite egregious example, because I first drew the character in flats before putting him in a full scene. Here is a before/after summed up.

The shadow is a layer, the bright yellow light zones also, and the orange "transitions" of light zones on the skin a third. There's also an overlay over the full character to blend him in. I do this by...making a full flat color of a layer, fucking around until a blending mode does what I want, and adjusting hue/brightness/saturation and opacity until it looks good.

Another WIP where I was struggling with the overall palette. I was going for late 60s psychedelic. You can see in the top right the original color. I thought it looked too...new, so I added a yellow layer on top, and fiddled with it. Final choice was the following setting. I then put it with my sketch and color blockout in a folder and painted over it.

For this sort of adjustement, the "Color Balance" modifier in CSP, Photoshop, and others is also a godsend - but one I often use for fine tuning a finished piece.

This being said, there's some rough rules to coloring which are...born from studying color theory and doing studies. I am guilty of doing very little studies...so I'll just sum up the basics of the color theory rules I use.

For "default" shading, I use a color that is darker, more saturated and with a slight hue diff. This is my "don't shade with black".

Using a shadow that's cooler will make the light look warm.

Vice versa.

There's a bunch of stuff to remember in how colors relate to each other and pipetting images who's atmosphere you think is interesting really is the best way to learn... It's learning how to black-blue/gold-yellow dress in your own art for the lack of a better word...But the basics will be:

Don't trust numerical values, but look at your colors in context. A same hue, brightness, saturation can look so much different. This is how Rakkan's beard looks whiteish here despite being a light very grey brown.

All this but...colour is such a wide topic, I can't really say a lot but can also type for hours... if you have precise questions about a piece in particular I can explain :') I hope this wasn't too vague and was instructive!

Speaking of particular pieces, answering your question last under the cut:

What are some of your favorite pieces that you've done?

In no particular order, illustration only.

Including this in another poast bc staff's new post editor limits the amounts of pics I can put in response to asks. Insert colorful language here...

Frankly twas hard to pick I am rarely fond of what I draw

[zombeebunnie]

Game development Trembling Essence update:

Hello again and welcome new followers! I'm here with another update, thanks for being patient! Here's a look at the kitchen I redid! I think out of all of them so far, this one is my favorite! :]

This update is a bit delayed because of things outside of my control. I don't want to rush update posts about the game so I decided to make up for the days I missed. I want these to be good enough to keep you guys informed! :]

I wasn't able to work on certain CG's as I had originally hoped but to be fair, I take this as a good thing. I'm really trying to keep my art style accurate because Noah tends to look drastically different at times and I really want to keep him consistent or at least try to keep it pretty close. Because of this, I'm going to put a small pause on those specific CG's since trying to draw them a certain way becomes extremely exhausting and time consuming for me.

As far as writing goes, I was able to get a better idea of where I wanted to add CG's and where to remove them. It's been pretty great for the most part and I'm starting to get a good rhythm going. I'm mainly focusing on stabilizing the branching routes and then going back and adjusting them based on how you interact in the game.

But as I was checking through everything, I realized I got carried away by accident and ended up making a lot of branching routes starting from parts of Day 3. I won't specifically say how many but it's more than 10+ and at this time, I'm still testing each route to see what I can do to keep them unique and different so the player(Y/N) can have a good amount of variety. If it's too much for me to do, I might condense one or two together but that's only if certain routes have a lot of similarities or if a specific branch itself isn't really necessary to have.

I'm still testing/fixing up the parts of Day 3 and adding various dialog changes but I did do an attempt at adding in the Day/Night setting just to see how it would go and so far it's pretty nice!

I think that's everything I have to report right now so thank you guys for all of your support on everything, I really appreciate it! :]

[leonardo-dabepis]

This isn't really an ask but I wanted to get it out there. I was lucky enough to be recommended your ss13/14 videos on your new channel (i've never seen the old one) and really enjoyed them. I ended up clicking on your webcomic and the cover art struck me so much I had to read it. I started reading maybe two hours ago and I'm on chapter 11 at the moment. I lied too! I actually had an ask. how did you manage to color in super Dione? It'd be hard to stay consistent with how complex her shading is.

I'm glad you like my videos and comic so much! As for how I draw Dione, I've been meaning to make a video tutorial about that but I always forget, so I may as well start with explaining it all here...

First, I should clarify that I'm doing all of this in Krita so I don't know if this will work in other digital art programs. Anyways, I make the base layer of colors. I always use these specific colors for specific parts of her design to help keep it consistent.

Next, I duplicate that layer and smudge it up a bit just to add some smoother shading. This maybe isn't the best example because the effect isn't as visible and I used the wrong brush, but you can see the smudging on the wings and headdress.

I then set the duplicate/smudged layer to "color dodge" mode.

After that, I make a new layer with new specific colors, this time just for shading/lighting.

I then set this shading/lighting layer to "overlay" mode.

Then I duplicate the smudged layer, this time setting it to "arcus tangent" mode. This is a weird blending mode in Krita and I am not educated enough to know what exactly it's doing, but it looks cool.

Finally, I duplicate the base color layer and put it on top of all the others. I set this layer to "lighten" mode or "color dodge" mode, depending on which looks better in the specific scene.

And here's what it all looks like with the ambient light layers turned on:

This example perhaps isn't the best because it was the first time doing all of this in an actual comic page (as opposed to the various style test images I made)

[gomzdrawfr]

Hi Gomz! Been so inspired by your art, I'm considering picking up digital drawing again haha. What device and app do you use? What would you recommend if I wanna restart drawing? Would be great if you can answer with doodles :D thanks!

Hello Cumi! Thank you very much for this ask, to think I can inspire other people with my doodles means a lot to me <;3 ((def not cryin rn))

In this ask response, I'll include some links that you can check out for the appropriate stuff! I hope you can understand some things by the end of it :D

Disclaimer: im no professional, so most of this is just based on my experience!!

Okie dokie first off:

What device and app do I use?

I draw using a drawing pad, the Deco Mini7 on my laptop, and I use Krita to draw :3

Krita is free to use! You can download it here, or if you can afford it, clip studio paint is definitely a popular choice out there, some people use adobe too!

I will say it may seem complicated at first BUT it is relatively easy to learn once you get the hang of it, there have a full tutorial on their website with videos included if you wanna know more! digital art apps usually works the same way, once you get the fundamentals you can draw on any app tbh

Or if you do want to start using Krita, then you can send me another ask in the future and I'll share you my tips and tricks (which are honestly pretty scuff HAHA))

Other recommendation if you want to draw on phone/tablet/ipad!

2. I know you didnt ask this, but I wanted to share my experience starting out with digital painting/using the drawing pad for the first time

the thing about digital painting is that there's a lot of features here and they serve to make the process easier, but it can be quite overwhelming when you start off! examples are layers

drawing pad also means getting used to not looking at the pad and the screen at the same time + getting used to the pen, I had a hard time with it but the more I use it, the more i got used to it :D

funnily enough, I actually gotten this drawing pad bcuz I started using lecture notes online through pdf and such xD

3. What would you recommend if I want to restart drawing?

Not really sure what you mean about restarting, but Im assuming like finding a new artstyle or trying out different art medium is it? (like from traditional pencil doodle to stylus pen) but if you mean literally restarting then uhhhh XD I guess you gotto start drawing then haha?

I think my motto when it comes to drawing is that no matter what it is, just do it

"its gonna look bad" its okay bcuz at least I drew it, yk? xD the thing with art is the more you draw, the more you're familiar with it, the less intimidating it will become(tho it can still be scary, but hey! baby steps right?)

perhaps what I would recommend is testing out all kinds of artstyle, ask yourself:

what am I going to draw? ex: I wanna do self potraits! I wanna do silly doodles of my favourite characters!

what style do I wanna do? ex: Chibi, non-chibi, landscapes

Sometimes, you won't know those answers to those questions until later on, which is exciting dont you think? one day I said "im gonna draw Ghost in full gears" then the next I decided "actually nah screw that im gonna make Ghost cute" -w-

didchu know my first few digital doodles were done on OneNote? haha yes! and on my lecture notes nonetheless pfttt (this was around october 2022)

When in doubt, always ALWAYS start small and simple. Draw a circle, draw a blob, anything! Make it manageable :D

You can, of course, challenge yourself and go big! the most important key is you're drawing for yourself :3 and you should do something you're happy with!

well, sometimes there are moments where you wont like what you draw or artblock, when it comes to those time Id recommend taking a break xD

Finding your artstyle is an ever growing journey, I would suggest looking through websites like Artstation or Pinterest and collecting artstyle that you like! then learn from it, replicate it, trace it(AS LONG AS YOU DONT CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN AND YOU DO IT FOR PRACTICE PURPOSES!!!) and study it :3

like heck I just found a new artstyle yesterday literally HAHA so you know, enjoy the fun!

4. Other helpful links and video for starting out digital painting:

Marc Brunet, has a ton of tutorials that are useful! my fav one being this one about face drawing and cell shading

Bluebiscuits, very cute artstyle and the videos are always soothing and calming to watch! they did this video about finding your artstyle which I highly recommend! their face drawing tutorial is also really good :3

I also watch tppo occasionally, his video focuses more on how he study other people's artstyle and then implementing it on his own! If you like art studies you can give it a go, like this one!

practice, practice and practice! things like art takes a while to master and get happy with :) like i said, keep trying and dont forget, all of this is for fun!

have a good day! feel free to ask me anytime if you want if you want some clarification <3

[kozachenko]

So a little while ago I did this background thingy of my interpretation of Hakugyokurou in Touhou 7, then left it at the sketch and forgot about it for a while. Then after changing up my art style a lot, I came back to this and decided to finish it as a way of testing out how my new style would look on backgrounds. Then when I finished it, I also didn't look at it for a while, until today where I decided that I liked it and wanted to post it.

Artist's Notes:

IDK how much this actually looks like Hakugyokurou tbh, but I liked the idea of there being a fuck ton of trees that just kinda grow on the stairs and Yuyuko's garden being on an island of some kind, though tbh as I write this now, this same feeling could be accomplished with just having the stairs be on top of a hill with the trees soooo... oops. IDK how mythologically/lore accurate that would be, but hey, just a cool idea I had. I feel like we need more fan interpretations of certain Touhou locations because I think those could be really fucking cool, like, I should do more of these myself because I have a fuck ton of ideas (plus I need the practice with drawing backgrounds so win-win).

Even if this... doesn't really look like Hakugyokurou in Touhou canon, this was still good practice for perspective, as well as getting better at drawing backgrounds/environment pieces (plus what annoys me is that I wanted to make the tori gate red but had to make it pink because the red was too much for the colour scheme and I should have adjusted the rest of the colours but I don't feel like going back and fucking with this piece now because I feel like I am going to end up like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill with this drawing).

I think the reason we don't see those as often is because there's a lot more consistency with the location designs in Touhou than the character designs. Like, in the mainline games themselves, Marisa's outfit changes every fucking game, and small details in how characters outfits are drawn also lend themselves to that looser character design base. As long as you keep the core design philosophies of the character (i.e. Reimu keeping her loose, baggy clothes, Yukari with her hat and ribbons, Keiki with her headkerchief (I FINALLY LEARNED WHAT IT WAS FUCKING CALLED WOOHOOO!!!! I COULD HAVE JUST LOOKED IT UP ON THE WIKI THIS WHOLE TIME YAAAAAY), and many more examples) you're basically good. However, the actual locations in Touhou have been so set in stone with all the printed works that I think it's a shame we don't see any more variations of how they could look.

I'm not saying to completely ditch how each location is portrayed in games (also don't take this whole thing as me completely dissing the canon looks of the locations) but, treating the locations like character designs in and of themselves. Like, take Sakuya's canon design and her Touhouvania design. Both of them are very different takes on the same design idea. Yet you still recognize Touhouvania Sakuya as... well, Sakuya. And also, keeping the same mythological/historical/irl inspirations for said locations (again, don't know if having a floating island in the Japanese netherworld is accurate but it was a cool idea)

Some other location ideas I have include:

The SDM looking relatively normal from the outside but when you go inside it looks like a fucking gothic cathedral/castle because Sakuya keeps fucking with the space time continuum and there is also an organ the size of a fucking house in there that Sakuya dramatically plays. Also having it be surrounded by trees and having some mountains surrounding the misty lake would be cool as well.

Keiki's base in the animal spirit garden being reminiscent of the ancient technology in Laputa, some of the zonai technology in ToTK and some of the Lanayru desert buildings in Skyward Sword (i.e. Lanayru Mine, the shipyard, etc), as well as a lot of the other ancient technologically advanced sky people ruins seen in some other Zelda games, but with the clear Kofun era theming she already has.

Old Hell having a mix of western influences with it's prodominantly Japanese ones, mainly inspired by how the Palace of Earth spirits looks significantly more western than the rest of Old Hell (though that could be because it was more recently built idk), as well as there being emblems from the time that Old Hell was actually Hell being strewn about in the ruins of old hell, also being inspired by a Japanese historical anecdote about how certain families had specific crests/emblems representing them and how when a new clan would take over everything would be replaced with that families' emblem although my memory is a bit foggy (since I saw it a while ago) and I got info from a Youtube short so take this info with a huge grain of salt (and it anyone actually knows if this info is legit or not, please correct me if I get anything wrong).

Overall, don't think this looks too much like Hakugyokurou, but I am glad I drew this anyway because I needed the practice with drawing backgrounds.

[your-greatest-queen]

I made a post sometime last year (can't find it, buried) about how I didn't like my friend's art because she drew exclusively super thin people with perky tits and jawlines that could cut glass

And I thought to myself afterward "okay, she's thin and most people are prone to drawing bodies similar to their own before they branch out. So that's probably it. She just hasn't gotten to a place in her artistic journey where it occurs to her to use other references aside from herself."

So recently, I tested her. She asked me over the summer months for a drawing prompt and I told her to draw Rose Quartz from Steven Universe (with a new colour pallet, so she could at least have some creative liberty). I thought "the reference is right there. She's looking right at this fat character. She knows she's fat. There's no way to mess this up."

Well, I was hoping, but I must admit that I didn't expect to be sent a picture of a fat RQ in my friend's style. And it's a good thing too, because I never did get that picture. What I got was a size 0 Rose. Her waist was as thin as her arms and neck (plus she didn't change the colour palette :/).

I hate looking at her art now more than ever because it is blatantly clear to me that it's a deliberate choice on her end to make everyone so thin. This isn't an unconscious style anymore. It's a blatant disregard for fat people and characters.

I am so mad about this

[tossawary]

Hi! This is another Fandom Trumps Hate post for people who are thinking about joining up as a creator but aren't sure. I'm not making this one rebloggable because I'm going to talk a little about my personal experiences with fan events in general and FTH in particular over the years (feel free to link a friend to this post, though, if they're on the fence about participating).

About 10 years ago now, when I was very new to online fandom, I didn't know how to feel about fan charity events. Some of them seemed kind of shady (and some fan-run things are shady, let's be real, but FTH's donations go straight to the charities and the mods never touch it). But some of them seemed legitimate, and as I was spending a lot of my free time making fic and art anyway, I thought: didn't I kind of owe my creative skills to a good cause? When I did decide to refrain from joining these events because I knew that I was too busy, I still felt kind of guilty about it.

Now, a little older and a little wiser, I feel pretty confident saying that if you're really not sure or enthusiastic about participating: don't do it. I am personally handing you a "Get Out Of Jail FTH Guilt-Free" card and telling you it's cool if you're too busy. It's seriously fine.

Here's why:

Fan events, whether we're talking about charity auctions or big bangs just for fun, are often pretty significant commitments. Being "required" to write fic, especially being required to follow someone else's prompt can be a very different experience to writing whatever you want for fun. (Not not fun, just different.)

Some people write fanfiction instead of attempting to publish original fiction to become "real writers" because, as they'll talk about on their own blogs, they want to write as a for-fun hobby. Like painting for fun or baking for fun. Just because someone likes making a fancy cake every once and a while doesn't mean that they want to open a catering business, you know? Things can change when you've made a commitment and when there's money on the line, even if that money has gone to charity. There's an added layer of stress.

If you've never written prompt fic on request before, then it's hard to know how you'll find the experience, if you'll find the stress of it a light burden you barely feel or a heavy burden weighing you down every day. Sometimes, you'll end up writing something you're not 100% into. I've had artistic projects (talking mostly about school and work here, not any fan projects) where the idea was fun and I was proud of the end result, but the work itself was kind of grueling because it wasn't what I personally would have chosen to do.

My FTH bidders over the years have always been incredibly cool people who have proposed fun ideas, which I have really enjoyed writing, and they'll often work with you to find a prompt that you love. I have found my FTH projects rewarding experiences. But I'd be lying if I said that when working on a FTH fic, I've never once occasionally thought, "Man, I kind of wish I was working on something else."

You have to be able to resist the allure of your latest plot bunny and finish the current project. If you're really bad at finishing your WIPs or if you're really bad at finishing your WIPs within a time limit (FTH deadline is Dec 31st of the same year), then maybe creating for a fan event just isn't for you. And that's fine!

There's a reason that FTH recommends in their Signup Tips for First-Time FTH Creators post that new creators start with only one offer and to start small. Write a 5k fic, not a 50k one. Draw a single, cartoony drawing, not a 5-page comic in a realistic style. It's a very responsible thing to do to test the waters of an experience before jumping in the deep end.

Part of the stress of these experiences comes from the fact that if you don't fulfill your promise to create for your bidder, you can get banned from future FTH auctions. Big Bangs and Secret Santa events will also ban you (not because of FTH, FTH doesn't blacklist you to anyone or anything). And you don't want to disappoint your bidder! They seemed really cool and you can feel like you're letting them down just if you make them wait too long.

(I promise you that most bidders are pretty chill people. I personally am happy just donating to the charities and I really don't care when/if my creator gets back to me. Their wellbeing is more important to me than a fic or a piece of art.)

If you feel like you won't be able to fulfill an offer in time or if you don't really want to take a prompt from someone else instead of doing your own thing, then it's fine not to make an offer. (Likewise, if you ever have missed creating something for a fan event because real life stuff came up, then it's fine. You're not a bad person. Life gets in the way sometimes. You thought you could at the time. There are other things to participate in when you know you're ready.)

The thing is that creative skills are much, MUCH more valuable than people are putting them on auction for here. If I was charging a minimum wage of $15/hr for my writing skills for what I've done for FTH over the years, I would have made them THOUSANDS. (I doubt I've made them $1000 total.) I participate in FTH usually when I'm feeling at creative loose ends and want to work on prompt fic. I want the collaborative experience of writing something specific for someone else. It's a project that scratches a particular writing itch for me (the stress of a commitment is there, yes, but it's so easy to carry that I barely notice it), which isn't for everyone, and the fact that this event raises some money for charity is kind of just an added bonus.

If someone is donating $25 dollars to charity so that you'll write them a thank-you gift of a 5,000 word one shot that took you at least 10 hours to write, that is NOT a balanced exchange. If we take the $15/hr wage, that is $150 of labor for $25. This is NOT an efficient way to donate to charity. This is a fan event.

Now, some people require a higher minimum bid for their work than I generally do. (Which is good. They are right to do this. I should probably also do this more seriously.) Some people require $100 dollars for a 1k fic. Some people say they'll write 1k words per every $10. There are ways to bring things back into balance and make things more efficient.

So, if you think that a disparity between the amount donated and your donated labor will piss you off, then put serious minimum bid requirements. Your creative skills are valuable. It is okay to enforce boundaries on your donated time and energy so that you don't end up writing 50k of an idea you don't really like for $25, because that sounds like a recipe for resentment. (I keep mostly to myself, so I have never heard of a situation like this with FTH and am just exaggerating to make a point.)

And if people don't bid on your offer? It doesn't mean that your creative skills aren't valuable. It just means that your offer wasn't what someone was looking for at this particular time. (Honestly, as a side note, it's incredible how much the success of a pitch for a book or show or movie depends on just happening to be made to the right people at the right time. I'm serious. It's a very real thing in the entertainment and publishing industries. I have attended talks by people who say that they've had to pass on great pitches specifically because they're looking for a property to sell to 5yo boys that year and already have a property being sold to 10yo girls.)

If you need to pass on participating because you're busy: look after yourself first! Don't end up disappointing your bidder and yourself because you don't have the time or energy to spare. If you can do it, but it means really stressing yourself out and sacrificing other things to find the time: don't do it. Look after yourself. Don't hurt yourself and your creative muscles over a fan event. Breathe. Take a nap. Play some video games. Participate as a bidder if you have the spare money or just advertise the auction if you don't (if you want to). Or just cheer on creators in AO3 comments or with kudos. FTH allows you to make a donation and add it to their count, even if you don't bid or if you don't want to make a bid.

Would you be happy to know that someone was grinding themselves down trying to please you? Don't do that to your bidder. They're your fellow fans, often fellow creators, who just want to chill and donate to charity, and they'd be really upset to hear that you were making yourself miserable because of their donation.

I have never failed to fulfill a FTH offer. I have only participated in fan events when I know I can do it. I have always enjoyed myself. But I work in a creative industry and I have seen a lot of creative people hurt their own passion for something they love or burn out by trying to force themselves to work on things. (I know this sounds very dramatic. I'm not saying you will burn out. You may be totally fine or maybe only lightly stressed at the end. You'll probably be great, honestly. I bet you're a kickass creator. But it's fine to be wary of burn out until you're in a more confident place.) So, to any creative person, especially younger ones, I wanted to write all this out to tell you that it's fine not to do these things. It's not that serious.

Keep fandom a positive space by giving yourself room to breathe and coming back even stronger when you're ready, as a creator, bidder, or just a supporter. If you've already signed up but you want to pull out of FTH before bidding starts because something came up, email the mods. If this extended rambling about burn out has only strengthened your resolve to kick this fan event's ass, then that's awesome! Good for you! I think it's good to reassess your creative energies every now and again, and I think it's fine to say, "Okay, I think I need a break, I don't want to let anyone down," as much as it is to say, "Yeah, I'm pumped up! I'm good to go! Let's do it!"

EDIT: This whole post sounds kind of negative, so to add more positivity: if you really, really want to do it, then I think you should go ahead and join FTH! Just know your limits. It's okay to start small and to set firm boundaries. FTH can be a lot of fun! You can meet cool people! You can feel like you're making a difference! You may end up writing great and rewarding fics that you never would have written otherwise! Plenty of people have joined FTH for the first time feeling really uncertain and had a great time, no regrets.

Don't do FTH just because you feel weirdly obligated to participate because it's for a good cause. Do FTH because you want to do it.

There will be other events.