#tho the proportions are kinda messy but yknow

[laulo821]

i'm so obsessed at this point i might just become one of his hipster demon chick

[spotsupstuff]

I need to know how you got your art to be so expressive and flowy. It's so beautiful and I always love seeing your work.

JKDSMGK,,,,,,

THANK YOU SM THATS SO SWEET OF YOU

IM,,, GON TRY TO EXPLAIN MY ART THOUGHTS,,,

For the expressive part, it’s either about paying close attention to cartoons with good expressions OR checkin your own face out in the mirror!! For more realistic elements in my drawn expressions (even if they are supposed to be cartoon-y/anime-y, addin in some realism logic will enhance ‘em) I have either taken inspo from my own mug, my partner’s or my sister’s since we are all very facially animated. Checkin how your own face moves with Certain feeling is a varified way to get a nice expression on the paper. The movement of the facial muscles is very important to get somewhat a hang of, after all BUT!!! Important part to expressions is that you don’t focus Only on the face, the whole body moves along with a person. Hunched shoulders or a bit lowered head can do a lot for communication of an expression Especially in cartoons, there’s a rule that you should push an expression to it’s fullest potential. I also think about some ideas from stuff like traditional chinese threatre. They put on make up and elaborate costumes to enhance their features, so their expressions and character can pop out better

For the flowy part,,, bbrppbrrpbbb I have no idea how and when I started to do stuff more fluid

My art used to be quite stiff and for the longest time I defualted to thin and sharp lines

This was mostly because going Sharp and eliminating more rounder parts made sense in my head and helped me somewhat learn anatomy better. At least, in some cases it gave me a lesson about the torso to arms proportions n also kinda the legs. It’s why I recommend just kinda entering a stage where you just try and make sense of things, whether it be geometry, perfect straight lines or the more spherical ball things Ever. Going with the “basic shapes” like a circle for the head, triangle for the torso n so on might not be smth that will click in your brain

I was KINDA obsessed with learning anatomy as soon as possible even tho you don’t really have to go after that. One time I saw a pyramid of needs but like for artistic learnin and anatomy/realism were somewhere far on the top. Just go after what sparks the most joy, basically, but I didn’t know that back then so after every shower I would check out how my own body looks like from different angles. Yknow, thumbing where the rib cage ends, how does a shoulder connect to the torso, what the fuck is an armpit and how in the complete shittery does the neck connect to the head from the front

Cut like two years later, I think I’m enterin the Flowy arc

For the flowy, you KINDA disregard everything u’ve learned about anatomy Except the general idea of the proportions. I like to think about my drawings as part of an animation. From the picture that I’m making, there has to follow another and before it were also a few hypothetical drawings and together they gotta make up a movement. If I can’t see my drawing moving in my head, I’m not gon be too happy bout it

The main thing you want is a line of action:

And then you just,,, kinda build the body around it

Finding a brush that feels good and lets you develop a sketch style that makes u happy and lets you figure out where what goes cleanly also helps out. For me it was Luv and the the more faint sketch lines that u see up there ☝ give me enough space to be KIIIIIINDA messy about it but not overbearingly so to the point that I don’t know what’s goin on anymore

Practice, practice, take inspiration, study other people’s styles, disrespect anatomy, practice some more, don’t put too much expectations on yourself, don’t take every art “advice” too much to heart, let go of perfectionism, practice and you’ll get it!