#tutorial

[ask-asexual-crystal-gems]

I’m both an aphant and asexual so can’t relate XD

I also dunno how the original poster thinks this implies any particular sex act, although splooge is of course the most obvious part of the pun.

To me it implies rubbing, ie a handjob

Aaaanyway, I would like the Know Your Meme people to do a tutorial on how they locate the “earliest mentions of” a meme. I’ve seen people do this for fact-checking too, but it occurs to me that people should learn the actual process.

ive forgotten the origin of "she blank on my blank til i blank" and i dont even begin to know how to look it up

[barnlarn]

Revising some of my horse drawing tips pages, starting with necks!

Corrected some muscle names and added more explanation/ method.

[snippit-crickit]

Hiya Snippit! I absolutely adore your artwork, its such an inspiration to me!! Your colours, textures, and sheer energy and mood that you put into each work is absolutely fantastic!

I do have a question on how you make your backgrounds, whether it's a scene, abstract, or just atmospheric. I always seem to struggle with them myself, and I was wondering what tends to be your thought process for making them? Keep up the amazing work!!

Hiii thank you so much : D!!! Hmm i think what id reccomend is doing small color keys for stuff and using references : ]

for example- heres some styleframes for a student film ill possibly be developing and im basing it off deep sea photos

same goes for these color keys with moustache guy!! i took some reference photos of the nyc subway and some other metros, thought about how i want the tint change from pretty neutral to a ominous green

I think once you have a good color key you can think about the render,, James gurney has a really good book on color theory if you wanna check it out! also i am guilty of using overlays often, i used to think of it as cheating but now i think this is an aid and its here for me to use it as for other tips i reccomend drawing a grid and putting it in perspective, if theres a floor in your frame

you can delete it afterwards but it will help your brain on how to place things You can take it a step further if youre drawing an interior and draw a simple 2d room plan with a grid, stretch it in perspective and "extrude" it

Overall i also did a lot of studies so that mustve helped as well, if youre sitting in a place with your sketchbook, do a study of it! Pen and paper, its fun because you can look back atthem in a few years and remember how your room looked like or where youve been... Also if youre bored by studies you can draw them and put your character in them to make them feel more personal : ] Good luck!

[lalasimmer]

How to convert Sims 4 3D CAS Rooms to Sims 3

Disclaimer: If you’re not familiar with Blender/TSRW/UVs then this tutorial may not be for you. If you don’t have Sims 4 Studio which needs the Sims 4 base game (or don’t know how to extract the meshes without it) this tutorial may not be for you. Honestly it’s pretty straight forward, but there’s a lot of trial and error and going in game and out of game checking placement, etc. I use Blender 4.1 for this. The older Blender versions annoy me now lol I’m sorry 😅 but you should still be able to do the same things in the older versions. I'm trying to make this as easy as possible. I’m here to answer any questions though 💕 Tutorial below

Things you’ll need:

Blender (whatever version you prefer)

Sims 4 Studio

TSRW ( I use version 2.0.86)

My Christmas CAS Room here

My TSRW work file here

Tutorial:

Find a Sims 4 CAS room that you like and open it up in Sims4Studio. This is the one I'll be using for the tutorial.

In the Texture tab, export the textures. The only textures that matter are the first 3 diffuse. Go to the Meshes tab and export the mesh, it will save as a .blend file. After that you can close out of Sims4Studio.

Open my Christmas CAS Room in TSRW. You'll get this message. Hit ignore and don't send. We only need this file as a reference to resize the SIms 4 CAS room. Export the mesh as an obj, name it whatever you like. You can close TSRW for now.

Open Blender and open the .blend file you exported from Sims4Studio. Make sure to delete studio_mesh_0 as it's just the shadow map and we don't need that. This is what mine looks like after fixing the textures.

Then import the wavefront obj you just exported from TSRW. Again we're just using this as a size reference.

This is what it looks like after I added the obj. I scaled, moved, and rotated the room to match up as close as I could with my reference mesh. When you have it lined up to your liking you can delete the reference mesh. I usually import the sims 3 body to see where my sim would be in CAS as well so feel free to do that too.

Now we have to separate the objects that use transparency in the scene to their own group. The transparent objects will always be located on studio_mesh_1. I usually do this in UV mode. Make sure UV Sync Selection is on. Where the red arrow is, that's the UV Selection button. It's blue so that means its on.

Tip: If you're using the same Blender version I am (I'm not sure if the older versions below Blender 3.0 do this) you can disconnect the alpha in shader editor and then you can easily see what uses transparency because it has a black background like the plants. Don't worry about the one outside the window as that's on the backdrop image and doesn't show in CAS.

Important: Also, make sure you delete the back of the mirror frame or it will show through the mirror in game. I usually select it in the UV editor as well and delete it.

After selecting all the objects that use transparency, I go to the 3D viewport window and press P, then selection. Now they're on their own layer as you can see. That's a very important step so please don't miss it.

Sims 4 CAS Rooms don't have a closed room like ts3 and if you don't add walls/ceiling with planes you'll be able to see that it in CAS. You can do this in any way you're comfortable with. If you don't understand how to do it feel free to ask me. For this tutorial I will not be doing this perfectly lol I've done enough rooms and I'm just trying to teach here 😩

Okay now last is renaming groups to import into TSRW. Make sure it's in this exact order and uses the exact group numbers.

Group 0 - Mirror

Group 1 - Windows/Curtains

Group 2 - View outside the window

Group 3 - Walls

Group 4 - Objects with transparency

Depending on the CAS Room you convert, yours may not have a mirror you know. You can delete groups in TSRW, experiment, feel free to ask me questions as well.

After renaming the groups, select only the groups you renamed and export as an obj. Make sure that object groups is checked so that they can stay in groups.

Open TSRW and open the testroom_cas.wrk file.

After opening the file you'll see this exact room in this tutorial lol because I had to test some things first 😅

Import the CAS room you converted from. You'll get these two messages. Click yes on the first and no on the second.

Import your textures (yours may be different than mine depends on the converter) but most have been the same that I've seen. Group 0 is the mirror it doesn't require a texture. Group 1 and Group 4 usually have the same texture.

After export to sims3pack or export as package file. Make sure you compress your files and you should be good to test your CAS room in game.

If you would like to make your own from the original ts3 cas room, I would suggest watching this Youtube video (it's for TS4 but it still applies and is helpful) and the link to the original ts3 cas room is here. Since we can convert ts4 to ours you could probably just build your own and go from there as well.

Thanks to @mookymilksims for testing things for me and converting her own. If you would like to try this tutorial out and experiment with room placements using @boringbones Ultra wide CAS mod which changes the field of view in cas so that you can see the whole cas room, it is here. I didn't use it for mine, but that's only because I found out about it after from Mooky lol and I'm tired of converting them 😅 but feel free to ask me any questions if you need help 😊

[selene19official]

Here's a lil' rundown on how I made these guys!

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Materials Used:

- Cardboard - Serviettes - Paint

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Tools used:

- Pen - Ruler - Box Cutter - Paintbrushes - Glue Gun and Glue Sticks - Podge

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Process:

✨️ Tip: Painting your cardboard with a white base coat before doing your measurements will allow you to see your grid a lot better and save time having to add it to each individual piece after you've cut it out!

Step 1: Measure all your different pieces out onto cardboard in your desired size. I used 1×1 cm blocks to ensure the project didn't get too big, making my snail 16 cm in length, 8 cm wide, and 9 cm tall.

Step 2: Once you've measured out and marked all your pieces, you'll want to take your box cutter and metal ruler and neatly cut each section out.

Step 3: Assembly! Start by gluing the body of your snail together, then assemble and glue the shell before attaching the shell to the body.

Step 4: Using torn up serviettes, an old paintbrush you don't mind destroying and podge, carefully cover the edges where the inside of the cardboard can be seen. This step isn't necessary, but I found it adds a cleaner finish as the snail looks whole.

Step 5: Time for paint! Using a fine ripped brush, you'll want to paint the inner edges of the squares in the right color, then use a slightly bigger brush (or a decent one if you have bigger squares), to fill the squares in. Depending on the paint you use, you may want to do several layers. Repeat this process for all the squares until your entire snail is painted.

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Pearlo and Scott's color grids:

"If not friend, why friend-shaped?"

Yes, I'm a crafter too, and when I saw these guys in Wild Life SMP, I had to make Pearlo's snail! Meanwhile, Scott's snail was made as a Christmas present for my friend 💫

@pearlescentmoo @defonotsmajor

[sleepy-mocha]

Posted the tutorial for this piece early on p4tr30n!!! 🧡 You can watch it now there, or wait til Christmas Day to see it on youtube for free!

I talked about how I colored and rendered this sketch from my october sketchbook pdf :3

[djpachipikachu]

Hey! You draw so beautifully! Do you think you can give me some tips for anatomy and sketching?

AW stop thank you so much ur so nice !!! and id love to :]

ive done a big post about some anatomy tips that you can check out here

but it is definitely a little old so here are more tips on anatomy !

i think my most utilized piece of advice for my own sketches is adding guidelines similar to the ones ppl usually add for the face to show where the body is facing? as an example here, i use a curved guide line to show how cj's body twists and tilts to build up a form , as well as lines for his legs and arms just to know where theyre facing

along with that CURVED LINES ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND !!! every part of the body is a glorified cylinder stacked on top of cylinders ! a lot of what helps make a body believable is that there Is some perspective used to show the dimensions even if there isnt any visible background

feet are also smth i see people struggle with and i dont Reallt know how to explain how i draw them but i usually draw a triangle with a half circle in front to mark where the toes are.,., make sure to include the arch of the foot and such..,,. make sure that the back of the heel pushes out a little further than where the leg connects....

this other small tip is about some of my favorite muscles to draw bc idk theyre fun LMAO but its about the deltoid and this other mass of muscle that control the neck

the deltoid is that triangle thats at the top of the arm and part of the shoulder ! adding some small lines that overlap into the arm and show the creases of the skin where the deltoid is placed helps add more solid form into the body :] and just drawing that sloped line of the neck muscles (green part) helps to connect the arm to the neck a littl more believably than if you just drew a straight line from the arm to the neck

HOWEVER LIKE . thats a stylization choice and also a matter of body type since im more used to drawing filled out muscular/fat body types, im not very experienced in bonier kinda bodies !

as for sketching advice ummm ..,. although i usually try to make a sketch as clean as possible first try , dont be afraid to have like a Super rough gesture type of sketch/thumbnail sketch just to get the movement and emotion down as best you can before refining it ! trying to make it accurate and detailed and shit on the get go can cause it to feel rly stiff , so get the Entire pose or comp down quickly in maybe 10-20min or less to just capture the motions before going over it again in a cleaner sketch ?

i tend to have the issue of forgetting to just capture everything first before getting into details so thats something i gotta remind mtself a lot LMAO here are some messy sketches i have where i just wanted to get shit down above all else

i also try to use as little lines as possible and get the vibe right in one brush stroke type of feel , no small chicken scratch/hairy lookin lines , which is mainly bc im aiming to be a storyboard artist and also bc i want to be able to post my sketches without needing to clean them up LMAO the only times i do a second sketch is for bigger pieces usually

another example of rly rough jotting down before cleaning it up

last bit of advice is using pen to do traditional sketches thank you and goodnight blows kisses

[powluna]

NEW VIDEO TUTORIAL 🩷

Yes, you see right, I uploaded another tutorial just ONE week after the last one, but I just had to explain more stuff.

In this video I talk about vertex groups and how to add them manually to your mesh. This is a follow up video of the last one where I talk about adding own assets into the game, but it also stands very well on it's own if you have problems with the famous "weight transfer" or "data transfer" method.

Definitely check it out if you want to understand vertex groups, bones and weights a bit more!

Here are the timestamps:

00:00 Intro

01:00 Explaining Vertex Groups [Rig, Pose Mode]

01:35 Bone list and Bone tab [Parent & Child Bone]

02:16 Recap of what happened in the previous video [Data Transfer]

02:40 Checking out the current vertex groups and weights

03:29 Finding new bone and adding it to the mesh [Add vertex groups, add weights]

04:54 Deleting unnecessary vertex groups

05:00 Testing the new vertex group and its weight

05:12 Example of different weight paint

05:25 Another demonstration of parent & child bones

05:52 Finding more vertex groups and adding them

06:54 Adjusting the mesh to avoid clipping

07:16 Extra: how to clear custom posing of the rig

 07:40 Ingame demo & Outro

[ez-zylubsraccoons]

Needed this 🙏

Do you have any advice for drawing rodents? Any advice help as I'm having trouble drawing their faces.

Hey there! I hear you honestly, rodent faces took me forever to figure out. I will say my style is very cartoonish, and I take a lot of liberties with my characters so I can have them fit a persona, style, or look that I'm going for.

But if you'd like a quick little tutorial I'd be happy to give it!

Most important thing is to study. Look at real life rodents, look at rodent skulls. The skulls especially are the building blocks of the entire anatomy of the face.

I'm mainly going to focus on side profile of a rat for now! Pads here is a good example of how you can take the basic form of the skull and add your own style to it.

When I look at the rat skull I break it down into the separate forms. I use circles here but you could easily use rectangles and squares to assist you with the volume/depth. I like to imagine the muzzle area as one slightly stretched egg shape. When switching to front view you're looking at the egg from top down, it's almost completely round.

You can use these forms when you are sketching out the outlines to help you draw the face. The most prominent feature on rats is their large upper jaw. A lot of mammals share this trait, but on rats its more pronounced and it's far more sloped.

Here's a quick step by step. Rat/rodent heads are far more narrow and sloped downward than say a canine head, which often sports a longer more upward turned snout.

Once you have the basic of the form down you can pretty much go crazy from there! Pads here is a bit more angular and intense than say his sister Sorcha, who I've softened and made more sleek in comparison. Here's a pic of her and a few other rats!

But creating stylized characters is all about breaking rules. Once you have a basic understanding of the form, you can learn all the angles from there!

Hope this helped!

[libraford]

Multipaper mini junk journal (handy with a needle version)

Good morning!

Yesterday I showed yall how to make a mini junk journal the easy way.

It is a very useful skill to know how to make your own journals because it can save you money. Today I'm going to show you a slightly more precise version.

This version is for you if:

-you want to make slightly thicker books that last longer than the zine stitch version.

-you know how to sew even a little.

-you think you'd like to make these as gifts for other people, not just yourself.

-you deserve nice things

-elevate your zine game.

For this project you will need-

Your papers- 8.5×11 inch

Cardstock or thicker paper for the cover.

A needle

Thread

An awl or some other sharp pointy thing (I have used a knife, lock picking tools, thicker needles)

If you already did the staple version, GREAT! You are already almost done! You're gonna follow up to STEP 3 of that tutorial, summarized here:

Fold the paper in half short wise, tear/cut along the crease, then fold in half again short wise.

Do this for every paper.

Do this also for your cardstock.

Lay the papers one on top of each other and make sure they fit inside one another. Arrange as desired. Put the cardstock on the bottom.

Lay it open so the centerfold is face up.

OKAY NOW STOP.

STEP 4

I'm gonna show you something called a 'pamphlet stitch.'

Poke three holes along the centerfold using your sharp pointy of choice. I have, in a pinch, gone straight to sewing, using the needle as the puncture. Technically, you can do this, but if you're using thick papers it's more trouble than it's worth and can dull your needle.

STEP 5

When sewing the papers together*, you are going to start from the middle.

*you might notice my needle is weird! This is curved upholstery needle, and I've learned that it's somewhat easier to maneuver when sewing a spine. However, a regular straight needle is fine. If you plan on making a lot of these, curved needles are your friend.

I was always told to use waxed linen thread for book making, but this is an uncommon item to find in the average house. Waxed linen thread is stronger, stiffer, and less likely to fray when going through multiple sheets. Regular thread works, but may not last a long time.

You've gone through the middle, and out the back. Come back in through the top hole.

Then out the center hole.

Then back in through the bottom hole.

Then back through center.

You're making a big figure-8 with the thread. You can repeat it as many times as you want or as many times as it will let you.

STEP 6

Tie a knot! You can do this wherever you want, but I prefer to put it in the centerfold.

Check it out!

You've got a little pocket journal with whatever papers makes your heart sing!

Slap a sticker on it!

Nice!

[namu-the-orca]

Do you have any advice on how to begin drawing a cetacean? When I'm drawing terrestrial animals, I can break them down into simpler shapes pretty easily, but cetaceans are just Big Tubes and I'm completely stumped on how to start

(Disclaimer that my work is rather stylised, so I'm not looking for advice on photorealism! Just any advice you have in general. I admire your ability to understand and render these sausage-bodied beasts)

Hi! That's an interesting question. I have to admit I had to draw a couple of dolphins first to see how I actually deal with them when free-handing lol. So much of my work as of late is scientific illustration, where in many cases I can build upon my own older illustrations. The new pieces are always 100% new, but correcting a base - however poor - is easier than starting from scratch.

Before I go any further let me stress the eternal importance of references. I can draw a dolphin fine from memory but for it to be actually accurate I need references. I always use them. Especially when it comes to weird poses or angles, but even for illustrations I will reference 25-50 photographs. Use them, study them, find them. They are a resource not a cheat.

Also, years ago I actually started work on a whole series of dolphin drawing tutorials. Or rather, collections of notes and tips for different topics (anatomy, differences between males and females, colouration, variation). Looking at the files now I see I had actually written and drawn a frightening amount already. Perhaps I should try to finish them? Is that something people would be interested in? Anyway, it starts off with a word of encouragement, which I do want to share here:

Actual advice is below the cut:

ONTO METHODS - illustrations

I found that for me, my method depends on whether I'm making an illustration or a full scene painting. For illustrations - which are in flat side view - I actually embrace the sausage. I drew a dolphin for you and saved the steps of how I go about it.

And this is the first. I start with a sort of flat-bottomed airfoil shape, and then add fins and a beak in approximate locations.

Next is refining the appendages and giving a face. Shape and placement of appendages as well as eye and mouth line is all experience and/or reference work.

Then comes fixing what I messed up lol. I always make the head too big first try (would have been good for a baby dolphin though!). Using cutting/transforming/moving selections around I correct proportions to what feels correct to me (again, that part comes from having seen and drawn a lot of dolphins).

Add some markings and hooray we have a spinner dolphin! This is the part where I would seriously start consulting references to check all the details and proportions are in order. If you don't need (photo)realism you can skip that step and use refs further back in the process just to get the shape/idea/colour of the species you're trying to paint right.

MORE METHODS - for different poses

When it comes to dynamic poses, my workflow is completely different. I just start from the nose and build my dolphin from there. Because as said above, they do have anatomy. And I think the way the beak flows into the cheek, the eye bumps connect, then the curve of the throat, the attachment of the pectoral fin, the way the belly curved up towards the genital region, the slight bulge behind that, then the muscles of the peduncle which flow into the flukes - I think the relations between those separate parts are enough for me?

These are the little dolphins (and a porpoise) I sketched from memory. In all cases I started from the tip of the nose and built from there, with minimal or no adjustments/erasing along the way. It was very much outline work. Details on eyes, mouth, etc, would come later. The killer whale is a bit different and got way more detailed than the rest. With such a front view angle I do use some spherical shapes to break it down for the body and face.

Otherwise I've never really liked or used the method of breaking an animal down into shapes, it never felt logical or intuitive to me. My "method" (if you can call it that lol) just comes from having drawn a lot of dolphins. I don't know if it is necessarily helpful when you want to get a grasp of them when starting out. Regardless I do hope this answered your question somewhat and you could get something useful out of it!

Also, I realise now I mostly talked about "standard "dolphins - for whales/short-beaked smaller cetaceans/etc my process is mostly the same, except their heads just have different shapes.

[acoraxia]

How do you make the slight jolting in your animatics? Like the small movements without having to redraw much?

I tweak duplicate frames and then edit them to give the idea of subtle movements using the lasso tool to select ares and mesh transform to move certain parts around

these slight edits can be a little tricky to grasp at first!! i still struggle with it sometimes but it goes a long way once you get the hang of it

you can even make certain movements smoother - you just need to figure out what areas of the frame you should move to make certain acts work

I’m not an expert though!! Still figuring stuff out and I don’t have a proper app like CSP for actual animation stuff so it’s a lot of guessing and playing around with it

hope this helps!

[ez-draw24]

5 min short sketch of mini luffy…..

[nikoco11]

my recipe for drawing hands!

(small note that this is a shortcut that is more abt style and ease than anatomical accuracy. it helps to take time to really properly study hands, makes it easier to bend the rules a bit like this and have it still look good!!)

(learn rules b4 u break them or whatevah)

[laboratoryrats]

Excellent tutorial to drawing cubby body types

“Some chubby guide for y’all!”

Source: paggiart on twitter