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where-does-the-heart-lie · 8 months

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For @orange-artist ‘s ASL god AU DTIYS! (congrats on the milestone!)

This was really fun, I absolutely love drawing ethereal designs

Additional notes 👇

So i adjusted the original designs ... a bit... To draw in my style means that i have to make everything extra, sorry.

Ace:

I like the base design for Ace a lot! i looked at other posts to get more context to these outfits and i say this draping billowy pants design that i liked a lot more, so I used that instead of the ones he has in the picture.

I love his cute little star crown, i think it looks dope as hell. I wanted to bring it to other parts of him too, so I gave him an arm cuff with it, too! If i had drawn the front of him, you would also see that crown design around his waist as a belt, too.

i originally had him in a pose similar to the one he has in the original, but after i sketched out the other two poses i found he looked a little two flat, so i brought his hand out to the foreground.

I like the choice for his hair to gradient out to look like a comet! I had a lot of trouble trying to make it look Just Right, but i think I nailed it

Luffy:

I didn't change much about his design, I really just made him a little more yellow than he was before. Its hard to improve an already banger design. He's my ethereal silly guy...

I really love the idea of Luffy's scars looking like gold, that's really cool.

I wish I could've added that cold crown he has around his head, but i didn't know how to without it looking sloppy so i had to leave it out.

Sabo:

I changed so much about Sabo's design, i would like to send out a formal apology for it, I admit I went a little too ham. I had already completed the picture before i went back to look at the original post and saw the comments about how Sabo was supposed to look... discreet...... I... Did Not Make Him Discreet. In The Slightest. :DDD ehe

I needed help for Sabo's pose because i was having so much trouble with the hand, i called upon my good website friend JustSketchMe to get it right. I had this idea for the pose because i wanted the claw to look like a crescent moon, I think it looks pretty good.

I would've given him normal snakebite piercings too but i felt that the ring piercings looked more Crescent-like, so i went with that.

Moon belt. i want that moon belt. I have no outfits it would go with. but i still want it.

I love Sabo's whispies that he has in the original design, but when I put them in the art i had, it cluttered up the piece too much and I had to get rid of them. A moment of silence for the fallen whispies...

Noticing now I forgot Sabo's Cane..... oops.

General:

I shaded Luffy to be lighted by the sun, Sabo the moon, but i made Ace be the light for himself. There's some deep meaning to that, but I cant think of one right now.

I had a lot of fun drawing this, i hope i was failthful enough to the original designs even though i changed everything a lot :)

Drinking game: take a shot everytime I used the word "I", take a double shot each time i forgot to capitalize it, too. You will be Dead by the end of the post, though.

#my art #monkey d. luffy #sabo #asl brothers #one piece fan art #portgas d. ace #sabo the revolutionary #OP god au #asl au #@orange-artist #DTIYS

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mauesartetc · 4 months

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A while back I got a comment that demonstrated a misconception as to what the character design process actually entails, and I thought it had real "teachable moment" potential. So let me make this perfectly clear:

Drawing a character is NOT the same as designing one.

Let's say I wanted to draw a guy. No backstory, no defined personality traits or preferences, no details about his current life, just doodling some random, generic guy who popped into my head.

That's just a drawing.

But what if I decided to flesh him out more? What if I wanted his appearance to reflect his lifestyle and inner life as well? Here's where the note-taking comes in.

And now for the visual research:

I thought the bodybuilding angle would provide a fun contrast with this guy's profession. The mental image of a huge, burly dude working on a clock or watch with tiny, precise movements just makes me smile. Perhaps I could give him small, nimble hands that would suit his line of work.

Now that I have a better idea of how Mikhail's face and body will look, it's time to establish a pose.

Of course, I never expected to employ all the personality traits I started out with inside this single pose; those were just a jumping-off point. No one drawing will ever be able to encapsulate every single facet of a character, unless they're extraordinarily flat and generic (see also: random guy I doodled at the start of this post). If I wanted to write a story with this guy, I'd have to figure out how all the traits play off each other and how they'd cause him to react to different situations. There would be a lot more note-taking and development involved, but for the sake of keeping this post (somewhat) brief, let's just focus on visuals for now.

On to color!

I decided to give Mikhail a carnation in his pocket (for its round shape), specifically a red one, which represents deep love and an aching heart. Thus, the flower needed to maintain its red color for the symbolism to come through.

For some reason I initially pictured this guy wearing a pink shirt (perhaps as an offshoot of the "romantic" angle), but I wanted to try some different colors inspired by the 70s catalog pages I found. I ended up really liking the contrast of the cool blue shirt with the warm red pants, and that option made it into my top three as a result. I lined them up next to each other to compare them, and in the end, blue won out over pink. I think it also reflects the "colder", more cerebral, less-emotional parts of his personality well (namely "systematic", "stern", and "callous"- one from each column!). Just goes to show that you shouldn't get too attached to your first draft, as better ideas are just around the corner.

I then lightened the blue of the shirt so it wouldn't compete so much with the rest of the outfit, and wouldn't be quite as loud and "in your face". Mikhail strikes me as a bit of an introvert, so the calmer, quieter blue is a better fit. I added a darker belt and watchband and de-saturated the flower just a bit to make the values feel more balanced, and I think we've got it!

Let's see the final result!

Y'all, I was not expecting this process to make me emotional, but there's something special about fully realizing a little guy you've spent hours working on. All of a sudden you look at him and go, "Oh my god, there he is. That's him." This man wasn't even a twinkle in my eye a couple weeks ago and now I'd protect him with my life.

And the thing is, the only reason I'm calling this design "done" for now is that I basically just brought it into existence to make a point. But if this dude were attached to a larger story, he'd be nowhere near finished. I'd have to make a ton more iterations and go a lot more in depth with my research than I did (especially with the Armenian cultural stuff). Overall, though, I hope this quick project properly highlighted the difference between a single drawing and a more fleshed-out character.

Later!

#character design #art tips #art advice #art help #concept art #long post

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laurrrelise · 2 months

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mike schmidt headcanons

i’ve never posted before but i’m a huge jhutch fan and i had fun writing these :)

mike is absolutely a cat person. the only reason they don’t have a cat is because he was too embarrassed to look “un-manly” and buy one himself. he found one outside at one point, and kept trying to get abby to want to take it in and keep it, but she didn’t really want a pet to have to take care of so mike just let it go. mike leaves leftover food outside for it when he remembers, and stops and spends time with it when it’s lingering outside his porch.

he likes to surprise abby with new toys, even if he doesn’t have the extra money for it. her favorites are dragon action figures and stuffed animals (polar opposites ??) and he finds cool smaller ones at the dollar store. she can tell the difference, but pretends not to notice to make mike feel proud of himself. she also likes them, anyways.

mike drinks a lot of water. he drinks almost nothing but water. he very rarely drinks alcohol because he was invited to a high school party at one point, got super drunk, then jumped on a pool table and tried to do a backflip. he broke his leg and was humiliated, and vowed that he’d never drink again. (not completely true, because he goes for a beer once in a blue moon, but it’s so rare that it barely counts.)

him and abby have a 15 year age difference, but she takes care of him just as much as he takes care of her. when he’s super tired after work, she reminds him to brush his teeth before he goes to bed. she brings him a blanket when he falls asleep on the couch. she grabs his keys when he leaves them on the dining table, the kitchen counter, his nightstand, or her dresser, and puts them on the coat hooks so he’ll never lose them. she picks up on when he’s having really really hard days, and even though it’s hard for her, she eats for him.

(i’ve realized this one really isn’t canon, but i don’t care, it’s cute and i want it) mike has curly hair. abby doesn’t. neither does their mom, or their dad, or their little brother, garrett. (he’s older than abby, but shut up and let me have this) abby is jealous of mike’s curls. so, reluctantly, mike taught himself how to curl hair. he found a cheap curling iron at the convenience store down the street from their house and practiced on himself, burning his hands like crazy, and hiding it from abby. the first time he successfully curled her hair, she gave him the biggest hug and ate her entire dinner without having to be begged.

mike loves cleaning. he hates waking up early, but he doesn’t mind when he gets to turn on his music and spend an entire morning cleaning the house. he also really loves his music. he loves divorced dad rock. nickel back, green day, smash mouth, the black keys, etc. he loves putting a cd (he burned some illegally, abby helped him) into his boombox and blasting it at 7 a.m. he’ll walk into abby’s room, nodding to the music and singing along confidently, waking her up and laughing with her when she makes fun of him. but, still, she helps him clean.

abby is really good in school. she has to be, because mike is a bit of a bumbling idiot when it comes to math and english etiquette. the last time she asked him for help on her homework, even though it was just simple multiplication, mike ended up staring at the page for ten minutes before calling his neighbor to ask if she could help because he was “busy”. (he was bored out of his mind, but he couldn’t figure out what 36x5 was, and was too embarrassed to admit it.)

mike loves sweets, but he prefers his coffee bitter. he has a chocolate stash that he keeps on top of the kitchen cabinets for when abby is really good. he also has it because chocolate is his #1 craving when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

mike loves when abby draws him. sometimes, he’ll find her looking at him while she’s coloring, and he’ll hold the pose for as long as he possibly can to be a useful reference to her. he will never criticize her art. drawing is abby’s comfort place, so even when he’s so upset with her that he could rip his own hair out, he would never even think to insult her artwork.

mike despises shopping. in fact, he despises spending money, which is mostly due to the fact that after his mom died and dad left, he’s never had much of it. and he hates the fact that he has to give so much of it back to a government that hates him. so, to make up for it, he prefers thrift stores. not goodwill, essentially a corporate office that helps no one but it’s filthy rich CEO, but small, local thrift stores. the kind that are always filled with volunteers, whose profits exclusively go to keeping the shop running and a small cause, like dental care for youth in Guatemala or starving kittens who would be put down without proper funds to keep them alive. he likes knowing that his money is going to a good cause, even if he hates handing it over.

mike does, however, love picking out the clothes. he scours through the kids’ section for the brightest pairs of overalls, t-shirts, cardigans, skirts, and sneakers. he loves the look on abby’s face when he finds her a pretty sundress, because the smile that so rarely appears is filled with such innocent bliss. for himself, however, he moves as quickly as possible. he pretty much exclusively wears old hoodies, sweaters, jeans, and work boots. as long as it’s comfortable and in a size medium, it works for him.

that’s all for now but i love thinking about this man so i’ll probably end up writing more eventually 🤷‍♀️ who knows

anyways have a good day <3

#mike schmidt #mike schimdt x reader #mike schmidt smut #jhutch #fnaf #fnaf movie #headcanons #josh hutcherson #im losing my mind i love mike so much #abby schmidt #he and abby have the cutest relationship

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yyokkki · 10 months

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Asking to Sketch Them

HEARTSLABYUL

Riddle Rosehearts

Honestly a bit shocked you’d ask him

But he’s had practice from posing for family portraits, so he isn’t too nervous

Until you say you want the backdrop to be Heartslabyul’s garden

It doesn’t break any rules… but that doesn’t mean someone else won’t break any rules

He doesn’t collar people as often as he used to, but he still makes it a point to lecture rulebreakers on the importance of said rule

So imagine the strain on his face when Ace walks by with a vase full of roses and it’s Wednesday.

In the end Ace sits beside you while Riddle gives a long lecture, keeping the rest of his body perfectly still so it doesn’t interfere with your work

You are sweating in fear. 6/10 a good model but it’s hard to draw when your model is half yelling at the dude sitting right next to you

Trey Clover

Might hesitate to say yes because he’s a busy guy,,

I mean they have tea parties like everyday and he’s always in charge of sweets-

You say he can go about his business and that you’re going to capture him in his natural habitat then he agrees

Raises an eyebrow cuz you make it sound like you’re on national geographic but ok

Anyways you’re drawing him while he’s baking and damnnn those biceps pop when he’s whisking

Secretly, however, he’s been holding back for a while now/

When you’re least expecting it he comes closer to you… and bam whipped cream on the side of your face

Devolves into flour tossing and chaos

6/10 you got whipped cream on your sketchbook and it was half finished but it was a fun memory

Cater Diamond

“OMS YAY of course ;DD”

Internally screaming because his makeup isn’t that good today and why him I mean there are better looking people in nrc and maybe he can get his clone to do it instead-

Overthinker fr

He’s a bit stiff at first, trying to only show his good side and checking his camera constantly to see if his smile looks good

If you’re close and you start talking to him about something he’s passionate about while you’re sketching he’ll loosen up a bit and his pose becomes a lot more natural

Eventually forgets you’re even drawing him and now it’s just him showing his true colours

Takes a pic of your finished sketch along with the both of you and posts it on magicam #muse #artistbestie

8/10 the sketch turned out well and you had a nice chat

Deuce Spade

Has never been asked this question in his life

Boy is so stiff and awkward pls baby

He smiles like Oga from Beelzebub at first

Pls pls pls get this boy to do something else while you’re drawing him to get him to relax

Might be studying across the table from you while having a nice chat

Forgets you’re drawing him eventually pt.2

Tbh moves around a lot especially if a senior enters the room cuz he makes it a point to turn around and greet them while standing up

Is a bit surprised when you say you’re done because shit I forgot and I moved so much im sorry-

Also takes a picture of the sketch

Texts his mom the pic “I made a really good friend who’s great at drawing :D”

Will ask if you can draw a portrait of him and his mom together when you get the chance (will pay for it he just doesn’t know about the concept of commissions TT)

4/10 he’s so precious but not the best model tbh id still ask him again idc

Ace Trappola

Little shit (affectionate)

Not hard to make him agree but boy will he give you shit for it “my face is just that handsome ig” “you want me to get nude?” someone kiss him and make him shut up

At first he’s making a bunch of dumb faces and exaggerated poses and once he determines that you’re sufficiently annoyed he starts actually posing normally

Might get up halfway through and start stretching or laying down cuz he got tired though

Depending on how late he slept the night before and if you’re keeping quiet so he doesn’t get the chance to tease you, he might fall asleep

His sleeping face is cute so it works out for you ehe

When you’re done he acts all non chalant and smug about it but inside he’s sooo happy damn tsundere

Asks if he can draw you next and draws a potato with three dots on it <3

2/10 its only easy when he falls asleep but he’s cute so ill give him 1 extra point

-----

Graphic design is not my passion dear lord i really need to read a guide on how to format tumblr posts TT

Also first time writing omg depending on my mood next part will either be out tomorrow or next month see yall

#twisted wonderland #riddle rosehearts #trey clover #cater diamond #deuce spade #ace trappola #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twst heartslabyul #yokki's writing #twst headcanons

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velvetwyrme · 10 months

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Ever wondered what the fictional protagonists of Distilling Destiny might look like? Well, here's my interpretation ;>!!

If you don't know what Distilling Destiny is, I suggest you go read Flipping Fate- the fanfic I'm co-writing :>! It's a fake book that exists within the world of FF- written by the one and only Stretch! (or, in real life: @collegecomics18 ;D)

(Additional notes and thoughts under the cut!)

There's no "canon" design for these characters, but I thought it'd be fun to try come up with some concepts :>! I actually drew these months ago with a gap between finishing each, so they all look slightly different stylistically lol

First off! Each design is associated with a playing card suit; the Knight is associated with HEARTS (♥️) , the Soothsayer with DIAMONDS (♦️) , and the Bard with CLUBS (♣). Not only can this be seen in small details, but also in their overall poses/shapes!

The shapes also correlate very neatly into the idea that all the characters are from different kingdoms- I would have tried to differentiate each kingdom's clothing style a bit more buuuuut that's... a lot of work, and we only really see a couple characters from each kingdom, so I just stuck with making each character feel distinct.

One thing I also tried to go for was making all of them "faceless" in various ways, since the characters in Distilling Destiny are embodied by their roles in a way that effectively strips them of any further identity; during the book club, the DD!characters are referred to as they are in the book- they HAVE no names, and are only referred to by their titles. They are also meant to correlate to/reflect the characters of Flipping Fate in a not-very subtle way, on account of Stretch being the author (and... [REDACTED]).

The Knight's armour references a LOT of things. Obviously, OG Papyrus' battle body (even his little blue shorts ;>), but the red plume on his helmet is meant to call back to Undyne, and some of the golden bits (e.g on the back of his gauntlets) are not only "heart" shaped, but are also reminiscent of tridents and thus Asgore and the Royal Guard.

The Soothsayer's clothes are patterned with diamonds and coins- they are both a connection to the reader/MC, but also!!! In tarot the "matching" suite for diamonds would be coins/pentacles :]!! The Bard's pipe is a fantasy equivalent of his FF counterpart's bad habits, and his blue accents are meant to be a small nod toward his brother LOL.

Anyway, this is already long as heck so why not make it longer! So here are the sketches that I did back in….. SEPTEMBER 2022?? kjdhfkjsf

You can see the original sketch for the Bard is much smaller than the other two since I did it while I was at work LMAO (plus the initial idea for the Knight I had, which ended up getting changed.)

Thank you for reading! If you got all the way down here, you probably deserve a little treat ;)!

So!! I mentioned at the beginning that each of the characters correspond to a card suit... which of course, means there is a spade as well.

(The only reason he's not in this lineup is because I haven't finished drawing him yet kjhfjgkjgkjfhgdskjg,,)

#do i tag this as undertale.#??????? like... technically?#HOW THE FUCK DO I TAG. FANART FOR A FAKE BOOK WITHIN A FANFIC? (where the book characters are meant to parallel the fanfic characters)#my art #flippingfate #distillingdestiny #i am DD's biggest fan uwu #ff extras #holy shit thank you past me for actually putting image descriptions #the one good thing about leaving things in my drafts. i return to them a lot for editing lmao

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animehouse-moe · 8 months

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Welcome To Demon School! Iruma-Kun Volume 3: Flowers Blossoming In The Night

God, it's been two months already? I'm so used to the typical quarterly release of series that Kodansha's catchup schedule with Iruma has caught me completely off-guard, but I'm all for it since I get to read more of this series! And what a trip down memory lane it is. Crazy to think that it's only been 4 years since the anime started airing, it feels like it's been much longer than that. Anyways, enough of my reminiscing, let me talk details with this volume!

The more I tend to read in a single sitting, the more I tend to compare the art of various series to one another. It's not a great practice, as each artist is aiming for something different in the mix, but sometimes it can help in making me aware of things that I wasn't previously.

A really great example of this is character blocking or posing. It's definitely something you can easily take for granted, and might not always feel like something noteworthy to share (unless it's really good). But anyways, the point was in my reads throughout today, I read a few series that had rather stiff characters and designs. Comparing that with Nishi's already incredibly fluid art, I could really feel the difference and effort that went into character posing to match that fluidity. Something that really puts effort into providing a dynamic feel where applicable, which plays really well alongside Nishi's static and delayed approach to humor.

I know it's really bad to try and talk about something that's so difficult to properly be aware of and to explain, but just the posing and the little details with lines and whatnot adds a lot to how you perceive and react to the poses and drawings.

Also, the Clara moment is this volume! But before that, some anime content (since I've gone to grab a screenshot). The anime actually adds content to this sequence/chapter, and it's a really great addition in my opinion. When Clara's down and out after being mocked by her classmates she returns home, rather deflated. To cut a long story short, it's a really great addition that drives home the importance of family and how they can reflect on/help with the confidence of a high school student and the troubles that face them at school.

Also an all-in-one seduction attempt from Clara that proves nearly fatal for Kalego.

But! The all-important question, how does the anime version of the Clara scene compare to the manga?

Well, I don't want to say it's a non-contest, but I think the manga has the strongest essence and feel to it. For me, it mostly lies in the eyes. The manga version is just that bit more squinted/narrowed, which makes it feel more happy and playful, resulting in a far more effective and true visage for Clara.

Now, that's not to say that the anime's version is a wash, it's still great and really close to the manga. It also has the advantage of being able to build up to the moment better.

Moving on, I've talked at end about the expressiveness of Nishi's art, and how willing they are to get down and dirty with little differences in art and approach to characters and whatnot. With that in mind I'll spare the trouble of re-hashing that and instead turn my attention towards the messages of this volume.

Okay, maybe I lied a little. I just can't get enough of Nishi's range. Five total characters on the page, and all of them look so different. The shading, the use of color, they're all so varied. And most importantly, they're all so cute and fun.

Anyways, there's just so many and they're all so natural and well integrated that you can easily miss them. Things like Iruma starting to take agency in his own decisions and life (even if it is in the underworld where he may be eaten alive).

I think my two favorite moments from this volume in regards to messages though would be Iruma's run-in with Kiriwo, and Sully's conversation with the big 3. Both present such simple but impactful aspects for the characters and story at large.

With Kiriwo, while it is about Iruma finding someone "like him", it's got way more to it than that. It's about finding your place to belong, somewhere that you feel that it's okay to be yourself. Add on top of that its emphasis on equality and a desire to let everyone be equal, and it just speaks so much to Iruma as a character (thanks to his terrible childhood where he was powerless against the life he was forced into). Also, something something acting in an expected manner for the sake of popularity and acceptance.

Now with Sully, it's not really something directly relating to Iruma, but I still love it so much. With the chance to unanimously take the Demon King's Throne and rule over the underworld, something that countless Demons aspire towards, he casually shrugs it off for the sake of his (new, and definitely not kidnapped) grandson. Especially these days, and doubly so under the guise of Japanese work culture, denying an effective promotion that would (as Sully puts it) "take me away from my Grandson" just carries so much weight. Choosing family and happiness over accolades and achievements, it's a really admirable and heartwarming piece.

Just to re-wind a little, it's super great to see how strong and important Kalego's established to be as a character so early on. His hardline on the students about the importance of education, and the dangers of the world really is very strong right out the gates.

Anyways, I think I've made my point on this volume very well. It carries everything that I love about this story, and even without motion or all the other addition of an anime, displays and depicts it wonderfully to the reader. It's got the same energy and excitement, and all the same important and valuable pieces to it as well. Just always, always a good time. Can't wait for the next volume to drop (in two months!).

#mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #iruma kun #iruma suzuki #魔入りました！入間くん #mairuma #asmodeus alice #clara valac #sabnock sabro #naberius kalego #anime and manga #manga #manga review #manga recommendation #shounen manga #shonen manga

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tpher · 4 months

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how do you make your oc screencap edits?? i also have a td oc and i dont really know where to start 😭

ok so!!! i use firealpaca which is just my usual drawing program. so i'll keep using it as a reference for my steps but of course im sure whatever similar program u use should have similar features

i'll be long winded for funsies as usual 💕

FINDING YOUR SCREENSHOTS

the key to decent td edits is to flat out trace screenshots whenever possible. stock pics will do, but of course itll be a lot more fun and less obvious if u use a screenshot from the show and put it into your new context

in terms of making your ocs, you will likely have to do what someone once called "frankensteining" your pics. this is where you use pics of other characters for their specific features and put them together since your oc doesnt have official screenshots to trace. this also absolutely comes in handy w canon characters! maybe you have a pose but u need them to be sitting. so try to stitch together two different pics to get what u need

it will look very scary but just trust the process. here is a random example i made using a dawn screenshot (where i removed the background), gwens eyes and eyebrows, and kittys hair

the sketching part is semi-optional. if you think you can freehand the lineart then go ahead but i assume your oc wont be a complete copy of something found in canon and therefore you will have to draw the newer/different features (such as the hair or the outfit) at least a little bit. and sometimes when i frankenstein the pics, my brain gets all overwhelmed so sketching makes me feel better jfbdjdnd

(in terms of my own oc, i screwed myself over bc his body type is so unique i gotta freehand it like all the time 😭

you can see i traced his head from his render (ALWAYS DO THIS BTW!!! TRACE CONSTANTLY), but then the body was freehanded using a canon pic as reference because tracing the pic wouldve been inaccurate)

THE LINEART

yes the iconic td thick, sharp, flat lineart. i achieve this by using a normal pen tool, turning off the pen pressure, and then turning up my pen stability to 40-60 (very high). you could use a curve tool if that works for you! but i would suggest against that for ALL of it bc the tool just wont respond well to rly drastic curves and such

the pen size varies on the pic. if the characters are close-up, itll likely be a bigger one. and then the characters' little details and facial features are usually a slightly but definitely noticeable smaller size. for the most part, ive had the bigger pen size at 13 while the details are around 9. or big size 10 and smaller size 7.

heres my technique:

as u can see, all of my lines go a bit too far. this is so that when im done drawing them, i can go back in and slowly erase where they meet and get them all sharp and pointy. this is just how i personally do it lmao. when it comes to facial features and other stuff that doesnt connect to anything, just get a close look at your reference to see how thick or how thin the edges get and do ur best to erase the edges to the point where they should be

THE COLORING

not much to it! the bucket tool is the best way to go. again just get a good look at your references just in case any parts have the lineart also colored in

THE BACKGROUND

you can find some generic td background pics on google or u could get them from the show and try to erase any character in the way lmao. if ur recreating something like, say, a dunc/ney scene w a different ship, then its very tedious but youll have to do your best to erase the canon characters and piece the background back together.

i like using the smudge tool a lot for this!!! just kinda pulling whats already there towards the characters. to save time, put your drawing visible on a top layer as you do this so that you dont have to edit the ENTIRE background, just what you need

THE RENDERING

ok so heres a big one imo. after youre done, youre gonna have to fuck up the quality at least a little. well not that u HAVE to but like..... to match the standard quality of a td screenshot? ive never seen a td screenshot in perfect hd quality outside of stock art. so u could blur ur drawing just a little bit. maybe add in the teeniest bit of chromatic aberration (just set it to 1 or -1). not ALL of them together but u do whatever u gotta do

my personal favorite is blurring just a little and then saving it as a jpeg (around 65-80%) so that its pretty crunchy and looks all the more real

obviously not a NECESSARY step but just something to point out. especially if ur background isnt the best quality so the characters have to match it

this one from yesterday i didnt even redraw topher bc i was lazy and he looks fine enough. i just put danny onto the pic to cover the other character. so i blurred danny a little bit and then saved it in a pretty low quality so that they match one another. look at those pixels. that crunch.

SO THE TLDR IS just trace and copy your references as close as possible. if you cant find a reference for your character, try finding another character w something close enough

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ieatsmallorphansnamedtom · 1 year

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Leah Falling in Love with the Farmer Headcanons

The last one in the series! After this my [NAME]: Falling in Love series will be officially completed. That's not to say I won't do additions to it. I currently have a request for more Sam and Alex which I will be doing after this. I hope you enjoy!

Leah, to be honest, never planned on going out to meet you. She wanted you to come to her when you were ready. And you did! In all honesty though, she was never head over heels like some of the other townies. She just though you were a cool person, is all. You two chatted for a bit before going your separate ways.

It took a lot for her to fall for you. I know I did a sexuality and pronouns headcanon, but that's a little outdated and I honestly forgot most of them. So, as of writing this I HC she's somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. It's either demiromantic or greyromantic, so her falling was a lot rarer than some of the others.

When she does however, it really creeps up on her. It's a slow process of noticing you more and more until suddenly she's all over you. Leah being Leah, she's not all too concerned. She's a little surprised, of course, but she feels like it will go away with time.

It doesn't.

That's when it really hits her that, oh, she really does like you. Her reaction is sort of like 'welp. That happened.' At first, she's chill about it. I mean, a crush isn't much, right? She makes more of an effort to talk to you, but by that time you were already good friends and had been hanging out for a while.

It's as the feelings deepen that more signs show. She goes from hanging out with you three days a week to five, to trying to see you every day, to taking ridiculous time out of her schedule just to see if you are at your house. That's the odd thing: she always wants to be at your house. It just provides a feeling of comfort for her knowing you have been there.

In fact, she housesits all the time. Whenever you have to be away in the city for a while, she'll take care of the crops and animals and makes sure everything is up to date. Another thing she'll do is rearrange the furniture. She likes surprising you with little favours. If you ever complain about not liking the look of your house, she'll wait for you to go on a trip before changing everything to fit your style.

Leah being Leah, you also get tons of custom artworks. She'd love it if you'd let her draw or paint you. In fact, she tries to do it whenever she can. She has a whole sketchbook full of poses of you doing different things on the farm. Whenever she's feeling down, she'll look through them to cheer herself up.

She also loves cuddles. Anything she can do to be close to you. She'll pick you up, spin you around, anything. The one thing that really got her giddy though was when you fell asleep cuddling her under a blanket during winter. She almost overheated due to how fuzzy her heart felt. Eventually you woke up and saw her laughing over your dumb sleep expression.

"Wow, Y/N, you slept for ages! I didn't know you were so tired. You know, you can always come over here if you ever need a nap."

-~-~-

And done! My first series is complete! I'm so happy to get this done, it was so fun to do. Next up is my confession series. Looking forward to doing it!

#ieatsmallorphansnamedtom #sdv #stardew valley #sdv heacanons #stardew valley headcanons #sdv leah #stardew valley leah #leah sdv #leah stardew valley #stardew leah #leah stardew #stardew valley x reader #sdv x reader #stardew x reader

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kissagii · 2 years

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𝕨𝕙𝕖𝕟 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕥𝕠 𝕕𝕣𝕒𝕨 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕞 (𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝟚)

featuring jean, armin, reiner, and eren. part one can be found here

reader is gender neutral so anyone can enjoy <3

warnings: none

at first, jean isn't taking you seriously. making goofy faces, teasing you about how you think he's hot. eventually he calms down though, settling into a relaxed pose and striking up a conversation with you as you work. there are times when you get drawn into the conversation and your pencil stops moving, and when you notice, you scold him for distracting and get back to work. of course the main focus of the page is a serious piece, but in the empty space are little renderings of the strange i think they were supposed to be sexy? faces he made at first. he gets very pouty over how you were making fun of him.

armin doesn't even realize what you're doing. he's so absorbed in his work that he barely registers the scratching of pencil on paper, let alone that the pencil marks are forming his likeness. he assumes you're working on something else, maybe a still life of the flowers down the table. as you watch him secretly you're able to capture the way he furrows his brow when thinking hard, the way he sticks out his tongue when trying to make nice lines on his paper. with so much time on your hands, you make a handful of small sketches, each one showing a slightly different side of focused armin. when you show him your work he's incredibly flustered that you had been watching him the whole time, but he's incredibly appreciative.

reiner has not a clue what to do. should he smile or keep a serious face? could he talk with you? what happens if he moves? at first he just sits like a statue, whole body tense. you break the silence by rambling about your artistic efforts, commenting on the little details of his face as you sketched them out, muttering to yourself about how certain lines looked wrong or right. he breaks out of his shell slowly, at first responding to your comments with little hums, then a few words, then a few more. he gets flustered when you talk about his insecurities with a tone of admiration, and when he sees the final rendition, he can't believe it. "you really see me like this?"

it takes a lot of convincing for eren to let you draw him. he's unbelievably stubborn, and even once you get him to stop hiding from you, he's scowling. in a desperate attempt to get a salvageable drawing out of this, you work on everything but his face. body, face shape, hair, clothing, even the shading and details. he doesn't say a word to you during the entire process. eventually you have to draw his face though, so you give him one last chance to smile. it takes a promise of his favorite food to coax a bit of a grin from him, and you mentally capture that little moment of genuine joy. though his smile was clearly fake, you infused the drawing with the hints of happiness you always remembered in his smile. he still can't believe you made him actually look happy.

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kisekisreblogspage · 9 months

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Rainbow friends Head cannons!! 1/3

This is just a head cannon abaut them not beeing the murders machines we all know and love, more like them beeing goofy/silly creatures

Red plays 90's (girlish) music whenever he is cleaning, and he sings and dances."the loudest the music, the hardest i cleans". When he does that he either starts Early in the morning (like a latinian household lol) or in the afthernoon (when everyting gets nasty again)

Everytime this happens Green is the frist one to hear it "A LITTLE BIT OF MONIKA IN MY LIFE-" and Red's voice pretendig to be a singer, and he always goes like "curse you red!... CURSE YOU!"

I like to think that Green is the kind of guy that sleeps the whole day and wakes up tired. Like he had a terrible night cycle, or had a wild party or did a lot of things in the day, but he just loves sleeping, it is not because of deprecion, it is because he is a very sleepy guy.

If you knew him, you'd be jealous of him (even my self) because he is the kind of guy who does NOTHING the whole day and sleeps like he has done a whole day of military training. But the hardest thing he done is walk, eating, playing with Blue or Orange atend Red's checkouts or just beeing silly (ya' know, the basics, treat human kind with nuclear weapons, or pretend that he is some african Prince who needs money)

Also, Green wuld love cotagecore stuff, not becuase of the looks but becuase of the scents! And the comfynes! You know, the smell of freshly backed goods and bread and meals, the confort of many pillows and blankets, the feeling the scents of plants surounding you, the touch of grass, him not able to see but still beeing one with nature while wearing comfortable retro clothes. Idk how to portray him other ways but GREEN BELONGS TO COTTAGECORE AND COTTAGECORE BELONGS TO GREEN! Change my mind

Now, speaking abaut Orange. He has something that i like to think abaut sometimes. His eyes...

You see, his eyes are canonicly just a line, unfocused, but in the drawing of him across the game, his eyes are not a line, but a circle, focused. I have this headcannon that he can dilatate his eyes on purpose sometimes. From just a line, to a big ol'-blak-hole like eyes, and he does this in order to look cute and archive what he wants, the only 2 persons who does not fall for this are Green (because, Blind) and Red, he does not buy this.

He and Puple are besties, they are both have a good relationship, they are kind of Sibling like, if Orange has some dumb aa shit going on, there is Purple over there suporting his shit!

You can hear him ranting abaut how he tinks the word works like and you will be like "tf? Is this guy living in dereality?" And Purple be like "Oh yes yes you have quite a point" and Orange will be like "I KNOW!"

I like to thin that he is the rizzler in the gang, i can see him apearing in a corner in some "handsome" like pose and move his eyebrow and go like "heya" while trying to rizz you up in the rizzles vibes ever imagined and doing some faces. And then treating you like a friend lol. Yea this is Orange for me, some Sassy silly Rizzles little guy who makes fun of manny and hates when the karma hits back and goes like "WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS!?!?" A drama lizard. He is not a Jerk, he is just a dumbass.

Also, i think that he will mostly joke abaut Red beeing ugly because he thinks that is funny, but he does not belive that Red's ugly, he just like to annoy him

Now if you ask

"Hey Red, is purple a girl or a boy?"

"Its purple"

"Yea but it is a girl or a boy?"

"Its purple"

"But is PURPLE a GIRL or a BOY"

"Its purple"

"A puple girl? Or a purple boy?"

"Its puple"

"You are not gonna tell me aren't you?"

" i told you!"

"Then what it is???"

"Puple"

Its Purple time fellas! Purple belives that the outside world is cyberpunk now, because thats what has been promised for the 2000's to be, poor little Purple.

I like to think that Purple walks araund everywere anytime purple whants, but just choses not to, because Purple belives that socializing is useless and rather be as far away from everyone. But fear not, Purple has get over that phase (thanks to Green) now Purple only walks araund only when Purple feels like so, but still not wanting to talk to strangers, they make Purple unconforfable and overwelmed, so if you are going to try to make friends with Purple, make sure to not overwelm them, go slow and secure, make them know that you are no harm, talk to them, be nice, don't make loud noices, eventually Purple will be interested in you, and you will found out that Purple's very curios and kind of energetic (in a short period of time) and will be a very good friend only to persons who deserves Purple's friendship, and then you will become Purple's favorite Person

I can tell that Purple likes to Wonder araund in a box, like, they just found a box from the deceased person that they just kill the ground and go like "Oh... this is supose to help them hide... i see" and now it is Purple who hide in these boxes, neat right? They think that this is like Red wearing suits. I can also see Purple finding old/abandoned clothes and wearing them, pretending it is some fashion thing. Finding crappy shoes especially, and goes like "yea, this shoes are designer" and the shoes in question are fake jordans. Lol.

Now, lets talk abaut our favorite King. Our beloved Baby, Blue in my headcannons is some kind of funny gentelman, playing roleplays, doll house, making his kingdom out of cardboard taking Green to dance, like he sees Green feeling down and he goes like "NOT ON MY WHATCH!!" And takes Green and hugs him and make him dance with his long as arms untill he starts laugting. They have a very 'favorite cousin' vibe.

To me, Blue is the kind of guy that will give you the best of advises and will tell you those things like he knows way too personaly abaut of why is he saying so, and then give you a pat in the back. You can be talking abaut your most embarasing and childish of hyperfixations one moment and then talking abaut life and your fears in the other moment, like he were your grandpa, or your dad!

"Did someone Hurt you? Friend? Oh... i see... don't worry, i'll make then know that hurting others is bad! Oh don't worry! I wont do anything bad to them! I'll... Just... make them know that they shuldn't Hurt oters for fun..."

"If you are going to Hurt someone there's better ve a reason... like... Hunger... like for now.... 'I' am hungry..."

Yea, he is not going to let that slide.

Start runing

Blue is just like the kidn of charactwr that is neat and cool with everyone! You know! Hiding a deep trauma and dark past and beeing misterious aswell. This is a super cool character to work with to me, it culd be either a murder or a mashmellow, or both at the same time! You can get crazy!

"Yea... he was my frist friend... i don't remember why he is no longer with me... i Wonder if i have been bad or something... but Red tells me that he just gone... but were?"

"Don't you get these gaps in your memories?... like what happened here? Why is this place so ruined? It use to be a happy place! Why is all so abandoned?"

"Don't tell Red... but... i have been feeling a little of Deja-bu some times... it feels like i have seen you before, and i have done everyting that i have done to meet you over and over again... do you understand?"

"Red says that he also has some deja-bu.. thank God i am not alone in this... are you ok annyways?"

Yes, i belive that he will get Deja-bu eventualy in a way. And then freak out abaut this bur then keep it cool at the end. Yea... this remknds me to sans.

Oh well this is just the part one, probably put more abaut the rest

See y'all latter

#rainbow friends #rainbow friends roblox #rainbow friends red #orange rainbow friends #rainbow friends green #blue rainbow friends #rainbow friends purple

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silverskye13 · 10 months

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Hey, do you have any art tips that you use or anything? Any advice?

Uhhh that's kind of a broad question! My art advice is mostly situational.

A few very very broad suggestions for you:

Use references. Your brain can only hold so much, and most images we stick in our head are symbols. Aside from a select few very impressive people, no one can photographically remember, say, a tree. You can remember a symbol of a tree [Brown and red and green, in a specific shape], but you're not going to remember off the top of your head how tall an ash tree is relative to its surroundings, how all the leaves look from a distance, etc. So, use references. This includes references for things like poses, or colors, or art styles. I've gotten in the habit of collecting things I think are aesthetically pleasing for exactly that reason.

Draw from observation or life, as practice. Kind of an extension of above, but even if you don't draw realistically, you can learn a lot about stylizing, say, a bottle, by staring at the bottle and drawing it. Same with landscapes and buildings and animals and people. Different lighting and their affects on color and things. Its a great way to learn what looks realistic, in terms of relativity -- figuring out where shadows fall, how cloth lays, that funny shape your arm makes when its pointing straight on. Another interesting twist on this is making copies of artworks you like. Pick up the prettiest watercolor you've ever seen, sit down and try to make it. You won't come close, but you'll learn a lot about what that artist thought was important. Draw This In Your Own Style memes are also good for this.

Use tracing and replication for what they're made for: building skills. They're very good tools for teaching yourself how to take things apart and put them back together again, which is how we as humans tend to learn best. You learn how to do math by learning 2+2, and then you figure out 22+22 is basically the same thing, but when you were 5 learning to count in preschool, they didn't start you out with the 22 bit, did they? Same goes for art. All those "How To Draw X" books start you out with "First a circle then some lines" for a reason. If you can break up the big bit into tiny bits, you can figure out how to build stuff from scratch. Tracing and copying art styles, coloring styles, and poses can go a long way to teaching you how to break up all those things into digestible shapes.

Draw often. There's some saying somewhere that you need to put a thousand hours into something to advance a level. So, 1000hrs to go from "I know nothing" to "Beginner." 1000hrs from Beginner into Novice. Etc. It's not a literal rule. I'm sure I've put a few thousand hours into art, but I wouldn't call myself an expert yet. But art is a muscle as much as it is a skill. You only learn how to draw a straight line by drawing 50 wiggly lines and then miraculously one of them is straight, and you feel how that line felt in your wrist and you try to make it feel that way again. You make a really nice texture by accident once and you try it again 100 times before you can consistently remember its by crosshatching there and erasing over there. A long time ago I used to swear by comics [the largest leap forward I ever made in art was when I sat down for a year and drew a comic when I was, like, 13. It had a couple hundred pages, and rapidly progressed from "I'm basically tracing deviantart wolves every pose because I can't see them in my head" to "I can pose these little guys on my own and they actually kind of look like who they're supposed to look every time!"

Uhm... smaller advice tidbits.

Play with as many mediums and art supplies you can get your hands on! Thats how you figure out what you like, and also you draw wildly differently with a brush than a pen. Its really fun to see those differences and integrate them into other things.

If you're working digitally, experiment with merging layers and drawing over them. If you're insecure about it, copy the whole thing into a new document and draw over top of it. It's really fun, lends to experimentation, and there's a lot of effects you just can't achieve by fiddling with your layers.

If you drop your pencils, you will break the lead on the inside. That's why sometimes you sharpen a pencil and it just keeps breaking until there's no pencil left. This happens especially often with colored pencils, because the lead is super soft. Protect your pencils with your life.

For every "pretty sketchbook" you keep around, keep beside it some shitty copy paper/lined paper book with a ballpoint pen. Its good for warm ups, and for getting over the anxiety of "but I don't wanna ruin my pretty sketchbook" :( anxieties

Keep a bottle of water in your art space. This is good for drinking, for spilling on things, and for reminding you you are human and have needs. I recommend one with a cap if you do watercolors, so its less likely you'll dip your rush in it.

Get in the habit of resting every hour. If you have tendonitis [like me] rest every half hour. Set a timer if you have to. This keeps your wrist from exploding, and it keeps you from randomly picking up objects three days from now and wondering why your hand just decided it didn't want to anymore.

Don't feel pressured to post everything you make online -- in fact, keep from that habit as long as you can. The little seratonin rush is very nice when people comment on your work, but if you rely on it to motivate you, you will stop working on things. I have pieces that live in a vacuum, that no one will probably ever see. Most of them art shit, some of them aren't. The fact that no one can see them and tell me they're pretty is good and healthy, actually.

Don't destroy your work. When you finish a long project, there will be a little demon in the back of your head that whispers "I have never hated anything so much as this. Burn it. Kill it. Punish it for existing. I hate it." Do not listen to that little demon. It has been starved of all your existential angst while you were Stuck In Creation, and it is hangry. Put your art away somewhere, wait a few days, a week, a few months even, if you have to. Eventually the little demon will get involved with something else, and you will look at your art and go "Oh, hey, that's not so bad actually" :)

If you wait a year and you still think its shit, objectively, it might be, but I still maintain its demon is probably just being stubborn.

#the barking artist #art advice #hopefully? this helps??

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mauricetheblurst · 3 months

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Heyy there,just wanna say that I absolutely love your linocuts, specially how funny and colored they are! Can't wait to SEE more of your creative/printing process :))

Thanks for the love !

I'm kinda dying to discuss this so I'll take the opportunity, if only for myself, to express my thoughts and structure them. Hope you don't mind me using your ask to do this.

Recently, the process has mostly involved tracing base images and modifying them before transferring onto a sheet of "engraving eraser" (idk what the english term for it is but someone likened it to what they call "keshigomu" in Japan, where it seems pretty well spread) which I think is just softer lino.

Sir Clappemcheek the 1st, on carbon paper; and my trusty blade

I used to draw on regular erasers with a pencil but it's much messier, less precise and runs the risk of damaging the surface. There's also another kind I use that's a bit softer that you can press a pencil drawing on paper onto and it will transfer, skipping the carbon paper step. It's thicker, a little less precise and a little bit crumbly, but I like it a lot

type of sheets I've been on

I try to do a healthy mix of drawing my own stuff and tracing. Because I haven't had any formal training, I figure the more I trace and tweak said traced designs, the better I'll get at standing on my own two feet and coming up with entirely original designs, while also not feeling too frustrated at myself and having fun carving cool designs.

Full disclosure: I have been using some AI generated pictures as a base for a number of those, because they provide a very convenient starting point, help me get poses right, or at least help me understand how a pose might be wrong and how to fix it. I'm not a fan (understatement) of generative AI's recent developments and the way some people revere it as some kind of higher power, but I still find it helpful as a learning tool, and I feel like my printmaking is transformative enough to be in a different category from the usual output of "prompters".

the AI pic I traced the original sir Clappemcheek from

I would actually love to know people's thoughts on my use of it, good or bad or if they even care at all, as I've been feeling a little self-conscious/doubtful about it, in the face of the positive reaction some of my prints have been getting. This is also partly why I hesitate on the ethics of selling prints (at least those made using AI pics as a base).

Still, I do my best to not get complacent and keep drawing, or at least use other sources (the big tittied landsknecht was traced from an Albrecht Durer engraving and then bimbofied by hand)

what Albrecht Durer always envisioned

As for ink, I use just good old ink pads that I press the stamps into until I get decent coverage. Still have to look into the little roller setup I usually see in linoprinting, but I also feel like that might work better for larger pieces than what I do, and for a "standard" format. With the way I tend to cut out the stamp from the sheet, pressing the paper on top of the stamp is more awkward than pressing the stamp on the paper.

These are some of my thoughts, however jumbled, and I'm very grateful for the interest my silly little crafts have generated.

#linoprinting #linocarving #linoprint #printmaking #blockprint #artistic process

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suehtamsatierf · 1 year

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Everything About My Process For The Comic Book Style

I want to open up this article with a funny comment I received in one of my tweets that goes briefly over my process for the last Amy Rose drawing I did.

It made me chuckle! Maybe I am a fool for sharing my secrets... unless it was my intention all along! After all, there aren't really any secrets as most things I do are done by several other artists as well.

Also, even if it WAS a secret, why the hell would I keep it all for myself? I mean, maybe by keeping it I could be the only exclusive artist capable of doing this kind of artwork... Naah! It's just a matter of time and a little bit of effort for other artists to figure out my ways, and like I just said: it's not really much of a secret as several other artists draw in similar styles already.

I actually see a lot of benefits in sharing my approach to drawings because this will help several artists to improve their skills or branch out in style. The world needs more artists, as well as the industry (animation, comics, games, etc.). It also helps to perpetuate whatever we have learned to future generations of artists. Could you imagine if the original Disney animators didn't transfer their knowledge to younger animators, or if we lost everything documented by the great art masters?

Now, of course, I am not comparing myself to any of these legendary artists. I am lightyears away from the skill level they were and I am not by any means a legendary artist myself. However, I did learn several things in my artistic journey that seems to draw attention from several folks out there, and if whatever I have to share is helpful in any way, I will gladly and proudly do it.

Now, let's get started!

The early steps

You see, as an artist, I need a few steps before getting to something I like. Not all artists are like that, some can draw awesome characters straight up without any supporting structural sketch underneath. These guys probably drew a whole lot already in their lives, I don't have that much experience yet. It could also be that I'm just way too picky with my drawings, but I digress.

Usually, I start with loose, non-committed ugly sketches. A lot of the time they come out when I am just doodling or sketching for fun, without any intention of turning it into a final image at the moment. In fact, I have a folder on my computer with lots and lots of sketches that never really went anywhere from there. I actually find a lot of them pretty ugly.

The image above is a page where I did some sketches. I did try to tell a story in some of these drawings by giving the characters a little bit of an attitude, but most of them didn't really go anywhere. There was no commitment here, it was a playground to explore and have fun without worrying too much about if it's looking great or not. After all, I never had the goal of sharing this with the world in the first place,these were for me! That's important.

When I see a sketch has potential and can be something fun to work on, I just develop on top of it. Some of these sketches have potential! Hence I took Amy over there and developed it further to a final image, and there are another couple of sketches there that could look very nice if more time is spent on improving them.

This is another sketch I did of Blaze when I was drawing her. I ended up not picking this one because some later sketches I did felt more interesting at the time. Unfortunately, I lost most of the roughs I did for this one, I did around 5-7 different poses before deciding on one, and the chosen one was heavily modified in the process as well.

Notice how loose and rough it is. It's pretty messy! At this point, I am not heavily concerned about anything other than the gesture and the pose. The lines are messy, the forms are not that well defined, the character proportions are off... that's okay! Really! These are things we can fix later.

I find it a lot easier when I pay attention to one thing at a time instead of trying to figure everything out at once. First, let's get that pose right in a way that doesn't take too long to draw and that can be easily modified. After that, we worry about structure, anatomy (if present), accurate perspective, shapes, lines, contrast, you get the idea.

This is the stage for playing! It's the stage where you get to mess up big time and do things over again because no commitment has been made yet.

Here I was getting closer to the pose I ended up committing with. I accidentally cropped the document and lost a good part of the sketches around, but you can see how I was still making changes to the pose trying to make it work. Initially, she was doing a very unrealistic and awkward twist with her body that just was not believable. If your drawing is not believable, then it falls apart.

This sketch is a little tighter than the other ones I did such as the previous to this in this article, and that's because I was mostly reiterating a very similar pose over and over again. I already had some foundation that was originally very loose, but as I made changes, it got a bit more defined.

Being tighter in this stage also helped me to better visualize what was going on with the character. Sometimes a gesture looks pretty good, but when you start developing it into something that makes more sense anatomically and spatially, you start seeing some breaking points that need to be addressed.

I made the twist less extreme and it started to look good! Once I am happy with the sketch, then I commit and start refining it bit by bit.

Here are some examples of how loose I usually like to be at this point:

Before Cleaning Up...

I usually like to have as many decisions made as possible before moving on to clean-up, because it's harder to make big changes once you're already doing clean, precise lines. The clean-up stage is where you focus your energy on making the drawing look pretty! However, before that, you gotta make sure things are working fine. It's important not to rush!

That's why I do multiple sketch passes before the final polished lines. Since the very early sketches are very messy, some smaller details are hard to see.

For Shadow, for example, I did 3 passes. The first one was exclusively for figuring out the pose because as you can see, it looks absolutely horrible. The hands are atrocious, the head barely looks like the character, the shoe is a box and there's one foot missing. I accomplished its objective though, which was getting a dynamic gesture that works as a foundation to all the other elements that go on top.

The second pass was where I started to define some elements better. I couldn't understand what was going on with his face and hands in the first pass, for example, so now is the time to get those things sorted out. That means I focused more on structure, defining the primary and secondary shapes more accurately. The primary big shapes were kind of figured out in the first pass already, except that it was too rough. The secondary only started making sense on the second pass.

The third pass was to clean up the shapes of the previous sketch a bit (lines are still rough) and to figure out the smaller details, that despite being smaller they are still too big to be dealt with in the clean up where my sole focus is to make the lines look nice.

What happens a lot is that even after going through all these passes, there are still some minor issues here and there that require adjustments when I'm already in the clean-up stage. On Shadow, it was his back leg that I had to lower a little bit to make the silhouette clear and his foot that simply wasn't there until the last minute. In other cases, I have to completely redo an arm or a foot, for example. That's when I go back to sketch just that part out and then clean it up again on top. That means there's usually some back and forth happening.

Here is another example of the multiple passes I make before cleaning up:

Cleaning Up

When I get to the clean-up stage, pretty much everything has been figured out on the sketch already. The focus here is to make the lines look pretty and to convey certain things such as overlapping, texture, Ambient Occlusion and a little bit of shading.

Having some of the shading done in pitch-black lines is a creative decision I made mostly because it's fun and feels nice to draw this way. I started drawing in this style with Rouge the Bat when I thought about rendering her in a painterly style but it would take too long and I had tons of other things to do.

However, the black shadows I make are mostly ambient occlusion and cast shadows. Unless it's a dark noir scene, making every single shadow black would not look very pleasing. In my opinion, it would be way too heavy and a lot of information would be lost.

When looking at my art, a lot of people think I do the black shading and the lines at the same time in the same layer, but that's not the case. I usually do the lines first and then on a separate layer I make the shadows using the exact same brush. That way it's easier to try things out and erase them whenever I don't like the result. It also allows me to focus on one thing at a time!

What I see people really like about my drawings is how I shade metallic objects. That is a topic for a whole article of its own, but in a nutshell, when making reflective materials, I usually don't think of light and shadows, but of what objects could possibly be surrounding this metal and how they are reflected on its surface. It doesn't have to be an accurate reflection as long as it looks believable. There are a lot of things I learned about reflective materials that I'd like to share in the future, but this is not the article for that.

I am currently writing another article all about line art and how to improve it, which goes in-depth on what I am usually thinking about when drawing. That being said, I will not go too much into the intricate details here, but I can say some things very briefly.

Line thickness matters a lot, and I usually use it to show important shapes and depth. I use thicker lines to say that an object is in front of another one with thinner lines. I also use thicker lines for the outline of big, primary shapes and also to describe volume. Making a thicker line on the side of an object that's in the shadows helps to convey a sense of tridimensionality, especially when it's a shadow made out of contact (which we call Ambient Occlusion).

Simplicity is key! Lines should be simple and not too bumpy. They should also flow and be confident! To achieve that, I usually draw with either my elbow or shoulder using fast movements. I sometimes use my wrist as a pivot point for a curved line, but avoid doing that as this can be harmful. There are 3 kinds of lines that I alternate when drawing.

Colours and Shading

Colours are tricky because their use is very abstract, which means there's no wrong way of using colours. Instead, some ways work and ways that don't work. There are, of course, guides that you can follow that helps you achieve better colour palettes, but since they're not rules, they can be broken as long as it works.

There are actually no irrefutable rules in drawing, every concept can be broken as long as it looks right. If it doesn't, it just looks like a mistake meaning that you failed. Using the excuse of "it's my style" is a very cheap way of saying "I don't know the fundamentals and I don't care but I still want to be appreciated".

The way I approach colours specifically for this style is by starting with the flat, local colours. On their own, they can look a little boring, although I usually do my best to make them interesting regardless of shading. That's why sometimes it's easy for me to be doubtful on whether the colours are looking good or not. I usually push it until the end though as I am almost always pleasantly surprised.

I think a reason I think the flat colours can look boring is that they need to be somewhat neutral, and by that I mean they are the halftone of the shading. That being said, I never go for full saturation or pure whites and blacks, because that limits the shading process and can make the image look a bit overwhelming.

Here's what I did with Amy, for example:

Now, of course, I didn't do a mathematical operation to figure out the best percentage of saturation for each of those colours in relationship to each other. I did it by feeling and by trial and error. Look at how horrible it would look if all the flats were 100% saturated:

I don't know about you, but this hurt my eyes! Vibrant colours are not necessarily associated with high levels of saturation, but mostly with the relationship of the colours used in a palette.

The colours around the 70% saturated red in the original Amy make this same red feel more vibrant. The 8% saturated white has an important role in making the reds and pinks pop up even more without hurting anybody's eyes.

In other words, never make a colour fully saturated, pure black or pure white in the flats.

For Shading, I often use the C movement in the color picker. I know, you have no idea what I'm talking about. It's basically this:

The reason I stress this out is that beginner artists usually pick shadow colours by simply lowering the brightness of that same colour, keeping the hue and the saturation the same. This doesn't happen. As light and the environment affects an object, its colours shift. Colour and light are directly related, meaning that everything surrounding an object will affect its colour in some way. I will be writing another article talking about this.

I usually draw the shape of the shadows on the character with the colour I picked for it and fill the inside with the same colour. Shape design is something that I like to pay close attention to, even in shading. I then make a layer on top of the shadows and use a slightly brighter tone that's more blue-ish to do the bounced and ambient lights. The reason I usually make it bluer is that I am usually thinking of the sky.

You see, the sky is actually a big light source that illuminates everything with a soft diffuse light. However, since the blue colour of the sky is actually the sunlight being reflected on the atmosphere gases such as Oxygen, it works as a much weaker light source than the sun. That's why you see lots of blue-ish shadows outdoors on a sunny day, and that's why I make bounced and ambient lights with a tint of blue.

Closing Thoughts

That's all I got for now. Much of what I covered here can be described a lot more in-depth in a dedicated blog post, hence I didn't do into too much detail about several of the concepts I mentioned. I am already writing some posts that cover some of this stuff more thoroughly, it's just that I take my time doing it as I want to make it as clear as possible without boring the hell out of the readers.

The goal of this post is to describe in more detail my process and some of the things I am thinking about when drawing. I hope this is helpful to anybody who is reading, and if it is feel free to let me know!

If there's anything you're interested to know from me, let me know as well and I can write about it here.

Cheers!

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