#Pinterest ref ofc

[noctusmar]

for the rare and radiant maiden

whom the angels name Lenore— 🕊️

[majyykdust]

[yummycrummy]

more cowboy doodles 🐴!!!!

[arawsuu]

the duo ever, quirky bald and burnt bitch (i love your art)

They get along

[mister-ancunin]

perhaps I shall start a new art thing

[kharrneth]

*sighs*

[pilalaphillip]

Hi!! For an idea, what about Brayden meeting Chloe for the first time? No pressure ofc!

THE FACT I ALREADY DREW THIS MONTHS AGO, OH BROTHER😭. Well, good excuse to actually post it now!!

I still wanted to draw something new so I drew them having a nap together;o; Brayden was excited to have a little sibling.

(used ref from pinterest)

[a-litt1e-emo]

I made another Mairon redesign!

Ta-da! Ik I made one a few months ago but galaxy brained and I like this one a lot better tbh.

Notes on the design:

- one of the main things I considered with this was making Mairon not embody his own values and standards.

- the hair was part of this. I wanted to give him voluminous, hard-to-control hair to show that, try as he might, he can’t control anything fully. He can’t decide what emotions he feels, and he is often driven by emotion more than he wants. (Also bc that hair texture is a. gorgeous and b. super fun to draw)

- i tried to give him a softish look, as well, to subvert expectations and also bc that sharp appearance = danger thing is a lil overused. I also want to create some contrast between his original Mairon form and the forms he’ll take as Sauron, to illustrate that he’s a dynamic character, too. I want Mairon specifically to have less villain vibes and more… idk, main love interest vibes, since those two are about as far away as you can get. (In the kind of story I’m talking about, anyway)

- Also, I gave him a cleft lip & palate bc I hc that more “traditional” (aka conservative) elves view things like body differences as curses, or signs that Illuvatar dislikes you. This isn’t true, but that’s how they percieve it. Opinions like this were unfortunately very very common in Valinor early on, so Mairon has that heavily internalized. Dealing with this stigma gave him a lot of that perfectionism, and it also served to keep him from having any sort of support network, making it much easier for Melkor to turn him to his side. (Also bc I wanted to try drawing it and idk it just fits)

- (also most elves are better with that by the 3rd age)

- (if this is offensive pls tell me! I don’t have a cleft/facial difference myself, so I’m not an expert on the situation. I tried to emphasize that the thing that messed him up was society’s negative reaction to it, but if I offended anyone pls don’t hesitate to tell me!)

- I also tried to really emphasize the forge spirit side of things- I just think that’s really cool ^^

- I did that with the eyes (also Eye of Sauron related ofc) and the hair

- The makeup serves 2 purposes: To show how Mairon puts up a front most of the time, and bc it looks cool and I like drawing makeup

- Final note: this was meant to be a reference for me but I got distracted, so there are no clothes/piercings/accessories involved. Mairon would wear so much jewelry but more on that later hopefully

(Timelapse & refs under the cut)

Timelapse:

(I got distracted a few times)

Refs: (mostly from Pinterest or google)

[nalonzooo]

hi nikki!! how do you choose the references for the poses? The poses in your drawings seem so grounded, natural, and organic; i struggle a lot with that! (thanks in advance for reading my q!)

hi!! thank you sm the kind words 🖤 i’ll try to go more in-depth here about how i pick and “translate” my refs into my art—

((again the usual preface of what works for me might not work for others and pick art advice that works for you etc etc))

so i usually just scroll through pinterest and look for more candid poses of people in action/motion, not looking at the camera—i think that helps with the “natural” feel. i also take a lot of inspiration from existing art from artists i admire, who make the kind of art that i want to make. my challenge is how to make my art without taking heavy/obvious inspiration from existing art or outright copying it from photo refs.

the thing is - having marinated myself in pinterest for years - sometimes i see an artwork and the first thing i think of is the ref because i recognize it >< (i’m just speaking for myself and this is purely a me problem, ofc not everyone thinks like this). so this has informed how i approach my refs—i try to tweak it a bit so it’s not a direct copy. (important to note though that this is just a personal preference and i don’t do this all of the time—if i find myself thinking too hard about my art then it doesn’t get drawn! also it’s totally ok if you do direct copies or inspo of photo refs—it really all depends on what you want to convey as an artist. besides, sometimes some of my poses come out wonky bc i tweak it too much haha) ((also if i have a ref that’s my own photo, even if it’s a photo of my own hand, i outright copy it bc it’s my photo anyway and not available anywhere else)).

most of the time i try to change some part of the pose to better fit the characters i am drawing. here’s an example:

left is the ref, right is the sketch - so i had the base or what i felt was the most “anchoring” part of the ref down - geto carrying gojo - and at first i thought it’d be cute to have gojo throw his head back in laughter and his glasses fall off (ok looking at it now, it’s still cute, i’m 🥹) but i thought it’d feel more in-character to have gojo kind of flexing, showing off, teasing geto a bit, and geto being so easy for him and endeared, laughing and threatening to drop him. it felt much more “them” to me. so i looked up a ref of a guy flexing from the side and ended up with this sketch below on the left (final output is on the right). i still had to figure out the pose a bit bc he now didn’t match the original ref (hence the boxes in the first picture).

so again - pick a pose with movement, and tweak it a bit!

(i pretty much frankensteined this pose—it doesn’t always work but most of the time i go more with vibes than accuracy and it’s okay haha 🚬🥲)

also, regarding translating the ref to 2D, especially if you’re using a photo image of people - these things don’t always look good if you copy them 1:1, which is why animators always suggest “pushing” the pose. i always try to keep a sense of movement in my art, and “pushing” the pose helps that, and helps transform it a bit more from the ref. this will definitely help in making the pose feel more “organic”—more like a drawing, and less like a photo. (if you want a look at how artists push poses, i highly, highly recommend following zeet studio’s instagram account and taking a look at their stories. the way artists have translated models to paper is just incredible and inspiring to me always).

sometimes i’m able to draw without a reference but this is only possible because i have drawn from refs or live drawings and have practiced beforehand because every time we draw, it builds up our visual library. this is why i would suggest trying our very best not to outright trace references - or you have to trace smartly (for example, using the shrimp method - which is literally so simple and smart).

also as another practice: think about the same pose but in different ways. for example, i have a favorite pose to draw satosugu in. because i am deranged about them and i sincerely enjoy the idea of gojo catapulting himself into geto’s arms, i have drawn this many times and i’m always like rotating them in my mind - how would it look from this angle? with this arm placement? what if i tilt them a bit? i built up a ref board of this carrying pose and drew it over and over in different ways until i can pretty much draw it without a ref 😆 and i think i improve a little bit more every time i draw it in terms of angling, weight, posing. it becomes more and more “organic”.

ONE LAST THING in terms of making a pose feel “grounded” - i highly suggest looking at the gege’s manga panels. like he really knows how to make a character stand—they feel heavy, weighted, powerful. think of where the character is resting their weight in the pose, and how the line of action or the “energy” of the pose flows from there. these ones of geto, for example:

((these are so fun to look at ><)) i also personally like to draw a bit of shadow under the character - it helps place them on 3D plane too.

sorry i yapped away again but i hope this helps in any way! <3

[apaintingpotato]

Here is some scene Kyle and goth Stan for yall lovelies!!

I love them sm, they’re in meh head chewing at meh brain cells like parasites (but in a good way ofc ofc)

Ref pic under cut

Found it on Pinterest bc ofc I did, and full credit to the owner of the pic :3

[kan-be]

Hii!! Um I’m just curious about how you draw anatomy :D I absolutely LOVELOVELOVEEE your artstyle along with the coloring!! If you’re fine with it, can you give a breakdown how you draw anatomy? Or maybe how you suggest learning how to draw anatomy better- DW I UNDERSTAND IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SHARE THAT‼️ Either way it’s nice looking at your art and learning from it!!

hii!! ty ty that’s very sweet of you to say 😭💕

I’m actually not that good at anatomy myself and if I have to draw parts of naked body I surround myself with references 🥴 in any other case I just use blocks to make a rough sketch which I then dress up like a doll, so it’s not so much about anatomy as it is about proportions and shapes (which I suggest to learn first thing bc that’s what we started with at art school :p)

I really don’t think you need to know the name and exact form of every bone from the bottom to the top to draw people well enough, IMO all you need as a core except for named above are the very general things like the way leg bones connect with pelvic bones, or the rib cage shape and how it can differ, or, for example, those anchor points where the bones are practically not hidden by anything, like the collarbones or upper anterior iliac spine and etc etc. what I’m trying to say is you don’t have to memorise skeleton and all the muscles in all details, especially in the beginning 🤓

in terms or advices I probably won’t say anything new: when I get an annual urge to learn anatomy more or need a reference I go through Anatomy for Sculptores since everything is very clearly shown there or straight to youtube and watch channels like Proko. he actually has a very useful practice in homework to find muscles or bones on a photo and draw it on top/separately. I myself rarely do it and I’m ashamed bc when I actually did it was so helpful for understanding 😭

I also have a few pinterest boards for anatomy and love to look at pics like these, gives me a better understanding of volumes and the way shading should go

I tried to read Bammes too but it has A LOT of (not so necessary on practice IMO) info (and a lot of typos in russian version) which is too much for my one and only braincell and I can’t remember a single thing for a dear life of mine from there 😭😭😭 schemes are good tho 🤓

heard good things about Figure drawing, Design and Invention by Michael Hampton and Morpho series (especially Simplified Forms) by Michel Lauricella but haven’t gotten my hands on them yet

I actually have this recs from someone on IG, can’t remember who it was sadly

and ofc looking at and drawing real ppl helps not only to understand how anatomy works but also how our body parts can hugely differ, even if it’s the exact same muscle

anyways sorry for a lot of letters, here is an edit of different sketches I have in timelapses, you can see how I usually do them 👀 I also tend to be lazy and sketch things without refs just to get confused on a rendering stage and redo anatomy on top with refs so I added one full timelapse just to show it 🤓

[idiotmaggot]

Ref pics for my previous post (found on pinterest ofc)

[maluceh]

hi would you ever post your drawing process? i’ve noticed you do research when it comes to stuff like finding references to age up characters properly, making the characters’ styles accurate for their time, etc.

sometimes you don’t realize how much goes into art besides the sketches, drawing, rendering, all that stuff, so the little things like that which make a big difference in the end is so cool to notice, you’re a really inspiring artist for me! your art style is incredible and i’d love to see what goes through your head before drawing something, if that’s alright with you ofc.

like what’s your inspiration? what shaped your art style? do you use references and how often bc sometimes i see some poses you draw and think ok there HAD to be a reference used for this bc it’s too good but i understand finding refs for what’s going on your head is difficult a lot of times so i just chalk it up to you being skilled enough to guess how the anatomy would work (so much praise for artists like that because??? insane talent! not to say using refs makes artists less skilled or anything 😭😭 hope it didn’t come off that way)

OK WOW THAT WAS A LOT IM SORRY!

oh where to begin…

I usually get ideas of what I want to do, but it’s not until I open the canvas that my hand just knows what to do I guess? There’s times when I can just paste what’s in my head on the canvas and times when I struggle more and I have to look for references/trace poses (which are usually me with really bad lightening around my room or yeah, pics from pinterest)

lol funny story, my one drawing of James, Lily and Harry dancing I recorded myself dancing and got screenshots of that to base the poses on…. I accidentally sent one to a person that was commissioning me at the time, most embarrasing moment of my life

ANYWHOO! In terms of clothes, I have a board for every character where I put like what I think their style entails. Cause I like it when they look like teenagers in the 70s

Here’s my process when i just vomit my idea on the canvas

there are some where I don’t have the patience or the project is too big (ex. the panels) and figuring out the anatomy would be too time consuming, so i trace the pose but i’ve been trying to do that less and less to make myself actually work and get better at anatomy

and what shaped my artstyle? wow that’s a hard question lol, idk

I think i’ve picked things from artists i’ve liked and just created a frankenstein of it, little by little and without realizing it.

not that my art looks ANYTHING like theirs, but these are some of the artists that have inspired me a lot through my art journey

hope i answered your question jsjsjs

[actuallyacryptidd]

I YEARN FOR SWTD ASKS... GIVE THEM.... I WANNA DRAW THESE STUPID OIL RIG WORKERS (EVEN OCS (i will need a ref ofc))

I found this picture on Pinterest, I love it

[bleaksqueak]

Man.

So, of course, the rampant theft and disregard for artists has never been ideal, but Pinterest has always been an invaluable tool despite that since it's a paradise for reference and discovery (so you know, always tag your art.. .in multiple places. I started tagging mine with more subtle watermarks in the dead center since uploaders were cropping my tag out, even though like, with the elias respite image, it ruins the composition by ruining the card look and frame... Why do you want to crop my sig out so bad to ruin the composition lmao) Anyway Point being, I have gotten more use out of pinterest as a reference archive than any annoyance it has ever brought me. I've found some artists I absolutely adore using it, too, especially when people use it as its (mostly. sort of) original intended purpose, being a huge communal bookmark/pinboard... those that leave the links directly to the art/artist are saints. However, I really, really hate seeing it being over run by generated Aye-Eye shit. Especially since, apparently, no one ever told the Aye-Eye bros the common sense of "DON'T make the exact same picture 500 times with only an ever so slight difference, are you stupid?" (rhetorical question, ofc.) But it's getting harder and harder to keep the search feeds tailored because these morons cannot understand the value of quality > quantity, so I love being flooded with the slightest variant on the same gd picture over and over. I really hope this bubble bursts or the world gets its act together and outlaws it/heavily regulates it soon. I've said before I wasn't even completely against it as a potential for a fun tool back when it made actually cool dream-like collages of really wacked out whimsical shit, but even then it was like "... but you shouldn't have free reign to just steal to make this stuff. At least it looks nothing like the source, I guess?" but the "Better" it gets, the more uselessly souless and obnoxious it gets, and the more "well that's just straight up obvious theft" it gets. I see so ,so so so many recognizable styles , sort of just hollowed out husks, in these awful things... but hilariously, the more over saturated they get, the more they seem to just feed off of each other, and they start looking like the most homogenized, soulless ero-game style art I've ever seen. Anyway, I just needed some reference for a specific cut of dress pants, and somehow *that* started turning into a feed of nothing but the same soulless pseudo-anime twunk generated over and over and over with bulbous buttocks stuffed into passable pantsuit pantaloons. so I guess i'll just get my ref the old fashioned way - going to specific websites/blogs with actual photos. I'm just glad that for the most part tumblr and bluesky both are strongly anti-aye-eye, they're the only two places where I rarely have to see the shit.

[coyotesim]

hi !! I was just wondering how do you make such unique looking sims, is there anywhere your get inspo from?? I always have trouble making my sims look different from one another but they always have the same vibe if that makes sense !! ok thank you !!

hey!! thank you for saying this actually because i sometimes worry that i have same face syndrome lol, especially with male sims...but I can still provide some tips

i would recommend experimenting with presets and skin details. but don't always default to the same presets because that's typically what lands people with having same face syndrome... BUT if you start like every sim from scratch, i feel like you instinctually make similar sims

and the possibilities with skin details are endless. I love using unique details and messing around with beauty marks and acne and such. ALSO! using a wide variety of skin blends really helps, especially alpha ones like i typically use. and layering skins details really helps. if you don't have the color slider mod, I would highly suggest downloading it so you can change the opacity of any detail

giving sims unique hair and clothes also helps. I know it's easy to have favorite hairs and makeup cc and things, but trying out lots of options when decorating sims helps mix things up and give your sims more individualism

and in terms of inspo... I don't really base my sims off of any reference pics but doing that can definitely help!!! i sometimes take inspo from other simblr mutuals too. i definitely suggest exploring pinterest for face refs and simspo if you think that will help at all

that's pretty much all... hope this helps a least a little bit. if you need recs for presets or just cas cc in general, I would recommend looking through my wcif tag. off the top of my head, my favorite nose preset creator is kashisun. and for male face presets I will ALWAYS recommended obscurus lol... truly the queen of face/skin details. and for skin blends I recommend poyopoyo, northern siberia winds, sims3melancholic, and ofc obscurus. the 4 of them mostly make mm skinblends now, but I really love their older alpha cc. I seriously use these things on every sim I make

again, hope this helped at least a little :)