#i keep forgetting to post my twt sketches here

[randomminty]

My one hundred bandori sketches attack

[nonsensemanna]

Are you most active here? I'm not really into social media but your art is a huge inspiration to me and I can't resist following you anymore 😭

Aww thank you! I'm technically most active on my alt twitter account. It's mostly sketches and whatever stupid shit comes to mind. If you're only interested in art and not some crazy womans ramblings; I post the stuff from my main twt (it's more like a portfolio beacuse I'm too intimidated to say anything there nowadays) on this hellsite, and sometimes stuff from my alt if I like them enough... so technically I'm more active here than twitter? I do have a bluesky too, but I keep forgetting it exists.

[numbbface]

-sketch dump-

christ i keep forgetting that i have to simultaneously post her too 😭

will be dropping the one tone or monochromatic sketches (stopped coloring for a bit because i would have turned into a raisin... coloring takes up most of my time) in this post so i won't have to flood my acc with multiple post...

(the quotations are the captions i had on my posts on twt)

"who this mf smilin at?🤧"

i genuinely just like drawing Tweek all smiley and cute. the boy needs some love and i only wish him good health and happiness 🫶😭

"I don't really hc Bebe being really bitchy but i thought it would be fun to draw her like this, also there's wendy :3"

I'm actually way more comfortable at drawing girls, since i've been drawing girls way more than guys in the past... and as messy and hard it was to form and draw Bebe's hair, i love her design big poofy blonde hair. Wendy i got not much words for but i still like her ✨

"another one☝️😔! Henrietta and Firkle… i just love them :3"

they were pretty fun to draw that i kinda do wish i drew them more since i quite like how i both drew them here. the hand were a nightmare to do so i traced my hand fer this one.

"idk just a silly thought of mine fer craig to sing one of my favorite Christmas songs 🤧✨

Fruitcake by Eraserheads"

my head was empty when i drew this and started listening to the ehead's live concert album the whole time because its good ;w; ... if you sense a headcanon and a bit of self indulgence to this one, then yes it is.🧍

[alciedoodles]

hi!! i saw your other post about how you simplify details and it was really helpful - was wondering if you had any tips abt drawing expressions/poses to express a story/emotions. like i saw your recent sumeru char doodles on twt and the way you draw alhaitham and hungover kaveh is so!!! ahh!! all of the lines feel really intentional, from the expressions to the fabric of the clothing and omg i love it so much. anyways sorry for rambling HAHA thank you sm for sharing your art! gl w art school 💪

Hello!

Thank you so much for the lovely words <3 it's really such a honor to hear that so many people consider my art to be very expressive, which I think is an essential skill to have for storytelling in comics!

First of all, I'd like to say this isn't something I can easily answer... you must already know there's no easy step-by-step guide on how to be "good" at art or expressions or whichever aspect you're trying to improve, the answer will always be observation and practice. However, I can tell you some of my methods I use to make sure emotions are conveyed as efficiently as possible(?). Here are the key points I always try to apply (note that these aren't rules, these are just my guiding points):

Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

Laying down a foundation

Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

The absence of something can also convey emotion

You didn't specifically ask about comics, but since it's my favorite subject and it ties into your question, I'll be using a lot of examples from the comics I made! And it might interest other people who were curious?

VERY long post ahead :)

1. Understanding the character(s), the context, and how the two work together

This is what I think is the most fundamental part of storytelling! I mean, makes sense, right? Obviously you don't need a PhD in The Character to make stories based off them. I literally cannot tell you every detail about my favorite characters despite loving them very much, but I think understanding them and their relationships on a big-picture level is primordial. What drives them, what are their principles, what are their biggest fears, who do they make exceptions for, etc. Also, to me, understanding their relationships is sometimes more important than understanding the character at a molecular level. We can tell so much about someone just from the way they interact with specific people vs how they interact with strangers. The person I am online isn't the same I am with friends nor even with family-- like one of the reasons some characters can feel one-dimensional is because they don't show variation in their character throughout their relationships (and since you mentioned Kaveh and Alhaitham, I don't need to tell you the way both of them interact with each other is far removed from the way they interact with friends, strangers, etc... I think a lot of people forget who they are outside of their relationship, which a huge point of contention behind mischaracterization in fan works). I don't have much to say about this other than this is something I keep in mind every step of the way through.

2. Laying down a foundation

This is what the majority of my comics look like on second draft:

I said second because the first drafts usually look like this, which are barely comprehensible to anyone but myself:

The purpose of these are not only to give me a better guide for posing than whatever i did on the first draft (storyboard), but also have a first pass at motion and emotion. The expressions and gestures are legible enough that you can probably glean the emotions of each character based off the little sketches. Ultimately, some of the things I'll draft will end up adjusted, changed, expanded on or even removed.

This particular panel of Reigen is a favorite of mine, because the first pass already shows his confusion, but the final one is even more distorted because it felt like it needed to be even more accentuated.

This panel where he mansplains is also a good example, because the first pass gave him too much of an arrogant/uninterested look (notable with his upturned face), whereas Reigen is more likely to take pride in explaining something he knows to make himself look like a wise and mature figure (notable with his slight smirk and downturned face, as if nodding to himself; the hand is also slightly more forward as if inviting rather than dismissing). And since I basically made an example of it above: body language is super important! This applies for everyone. It doesn't stop at characters who make grand gestures and exaggerated poses every waking moment of their life, but also characters who are socially awkward, private, reclusive...

The posing here is intentionally stiff but not entirely closed off, giving the sense that he's earnest, tries his best to make connections , but also doesn't want to take too much space, thinking the smallest wrong move could cause trouble. Also, give room for the body to do its thing. Avoid cropping out things that shouldn't be cropped out. Leave enough room between the edges of the panel and the point of focus to emphasize what you want to emphasize. Close-up shots shouldn't be too frequent (in fact, personally I don't like doing close-up shots but it doesn't mean they're bad or shouldn't be done, again, my word isn't gospel!), especially if what you're conveying isn't too emotionally charged. Lastly, I have terrible news for people who hate drawing hands. Hands are possibly the second most expressive part of our body (if we don't count the body as a whole), so especially for your charismatic characters, you will very often want to use hands as a tool of expression.

(Think how much emotion and personality would be lost if the hands weren't there!)

3. Not letting dialogue be the main driving force behind storytelling

With my comics, I play an incredibly dangerous game called "I'll think of dialogue as I make the storyboard and then when I'm done drawing every page I'll write the dialogue over it guided solely by memory and whatever I drew". Don't do this. Have a script in hand or write it at the same time as you draft your storyboard. The reason I do this is because I'm lazy and I don't want to open a simple writing software to type down a script. Genuinely I have no other reasons. Anyway, the only advantage this gives to my comics is that they will generally be able to stand on their own without much dialogue; obviously dialogue is essential, but what I mean is that we don't need it to have a pretty accurate read on the room.

For example, if I remove all the dialogue from this page, you probably can't guess exactly what's being discussed. However, you can identify through their emotions alone that there is disbelief, bargaining, and finally a pretty devastating info was dropped. Alternatively, cutting down dialogue from your page and leaving room to expressions/body language alone can be entirely more beneficial than having any dialogue to begin with.

AKA Readers aren't stupid (some may be, but the majority can extrapolate just fine). You'll realize how much you don't need words and how your stories can be even more funny/impactful by pushing forward visual storytelling.

4. Paneling conveys emotion too, actually

Being a "good" artist isn't enough to make good comics. The way you panel things is extremely important, because it sets the tone, mood, pace, you name it. Some of the best works out there are the ones with the most care put into the flow of the comic. You need to understand how people will read it, and it starts with what order you deliver the information and how. This is paneling 101, but a page with irregularly shaped panels, multiple changing camera angles and such will be exponentially more dynamic than a page where each panel is the same size, have similar compositions and/or repetitions with little to no diagonal or curved lines of action.

The two examples above are WIPs from 2 different stories so unfortunately you'll have to make do with the rough sketches. That being said, you don't need to know the context of either pages to know the kind of emotion that should be felt through the paneling alone. Give time for the important emotions to be processed by the reader (unless it's intentionally fast-paced). Every emotion that needs to be emphasized should have its own panel.

In this example, I could easily have condensed these two panels into one by transferring the dialogue from the second into the first and jumping on to the next action. However, it would undeniably give much less impact to Kaveh's disbelief. On an inverse situation, sometimes you will want to condense two panels you made into one, because whatever those two panels are doing are perhaps not important enough to deserve separate panels! Lastly, you can notice that the space on the page is not always filled. Leaving space between each panel and/or between the edges of the page gives room for the reader to breathe and slows down the flow; and inversely, if you want to make the situation more frantic, make everything look more tight and constricted.

5. Not showing facial expressions sometimes conveys more emotion than doing so

This ties nicely to the point I made about body language. You don't need to see a character's face to know what they're going through, necessarily. Sometimes, their posture or their dialogue is enough. In my opinion, a story is more compelling when this equilibrium of facial expressions / body language / paneling / dialogue is correctly adjusted-- you will not need to have all the elements to convey the message or it could be a little overbearing. I don't have many examples for this one because they tend to be more relevant in dramatic scenarios, which I haven't done that many of.

(The first one is once again from a WIP)

And that's about it for my insane guide on comic-ing. I hope ANY of it made sense.

***

Here's a round up of extra tips, focused entirely on the drawing part which might be more of what you asked to begin with :'D

- That little line/wrinkle that adds so much character

Yall know what I'm talking about. In my opinion, too many artists are afraid of giving laugh lines/wrinkles because it makes their characters look older, except when it's to add those sexy sexy eyebags. I'm encouraging everyone to add them to their art little by little and see how much it can improve the expressiveness! Obviously, I don't use it everywhere, but it's a very effective way to make your expressions feel even more... well. expressive.

- Line of action

You've probably seen this picture going around before, from Preston Blair:

Although it's called line of action which implies action, this line is important even when the character isn't really in action.

You can gain a lot in expressiveness when you think of the body as one whole fluid instead of a sum of multiple disjointed parts. This is why drawing a very rough base comprised of only lines and circles can help figure out if the posing works before you start refining it.

On a different note, animation principles work very much in comics as well! I recommend looking up animation guides especially those that show how to make key poses.

- Shadows and/or color fill

This is one I will use quite often for different situations.

Shadows can immediately set a tone when they're used dramatically. For example, a shadow over a character's face can convey unease and/or evil intent.

On the other hand, I will use color fills for different purposes:

Differentiating ground layers

This can help with readability.

2. Conveying a certain mood

It can separate the character from the color of their background to give a sense of isolation, reflection, realization, being disconnected from their surroundings, etc...

- Don't be scared of using codes / tropes / archetypes

...As long as it benefits the narrative, of course. By codes / tropes / archetypes, I mean posing or expressions or visual effects that are universally understood and used for specific expressions. The semicircle sweatdrops and blush made with slashes are incredibly typical of manga/anime, but it doesn't mean they're bad! Visual effects are there to help remove the ambiguity of an expression considering a single expression without visual codes could convey multiple emotions!

- Find what inspires you and take notes!!!

In my case, what greatly shaped my art style to what it currently is: One Piece, the Ace Attorney series and Mob Psycho 100 (yes, I only watched the latter last year but it still managed to become a source of improvement/inspiration for my art even at my current level, because you'll never stop improving :) )

I hope this wasn't too long or too off-topic, and I hope it can also help other people who might be interested! Thank you for reading!

[sevinss]

I LIVE THEREFOR UPDATE TIME

Yes it is quite late but I will be reblogging this on the morning and the next few days so most of my active followers sees it!

Well first of all. The past 3-4 month was one hell-hole. Loads os assigments to finish, being informed in April that we have to finish our thesis work (i worked in a team) until may 4th not june, completly rewamp and finish the thesis work until may 11th (the principal was nice enough to give us 1 more week). I had a lot of sleepless nights, lot of sketch that i couldn’t finish, lot of anger, sadness i had to hold (since some personal life things also came up). So yeah, mostly why i didn’t post too much is because i was too busy with these.

But it’s over. It’s past may 11th and i submited my team thesis work and we are finished. I learned a lot during this time, both my artstyle and way of doing my work has improved. But i also learned a very painfull yet true thing about myself as an artist

I don’t want to animate nor draw for a living...

Now before any panics (probably not a lot of people XD), let me explain. I do not want to learn graphics, nor character designing nor illustration nor animation as a main job. Working in a team made me realise that im an easly angerable person if things don’t go the way i hoped it would, i forget things easly and i have a roller coaster of a mood waves for drawing. Yet...

Drawing is my passion. It is what kept me alive for this long, it is what helped me find people who dare a lot to me, and those who i lost, and those who i still have and maybe people who also count me dare to themselfs. It is what truly gives me joy, to draw friends characters, or just a random person’s character because i liked the design or my own characters...

So some changes are coming to my life. Drawing will be a hobby for now, not a main direction to build a future myself, it is my joy, but not my future to live a life money and carrier wise but rather to be here, with you guys. Im not a big person, i dont make world changing art, but it warms my heart every time i see a regular person liking my post, heck i dont care if they even like it, if somehow i know they saw it and liked it im happy.

Thats the most important thing i learned. Appriciate what i already have and not what i could. I have you all, small group of friends and regular comebyers who keep my posts somewhat active TwT.

So thank you

As for the future. I dont know. I planned to redraw the Bridge Keeper complitly, since i started it a while ago and i doesnt like how past Sev did the work so i will fix some stuffs. Will i be more active? I dont know... Im planning to learn IT managment since i have a thing for PCs and IT so i could get a job but for now, lets just hope ^w^ Again thank you everyone who patiently waited here for me and was here when i sometimes popped out of the shadow. Hopefully i can repay you all!

Big hugs!