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You probably get asked this a lot, but how do you draw hands? Even when I'm tracing, they look so weird 🙃

I could probably go on and on and on about hands, but here are some key points I compiled! I LOVE drawing hands, and I never hesitate to use my own as a reference

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Okay I JUST realized I never posted these on here—- BUT BASICALLY, about a year and a half ago I started doing these experimental black hairstyle posts that were threads long on Twitter, to give artists a source of inspo for their black ocs whose hair they wanted to try something new with! There’s more to black hair than just the selected styles portrayed in media, and I thought it would be fun to show people how much texture, shape, fades, length, and style can be combined when drawing black hair—-cause it’s a kind of manipulation our hair can do irl! The OG posts were lost with the hacking of my original Twitter account (@/bagels_donuts) but I’ve since reuploaded the whole thread to my new Twitter (@/ItsDonutsFR)! I hope artists on tumblr find these useful, sorry it took me so long to post them here😭🙏🏾 I’ll upload them all in parts!

Part 1: Long masc hairstyles + playing with fades

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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Reblog if your art project has not, does not, and never will make use of generative ai at any point in your creative process.

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Halfbody Illustration Commissions are open! 6 slots available, $100 each. They will be drawn live on stream this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 2 drawings per day. Each day starting around 1 p.m, GMT + 01:00. Claim a slot via this form: https://forms.gle/X2jR9CsnQnUn2D9d6

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Oh my godddd that wip is drop dead GORGEOUS!!!! Ohhh, your art is so captivating! I have NEVER seen anyone make artwork that's so clearly cartoony yet so beautifully complex and detailed like yours!!! Ah!!! Sorry, I don't know what to say other than your art is pure eye candy!!!!!!

Adfsdjkdsjldfkjsdf, thank youuu 😭

I've been drawing for a long time, but my style is always changing a bit to adapt to whatever it is I'm drawing. I've always been a monster/body horror artist first, though, so a lot of my detail-orientation comes from that, and goes back 20+ years (most of my timestamped work to show for it is gone tho since I mass-stored all my old DeviantArt work).

To compare: this was my monster art vs my human art in high school - 2004 (hilariously enough, all R-Type related. One of the game's Iconic Boss; the other, a group-shot of my R-Type Final pilots, only a handful of whom later ended up getting expied into other settings)

I always argue that monsters are a great place to learn 'filler' detail, because people rarely try to nitpick it (though I certainly could with my older pieces, it still tends to catch and impress the casual eye).

My style swung around way more during and after college, but after a huge, painterly-style piece that took a month to do flopped in May 2016, I doubled-down on the anime style because it was lower-effort, easier to improve on, and got equal if not more attention.

That's still 9 years ago now (holy shit).

I got most of my queues for it from Guilty Gear. But even then it's always been much more angular; Look Outside has me using rounder shapes more, especially in regards to faces and eyes.

Even to that end, though, my earliest pieces in this style were body horror monsters anyway, so really, the more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess, haha.

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What program do you use and if you are comfortable what type of brushes?? Your art style is so gorgeous and eatable, it's immaculate im so happy I'm alive to witness and see it, I just found you today and I'm so happy for it

Thank you! I use CSP and Procreate. I use a large variety of brushes, but here are my current favorites:

https://assets.clip-studio.com/ja-jp/detail?id=2128372

https://assets.clip-studio.com/ja-jp/detail?id=2120142

https://assets.clip-studio.com/ja-jp/detail?id=1970099

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WIKIPEDIA MONSTER COMPILATION PAGES FOR PEOPLE

japanese creatures

greek creatures

creatures organised by type

creatures listed by letter

humanoid creatures

filipino creatures

chinese creatures

cryptids

‘fearsome critters’

angels

beings referred to as fairies

creatures that pretend to be human

a page on therianthropic creatures

shapeshifters

hybrid creatures

extraterrestrial creatures

deities

a page of mythology page links

a section of folklore page links

flying creatures

theological demons

fictional species lists

mythology related lists

legendary creature related lists

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One of the coolest things to remember is that because prey animals have eyes on the side of their head, they are looking at you when they're in profile, not facing you! Hot tip for artists and animal lovers!

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in fanfiction we must sometimes ask ourselves not if he would do that but under what conditions would he would do that

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really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

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fun behaviors to give dragons that aren't feline/canine based

cause as much as i love dragons purring and roaring i wish there was just more variety in how they would act

clacking their teeth together to show contentedness/happiness (budgies)

using tails as a defensive weapon in a whip like fashion (iguana)

twitching to express that they're not a threat to members of their species (hognose snake)

feeling calm when eyes are hooded/covered (birds of prey)

head bobbing as a threat display (anoles/bearded dragons)

flattening neck or sides to appear bigger (snakes/lizards)

mantling over food to protect it from hatchmates (birds of prey)

wiggling neck as a courting maneuver (budgies)

audibly grinding teeth as a warning (macaques)

maintained eye contact as a challenge (gorillas)

pounding wings against sides as a threat (gorillas)

slapping other dragons with their claws when their personal bubble is invaded (seals)

hoards used as a site to impress mates (birds of paradise)

snorting when undergoing heightened stress (horses)

making repeated loud noises with surroundings to establish territory (woodpeckers)

loud constant arguments with other dragons when roosting (bats)

building lairs that cause a domino effect of change in the land around them (beavers)

slapping their tails against the ground/water as a warning (beavers)

plucking or scraping off scales as a sign of stress (parrots)

raising spines/frills as a response to danger and carrying on with their usual business as they believe they're protected (lionfish)

and im not saying canine and feline behaviors are wrong or bad to give a dragon (people wouldn't write dragons with those behaviors if they weren't fun in the first place!) but i feel for creatures that are mythological giant winged lizards that you can do more and get experimental with it. often the more unfamiliar behavior the more dragons get that much more dragony

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📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚

My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".

This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE

Writing (Names)

Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!

Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME

City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA

Writing (Words)

Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!

Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!

Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.

In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.

ASSETS

In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!

Visual Assets (General)

Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT

Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts

Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.

Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!

Visual Assets (Game Focused)

Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!

Game UI Database - Same as above!

Sound Assets

Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!

Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.

Other

CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV

EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit

Marketing

Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!

presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.

Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.

MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.

Game Design (General)

An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.

Game Design (RPGs)

Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!

Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.

How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.

Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.

Game Design (Visual Novels)

Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.

I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

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I've always said that many of the promotional photoshoot pictures for Seinfeld give off major "Draw Your Squad" energy and not enough people are taking advantage of this--

So I'm taking it upon myself to call upon the artists of Tumblr-- New poses to draw your faves in just dropped!

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Pose references pt 17 🌈

more bases for pride before the month ends 😭😭

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Scientists have just discovered some rocks at the bottom of the ocean can make oxygen... and they do it in complete darkness!

These aren’t magic stones, they’re polymetallic nodules, potato-sized metal lumps packed with manganese, cobalt, and nickel.

But here’s the twist; when seawater flows over their surfaces, they generate tiny electric currents that can split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. No sunlight, no photosynthesis, just deep-sea chemistry creating breathable gas in the pitch black.

This “dark oxygen” could explain how deep-sea creatures survive in low-oxygen zones far from the surface. What's even wilder is that if this can happen on Earth, it could be happening right now in the hidden oceans of Europa or Enceladus, two icy moons that scientists think might host alien life.