#dont mind the …. creative …. anatomy i did not use a reference

[lavender-rroses]

team bonding

extra i forgot to add lol

[nahalism]

i was wondering, how did you get to develop your art? im currently in a process where i am trying to experiment and go beyond the need to create art that is realistic (as in "objectively like reality as it is", like I was being told by both school and family). i feel like I struggle a lot to follow my inspiration because of this, and I am also trying to learn how to draw scenes from my own ordinary life, but unfortunately I am quite impatient and frustrated with my inability to create what I wish to create + perfectionism in general makes me scared of using colour as well 😭 I really admire your art so much, both your sketches and finished pieces, and I have always wondered your own learning process throughout the years. please feel free to not reply if you feel uncomfortable cause I know it is a very personal process as well, and above all I hope you are doing well and I am sending you endless love <333

🥺🥺 this is so lovely to receive because if im completely honest there are multiple moments where i feel exactly as you've just described and despite pushing through it, a message like this is very validating that ive progressed in some way

i dont mind sharing at all. i started drawing/painting when i was 21/22 which is relatively late and i was so fearful because despite having a vision for what i wanted to create i lacked any skill that could help me bring what was in my minds eye to fruition. i was also insanely depressed and in the middle of getting my degree at uni (so felt like i had no time to pursue art, at least not to the extent i wanted to). — my plan to get better consisted of multiple things. id draw everyday. i had/have two styles i'd practice, one realism, and the other 'freestyle'? basically draw only from my head and from the rhythms that came naturally to my hand, no references. by doing that, or drawing the human figure/portraits/cars/buildings from my imagination, not only was i reinforcing what id actually learned from my study of the fundamentals, but i was learning to incorporate my own creativity into the rigid structure that sometimes comes from only drawing from reference. by doing that and drawing studies every day i began to build a library in my head of images/poses/character archetypes i could pull from which made drawing from my imagination easier, but also had the structural knowledge of forms/perspective/anatomy to make them look credible. id do this whenever i had free time, and once i left uni began practicing anywhere from 6-9 hours daily. a bit extreme but i felt like i had time to make up for since i started drawing relatively late in life. only tip there is to balance practice with making finished pieces. finished pieces will show you which fundamentals you still need to work on & how much progress you've made. they also show the completion of a thought whereas practice only gives you the tools to bring that thought to reality

just so u know, ur practice of the fundaments is not in vain. you just need to revive your own capacity to draw from your imagination/subconscious. the main thing is knowing your going to find your work horrible for a long time before it gets better. the joy has to come from the process of creating rather than the end product. by the time it gets better, your eye will also have improved, so you still wont be satisfied. thats where growth comes in. being your biggest critic is what will make you great, as long as you remember where you came from (date and keep your work so you can look back on it) and the role criticism plays. separate your skill from your self worth.

something helpful i was once told is along the lines of 'perfectionism is a lie we tell ourselves to justify our procrastination. no one is ever perfect, so the only way to gain skill is to practice. you cant grow if you dont begin. so if your really a perfectionist, your only solution is to start'

i would love to see your work someday and hope i will. wishing you luck and sending you all the courage to begin and be great. you got this <3

[rosekasa]

ive yet to finish an art project since december bc ive been so down abt my work. im startjng to feel like a one trick pony, like i can only make one good art im proud of and never again. each type i set out to make something it just doesn't turn out good so i delete it and start again and rinse and repeat. its nice to know that its not just me who feels this way

baby you are NOT alone!! at a time where most of the art we consume is through the norms of social media it can be so hard to remember that art is not just about making a good 'finished product' and that your value as an artist isn't about your work looking like those of the people you see with thousands of followers. feeling proud of your work comes from feeling proud of yourself. i have so many pieces that objectively are Not good but i feel filled with so much love when i look at them because i remember how happy i was while creating it. but then i have pieces that have gotten thousands of reblogs but i physically cannot bring myself to look at them for too long because while i was drawing it i was constantly thinking about whether it will look good, whether it will fit the idea i had in my head, etc. etc.

I don't know if it's any consolation to hear this, but the feelings triggered in you when you see a result you don't like are not concrete nor are they a true depiction of who you are. you are a wonderful, skilled, creative artist and i can say this to you without knowing who you are and knowing your work because to be that kind of person is to think you are that kind of person. the more you tell yourself not to be nervous about your art not turning out good and focus on creating the things that make you feel joy with confidence, the more your art WILL start to look good, i promise.

i wanted to share some examples with my own art and my feelings about it so if you're not interested don't worry qjkskw im just putting it under here

i think this was my most reblogged piece in 2022 but i dont think ive seen it closeup since then because it does not make me feel good when i look at it. when i sat down to draw this i was so stressed about making it look a certain way. i was trying to use all this technical knowledge like forumlas to make it look 'perfect' but at the end it just felt like a drawing that wasn't even mine. i do like the sky a lot though because painting skies like that have always made me feel really happy.

same situation with this piece. i had the vague idea in my head but it felt like i had to make it a chore to make sure it looked good. i kept trying to find the 'perfect' references and trying to copy tutorials id seen about anatomy to force it to look good but again this just doesn't feel like my art because i think so much of it came from what i thought i shouldve been doing rather than what felt good. it felt like i was trying to prove myself

i did this in an hour and a half and i thought it was going to be a warmup ahkdka. i completely switched off my brain while i did this. i loved this pose from ikari gozen and so i sketched it out really fast in a way that felt so. easy? natural? the rest of the details sort of just fell into place. that's not to say i didnt try to use the same techniques that i did for the other two, but this time i trusted that those techniques that i learned would naturally come to me while i worked while i had the end result in my mind. when i look at this piece i just remember how intuitive the process felt, how i would zoom out of the canvas and look at it and think 'omg wait what if i try that thing i saw on that youtube tutorial...' and how i wasnt trying to prove to myself this was a good drawing, but for the way i felt natural and happy prove it to me instead

this one too ❤️ i have improved my anatomy a lot since this piece but i still use it on all my portfolios and commission examples because it feels like such a good depiction of how i want MY art to feel to me when i see it. i love ladynoir so much and i love oblivio so much and that's genuinely all i was thinking about while drawing this. i didn't want to make it perfect, i just had a vague image of what i wanted it to be like in my head but i was just so excited to be doing oblivio art that i totally forgot about stressing about everything else and just let the brainrot power me HDKDKA. the process was so messy but it felt a lot like solving a puzzle, you know? i didnt need to force any techniques onto it to make it look good because i trusted that the image would already be there, i just needed to find it

[mspainttaz]

Do you have any art tips? Asking for a friend

i took a while to answer this one because i had a hard time coming up with any specific advice to this kinda broad prompt

a few things ive noticed about how im drawing lately, that in sharing might??? give you the advice youre looking for:

get inspired by other artists. let your art style evolve as you pick up new ideas and see new ways of doing things. practice doing the things you see that you like! 

i hate clean linework and need to work on that... part of it is a long history of never finishing my art and having years worth of doodles lying around. what i do in the meantime is im trying to get better at sketching, which for me means, confidence.

one way to improve your sketches and help you do them faster, cleaner, and easier to work off of, is to practice anatomy,and also tracing references so you can get the motions and sense of space ingrained into your mind. references arent evil. they dont make your art less valid, use them! tracing isnt evil either, as long as youre making it your own! several of the pieces ive put on here i did blocky tracings of to get the shapes down, then did a first sketch over that, then final lines over that. it just means youre starting from a good place. i cant tell if im making sense anymore its two thirty am. why am i like this. 

lighting can really bring your art to life! stuff like how to shade and how to use the glow tool too much and how to uhhh.... yeah i just have been leaning too much on messy lighting lately ill let you know when i actually refine that. a simple bit of lighting to single color or flat colored art can really bring it to life and its just fun

flip your canvas so you can check to see if it looks good. i tend to tilt my head and hold my tablet at an angle i KNOW THATS NOT GOOD ART POSTURE SHH and sometimes it makes my art come out squished. flipping my canvas keeps things in check. ill draw like a respectable person someday dont @ me 

greatest art tip: forgiveness. let yourself accept your art for what it is and be proud of what it is, instead of being upset with it for not being what you thought it would be. thats okay. now you have one more finished piece of art that you didnt have yesterday! getting hung up is the number one way to let fear keep you from not only doing art, but being happy with it. this kills you as an artist.

one more tip is, if youre feeling a lack of creativity or drive to do complicated stuff or practice any of the above skills, let yourself play in a different art space.for example: pull open mspaint and do a purposely silly or badly done doodle. laugh at it. accept it as done even if it still has mistakes. let the perfectionist in you take a break for a bit. decide you find joy in this. think “hey i could do an art blog about this and it will help build my confidence as an artist until i get out of this deep depressive/creative slump.” do a few and then rarely ever post again because oh yeah youre in a depressive and creative slump. realize a few years later that you like art again. start doing more involved/challenging pieces that are only complicated because you refuse to practice lineart and anatomy as much as you should and keep skipping ahead to “ooh pretty colors and glow tool” stuff. publish them. get confused feedback because youre not supposed to be a real art blog. you know, relate able stuff. dear lord why am i awake.

[dramarising-replacement]

get madder :^)

hey yall remember that post where i gave a 1-or-2 sentence comment about each fanart that got featured in the community update? many people promptly took their panties and corkscrewed them directly up their very touchy buttholes, so i thought it'd be fun to do a follow-up :^)

>everyone who just said "lol bad post u suck ur opinion SUX"

it's my opinion lol deal w it

>it’s kinda cute how you think we would care about this / nobody cares

clearly u do bc ur mad fam!!! hahaha rekd got u!!1!

>perhaps… perhaps art is subjective and they wanted to make some community members happy by featuring them?

they couldve picked a little better was my only point

>"It’s people like this who give new artists anxiety for posting stuff online" / everything about how mean i am bc it will make newb artists feel nerbous :'(

hey guess what! it's the internet where literally everyone can see and say whatever they want. that's the risk ya fuckin take when u post online :^) waahhh

>"It’s called a personal art style"

its common knowledge by now but "its muh style" is not an excuse and yeah its subjective but also sometimes aspects of a pic are just bad

>"how does desnik only get a 5/10 lmao. Amazing shading, a super unique and difficult perspective that brings life to the whole piece? Ye nah that’s shit, apparently."

i said the shading (painting) was pretty good, and they lose points bc "bringing it to life" with a weird pose only works if the anatomy and perspective (which i specified) isnt so off that it takes away from the entire piece pretty significantly, which imo it does. also that pose isnt unique i can find u 10 pics of furries in that exact pose on like the front page of furaffinity or wherever. also i didnt say it was shit LOL

>"“this is anime uwu garbage” is not criticism OP"

fuck yeah it is, you ever been to the front page of deviantart? i assumed the implied "stop using super stylized shitty anime pics as a reference bc ur overall "style" is severely and obviously suffering for it" was kinda evident but i guess not

>"why the fuck do people get so butthurt when someone says their art is bad"

dude THANK you i mean i was expecting pretty severe backlash but i was as least expecting more creativity than literally just "bad post op" 20 times. tho i DID see enough to make this post i guess? this blog is fun but like in a painful way

> “not to be rude to the featured artists, good on them” pick a tone and stick with it

sorry man i really just do have a rude-sounding speaking (,,typing) voice and i dont mean any bad feelings towards these artists, my literal only point is that that one pic has some problems and maybe staff had some better pics to spotlight instead (and i don't even mean that for all of them. top, middle, and bottom left were all good choices and so was desnik's tbh. but i figured id ""review"" them too cuz they were there) i usually even pointed out something i liked about it? but i gotta move fast here cmon 100 character limit

>"dude… do you even know what a sketch is? because that’s in no way a sketch"

what do YOU define as a sketch? i guess the snapper one could also be lineart but its in 2 midtones (which people do when theyre "sketching" out values) and they used a messy brush so my mind went to sketch. and the coatl one looks like they did it really fast and slapped some flat colors on it. actually my point was literally that it looks like they did it fast, like a sketch rather than a lineart

>"at least put in some effort in writing a couple of sentences on each drawing on what, why, and how to improve the drawings. Seeing that some of the art is clearly from amateur artists, some words of advice would at least be helpful here."

yeah u right they definitely deserve better. but i was going fast cuz i just have an affinity for short snappy reviews i guess. like i tried to do cliffnotes, just "this part is good but this part is bad" and then a meaningless number score cuz i aint even addressing this to them, i posted it to a drama blog to complain about staff basically 

>the nocturne guy who wrote a lot

alright cool. you totally have gotten a lot better. i never meant to discourage you for drawing in the first place. incidentally i said u had potential bc u were obviously a new artist, but like u were OBVIOUSLY a new artist with a loose understanding of depth and shading and stuff, and again this is a front page spotlight yadda yadda. ill fuckin hit u with a review right now:

you clearly understand shading and anatomy way better, and that coatl actually looks pretty fuckin good. the lineart is more consistent, it's framed way better, the proportions are WAY better, and it's really clean and stylized. the shading is infinitely more convincingly shiny and reflective. from here, imo you could benefit from going further with shading (darker, more dynamic, leaving little to no flat spaces like the crest fluff and tongue), and maybe polishing the lineart a little more too, like coloring/highlighting it and really pushing/polishing the linewidth (there are tutorials for that). overall that coatl is v cute, keep on pushing poses & shading

>"i bet OPs art sucks ass"

fIT e ME IrL

anyway thanks 4 reading my fucking essay and i'm super high. if you read al lof this then shame on you

[disregarding-reality]

AUTHOR’S NOTES:

hey i’m back, im tired and im pissed.

maybe you noticed, maybe you didn’t but it seems in my absence tumblr erased like half the comic, if you wish to have the full archive ask me about it and i can give you a mega or a google drive or something with the entire comic fit into a rar.

i saw this coming of course but i was busy enjoying my vacations in thailand so my hands were a bit too tied to do much about it. But now i’m back and i haven’t posted anything in almost a month and if i keep this place silent there is a chance you guys might get bored and leave (if you didnt left already, what with, again, tumblr being stupid). so i had to make a choice, do i take care of this problem or do i just keep on chugging uploading comics here hoping they are not taken down again.

the answer is, an awkward middle ground where i will try to find another platform to upload this comic and still upload things here until then.

so keep this in mind: i will be hosting this comic on a different platform eventually, that may include me abandoning this specific website for good, and even deleting this blog, we’ll see how thing shake up.

now with that out of the way, let’s talk about this strip. if you have a keen eye, you’ll see that this was done digital instead of ink and paper, i’m experimenting with new formats to see if maybe i can streamline the creative process a bit and make it a bit easier and faster for me, only so that i can add new features to it and make the whole process last now even longer than it originally did! because that is what growing as an artist is all about!

as for the topic of the comic itself, i have to say i was never convinced by the use of mannequins as reference for drawing, at least those really cheap ones made out of wood, they usually look completely out of proportion and the articulations dont reflect at all how the body actually bends, how the skin and the fat actually fold around the bones, etc. And i have seen artists suffer for it, one example of this is abbadon from kill six billion demons, which, bless his heart, his comic truly is my favorite webcomic in the entire internet right now, but the anatomy at times you can tell was almost traced from those mannequins