#fundamental study

[caputvulpinum]

yeah we might be brothers in christ but so were cain and abel so shut the fuck up before i decide to find a rock about it

[shouty-y]

Rewatched Goncharov (1973) and did a few studies of my favourite scenes

[punopn]

study

[iiping]

Light of the Kshahrewar ✨

[kimherbst]

Little tribute to Mushi-Shi, one of the only anime series I've thoroughly enjoyed in over a decade as an old person 🥲 also practicing a different value/contrast study than my usual stuff so this.... was a struggle.

[ryuuna]

Hello, Ryu

Do you have any advices for beginners? I'm starting to think this is not for me and I don't know how to keep going.

Love your art! But my favorite Is Ahri, I love The way you draw her >:3 <-

Honestly first thing that comes to mind is that it should be fun! I find that having ppl focus too much on only fundamentals early on can hinder your enjoyment immensely

Just try getting into the mood and find the joy of creating something out of nothing; draw ocs or ur faves making out tongues galore, maybe just a page full of eyes or cute little doodles of aliens wearing thongs, w h a t e v e r. Also that not everything has to be perfect, it’s totally okay to make some ugly ass art and in fact it’s good for you. Sometimes u just have to be a messy bitch

It can also help finding artists and styles you really enjoy and studying what you really like about them, like how someone paints/uses colors or how another artist draws faces, etc. Gotta start somewhere. Then you can really hunker down and try to focus on fundamentals. There are so many wonderful resources out there now, esp on YouTube to really nudge you in the right direction. It can take years of pain figuring this shit out, but it's also very rewarding when u finally see some progress

But it's also totally okay if drawing doesn't end up being for you! There’s so many other mediums out there you can use to express yourself. Honestly I kind of want to try whittling, seems like it would be relaxing and fun at the same time

Also im very glad u like my ahri’s lil >:3c faces, should do more some day

[alpineredemption]

redrawijg that brokebarck mouintain chjarthur redraw i did PLEASE HELP ME

[theprissythumbelina]

I can't tell if my dragon worldbuilding has gone too far when I start reading scientific papers on bat wig morphology and comparing them to bird morphology.

[sofiaruelle]

Study Sunday~ with portraits of people on pinterest

[thebardbullseye]

hot take ame is the interdisciplinary studies major of the coven of elders

[koipalm]

For sy attendant au - what are SQQ attitude and feelings towards SY, if you don't mind me asking?

Because what I read so far hadn't painted him in good light. Like sure - he wants to survive and SY is an key asset in that, but the way he goes around it is... questionable.

so i answered this ask about it but i just realized that i dont think i tagged it with anything so. MY BAD thats my bad

the long and short of it is that sqq is definitely not a good person in this au lol. granted theres less of the overt child abuse because sy is able to stop some of that but sy still is very much a servant to him. one of the better things about this au is that sqq really just sees sy as a means to an end.. there is some attachment to him but sqq really does not really see sy as someone with his own agenda outside of like. living comfortably. its kind of good in a way that like sqq will grant sy a general amount of mobility around the sect because of sy's vague position and he doesnt reeaally care what shen yuan is doing if its not actively doing work for the peak or sqq.

sqq really sees sy as more of like. a political pawn? in a way. like he keeps sy close for appearances around the sect and he does in some way feel like hes doing charity work because by extension of working for him sy is granted a fair amount of power and status. but he doesnt care what shen yuan does in his free time or for fun. sqq is not the worst person of all in this au but he is definitely someone who isnt afraid of using others to help himself. that and like. its definitely a pat on the back for him of being able to say "well you were sent here to take my place and instead of killing you as was my right i HELPED you and i even gave you your own place on this peak and look at you now. youre mingling with some of the best and the brightest that the cultivation world has to offer" like nevermind that he isnt interested in helping sy with his own cultivation lawl

ok that wasnt short at all sorry but sqq is using sy but he also feels like hes helping him a bit. its a pretty unequal give and take so they definitely have an unhealthy relationship. that being said i think sy goes out of his way to misunderstand sqq a lot because he allows his hate of sqq to shape how he sees his actions.. so he doesnt put a lot of effort into actually examining how sqq differs from the book. also now that ive had a lot of time to think on this au i dont really think that sy's end goal in all of this would be to LEAVE as much as it would be he would want an actual firm position and leverage over sqq so he didnt feel so unstable. that and he does feel indebted to sqq. he could probably handle being around the guy if sqq didnt have so much say over his life

[dawnlotus1]

I draw every single day you would think I’d be good at it.

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[dragonroilz]

Hey there! I've come across your art ever since I got into Risk of Rain 2 (better late than never, I've been sleeping on this game for years, jesus), and I'm enamoured with it, to say the least. Is there any advice you could perhaps give for an aspiring artist?

you're getting an essay whether you like it or not.

tl;dr of it if you dont want to read

- learn how to take critique

- dont skip fundamentals

- tracing is okay*

- be mindful when drawing

- you wont see good results for a long time

ok firstly, glad you like my art! i try my best on pretty much everything i make so the compliment is greatly appreciated!!

secondly, you have NO clue how much i love yapping about how to draw. im not an expert on how-to-draw-ology but i like to think i know enough to help other people not swing in the dark when it comes to getting better.

learning how to take criticism is THE most important part. not getting butthurt or at least listening to peoples critiques when they mean well is critical to improvement because its specialized advice for you. you have no clue how many young and/or new artists have gotten mad at me for giving critique when they specifically asked me for it. if youre looking to improve you gotta bite that bullet. not all criticism is valid(dont listen to people who are just tryna make you upset), but good and valid criticism can come from anyone. dont unvalidate someone's critique just because theyre not an artist or "not as good" as you. try and get as much feedback as you can and move onto the next piece instead of fixing something to perfection. you will get obsessed in a very destructive way.

learning fundamentals is another step to getting better. that means actually learning perspective, hands, anatomy, and all of the other stuff people hate drawing. its like lifting weights. most people dont like it but if you want to get stronger you need to put in the time to do the painful stuff.

chris christodoulou(ror's composer) actually made a similar comment about the topic of improvement in his field that was along the lines of "if you want to write music, stop playing video games and read a book". he got a lot of shit for saying that but honestly its true.

you need to treat art as a discipline if you want to get better at it. draw as much as you can for as long as you can before it becomes a health hazard. when im not resting i tend to draw at least three hours a day, not counting the 3 to 6 hours additional hours a day i draw during college. obviously a beginner doesn't need to draw that much but drawing daily is a good start.

if you want resources on where to look for fundamentals, Sinixdesign and Ethan Becker were who I turned to for advice that is relevant to the industry. There's definitely others out there but I tend to do more self studying so i don't know the more recent stuff.

something that they'll bring up is that tracing isn't bad AS LONG AS YOU DONT POST IT AND CLAIM IT AS YOUR OWN. it's a good way to see how other people deal with stylization, but its absolutely not okay to post that stuff online. treat it like how traditional painters do master studies. its for your own education, not clout. and you shouldn't be drawing for clout anyway.

last but not least, draw what you love and you'll always love drawing. dont be afraid to hyperfixate and lose interest in things. it will help you continue your art journey. a lot of people in my art school have little to no motivation to draw outside of college because they have no interest in drawing outside of assigned work, which is not a great relationship to have with art if you want to pursue it in the long run. draw what you want to draw when the motivation hits you. if that motivation is risk of rain? draw it. if it's leg muscles then fuck yeah draw that too.

you can stick fundamental practice into your casual art by being mindful of what you are drawing. that can be done by asking questions about what's going on to further the progress of your art. its kind of hard to explain in text, but its basically just keeping in mind how your lines influence the piece.

in the beginning youre going to have ideas and none of them are going to translate to paper. its going to take years before anything will ever compare to whats in your brain and thats just the sucky part. ive been drawing seriously for about 5 or 6 years and theres still a ton of shit i do NOT wanna touch but i have to if i want to improve.

we're all sisyphus pushing that goddamn stupidass boulder and the only thing we can do is acknowledge how far we've come while still knowing that there's more work to be done. but thats kind of the shit that i live for.

[sbeep]

1 & 2,  for kimodameshi2023 (draw a figure study every day)

[unganseylike]

and now, for something completely random:

i think that in every field of study or work, there are things people in that field consider to be fundamental knowledge and are shocked to find out most don't know. as an aspiring biologist, sometimes i feel more affronted by this than i should, because i assume the study of life is relevant to humans as living things ourselves. for example, i was really surprised that a lot of people i asked had never heard of archaea. it's a whole domain of life! and there's only three domains! but i can accept that bacteria are discussed all the time in medicine and the news, while archaea are non-pathogenic so even though they are super cool (and also found in your guts) they're not that relevant to most people. a year ago, i was also surprised to find that my mom didn't know what RNA is. I was like, mom the life-altering pandemic we have all experienced is caused by an RNA based virus, so you must've heard it mentioned on the news. but also, RNA is like. how we work. this briefly awakened me to the fact that many people are not familiar with the central dogma (DNA-> mRNA -> protein) that basically governs all life.

But this realization was lost to my subconscious until recently. i was at a party and chatting with my friend's boyfriend, a computer programmer. i was trying to explain my work but we of course came to a common misunderstanding that all molecular biologists are familiar with: colloquial use of the word protein is so different than its use in molbio. people think of protein and they think of it as a nutrient, i think of a gene product that serves some specific purpose. so i'm explaining the idea that we can study specific proteins, and the context of my model organism and he goes "i didn't think a bacteria could have something as complicated as a protein." at the time i was like huh thats a weird misconception and told him about the four biomolecules (i was also drunk enough that i hesitated naming all four, which i think says something lol).

but now his offhand comment is haunting me because what does he think DNA is for? DNA encodes proteins! This brought me to the realization that while most people know we have DNA and likely know that all living things have DNA, they probably don't know what purpose it physically serves. sure, they know it gets inherited and determines your eye color or whatever, and they know there are genes with a specific sequence that can be mutated and that mutations change something. It even seems like most people have heard of CRISPR. but i don't know that it's as widespread knowledge that genes encode proteins (before it is said, yes i know the central dogma is not 100% true and 1 gene= 1 protein isnt necessarily correct, but let's not get into it). Like people absolutely know DNA is inheritable information, but do they understand what this "information" actually means? Cells don't care that DNA dictates eye color, they are making enzymes and structures and transporters. Idk why this is haunting me, but maybe it's because it has clicked this common miscommunication we have around proteins is probably because people don't know the physiological purpose of DNA. And also because of course bacteria have proteins. i literally don't mean this in a superiority complex way, it's just fascinating to me that there's a broad familiarity with some aspects of molecular biology but not widespread knowledge of how they actually work...and how all living things work!

Anyway. What are things in your field that you are surprised to find most people don't know?