#i don't exactly do sketch -> line -> flats -> shading -> texture

[holopossums]

i think i'm getting a little 🤏 better at composition. just a little bit. sometimes. maybe.

it's my greatest weakness so i'm glad to be improving somewhat in that area. i really do have a terrible time considering the placement and position of things within the whole piece. but yayy improvement!

rule of thirds is great and helps me think of negative space better, but is super hard to follow. managed to kind of follow it this time.

i really only understand comp well in terms of eye movement for some reason? like what i drew has two parallel diagonals and it works well. and i really like circular movement if i can manage it, but that's not always easy.

i may have to try different things with my process to see if i can help with this. i "see" best in color, so maybe blocking out shapes and color without lines in thumbnails/rough layouts would help? hmm...

[galacticghoste]

@head---ache

Heres the drawing Ill be using as an exampel

I know you have asked this before but wasn't sure what part of the drawing you were referring to bc i'm dumb I thought u meant wings.

Now I realize I think you were asking about lighting and shading (hopefully u can correct me if i'm wrong)

What also helped was just listening to sad songs like Loveless version of - Running up that hill ,help with the mood hehehe also being sad :)

I like to start with a sketch layer

Wanted the focus to be grave and shadow thus why the wings are in that position almost like protecting it

This is gonna be long XD

Then on some separate layers I add rough idea of the type of lighting and colors I want

NOW TO GET SERIOUS!!!

Then I add flat colors + all are their own separate layer like for Body, Wings, Grave, Flowers, and background

Then on clipping masks I will add some details to stuff like the Grave textures, name, and other details don't feel like naming them all

Honestly just mess around till happy

I hate how many layers i made this T.T

More details later...

add multiply layers + color of the sky layer for background grass

Now lighting ✨

Basically a-lot of add glow + color dodge layers

Play around with opacity

and a normal layer for the sharper parts of the lighting

NOW TO CONTROL THE WEATHER!!!!🌧 ⛈🌧

I was NOT ABOUT TO DRAW EVERY SINGEL LINE OF RAIN

So instead I used a few brushes that give lots of dots and added a motion blur to them the Rain is multiple layers of rain and some are bigger to hopefully make it more dynamic

I draw the rain drops on shadow and the grave by hand tho T.T

Add some more random layers and play around more with light and colors and stuff and till happy

Also Recommend making a color layer that will make your drawing black and white

That way you can see if its the lighting and shading are doing their job to make it more dynamic without being bias of the many colors

BOOM

DONE!!!

I know i'm not that good at explaining thing or teaching things

Hopefully this is of help to you and anyone else!!! :)

ALSO

I'm still trying to understand lighting myself but these videos are helping me with understanding it!

Would definitely recommend them they are helping me a-lot

Not exactly lighting but this is a cool video too for anyone who wants to play round with fun colors and shapes still trying to understand it myself

[toxxicognaths]

I guess what I'm trying to do with my art lately is break myself of my rigid ideas on what my art needs to be. The word 'manicured' always pops to mind.

Like I've kinda started to break myself out of it but this is how my art used to look a decade ago (coughs in old) and for the time, this was actually even a little sloppy for a sketch (which this was, I used illustrator at the time and honestly had no reason to need such clean sketches other than wanting the Perfect Template to apply vector lines to. Which I could've done with intuition anyway) and it wasn't exactly hard to keep things clean and tidy like this, but it definitely stifled a lot of my art and kept it very flat, kinda bland, and overly restrained for what it was. I obsessed over every detail making sure things were as readable as possible and impossible to misunderstand, like, this looks like a mockup for an action figure or something. Why are there so many notes for things I would've already known about the design.

I yearn to break fully free from this and just create as sloppily as I can force myself to and just let loose and have fun with art. I always thought that the most fun I had while drawing as a kid was doodles in pen on schoolwork or my notebooks and I think it was because the permanence of it (and generally time restriction of doing it in short enough bursts that I didn't get caught) made mistakes excusable and fun. Some simplification or shorthand was necessary. It was so fun. I don't really enjoy working with normal pens anymore, I think because I don't employ enough detail or texture or shading or hatching or stippling to really lean into ballpoint pens as a medium but I've taken those lessons into other mediums. Scratchpads (is that the actual name people use? Those pages covered in black wax(?) that you scratch off to reveal color underneath) were my first foray back into a medium that demanded some amount of planning and tolerance for error since there was no going back and they're great, I love them, I really actually need to get back into them and use them more often honestly. Even if I end up ultimately hating all these new mediums I'm trying (like gouache. Fuck gouache. I don't think I ever wanna return to it lmao?) I'll be glad to have tried and maybe I'll learn new skills or techniques or advance my style in a way I can bring back to my digital art, who knows!

If you read all this bullshit and you're an artist I'd emplore you to break out of your own norms and try something new that you think you might hate or suck at big time and if you're not an artist, go pick up some medium and fuck around! Find out if you like it!

[thewolfmanslayer]

Honestly the amount of people who say artists and writers should do stuff for free, or try to rip them off on comissions still royally piss me off.

I think the worst part of it is the entitlement, I dont want to make this too much about generations but a lot of commissioners are millenial/Gen z's who grew up on the "steal and pirate everything" mentality, take everything that you can because no one else is going to hand it to you. which I can get behind, when you are screwing over MULTI BILLION DOLLAR COMPANIES. NOT THE STRUGGLING ARTISTS AND WRITERS who are trying to keep food on the table as desperately as you probably are!

It's simple, you wouldn't walk into a restaurant, order food and tell the server "sorry I don't have any money, but I've got like a few thousand followers on social media, I can get your name out there, get the restaurant some exposure" NO! They don't need "exposure" they need you to pay the damn bill!

On top of that, most of these artists and writers ALREADY HAVE FOLLOWINGS. They already have thousands of people following them, waiting for the chance to get a commission, who are willing to pay for said commission, they don't need "exposure" when they're already out there! He'll even the artists and writers with a few hundred don't need it, they'll get more followers as time goes by, their skill alone will see to it.

And what is with people trying to get free art and writing? It's not going to work! You can't harass someone until they cave, trust me, you'll be long since blocked before you even have the opportunity. I don't do comissions, online anyways, but my own friends and family, people who actually know me STILL PAY ME whenever they ask for me to do art for them because they KNOW it takes TIME AND EFFORT.

How many times do we need to have this discussion???? Like when is it going to finally click that people who need to pay their bills just as much as you do AREN'T going to do this shit for free!?

Here's the thing about art and writing, that you've heard a billion times but still aren't getting; IT. TAKES. TIME. AND. EFFORT. TO. GET. DONE. the art isn't going to magically appear and the writing isn't going to suddenly write itself, if either were so convenient YOU WOULDNT BE ASKING AN ARTIST OR WRITER IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Look at that, you see that? The first picture I did back in 2012-13, the picture beside it? I did that TWO YEARS AGO. I didn't suddenly know exactly what to do, or had anything close to a god given talent for drawing (I'm not that talented). The first picture WAS THE ABSOLUTE BEST I COULD DO AT THE TIME THAT I MADE IT. In the time between these two drawings I admittedly took a break from art, but then I got back into it four years ago. EVEN STILL that was four YEARS of starting over from the basics, relearning everything, learning new things, wanting to actually improve my art.

Which, guess what, DID NOT HAPPEN OVER NIGHT. It was HOURS UPON HOURS of my limited free time as an adult drawing over and over and over and over again, every single goddamn day to get to the point that I was able to make that redraw look as good as it does in comparison. He'll, my art now puts them both to shame! Because I spent the time improving my quality!!

Now look at these artists doing comissions, they've probably put EVEN MORE of their time to get that good! They've put in LITERAL YEARS of sweat, blood, tears, frustrations and dedicated hardwork. Some did the same as me, self teaching and lots of practice, others probably had to go to school, which definitely wasn't cheap. But all of us put in that time and effort TO REACH THESE POINTS. Of being better artists, developing our styles, getting faster at drawing.

And maybe you think that this is super easy, right? That I or every other artist can just fire some art off and boom its good and done in like an hour?

FUCK. NO.

Even now it takes me several hours a day OVER MANY DAYS to make something exceptionally good! It doesn't matter how good an artist is, it still. Takes. Time.

Maybe the issue is that you don't understand how much actually goes into art, let me break it down for you, the steps that most people follow to finish ONE drawing.

-Rough draft: general character outline, get a feel for what I want to draw.

-Rough sketch: I start doing a bit of pencil to start filling in details like mouth, nose, eyes, hair, clothes. Ect.

-Penciling: I go over the rough sketch and clean everything up, maybe do some editing, this is when you can start making out all the details.

-Ink: I trace over the finished pencil with a pen tool and actually have the line art, everything looks clean, presentable, it actually looks like a character now. I'll spend time editing this and possibly redoing the inking many times over to get to a point where I like it.

-Flat color: I decide on which colors to use for skin tone, clothes accessories. Ect.

-Shading/highlights: I figure out where my light source is and how strong it is, I then apply the correct amount of lighting and shadows to the color to give it depth, I also have determine the texture of skin, clothes and accessories to make everything look real and natural.

-Blending: I smooth out the shading and highlights so that it looks more natural and isn't too hard (noticeable difference between color) so that it looks as natural as possible.

-Finish: I go over last minute details, finish any editing or corrections that need to be done. Once it's good I call it a day.

Each process is longer in length then the previous, with the exception of the final editing (as long as everything looks good) and even the rough draft can take some time. Over all this is SEVERAL HOURS of work for a SINGLE DRAWING.

So is it sinking in yet? How much is put into doing even a single character drawing? God forbid if its done with background. This isn't a "scratch a pen around and be done with it in ten minutes" kinda deal, no, this is SEVERAL HOURS OF SOMEONES LIFE BEING PUT INTO THIS

And if you still have the AUDACITY to try and wrangle free art from an artist then there's no helping you, you're just a selfish piece of shit, no question and I want nothing to do with you.

Someone might say "But I got free art/writing from.-" look I don't give a shit if someone did something for you THAT ONE TIME, these other artists and writers? Totally seperate and different people. You're one freebie experience does not, and should not apply to other artists and writers.

"But what if I really want this commission but don't have the money right now?" Well, that's tough shit. Save up and properly commission them when you can, it's not their problem.

"But what if I'm in a really bad financial situation and really want it?" That sucks, and I'm sorry, but again, not their problem. Chances are this is their only source of income and they need to make money so that they don't end up in a similar situation.

"They have a gift! They should share it!" What kind of cheap ass- LOOK, just because someone is talented or really good at something does not automatically obligate them to do anything for total strangers in anyway shape or form. These are living, breathing people, the same as you. They need to eat, they need to pay rent/mortgages, they need to pay vet bills, send their kids to college, do their taxes and everything else that YOU YOURSELF need to do. Asking anyone to spend their time doing something for free, when that something is how THEY ARE SURVIVING is beyond asinine. Not only that, this obviously isn't a hobby to them, it is very clearly THEIR JOB. Would you want to do a job where you didn't get paid at all? Doing a shit ton of work for absolutely nothing? No? Didn't think so.

"It shouldn't be about the money!" Well unfortunately, as with almost every other job, it is. We live in a world where we desperately need to make money in order to survive. That's the painful fact of the matter. If money never had to be an issue ever again then this would be a very different story. But it's not, plain and simple as can be.

Look, these people are just like you, artists and writers who are just trying to get by in a shitty ass world, using the one thing they have that let's them have an income. Leave them be, don't try and trick them, guilt them, or cuss them out when you don't get your way. Either properly comission or leave them the hell alone, plain and simple.