#idk how to go from sketch to digital paint

[parchii]

doodle

[averlym]

ghost story premiere day! check @melliotwrites for more info

[shiori8]

Di Angelo Siblings

Sooo, to absolutely no one's surprise the new Percy Jackson reboot kicked me into full-blown pjo brainrot mode again lol. I saw these super cute fits and some vintage photos of Venice alleyways floating around on Pinterest and was consumed with the need to draw the Di Angelo siblings in them (it's probably wildly "historically and geographically" inaccurate for them, but we're just going to have to deal with the fact that I'm dumb and uncultured xD It's the vibes™ that count, okay!)

Psst, wanna see something cringe😂? Found this old sketch of them from one of my first forays into digital art years ago:

And to quote past-me "I can barely look at the old one, but at least that means I improved, aye?"😂

[lokorum]

Your art so surreal, did you take inspiration from African masks it’s amazing. You have probably gotten this question before but what’s your process and how do plan these beautiful pieces out. I am a beginner artist and would like some advice on how start doing digital painting.

thank you for bringing me back from the dead with your kindness, (i was so sad today ughhhh i think watching vampire diaries starting to affect me hjkhjk), i really, really deeply thankful that you spend your time to write something so sweet (also sorry it took me literally ages to reply phphp THE USUAL)

yeah, in buryatia shamanism like the big thing, so when i went to search what's out there in the masks department - google's mess of the results for once was helpful and showed this massive collection of beautiful african masks. the one that was inspo for tiisha lived in my head rent free for weeks before the character was even born phphph now i cant even imagine her without it 

(here is little tiisha for you before i'll proceed to be not helpfull phphphph)

oof advices are not my strong side , like..........my process mostly is just sleep through the whole thing i guess..........................i very rarely do sketches, i hate study anatomy and perspective, drawing cubes makes me physically sick etc etc my approach to drawing were "fuck around and find out", always about chill and fun and barely ever about learning. imho thats why im so shitty at drawing simple things but not bad at coloring. so yeah, my biggest advice always and forever will be - be gentle to yourself, please

digital or traditional or whatever else is out there, dont forget you make it for yourself and for yourself only okay? it supposed to be fun, not sad tiring and competitive 

advices for digital specifically tho - very objective, apply with caution

learn all the keyboard shortcuts, ideally to press them without thinking 

explore more instruments than just brush. it will be tedious and sometimes feel like a chore so mb pick one victim once a month and browse youtube for a stuff like SECRET ULTIMATE TIPS ABOUT MAGIC WAND TOOL THAT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE (they indeed will save your life) 

check if your drawing program has artboards - turning it on will give you more freedom over canvas positioning  and your refs will always be there and not in the separate window 

idk about others but using auto tone, auto contrast and auto color often gives me well needed perspective on what im doing 

in 99% cases be sure that you can reanimate even the most messiest artpiece you ever did. working in digital gives you the chance to mess with shapes, colors and perspective at any time so if you dont want to gave up on something - you absolutely didnt have to

from time to time while you are still learning - go out there in the wilds and search for the new brushes. tweak with them if you want. i have like ~500 and i use 6 max, but those 6 i found by at some point trying to draw with all of the 500

MADE. BACK UPS. and i mean not like save layers just in case before merging them (tho that's too will help) no, i mean click SAVE AS once an hour and create A NEW FILE. PLEASE. i lost so much stuff to sudden power outage. its never pretty and you loosing will to work for days

watch at least one tutorial about the whole rgb srgb and cmyk thing - i did, understood not a thing, but at least im not playing dora the explorer with my colors after the export now 

uh idk think thats it? tried to think about those that id hope i knew when i started so hopefully something will help 

have fun with your drawings!! 

[skintyfiia]

How did/do you practice to get to this point in drawing skills? With details, please. I love the texture and lighting in your drawings and how you draw people in your own style while they still look similar ❤️❤️

one thing about me is that i’m stubborn as a mule and if it is humanly possible to do something then i will, in fact, attempt it with a firm belief that I am capable of success no matter my skill level lol

warning: this is going to be a long post ;___;

a little about my background: I’m a 22yo self-taught hobbyist. I didn’t go to art school, I never took any proper drawing classes. All I had since I was like a toddler barely holding a pencil was my drive to always be Better, shitty school art clubs and probably something undiagnosed too

I started digital art when I was around 13-14. My traditional skills were pretty solid (for a kid) at the time but stepping into digital really did feel like learning how to draw from scratch again. This is what some of my earliest work looked like, around one month after I had started… oh god

just a few months after that I switched to semi-realism stylistically as it was pretty close to what I was used to with traditional art. This is what we were dealing with around 1-2 years after those first pieces

I hate to say this because it’s such a useless piece of advice but most of my learning process was just me throwing random shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Most of the time I was just picking up things from my favorite artists or experimenting. I just barely scratched the surface of fundamentals, only enough to grasp the super basic proportions for everything, some color theory and I would pretty much wing the rest (don’t do that, put in some actual effort, these things are important). I am lucky in the sense that a lot of those things do come to me intuitively, like I don’t know, color theory is very logical to me so I never felt the need to study it properly??

A lot of people mention my use of color and texture and I am going to be 100% real with you, that was born purely out of my laziness, I just sat down one evening, discovered what layer modes and curves do and how with some tweaks they make my art look like I put 12 hours more into it and my heart sang. And as for my bold strokes idk where that came from honestly. My primary school art teacher once told me I have a ‘confident hand’ and my confused 11yo ass sat there with my frozen elsa fanart like thanks??

However this approach only got me so far as I did hit a wall around 2023-2024 which is when I decided to you know… start doing actual Studies™ and learn the fundamentals properly (at least try to). Since Cillian Murphy was my main muse at the time, I sort of used him as a training ground for all kinds of techniques and stylistic choices, I even sat down one day to properly study his face in detail (for science obviously). I went to museums, I stared at actual paintings (AND sculptures!!!), picking them apart and deconstructing them in my head, noticing each brush stroke, really trying to find what makes the whole piece click. I tried master studies for the first time in my life which was mind-blowing, would 100% recommend it. The time I read about Leyendecker’s technique genuinely changed my life and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days omg. And don’t get me wrong, I’m still winging the shit out of everything but I guess I’m doing it more mindfully now??

I can’t stress enough how much art is about not just seeing but OBSERVING and NOTICING reality, not just copying but interpreting it, capturing the essence, feeeeeeeling it. Who cares if you fucked up a single stroke 500 times, who cares if your base sketch looks disgusting? It really is about trusting the flow, trusting the process and focusing on the bigger picture. And if you flop you dust yourself off and try again, all there is to it. Practiceeeee practice practice and have fun, it’s never that deep

[malacandrax]

Hi! I absolutely adore your art and I wanted to ask if you had any tips/advice on how to get lineart in facial expressions right? You always nail it and I struggle everytime even if the sketch looks good :')

Thank you so much! HM! This is tricky- and kind of two questions, so I’ll answer it in parts. I think getting the essence of a sketch across perfectly into lineart is impossible and I rarely manage it, even if the result looks good, it’s still USUALLY different. Often I don’t do a real sketch and it means my lineart is more lively, because it’s got the energy of a first try instead of a stiff copy over a sketch? (though, I’m not certain I’d consider that ‘lineart’ as opposed to sketches in a solid pen?)

I feel like kind of a bastard showing this first one haha, you can be assured there were a number of undo's.

You can see that my lines are never really the same as the sketch, and I know a lot of artists myself included leave some of the thinking for the ink stage. However, some are really really tight in the sketch stage, and I think if you aren't confident with putting down solid lines then that way might work better. It depends though, and digital art has an undo, so.

I definitely gained line confidence through drawing straight in pen into my sketchbook, I like drawing expressions from ref over and over until they feel right lmao. (idk if this is good advice for all the time sketchbooking though, it definitely makes me less likely to try new poses or expressions from imagination because I can't erase)

-------- Some general things to consider- is your sketch fuzzy, is your eye reading a lot of loose lines as having potential- and dimension, and then narrowing it down to One Line flattens the finished version? Is your brush the same size, are you drawing in something thicker and losing the vibes because the lineart is thinner? Same vice-versa, are you losing detail because the lineart is thicker than the sketch?

Facial expression wise…I feel like choosing where to draw the lines is tricky and you have to really learn which ones work well with the opacity of a sketch, and Dont work well in a solid line.

Here’s a terrifying example LOL. Outlining everything on a face vs choosing which lines I think sell the expression. (The teeth are extreme but…) Often I put full cheek creases on just one side even if I know they would be on both, and just hint at the other side. It’s often a darker crease on the side furthest away anyway, so it works pretty good.

I honestly only learned to ink in the last few years and it's been a struggle to go against my painting roots haha, I’m sure other more experienced artists have better tips than me!

[annoying--moth]

No matter how many times it is explained to me or I talk about it with someone, I can't fully grasp what exactly is going on with art in the arc of a scythe universe. Because like,

It's stated multiple times that post-mortal art is "bland" and "uninspired" and "redone to death," and while I can certainly understand SOME art being like that, surely not all art is like that?? And I understand this in the sense that like, everyone's constantly remaking/repainting/making their own versions of famous paintings and such, but also there still has to be people who don't do that, right??? Like maybe I just have zero reading comprehension and somehow missed the bigger picture, but I feel like all this talk about art being redone to death implies that no one is making original art anymore? Which just. doesn't seem feasible to me?? Because as an artist myself, I can't see immortality taking away my ability to draw or come up with cool ideas. I don't draw because I'm going to die one day, I draw because I like it, and it's a form of creative expression. You can always come up with something new to draw- whether it's a cool oc, or someone you know, or just something random and abstract. The possibilities never end!

Of course, I suppose there is the argument then that people just aren't creative anymore, but I also find that hard to believe. I couldn't imagine ever truly running out of ideas. Like I mentioned above, OCs people??? I highly doubt there's no one in the post-mortal era still making weird, whacky, badass, or just cute OCs. Heck, I'd expect scythe ocs to be really popular! I wonder if it's like a thing for every kid to have a scythe oc phase..? Or at least kids in certain communities/fandoms (like scythe card trading- maybe they make their own cards for their scythe ocs!)

And also, it's confirmed that fiction is still very much a thing in the post-mortal era (I know zombies are referenced in one Gleanings story) so it's not like people can only connect to non-fiction. That's another thing that's discussed more in terms of theatre and writing- people not being able to connect to the themes because they're so far removed from it in reality. But my thing is, I've never experienced war or death (until very recently at least) and I still don't find myself unable to sympathize with people losing their loved ones to death or war or disease, although I suppose this could also have to do with the nanites. Plus the fact that death and war still exist in society as an actual thing that happens, but idk.

Also by the way- I feel like that one Gleanings story The Mortal Canvas has a subtle diss on digital art? And I have nothing against traditional art- heck I probably draw traditionally more often since I'm always doodling/sketching, but I feel like just because art is digital doesn't mean it's "uninspired" or whatever people were saying in the books. In fact, I've found myself moved emotionally by more digital pieces than traditional ones (although I don't see a lot of traditional paintings compared to digital ones tbf)

Also also I want to say- I don't exactly know how well this relates to my point but that one dude in The Mortal Canvas who made the others' artstyles into filters was a huge douchebag. AI art type shit, I was ready to strangle him reading that.

I remember the bit in The Toll about Ezra the artist, and how he said he was just "decent" or "moderately good" or something along those lines when we first met him, and I was going to make an argument about that part too but to be honest it's been a little while since I've read The Toll so I'll have to come back to that one once I reread it. But I think it also had to do with the emotional/creative aspect of art, which again, I refuse to believe immortality has such an influence on creativity that no art is original or interesting anymore. Sure it might make certain things harder, or make motivation worse, but I feel like if someone is truly creative it doesn't matter? Though then again, I'm not immortal so what do I know.

I briefly mentioned nanites earlier, and that is one thing that I do think probably has an impact, and I specifically mean emo-nanites. Since post-mortals can't feel as strong emotions as us mortal humans, perhaps that's also why their art seems more uninspired or whatever, because they can't put as much emotion into it. However, an excess amount of emotion isn't exactly needed to make art either. Like as I was writing this I was looking through my own art and realised that for some pieces I wasn't putting any emotional thought whatsoever into the pieces, yet there's still a clear emotion there when you look at them. Joy, wonder, whatever.

Anyway in conclusion, I think that it's unrealistic to say that all post-mortal art would be dull, uninspired, and meaningless, because I believe there will always be creative people who will make art not because they're gonna die one day, but because they want to and enjoy it, simple as that. Thanks to whoever stuck around long enough to read this far, I really hope it made sense. It's kinda late while I'm writing this and tbh I'm half-expecting there to be some huge detail/plot point that I missed that makes my whole argument totally invalid, whether that's me misinterpreting all the bits about post-mortal art or just being a complete dumbass with zero media literacy. Either way hope this was a fun read, I don't write long-form posts like these super often (note the lack of confidence in my media literacy skills) and if I made a really bad argument/missed something huge please be nice in the notes, I have a fragile ego :(

Uh yeah anyway I think I got everything as usual don't take my rambling *too* seriously, I just always found it confusing how post-mortal art is said to be so "uninspired" (I keep using that word cause I reread chapter 3 of Scythe today and Faraday uses it there) when I personally can't imagine not being able to be creative, though perhaps I'm just self-projecting. So uh, yeah.

[e-rated-beardo]

beardo's great breakdown adventure

or: the story of how I fucked up and un-fucked up and probably didn't learn anything

So last night was a time 🫠

Look at the little perfectionist (recovering) failing to paint a thing and having a whole meltdown! And the whole TBF discord having to deal with it! 🎉 (They were absolute stars obviously; they always are)

I had made this really nice pencil sketch and I'd inked it all pretty and all that was left was the watercolour (to clarify, I do this stuff with physical paper and brushes and stuff, because I'm a dinosaur and/or like it and/or don't have a tablet to draw on). So... of course I fucked up the watercolour. And past me wasn't wrong. It was bad.

I'm going to give you one example of how the shadows looked like actual dirt on the dude's face and one example of how I also cleverly managed to make it look like he'd pissed himself.

(This also shows you how inconsistent that shit was. The left might have been a vibe for Underworld fanart or something? The right... just looks like some reasonably competent child painted it with markers actually; not sure how I managed to do that with watercolour. Also, the green became turquoise? Idk why the background is pink either, everything about it was weird af idk what was wrong with me)

Next up on my schedule was a little breakdown, obviously. Because I'd also kind of slightly hyped this up already, and I wanted to give it away as fanfic fanart and like shameless flattery and impress everyone, and you can't give a pile of smudged dirt and questionable shading and ???? fuck knows to someone because it makes you look fucking weird. And there's no Ctrl+Z for watercolour on paper. So I'd taken a great sketch and a great ink drawing and turned into a shit painting. Wahoo 🎉

So I had my breakdown. Then I remembered I had one (1) semi-decent mobile camera photo taken just after I'd finished inking and I was like, you know what, this can't get much worse, I've coloured things digitally before, and three hours later, I had a good, cleanish digital line art drawing and... another shit colouring attempt. 🎉 Not even going to show it. It was embarrassing.

But then. Then I realised. I have a laser printer. The things laser printers print are waterproof. Like my ink.

How heavy paper can my printer take before choking?

About 170 gsm, it turns out. That's just about my lightest aquarelle paper and just above my good drawing paper, which I have successfully painted on before, with great care and my heart in my mouth.

Thus, four hours post-meltdown, I'd performed a 560-step ad-hoc "undo", and two (rather late) hours after that, I had what actually amounted to a decent picture. Something I could tidy up in GIMP and not feel ashamed of sharing.

I'd like to say I've learnt something from this. Not sure I have. It would be nice if there's a lesson to take away for someone else. "Don't have a breakdown just because your art sucks one time" sounds like a fair one. "Scan/take a picture at every step of the process + own a laser printer"?

That there's me whining to someone close to me AFK. Aren't I a delight when I've failed at something? 🫠 And like there's an irony here, right, because the fic I made this for talks so much about self-acceptance and getting over shitty self-talk and allowing yourself to be appreciated and here I am, like, the walking embodiment of no-one will ever love me so I must produce something beautiful and be of tangible value to get an approximation and maybe that's the lesson I didn't learn this time either?

That person in the green chat said,

Your skill isn't a rope that is tested every time you make something by flinging yourself off a ledge with it tied around you. It's a tower you build below yourself and sometimes you're gonna try to build a part on top of something that isn't properly set yet, or that you didn't realize was missing beforehand.

because they're a fucking dear and brilliant all the time. And I was like. Okay that sounds logical on paper, but it's not like that, okay, because for me it is a rope actually since I'm not good. 🙃 And then I went off and fixed the problem and made the fucking art anyway. Maybe that should have convinced me otherwise. Ha! Of course it didn't. I have almost forty years of knowing I'm a hack and maybe a couple of days in total of knowing I'm not, and that's a shameless paraphrase from the fic I drew this for, because the irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.

Anyway.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip through my breakdown. Maybe you're also a recovering perfectionist/not hack and you Feel Seen now. Maybe you have your shit sorted out and this is like going to the zoo for you; look at the wild beardo in its natural habitat going absolutely ballistic. Here's a couple details from the finished art. The resolution is what it is but you can see what they are and that they aren't shit anymore

Here's the art post proper:

[beastomato]

hi tilin i hope rest can find you soon <3 <3 feel free to answer any or none of these :) <3

what are your favorite digital brushes to use?

what’s your favorite traditional art medium?

what’s your favorite film?

favorite song or album?

do you have a favorite pmd dungeon/area?

(silly question.) if totochimi were in the octopath universe, which classes would they be/where would they live? <3

WAHHHH YOU’RE SO KIND.. TY.. i did manage to sleep but it took a little while AHSJSJ i’m gonna answer all the questions bc i LOVE THEM SO MUCH

putting everything under a readmore section because it ended up being such a long post….!

what are your favorite digital brushes to use?

!!!!! it really depends on the drawing! i like to ball and switch brushes and textures with my work quite often because it’s more fun to work when idk what to expect, but here’s a little rundown of the ones i tend to use the most:

the 1px brush replicates the pencil from MS paint which is probably my favorite digital art texture ever? i use the thinner one for sketches and the thicker one for lineart but sometimes i also use both to sketch around. the airbrush i use for erasing, but i also use it for coloring (very rare) or even lineart (even rarer..). i’ve only begun to use the neopiko liner brush until recently but i like it a lot, and the ronin brush helps for messier-looking lineart as it’s really thick in texture (i found itwhile looking for chinese calligraphy textured brushes LOL). and the two best default procreate brushes which are the HB and 6B pencils i use either for sketch or lineart or even coloring sometimes. they’ve never failed me ever. some drawings i entirely use lasso tool for lineart or coloring which i don’t know if it counts as a brush.

also here are some examples of how i switch between brushes with recent drawings :-)

anyways THIS GOT TOO LONG i love rambling about my art processes I LOVE IT i wish i could do it all the time

what’s your favorite traditional art medium?

i honestly love ALL OF THEM AHAJSJAKSJ i’d even say i prefer them over digital art making���.. i think it’s a tie between watercolors and acrylic though. i prefer acrylics because they’re much more flexible on where they can be applied (which is .. basically EVERYWHERE) while watercolor only ever shines to me in thick ass paper which is both expensive and hard to get imo.

also i don’t really get when people say acrylics get too opaque and dull when dry? like yeah they do end up more opaque when they dry that’s a property they have. idk if it has to do with the paint brands they sell here, but i never feel like acrylics lose their vibrancy when i paint.. i feel like it’s very easy for colors to look bright and saturated.. or maybe my process incidentally makes paint look more saturated? idk?

i do enjoy oil painting a lot but i don’t like the fact that you can fix your mistakes while working on it. being able to fix things means i go back to bad mind patterns and that sucks lol did you know i once broke an entire brush in half because i grabbed it too hard while oil painting. ANNNYWAYYY.. i also really enjoy pastels but the texture gets quite overwhelming on my fingers after a while. colored pencils are fun but too time consuming. ink drawings are great but again, same issue as watercolor except the paper for ink drawings has other requirements and i haven’t even looked for it LOL. i’ve never tried gouache, but i think i might have fun with it. OHHH you know which medium i also enjoyed? tempera. at school i was taught how to make my own paint with a recipe ^^ also idk if other art programs teach you mural painting but my school does and i also really loved it i wish i could paint all the walls in this world. it is quite daunting to begin, but once you get into the workflow it’s so much fun! <3

what’s your favorite film?

ohhhhhh i wanna start to watch more movies this year because i rarely watch movies but my favorite right now is probably Farewell to My Concubine. it is like 3 hours long bc it’s an epic that focuses on 3 characters but it is so worth it. the shots and the light in them are incredibly beautiful. it is quite heavy with its themes because it goes through conquests and revolutions and the societal consequences of both those things. i also liked that despite being a gay movie which would usually focus on just the men it makes the female lead between the 2 male leads a compelling character by showing you how she lives her new life as the wife of one of them despite the fact her past life as a sex worker weighs upon her heavily.. i simply don’t have energy for media where women don’t matter at all it annoys me so this was a good surprise. etc etc. i also watched The Boy and The Heron a few days ago which might be my favorite animated film now.. lots of thoughts. if surrealism has 0 fans then i am dead

favorite song or album?

ohhhh it really depends on mood but i really enjoy Boys at School by Spellling.. i love how layered it is i love when music feels intricately woven together.. in terms of albums it also kinda depends on my mood but i love Natalia Lafourcade’s Musas (both volumes) which are covers of iconic latinoamerican songs. also Yves Tumor’s Praise a Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) which also has so many layers to it so i eat it up every single time HAJSJD

do you have a favorite pmd dungeon/area?

YESSS oh my god. i’ve only played blue rescue team and explorers of sky so my answer might change in the future, but right now it has to be the Hidden Land. i love fantasy and when things don’t really make sense so when they tell you the Hidden Land is between like intervals of time or something i was like…… COOLEST SHIT EVERRRR….

also the fact you view it at first like this??? oh my fucking god. i liked traversing through it and how you really do get a perspective of being high up somewhere.. iirc the blue spaces here change color because it’s meant to be the sky as it shifts through time:

also i know this shit when i see it. they definitely got inspired by prehispanic temples here there’s no other explanation for this at all LOL

the entire area feels so.. it feels so natural but also like a place you’re not meant to be a part of like you do not belong there but you have to be there in order to save the entire world. also from blue rescue team i really liked all the friend areas especially.. but yeah i’m also a fan of the Hill of the Ancients where you find Xatu. it looks good in the manga too LOL what the hell i gotta read these things

if totochimi were in the octopath universe, which classes would they be/where would they live?

!!!!!!!! WHATTTT NOT A SILLY QUESTION AT ALL I HONESTLY REALLY REALLY LOVE IT OMG. TOTOCHIMI 8PATH AU…… GOES CRAZY…….

i think Toto is more of a clear cut answer to me! she’d be a warrior. i think she fits into the idea of knighthood quite well (serving someone or a specific ideal, putting your life on the line in order for those to remain safe and continue thriving). it’s the main thought i’ve had ever since i conceptualized Toto as an OC, of her being a protector.. LOL

Chimichang’s where it gets a lil’ more difficult for me to translate a class to her. she’s demanded to take on a specific role at an age where she shouldn’t be expected to have that kind of responsibility. despite having a noble status i think it fits with her to have a rogue class.. dancer fits her well in that sense i think. her role in the world is to honor her ancestry, aka to be a spectacle, to Stand Out against others of her same caliber. it might not make much sense to have a fighting type take the 8path dancer class (focused on support & magic/special attack) but iirc her species is a mixed attacker in the main games & there Are dancer mons with the fighting type so.. it works imo…..!!!!

about the where they live… OHHH this is much harder to adapt. Chimichang is actually from an island in my comic and the only fucking island in both games is Toto’haha, but i got such a sour taste in my mouth from how Toto’haha was handled as a location in 8path II that i don’t even like to say “if we replace humans with mons it could work..” LOL. and Toto is technically from.. nowhere! because she’s a human that got turned into a mon. despite living alongside Chimichang she never gets to call their island ‘home’ because it sure doesn’t feel like one JSKDNX but neither does the rest of the world either. so she’s more like a vagabond of sorts.

ok i think that answers all of it! SUCHHHH A LONG POST.. THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH ILY ILY I LOVED ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS!! i did manage to properly sleep after playing some ambient music as it helps me keep my mind at ease. i think napping so much sorta messed with my sleep schedule for a bit AJSJSH but i feel very rested right now <3 also helps that it’s a weekend! i needed it..

[maskedchip]

I am looking thru files rn and take a lot of pictures of my own art for progress, bc I think like many creatives, it's hard to explain or describe how i get from point A to B in art. im a horrible teacher but this piece for example: (explained under cut)

i tried drawing their little cafe outfits really fast but i just didnt vibe with it. idk what made me want to redo the whole thing. i like the attempt at cooler colors for asougi though. so then we move onto these and:

the first pic looks like an absolute MESS, but what i generally do is get a sketch down, and COLOR out of the way first? I assume it's to set the general tone/ vibe for the piece, which is why you notice a lot of plain color blocks in the bg. then i go back and do lineart and merge all the layers to paint! :D

tbh it's a very back and forth process, and the best way someone described it to me is "you put down blobs of color and then go crazy" which is very, very true.

I think i like the aspect of "carving" in traditional art, where you kinda play around with paint so you go over it again and try something new. so i try to apply that to digital. i think in a lot of my pieces you can see i teeter on the line of messy lineart with color to full blown painting.

anyways there was no point of this, but this is why i always wanna keep track of old art and why i go and revamp old concepts. like i can always try again! also why thumbnailing is very. very. important. but my main goal in art is to have fun when u can, so that's why i play alot.

[peculiar-wood]

how do u. do digital art. like. your process. specifically for that vinestaff and scythe piece.

SORRY THIS WAS BURIED IN MY INBOX SO I DIDN’T SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

I uh… honestly I don’t even know it just kinda happens low-key?

I jump back and forth a LOT. I’ll do some sketching, some shading, more sketching, base colour, more shading, more sketching, more base colour, colouring, sketch cleaning (I don’t usually do lineart, it’s just sketch), and then THREE MILLION SCREEN OVERLAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like to add ai disturbance, maybe light leak, maybe computer fuzz, maybe paper, there’s a lot of options and usually I use a bunch. My newest piece has TV static and I think it looks super neat! I also occasionally use screen tones (the dots n stuff)

When the pose is really tricky I use a website called just sketch me to figure out what the hell is happening, but usually I actually just bs it. Like sometimes I don’t even start with the torso and do the boxes out. I’m looking back at the speed paint for the Vinestaff scythe piece and I just drew crap completely out of order whenever I felt like it. Took a HELL of a lot of liquify tool, tho.

I use ibisPaint which gives me things like screen tones and the liquify tool, seriously the liquify tool is a LIFE SAVER.

Also make sure to regularly flip the canvas!!!!!!!!!! I underestimated it and then I did it and was like “….what the shit”

a lot of it is just stuff that I’ve picked up over time, i think what gives the Scythe and Vinestaff piece so much charm is the glowing. I love glowing. It’s so great. Slap a dark colour layer in a folder, add another layer with a neon/light colour and just go crazy on it. Then set the folder to multiply or whatever, play with the opacity. I do a LOT of glowing it’s my favourite thing to draw. A lot of trial and error to figure out how the fuck light works but it’s so fun once you get the hang of it

FEEL FREE TO ASK MORE QUESTIONS AND MORE SPECIFIC STUFF!!!!

My askbox was closed I think? But I’ll open it now!

Also I upload some speedpaints on YouTube, I’ll try to throw up the Vinestaff and Scythe one now!! So maybe that will help idk, it usually helps me more than I anticipate. Watch speedpaints from everyone you want to draw like!!!!!!!!!!

Tldr attack it for like 8 hours until it looks good

[swarmishstrangers]

Your blog, fics and headcanons always cheer me up! Your art is so neat too. Ive been lurking around here for a bit when I feel like I need my crops watered. Question, can I get headcannon of mallek x reader where the reader is an artist? somehow was able to accept commissions while on Alternia? I feel like the vibe of them just silently drawing and him coding in the background is super cute. What do you think?

AUGRHGAA TYYY!!!! I'm glad you like the art, writing, and headcanons! I've also definitely had the thoughts of Mallek being with an s/o who works a lot on computers for digital art stuff, mainly cause it sounds peaceful af.

Okay, so! Artist is a pretty loose term that could apply to a lot of things, but you specify them drawing here, so I'll go over Mallek x reader, both of them being either a traditional artist or a digital artist.

Traditional Artist:

🎨Starting with the traditional artist! Dunno if any of you consider yourselves to be fairly clean but either way if you were to stay over at his hive a lot and for convenience's sake, leave some of your art stuff at his place..it only adds to the chaos that his hive, "damn girl you live like this?" Idk! I just imagine all sorts of physical stuff traditional artist's use. Different types of paint and paintbrushes, charcoal, watercolors, colored pencils, paper, canvases, etc. Your art stuff adds a whole other thing to look at in his hive and honestly? He's here for it. He thinks art is cool. I mean..he can do tattoos, so of course he'd have some appreciation for a s/o who does artsy stuff. He also like those moments where he finds you just covered in your art supplies. Charcoal all over your arms and even smudged on your face for when you couldn't fight a itch and scratched at it, your hands and fingers smudged with paint or oil pastels...he just finds it incredibly charming.

🎨Oh also on the subject of paint uhh. May or may not be something you're comfortable with using considering that paint on Alternia is made from the blood of trolls. Depends whether or not you can get over that and just pretend it isn't to cope lmao. If you can just. Don't ask Amisia and Chahut about how getting the supplies for your paint went!

🎨Mallek would find it incredibly relaxing to listen to while he's fucking around with his husktops and many monitors. Normally he's one to either sit in quiet with nothing to play or maybe he'll have his playlist quietly playing whatever music or other things to listen to while he works on projects or contact people. Not to say it isn't still quiet while you both do your own things, but that's just the thing. It's quiet, not silent. Mallek finds he works the best when he knows that there's life going on around him. The sounds of his hands rapidly typing on his keyboard, the whirring of his husktop, sometimes you can hear him speak to someone that he's calling. You just further add on with your sounds of living, the sound of pencil sketching onto paper or canvas, the louder or softer sounds of you using oil pastels or charcoal, papers being moved, the adjusting of a canvas. It's all very comfortable to you both.

🎨You're each other's background sounds.

Digital Artist:

🖋️Being a digital artist is also so cool to Mallek, why wouldn't it be? It's tech shit! He can also help you try and traverse the different Alternian art programs. It's pretty new to him too since all he usually uses is the Alternian equivalent to Microsoft paint..and it's not super serious, just doodles, sketches, and shitposts stuff to destress. You got yourself a husktop, Amisia was jumping at the chance to help you look for digital art supplies (such as a tablet and stuff), and Mallek helped you get a hold of art programs for you to try out and decide what you like to use as your primary programs.

🖋️They're pretty much the same as Earth art programs in terms of it's functions. Though of course their interfaces can be different from program to program. Not everything works as it does on Earth? Certain shortcuts or tool locations are moved around or changed but it's pretty easy to figure out if you're experienced in digital art. And if you're stuck or can't figure something out your cool tech savvy matesprit can help you out. Mallek has his moments where he takes a break from what he's working on briefly to watch you draw...he always has to stifle a laugh when he sees you're absolutely struggling over there to do line art, having to undo do your stroke like 50 times before you get it. Like the previous one? He thinks it's cute and charming.

🖋️While you don't add a lot of new things to look at it in his hive, as you're working with more tech, it's still just as nice to listen to in the background he thinks. He can hear your fingers type out messages to friends or clients you're working with, the sound of your pen stroking against the tablet face, your mouse clicking here and then. There may not be as many sounds, but he finds it just as comforting, he likes to listen to the life around him after all.

Commissions:

As for the commission portion, thought it would be fun to get into this separately after talking about the respective art types! Being commissioned as an alien on the planet is certainly. Interesting. Which can be taken positively or otherwise.

Being an alien is your selling point to a lot of trolls online. It's where you got a huge chunk of your followers! Sure, they're very split on genuinely believing you are a real alien and those who think this is some kind of roleplay account or something but follow out of interest. Your commissions gather more interest from those who want a drawing from an alien! Real or not. Lots of odd are fun interactions.

For a traditional artist you could go the route of just, scanning your picture and posting it onto your socials and tag the trolls (or post it to the troll client privately). If you offer a shipement of the physical original drawing Mallek can help you out with getting a drone to drop it off for you so you don't have to go on a wild goose chase to find the troll client in this great wide troll world.

[holycorrupt]

if you have the time/energy to elaborate, what's your process like for coloring stuff you ink traditionally? i've figured out a few different methods over the years, but i generally stick to fully digital or traditional for a piece, so i'm curious to see how you do it! :0

This is such a fun question for me because I get to both ramble about my art process and have an excuse to throw some colors on this Breloom I drew ages ago.

I use Clip Studio Paint and an Ipad for my digital stuff so I'll be referring to the processes on that but I'm sure there is a work around for other programs as well :^)

I scan my traditional art at 400dpi because it's always easier to work bigger with digital stuff and resize it smaller then the other way around :^)

So here's our raw scan, which already looks very decent but when I want to color something I like for everything to be much cleaner/sharper/more contrast-y and to get rid of the noise from the paper texture lmao. A well lit photo will also do the job because that's what I did for many years before getting my scanner but tbh if you're a traditional -> digital artist like myself a scanner is like a best friend you can buy HAHA

First things first, I apply a Gradient Map Layer > New Correction Layer > Gradient Map

Clip has a really nice black and white map preinstalled but I made myself a custom map just by pushing the black and white a little closer, it completely clears up all the noise and makes everything really crisp! Make sure you check on your lines when adjusting things because super fine feather lines can sometimes be lost if you make the contrast too high. Extra tip! If you want to make Graphite Pencil or Ball Point Pen really nice looking as well, just add a dark grey point in the gradient map closer to the black then middle...works perfectly :^)!!

This is the point I look for stray pixels, cat hairs, ect and make sure to erase any surrounding doodles or sketches I don't want included.

GOD DAMN Those lines are CRISP-Y!!!

Next up we're going to want to go Edit > Convert brightness to opacity

Tbh If I didn't have this method idk what I would do with myself.... I've tried the whole "Lineart on top layer set to multiply" Method and ...ehh....

Now that I have a nice transparent line art I'll stick a new white layer down below it because the checker pattern hurts my eyes LOL

I'm going to add a read more here since this post is getting lengthy haha

I'm going to quickly go over the style I use for MTE! It has been refined to be quicker and easier to do since you know...I have a week time limit per page ... 😭 I have a completely different way I do colors for other things I want to spend more time on but I might explain that one in the future...I'm running out of steam tonight LOL

I use this really awesome brush pack that has a pencil like texture and I love it to bits...here's a link to it if your interested!

At this point I might add some overlay layers or play around with an airbrush but I think this guys done for now :^) I tend to stay away from highlights with my shading for MTE..My biggest goal is to make sure everything is clear and readable! That being said I break my own rules all the time for special panels that need the extra 'oomf!'

Slap a lazy square background and yay!! He's done!

Hope this was interesting aaaa Thank you again for the ask!!

[exercise-of-trust]

how it started -> how it's going:

(left: a 10-year-old sketch of a friend's oc; kiya if you're still out there i hope you're well. right: an éowyn from last year i'm much happier with now, lmao)

it's about a year since i really got back into posting fanart! and it's been a lot of fun and you all have been very nice, and i want to get the art bug out of my system before i tackle nanowrimo this year, so i'm taking art requests all through september! send me a character, get a drawing, i'll keep going until i get sick of it (or until october 1, whichever comes first).

guidelines? info? idk i've never done this before:

open for requests september 1 through september 30 (although i do reserve the right to quit early if it turns out i've wildly misjudged things)

everybody gets at least a flat-color headshot (digital or traditional), but you may end up with a rendered painting if i'm on a roll. we'll see how this goes!

similarly, the most i'll commit to up-front is a single character per request. you're also welcome to send in pairings if you like but a) poses with multiple people are way harder and i'm lazy and b) i'm an extremely picky bastard about shipping, so, like, be emotionally prepared to just get whichever half of your duo i like better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

just to keep this sorta manageable i'm gonna say tolkien book characters only, but anything is fair game within that band - if you've got an obscure blorbo from the appendices, or a popular blorbo i never post about, now's your chance to send 'em in.

okay! think that's about it! if this goes well i might do it again next year; if it goes poorly we'll just pretend it never happened lol. have fun!

[sempsimps]

toga head cannons + dating bits

so mha what a show i have been violently thrown back into it and currently re watching it along with another 4 animes anyway here i am ready to make this since I have like *checks notes * 16- nope 19- nope hold on 24! drafts and I can see more on the horizon so I'm finally letting my bisexual self get some crazy girls on my list

headcannons

She likes Hello Kitty. I think she would love Kuromi (I don't know for sure, as I've never watched it. I'm not really into Sanrio stuff.)

she has some skills with drawing but nothing too major. maybe a really good sketch once in a while, on some important documents (definitely got into a lot of trouble for doodling on her school books or anything like that. ik i did)

She chews on pens or pencils. possibly hoodie drawstrings, just anything, to be honest.

I feel like she loves dinosaurs, like at least knowing some random facts from like stolen picture books or remembering an interesting thing from a museum, and I guess the Internet exists

Dating stage

she has been rejected a few times, which is obvious, so when she finds you, she is nervous about falling fast yet again and getting left. again. but she can't help it, and when you say you feel the same, she could happily fight and die for you x10 more than she already felt like she would

Blood jewelry absolutely 100% like a pretty heart-shaped pendent that's suspiciously liquidy and a beautiful red like take all my money (I will for the precious bean)

She is a criminal, so getting more domestic dates is kind of difficult. so there's options 1 she drinks someone else's blood to disguise and just dresses different from them, so it's less obvious and go to a coffee shop or something. OR 2 screw the domestic stuff! and go out to steal sweets or candy and idk steal a shopping cart, go spray paint some rich guys house, and do stupid shit like getting arrested only to call dabi or shigaraki for help as you both laugh at how stupid that was.

She would love it if you knew how to style hair or let her style yours and be matching

Speaking of matching toga would absolutely have pj's/ onesies for the both of you. examples I can think of would be the night and light furry ones (I think they neat) also those two peice ones so sharing two sets like, skull top and pink short and then having pink tank top and skull trousers.

Love language is physical touch, words of affirmation, and gift giving all the way. Holding hands? "Ah! We're holding hands haha, suck it, dabi your bitchless!". she needs soothing words during a cuddle session like fr tell her she's an amazing girlfriend. Anything you get her stuff like that is definitely her new bragging right, new hair clip? It's on, and she refuses to take it out until you do it yourself. A little pin it's going on her skirt, a keyring? She's putting at least two of those on the handle of her favourite knife. You made her a painting/ printed a photo/ wrote a poem or anything? It's getting framed and hung above her bed

She probably had lots of photos before you dated, but now she definitely has. 2 folders one is a digital file on her phone, and the other is stashed away, filled with secretly taken ones that she looks at when she misses you

If you're a hero, she'll make it a point to watch you and look at all your fan base online. "It's my turn on the TV my adorable partner is on." She would also want to go on every mission close to where your agency would be. If you have any merchandise, she has it already. If she sees other people wearing your clothing line, she would either compliment it or want to stab them (I can't decide)

That's all i can think of, and i want to do more, so anything else in the comments would be nice. im trying to ease my way into writing female characters. i might be bi, but i can't talk to women, so this was fun and a little difficult for me

[thew0man]

it took me like 30 seconds to find the firefighter you painted over/traced for that secondo drawing. reference images are one thing but come on—you’re more talented than that! you don’t need to do that. alter the reference enough to make it your own. use a different palette. idk. it’s not a big deal but be please just be careful about your sources when you do that kind of thing in the future.

I was going to delete and ignore this but actually - I've done nothing wrong. My first thought when I read this is - you were clearly going out of your way to look up my references… why? The only thing I can think of is that you were wanting to try and be like “a-ha! You copied!”. Indeed, it seems like a weirdly veiled threat. Btw it took me about 15 seconds to find the reference image I used...

I make absolutely no bones about the fact I copy. I trace. A lot of people do. Even artists who are commissioned by Ghost! Le shock! A lot of the time my doodles are a massive Frankenstein of multiple references that I have traced or copied. This one happened to only be two. I didn't want or have time to make a completely convoluted piece that took me hours to research and sketch out.

Why would I need to be careful about photo sources that I’ve copied? Genuine question. It’s a photo that I’ve based a doodle off. Literally all the faces of the papas I’ve copied from photos… so I feel like that’s a really important statement for someone to clarify. If its a photo of a body or a photo of a waterfall...

I’m not charging for my work and never do, I doodle for me. Recently I directly copied a big artists work - I contacted him about it and he gave me his blessing and seemed genuinely pleased I had used his image as a practice image. Im learning colours, textures, lighting, composition. So much can be gleaned in this way.

Indeed I have recently completed a popular digital drawing course which 1) teaches you to trace and 2) teaches you how to get and use the colour palette from your reference image.

I also say that I’m documenting my digital art journey. I only started in September-ish 2023 so 7 months in. One day I would like to just be able to create images direct from my brain, but I doubt I have the talent to. All I do is practice and for fun. Don't take life so seriously.