#illustrated answers

[meo-eiru]

Where do you think you are going?

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[night-the-starfish]

Miku has been all over the world by now but has she been to the animal kingdom? 🤨

[poofmalyakaet]

P3:RE battle opponent Joker announcement, but he is a 7 year old

[cherriielle]

summer/fall cards 📷✨

[forgettable-au]

Sans do you ever feel that something might be missing?

Maybe he felt like that at some point, maybe for a long time. In the present, I think he's made some kind of peace with it.

Also, I really like the ask blog format, but I don't really mean this to be an ask blog.

So when writing questions, try to refer them to me instead of the characters. That way, they don't have to break the fourth wall lmao. I really wanted to answer this one tho

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[mightbebobbie]

Mayhaps some Zosan featuring little chopper, maybe they’re fighting but then chopper gets sad so now they’re all just hanging out to appease the little babey!!!

this is how i imagine they ended up like this:

[pansylair]

Celebrating my 28th birthday with my lovey boyfriend and wonderful friends! So happy to have a little bf-vacation and have everyone over for a visit :)

id: A traditional ballpoint pen drawing with a black background, simply stylized with warm hues and muted colours. A dog holds a long, leafy plant stem in its mouth, peering up towards the sky and sun. To its right, a house sits in the distance. Flowering plants frame the sun and create a square border around the illustration. Text to the top left in all upper case reads “WARM FEELINGS AMONG THE GREEN” In an attached panel below its feet sits three stars.

[ashoss]

I love how you draw cass. Can we get more of her and Tim being sibs?

ahh thank u!!! and yes u absolutely can

[chalkrub]

strange fellas

[ccerealbowl]

Fellas, is it gay to cuddle your best bro throughout the night?

[chromaherder]

Mainstream sci-fi loves to insist on having drab looking machines as tools of war and oppression almost as a self fulfilling prophecy. But what if, hear me out, we started considering a future with more humane AI and healthier relations to different modes of intelligence (ie. the entire non-human being population of Earth)? 🤔

[greykolla-art]

have you ever shared your comic making process? im super interested in seeing how you go about everything from start to finish!

[alexsiple]

IN THE SUMMER SILENCE, I WAS GETTING VIOLENT

[gleafer]

Hi!

Your art is SO GOOD!!!

I wish I could draw as good as you.

When it comes to drawing a singular character in a simple pose, I can manage that.

But when I try to draw something a bit complex or draw comics of my own, I struggle a lot. Especially when there are multiple characters interacting.

I have so much going on in my head but I'm unable to put it on paper.

Can you please share some tips or resources to get better at art?

Again, your art is ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS and I LOVE how you draw the movements of the characters!!!

YES I CAN!

Here’s a Gleafer Quicky cheat sheet!

[emmer-g]