#it'll all be sketches btw

[bulletsxlattes]

I've had some jaytim on the mind lately, but nothing concrete comes to mind. I wouldn't mind taking some requests and seeing what i can get done in the next few days. So please feel free to get in my asks. :) I can't promise i'll do everything, but i'll see what i can do. If I dont do yours, i'll save the ask cause maybe it might inspire me later.

[sysig]

Noooooooo

[ttshihiro]

pspspps.. totally not golden groovy woops

ANYWAYS HII!! heard u were open for requests. may i request tammy + qiu with and an artist reader :00

requests of my favorite fandoms are my catnip good gof woa who could this be‽‽ my reqs and my ask box are like always open btw >◡<

extra note/s: I refer to step 1 Qiu as he/him. Uhhh take this as platonic or romantic, I'll add an indicator for romance (𐙚) ^^

more under the cut > o

✧ At 10 years old, QIU's fascinated. How he discovers your interest and skill in arts varies but his reaction doesn't. He's impressed! Whether digital or traditional, Qiu would love to participate especially if you asked him yourself.

For this reason, he carries an extra pen and even those colored ones just in case you get bored or if you're suddenly struck by creativity when you two are playing :3

✧ The first time you show him one of your doodles you made during class, he's compelled to do the same whether or not you actually give him it. And ever since, you two've been exchanging these sketches during class. It's the cutest scene to walk into.

✧ URGH AND THE THINGS HE DOES WHEN YOU TELL HIM ABOUT ART BLOCK DEPENDING ON HOW AND WHAT YOU DRAW

You're into drawing sceneries? Trust that he starts telling you and Tamarack about more "special things" in the forest and/or the town.

Like the sky? There's this clearing a lot further into the forest at your backyards. Stargaze, watch the clouds and the sunset together?

✧ It's also necessary for me to mention that unlike his notes, lazily pressed against eachother and constantly on the run, anything you give him goes to a safe space probably in between a books pages, under the the matress of his bed or inside a drawer/container.

"They broke into my backyard accidentally, 'cause they were on a crazy investigation about a paper airplane. Plus, they got here a day ago and they're already looking out for me. Normally, I'm the one doing that."

"Besides, they're pretty. And they make me pretty. Look! Look how they drew me!"

✧ As for 10-year-old TAMARACK, she's curious. The things you draw, are they based on actual places? Actual people? Oh, you draw based on your imagination? Elaborate.

✧ At some point in the prologue, she says "All the forests in the world are different, and some places don't even have forests. I can show you good spots to find things since you're newer to this forest than me."

And I can't not think of her running up to you to give you all of what she gathered for you to draw like omfg

With all those leaves and tiny branches sticking out of her hair and sweater, she smiles brightly with her hands filled with her treasures. AUGH SHE MAKES ME SO SICK I LOVE HER

✧ Like Qiu, she has her own safe spot designated for only your drawings if you've given her any.

She shows off all of them. Especially if you've drawn her?? It'll be the only thing she talks about during literally any time for the rest of the month and the few months after.

"Out of all the friends I have here, you're the best one. We came to the same exact neighborhood, almost at the same time, and are he same age. You have fun outside and I do too."

"I think you're pretty. How you draw me is pretty! I've never met a kid who was just like me. That's important. That's serious."

✧ Now, 14-year-old QIU's pretty much no different. They're even more impressed when they see just how much you've improved. Nonetheless, they treasure your old drawings just as much as they do they new.

They take the liberty of providing you with both a pen and paper to draw on when you're together, in case you don't bring your sketchbook (if you own one).

On those days where you two just sit in silence in their hideout, their gaze drifts to your side quietly a few times to watch your progress. After a while, they settle with sitting right next to you and watching the stroke of your pen against the paper as the scene forms with each hatch.

✧ As a teen, they've actually been a tad bit farther off the town when they feel like taking a ride on their bike. They've seen many sights and burn the route into their brain for them to tell you about. They'd even be happy as to bring you there themselves.

✧ If you ask them to be your muse, good god you'd need to tell them what to do.

It's almost a funny sight. Qiu, the kid who knew what to do their whole life asks you, "Should I pose? Where do I look? Ah- what's my good side?"

𐙚 They can feel their breath hitch under your scrutiny. Suddenly, they're concious of every single thing about them. Where do their eyes go? Should they move their hands? Is their hair in the way?

They avert their gaze flusteredly, their head ever so slightly moving to the side when they do so.

And good god do their hands clutch the fabric of their pants when you tell them to look at you properly.

✧ Same goes for TAMARACK at 14. She's as intrugued as ever to hear about your work. She admires (you)r style from then till now and has learned to appreciate the time gone into things as simple as this, whether or not you've made it with her in mind. BUT GOD IF YOU TELL HER IT IS, it's always sitting on her desk and she thinks constantly about what you've done for her.

✧ And while she doesn't exactly bring you a pen, she's more than glad to hand you hers when you need it.

✧ Unlike before, she'd now be at your side when you two hung out at her backyard. She'd be sitting across from you, practicing the cello. The hum of her instrument accompanied by the sound of nature and the scratch of your pen against paper gives her a sense of calmness.

This may also be when she realizes she's been your muse! Her fingers trace over where your pen has been and boy appreciate isn't even enough for her to describe how she felt. It was definitely happy, but that wasn't the word either.

𐙚 Her heart pounds alarmingly as she admires your work. It's almost concerning to you that she sits silently with a blank expression as she held your sketchbook in her hands.

But that concern washes off you as soon as a warm smile curls the corners of her lips, tender adoration displayed all over her face.

[drey-theintrovertedcake]

"I didn't want anyone to have to feel that way.."

Now. After reading this short comic made by one of the Sonic IDW comic artists, Adam Bryce Thomas, I'm starting to understand Lanolin the Sheep a lot. comic here

The short sketched comic explains a realistic depiction of the whole collateral damage from the endless battles between Sonic and Eggman. There may be victory from the heroes, but let's not forget about the damage those battles had caused. Lanolin was a part of this. She didn't expect this to happen, and because of that, she wanted to make a difference despite her serious personality around the Restoration (let's not forget that PTSD can change you a lot, and this war never ever ends). Even if she looked up to Sonic for being the infamous Hero he is, she has never forgotten the destruction caused by him and Eggman. She may have resentment on Sonic for that, because if you think about it.. Sonic messed up a lot, and he has spared Eggman many times already when he had the chance to stop him. Wouldn't this cycle of war all be over if Sonic FINALLY defeated Eggman? And if that were the case, then Lanolin wouldn't have to go through so much. The remains of Eggman's robots after Infinite's reign, the Metal Virus, Surge and Kit's attacks... Lanolin couldn't catch a break.

If there was a scene of Lanolin snapping at Sonic and the other heroes for not handling things well, for not finishing the job, and for all of the hell she and other innocent people have gone through.. I'd say: "Y'know what? That's completely understandable.."

Lanolin wants to at least help because she never wanted anyone to go through the bad shit she went. Of course, she admits to everyone that she's not as experienced as the others and may come off as bossy and strict, but she wants EVERYTHING to be okay or it'll end up a disaster (Kinda like Miguel O'Hara when he admits he's been trying to hold the Spider-verse together as it really messed him up after his mistake). Honestly, I love her development from being a helpless citizen in the background to being a soldier of the Restoration and leader of the new team, The Diamond Cutters. However, things might go south cause of.. *coughs* Mimic, Surge, Kit, Clutch & Eggman.... *coughs* Well, let's see how this goes.

Btw, if you want more of these defenses of Lanolin and her character, try to look into @sage-nebula, @fazar234 and @kingmaxstatic's analysis of her!! They're so good and give me a better understanding of the character!!

@sage-nebula: Lanolin has PTSD

@fazar234: Understanding Lanolin

@kingmaxstatic: In Defense Of Lanolin, A Post About Perspective, Flaws and Development.

[mathysphere]

Ever want to know just how a cross-stitch pattern gets made? Sketching, pixel art, making the pattern, photography-- there's a lot of steps! and now, through the magic of THIS VIDEO, all the answers can be revealed!

I also talk a LOT about plant taxonomy, and how it'll help me be a better gamer 🎮

The final pattern is this one, btw:

[notnights]

So obviously it's still too early to properly analyze the exact relationship dynamic between Jax and Gangle in canon. I promise this is less of me trying to find legitimate proof of any character speculations, and more just a string of very quick, messy personal thoughts on the topic. Context and motivation for their behaviors are likely to be explained in future episodes, and until then there's still quite a lot of uncharted territory left to explore. (Although I will say that both these characters are surprisingly more active and engaging with each other upon rewatch. aka, their willingness to be around one another seems mutual, the bullying is not.)

The only information that we can currently gather about Gangle are her canon appearances, the preview screenshot Glitch posted on the official account and to a lesser extent, Gangle's concept art sketches: Alot of it being about her fixation and dependency towards her comedy mask. We don't know whether she's fixated on the actual sensation being happy 24/7 or just the ability to appear joyful around everybody else just yet, or What her real-world equivalent of the mask was, or even if there ever was a real-world equivalent to begin with. But, Personal indictment is that she does genuinely want long term companionship and meaningful connections with other people. Or at the very least, not be subtly ostracized out of social convention. I think she believes that curating her outward demeanor might change the way others perceive her, and hopefully the way they interact with her as well. It doesn't really help that each of the circus crew are all a bit too much in their own heads to notice, one way or another. Even if they do mean well at the end of the day, it's never quite what she's really looking to accomplish. (It also doesn't help that her digital design is so detached from being human either, she's essentially a flat face on a piece of string. One can't really blame her for trying to make the most of what she's able to display tbh.)

So far, we know Jax is apathetic, violent and generally antagonistic towards everyone in the main cast, sometimes deliberately towards the girls. I think it isn't all that farfetched to believe he latched on to Gangle because she was malleable enough to target without facing most of the consequences. Subsequently, there's also the idea of him relating Gangle's tragedy mask to her willingness to comply: It's an emotional vulnerability for her (She already sees herself as less deserving of human interaction in this state, she won't have anyone else to go to, she doesn't seem to like being left alone). It's not farfetched to assume Jax sees the tragedy mask as a more "complied version" of Gangle, more entertaining and easier to string along. Me thinks he prefers it, but again. It's too soon to tell. Anyways something something designated role in group activities something something internalized self-worth I think Gangle and Ragatha have very similar philosophies when it comes to people pleasing and it almost makes me believe in the theory that they secretly don't get along even more.

(btw plz feel absolutely no pressure to respond to any of this at all - Again, very messy thoughts that I barely had time to collect. Ribbun is an unexpected infection with unfortunately very thought consuming brain fodder to me personally. Have a nice day.

I like these thoughts! It'll be really interesting to see how the Comedy and Tragedy masks work for Gangle.

I do agree Jax probably prefers Tragedy Gangle as even if it's only as deep as "she's funnier like that." And Gangle is the easiest victim for him in that state.

We've seen everyone (but Kinger, who Jax kind of doesn't bother too much, and you could argue it's because Kinger doesn't give an entertaining reaction) fight back against Jax's behavior in some way. Ragatha yells at him, Zooble isn't afraid to get physical, and we can tell Pomni had death on her mind when he threw her off the truck. The most Gangle has done is timidly resist for a few seconds before compiling. Steps on her mask, pushes her, grabs her and puts her in the drivers seat, she doesn't say anything.

She has a couple of bite back words, but then Jax just bites back and it shuts her down. Which is interesting because when Ragatha yells at him it's clear he thinks its funny and merely snarks back at her, often getting her to yell more. He gets different reactions out of everyone in the group and picks different entertainment from that. Gangle might be the one he knows he has proper control over.

As for the Ragatha and Gangle thing, I was really interested in the fact no one cared when Gangle broke her mask in the pilot, not even Ragatha who is our outwardly most caring. You could say it's because she had tunnel vision on Pomni, but I immediately interpreted it as, yeah Gangle's mask breaks all the time, she's crying all the time, eventually people stop caring. The boy who cried wolf, etc etc.

Even if Ragatha doesn't have direct conflict with Gangle, the fact Ragatha is someone who internalizes everything, and projects a positive outlook, I imagine someone like Gangle would make her pretty uncomfortable.

Here Ragatha is trying her darnest to keep it together and remain positive, meanwhile Gangle is crying all the time behind her.

"It's not so bad here Pomni, I promise!" as Gangle cries in the background.

Gangle being a constant reminder of how Ragatha, and maybe all of them really feel about being stuck here. Too early to say if Ragatha resents Gangle for this, or how she really feels about it. But if she does that's so sad because (we also don't know yet) Gangle has no control over these feelings, it wasn't her choice for her avatar to work like this.

Which honestly could be a good allegory for how certain people view mental illness in the real world too. Ragatha being a loved one who's uncomfortable with Gangle's moods, or even believes if Gangle just tried hard enough like her (example: keeping her comedy mask safe) she'd be fine. Ooh sad comic ideas.

[lexi-the-demon-69]

I made a carachoco fankid-

Meet Choco Pudding Cookie: Caramel Arrow Cookie and Dark Choco Cookie's son! This is still his concept design/sketch until I make his official reference/sprite. (BTW, he is not canon to Choco Milkshake Cookie's lore! This is a completely different universe. Also debating whether or not to make him canon to the Ghoul Dark Choco AU-)

So, in this universe, Dark Choco is crowned king and Caramel Arrow is his queen (she's still the first watcher of course). After 2 years of marriage, the two finally decide to have a child, much to Dark Cacao's delight and soon the prince was born! Little Choco Pudding Cookie inherited a lot of Dark Choco's traits such as being rather stoic and standoffish to others. Still, he did inherit his mother's confidence and passion for keeping his kingdom safe. (And of course her love for boba tea-)

That's all lol. (Also I apologize for taking so long with the Wonderland comic page. It'll come out soon I swear-)

[nono-uwu]

Why did I- bro I pressed anonymous for no reason also this is a funny sketch request TvT

141 chapter prediction btw- also dw I understand it'll take time

Mika and Yuu randomly showing up in the tree tum with crowley and the others BUT THEY ANGRY.

Crowley behind them like an angry mother fuck along with Krul pulling a scared Yuu by the hair as Mika clings onto him protectively and Horn and Chess just looking sour then Ferid laying down with food poisoning while holding Ky like a stress ball. I hope that isn't to much! If it is you don't have to do it TvT <3

Tadaaa ~ ✨ (read left to right)

Took a few creative liberties lol, mostly Crowley isn't angry just really confused (apathy things yk) and Mika is absent bc I didn't feel like drawing him ehe

Also these are all rushed sketches from class

[calithso]

do u have art tips (for like anatomy and face expressions and angles)? I was scrolling though your ACC and when I tell you I’m eating ur art, I’m actually digesting it as we speak, I love it sm 😭😭

TRACE!!!! IDC WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS. TRACE ART AND LEARN FROM IT. USING 3D MODELS IS OKAY ‼️‼️ PROFESSIONALS DO IT AND YOU CAN TOO ‼️‼️‼️

but of course, don't post it online or claim it as yours, that's just wrong 🫶

BTW THIS IS JUST WHAT I DO. IF ANYONE ELSE HAS SOME TIPS, DROP THEM IT'LL BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!

art rules are meant to be broken-💥💥💥

i think i'm the worst person to ask for tips cause i don't follow my own guidelines. i've only recently started to use references but i'm usually too lazy to search for them. which is pretty bad since i can't really visualize stuff in my head (your artist has aphantasia)

when i do half body to full body poses, i just use 3d models and start from there. i usually adjust things to my liking after i copy out the pose. i'm still currently learning anatomy so idk what tips to give about it rn BUT i do have some tips

i think angles helps a lot with what mood you want to convey in a drawing. it may also help with expressions. you can use boxes for drawing different angles of the head. i do this when the angle of the head i'm drawing is hard to draw.

an example on how i used it:

another thing you can try is to learn an artist's anatomy style by drawing guidelines on top of a drawing like this:

see how everything is placed and what bodypart is line with what like: the eyes are in the same height as the tip of the ears, the elbow is line with the dip of the waist, etc.

just adjust stuff to your liking. your work doesn't have to be super anatomically accurate, if it is, there's a possibility that the pose might look stiff so change up some things and exaggerate them. just practice some angles, it'll become muscle memory in time.

if it looks nice, then it's good enough 👍

observe and redraw. it's just copying art styles i like and attempting to incorporate it into my own art. my art style inspos are wildwolf_group and donaldakron (i’m also absolutely in love with their lighting and shading) on twitter because the way they draw hair is so nice.

study art styles 👍 i like looking at their sketches and studying how they do specific things like hair and faces in different angles. pinterest is a huge help if you want art inspo. it's okay to copy poses from artworks but be careful to not copy it entirely if the pose looks complicated or unique, you might get accused of theft 😓 (it's brutal out here)

if you want more art tips, i recommend watching bluebiscuits's videos on youtube. speedpaints have also helped me a lot in the past (we need to bring them back <///33) i also recommend watching art streams. i spend a lot of my time on twitch. it helps understand how an artist draws and may also provide inspo.

some art streamers i frequently watch are: uqi32, yyebuan, meanddeadlines, eo58, mikamuse, Teikki_, hazmatEN, jianrouVT, manda, KandaEm, neg_illustration, AmefuRin, owohiropon, shengtaki, thekansta, pixzli, gravitydusty. I KNOW IT'S A LOT BUT I'M ON TWITCH 24/7 😭

there's also user-cm2co1hw2u (twitter: pdman2) and kuzuvine (twitter: ksk535) on youtube

that's all for now. if some of you have more questions (whether personal or art related) just ask away. i don't bite :)

[thathomiebro]

Style Exploration has been going really well mostly just been sketching and I think I got a general look down! I was gonna line and color this short comic, though I think I made all the sketch layers a bit too rough ngl.

So rambling a bit about finding my own style! So I've been getting inspired mainly by Daria,MTV Downtown, Welcome to Eltingville's pilot. Course I don't want to simply emulate a style just find stuff I like, and sorta mash em together, shift stuff around.

For instance turns out I really love angular looks, plus dot eyes similar to Jerry and Pete's from wtoe.

I'm mostly saying this just to give my take if you ever feel a bit of artistic block or wanna switch stuff up look at media, and figure out what parts you enjoy and parts ya don't.

I do also to an extent feel bad that I'm focusing less on pixel art as of late, however I feel it'll only help me get better down the line. So whenever I go "Oh I wanna do some pixel shit" I can bring newfound skills and techniques over.

Btw here's some loose sketches I did of jade alongside some layers hidden.

is it obvious I like polos?

[knarme-art]

This here represents a typical sketch I'd have drawn at any point in my recent life, - until now.

I will no longer be able to work in a high detail art style like this at all, until the accuracy of my new technique improves. And I can't promise it will.

Why?

I've been drawing with wrist movement for my whole life.

This is infamously unsustainable to the hand. It used to gradually become more uncomfortable until it became so painful that I can't do it at all for more than a few seconds.

I have good steam to work on comms now, but I'm forced to have a break from them because I reached the limit of this "wrist-work". If I keep pushing against my body's warnings, I'll disable myself worse and it'll last me forever.

My ability to draw is the most precious thing I have in my life. Nothing matters to me as heavily besides basic necessities, that I make art. Art is how I find friends and community and express myself in a way that nothing else satisfies that same way. Even in my worst times, this has been the light of my life. Even my best times would feel so devoid of content without making art. Art is my whole life.

Because the stakes are so high, I'm working on a solution.

A common tip for sparing the wrist is drawing from the shoulder and the elbow. This is very difficult for me since I'm not used to controlling my hand movement especially for detail from any other joint than the wrist.

Another is casing your pencil into any material (I just taped toilet paper tightly on it) to make it thicker to hold. It means you need smaller movements for drawing detail and therefore spare wrist work.

My muscle memory mostly has it all for moving the wrist to do all the stuff. See what it costs me now?

I'm practicing drawing in a new technique entirely, and figuring out what I can do.

I have to accept that my art style will not look exactly the same either, because physically I can't produce the same old thing drawn in my incorrect technique.

This is my drawing hand wrapped in a scarf to keep my wrist from bending when drawing, so I encourage sourcing the hand movement to my shoulder and elbow instead! Wearing this prevents the painful motions and helps me learn new motions.

Here are practice sketches in the new technique. I find it hard to draw small detail without moving my wrist to do it, but that accuracy can be trained by continuously drawing small shapes or objects (beans, circles, spirals, hair, fur, little horses...) from the shoulder. (This is advice I hear from professionals btw.)

Some thoughts about these sketches...

- I notice I simplify shapes more to make them easier for my hand movements to get across. I literally can not physically draw any other way, but the result looks kind of good even?

- I'm kinda excited to see where my learning goes from here

- I want to keep practicing hand control

- I was concerned especially about how to replicate my character designs like this, but it's somewhat working I guess?

So yeah... This is lifesaving for my art abilities on the long run. Gonna keep up the practice!

[apoptoses]

Btw guys I did some digging on how to back up your blog, here's the deets:

If you have Xkit (which you should, it's a life saver!!) They have an option called Mirror Posts:

Turning this on means when you click the three dots at the top right of a post you've made you get this option:

Clicking to mirror the post gives you this:

Choosing WayBackMachine offers this page:

So you just click save and the waybackmachine then captures a screencap of your post and saves it. If you don't have an account then so long as you have the url for the post you'll always be able to find it there (or you can just put in the url to your tumblr but finding specific posts becomes more difficult then).

However if you DO have a waybackmachine account it'll store all of your saved posts into the account and you can access them there.

Choosing archivetoday gives you this:

There's a button at the top that says 'all snapshots from host apoptoses.tumblr.com' and you can then download them as a zip.

SO. This is a couple ways you can back up your original posts should something awful happen and your blog get terminated.

But I really, really encourage writers and artist to make a multi-chapter post on ao3 where they can dump all their short fics and quick sketches- truly no post is too small or too 'rough' to not save, because for someone out there that is their favorite fic or art of all time! And you deserve to have a portfolio of your hard work!

Back up your stuff, don't let us continue to live in a digital dark age where great posts get lost forever due to websites collapsing or making garbage choices ♥

[starbittzzy]

Reblog with a pic and name of ur Lackadaisy oc and ill draw them with Rebecca! Or just the name of a Lackadaisy character you want to see with Rebecca!!

(Currently closed)

Hi guys! I kinda want more drawing ideas and feel like drawing more characters so reblog with a pic of ur oc or just the name of a lackadaisy chara all ill draw them with Rebecca!

I cant assure you ill get to every request but ill definately try!

It'll only mostly be a colored sketch btw

And if you want you can dm me or just tell me abt their personality so I can get a better idea of em!

Ty!!

[nemisisnemi]

IM BACK FROM NY (for a short amount of time) BUT THAT MEANS I GET TO DRAW AGAIN YIPPEEEE-

oh yea btw feel free to send me some art reqs, im trying to get back into art again after not drawing for over a week (those posts you saw from me were all queued and lowkey old)

will mention that it'll probably be sketches so don't expect much

[sweetshelluvaau]

I think what frustrates me that most about Hellvua Boss is that Viviziepop wants this show to be seen as deep and meaningful, diving into the nitty gritty of why these characters are the way they are and that's great and dandy and all but you can't just do that and then next episode act like nothing happen, reverting back to the status quo.

It's all surface level and means nothing by the end of the day. If you want your characters to be interesting and perhaps even sympatric (having sympathy doesn't mean the character has to be likeable btw and vice versa): Have them grow and learn from there actions. It's not okay for Blitzo, Stolas, Loona or whoever to say 'I was wrong' or 'I'm sorry' only for them to continue to do the same shit again and again.

When Blitzo says sorry to Moxxie about how much of a dick he could be in Truth Seekers, have him ACT like he means it and CHANGE (or at least tries being no one changes fully over night.)

(ps Blitzo being (or any character really) an asshole isn't presay a problem more how his asshole-ness itself is handled and written. I happen to like Blitzo btw, or at least the idea of him as a character but I digress.)

When Stolas says sorry to Octavia for ignoring her and not thinking how his actions hurt her (and being a selfish horny idiot in general and just how he treats...Ya know I'm gonna save that rant for another day when I get to his rewrite. 'kindhearted' my ass.), have him realize that 'hey, I'm being a bad dad' and have him try his hardest to be better. (Heck, maybe even have Octavia not being so forgiving because boy howdy do you give your dad waaay too much lean way. I kinda hope one of the later epsiodes links happens to be true and should have happened way earlier. Sorry I can't feel bad for you Stolas.)

Show that your characters are attempting to better themselves.

Show that actions have consequences and sometimes they aren't always easily fixable, if not ever.

Show us why we should care about your characters.

Anyways I originally wanted to wait til I got my redraws done before posting the rewrites but being how it'll likely be a while for me to draw them all out I may just start posting my rewrites now if anyone is still interested. I did do a redesign sketch of Millie that's on one of my roleplay blogs but I'm going to be changing a few things in the final desgin...

[myrmica]

do you have any tips for getting better at drawing anatomy? your poses are always so fluid and realistic

first of all THANK YOU!!! that makes me happy to hear!

under the cut because i got long winded... i hope something in here is useful! some of it may stray from the point, and i have no idea what stuff you already know.

in my experience a lot of it is about paying attention to form/volume. at one point or another i realized i vastly prefer art that emphasizes this, as opposed to flatter more stylized anatomy, as far as things i want to emulate in my own work go (flat styles can be cool when other people do it; this is a huge thing with art i think, developing a sense of discernment when it comes to the art you Want To Make versus the art you like but wouldn't want to mimic...)

so i add contour lines to everything i draw as i sketch because it helps me figure out where the object is in space, in relation to the viewer. doing this immediately establishes where the subject is in relation to the "camera" because lines curving one way mean you're looking up at something, and vice versa. if you've ever seen the coil method of foreshortening before, it's the same principle.

while construction lines won't always be there in a finished piece, you can communicate form in the curves of your lines. the round end of a sleeve is a countour line, so are fabric folds (although they have their own volume too), etc.

the feeling of looking up at someone, or their arm moving towards you, or their back turned away from you, that's where a lot of tension and dynamism comes from--some of the "fluidity."

another thing is to focus on weight, and how things interact when they touch... if you grip someone's arm, how does the skin fold/warp under pressure? can you actually draw it doing that, instead of leaving the arm being grabbed unaffected? stuff like that. a huge inspiration for this (and i think it shows in some of the artistic choices i've been making lately) is margot maison's work. like, check out this panel from bora the brain:

or this one of mine, where i just grabbed my own arm like that to see how it felt and what the skin did...

these are both examples of smaller details but the same principle applies any time you're drawing two people touching, or even a bent leg where the thigh and calf meet. i'm more interested in how skin/fat moves around than i am in getting the nitty gritty details of muscle groups and bones right. knowing the muscles and bones certainly HELPS; my personal favorite bones are the radius and ulna in the forearm, and keeping the way they move in mind Is useful because it reminds you that the arm isn't a uniform tube shape, it's a flat rectangle type thing, and it'll look wider or narrower depending on the angle... etc. see pronation/supination gif below:

they get recomended all the time but the morpho books are my favorite reference for doing actual intentional anatomy practice & in redrawing stuff from them a ton of tricks for constructing bodies have stuck in my head. like, here i was focusing on how they simplify the shoulder/armpit in relation to the ribcage:

(you can download most of 'em for free off of libgen btw.)

you can also get something kinda special drawing bodies from life. if you don't have other people to draw, your own hands/legs work too, and it's good for foreshortening and perspective because you're always seeing them in relation to your own viewpoint:

granted both this and the morpho studies are things i find fun to do. on the off chance that you're someone who finds studies tedious or boring, rather than pushing through it you might want to paint a character you like onto the pose you're practicing or something like that to keep yourself invested?

i also use references gratuitously. usually many pictures at once, where i'm combining them to get the pose i want. either just referencing different photos as i draw different things or literally editing them together depending on what it is. over time, i've gotten better at coming up with dynamic and interesting poses without a ref, because using them has built up my understanding of the body (it's actually way easier IMO to draw a dynamic pose without a ref than it is to draw a dude just standing there without one ?!)

there's sort of a push and pull for me between accuracy/realism ("can the arm Actually bend that way???") and exageration/stylistic liscense ("if it doesn't, does it look cooler like that?") where it helps to KNOW if you're drawing something that isn't technically "anatomically correct."

there's also a lot to be said for tracing over photos for practice!

thank you for the question, i love to talk about these things ^_^