#ive done one (1) swatch before and thats it

[sundancefemme]

trying out sock knitting for my friend’s birthday!

[sheepishs]

dumb question but how do you do those color studies for fictional characters (like the one you did for the dr2 cast)? i can do color/light/shading studies when i have a reference but when i try to make them up from imagination my brain has trouble checking whether the shadows and colors are accurate. any books/videos youd recommend?

there are no dumb questions when it comes to art!! its hard to figure things out on ur own :D

honestly its difficult to describe how i do them because for me its a very self-indulgent "turn my brain off and put colours wherever until it feels right" type of activity. but i will put my general advice under a cut because i talk a lot about drawing

my main advice would be to keep doing what ur doing, studies will always be more useful than anything else. for me i see the most improvement when i just chill out and observe things irl even if im not drawing them. i genuinely just stare at things and think about their colours, no need to do anything more than observe.

im the worlds #1 art tutorial hater so i don't have any cool youtube recommendations or anything but The Practice and Science Of Drawing by Harold Speed is public domain and is very good for just bringing ur brain back to the fundamentals of how drawing works if you haven't read it before.

in practical advice, my drawings improved hugely once i started paying attention to values. its easy to check this when doing digital art by having a layer thats just a flat midtone grey with the layer style set to saturation. i constantly turn that layer on/off whenever im drawing to make sure im happy with the amount of contrast between dark and light, and also to see whether im happy with the shapes of the highlights and shadows in my drawings.

to me making sure the values are correct is much more important than anything else. its always possible to go in and change the hue or saturation of a colour to make the drawing more cohesive, but much more difficult to correct the values if you've placed a bunch of colours in the same mid value range.

while im doing studies or just drawing in general i also save swatches of colours that ive used that i think look good (not sure if this is a feature on all drawing applications but i think it is in most major ones like photoshop, procreate). you can probably see similarities in colours that i use throughout the things ive posted because if i feel like i don't know where to start, i often start by placing colours that ive used before and then modifying them to whatever i want. its also fine to look at real things when you're drawing fictional characters, i'll often just take breaks to look at a bunch of photos or videos or even just go outside to refresh my brain on how things look.

last and most important thing ever is that sometimes ur colours will just look like shit. i have made so many bad drawings in my life with muddy colours and poorly done lighting but i just keep going until i make something that i like 💪 i think for me the most important thing ive ever done is just let go of the expectation for my drawings to be good. sometimes they are just complete garbage but to me thats an indicator that im doing something outside of my current skill level, which is exactly what leads to improvement. so i wouldn't worry if it feels like your brain is having trouble working through certain things at the moment, it just means your practical skills are in the process of catching up to your observational skills

[tomatograter]

Do you have any tips on starting fics? Like thinking of idea's, getting motivation, and thinking up plots and themes?

Think of things you want to read about! The litmus test of anything writing-related to me is if i think it is compelling for myself. Trying to appeal to an outside audience can be very discouraging and counterproductive to getting words out.

I realize not everyone thinks like this, but i believe fics should be no different than other kinds of fiction, so; try to think of a Genre for your story while you're brainstorming it. This could flatten the process. It doesn't have to be set in stone, but ideally, placing what you intend to write as an "action" "adventure" "horror" "western" "dissertation" "comedy" "scifi" "missing scenes" etc etc story can be helpful to develop an atmosphere, further ideas, define what kinds of devices are to be employed and such.

Specially when it comes to fanfic and dealing with prewritten characters (see: dming for tabletop roleplaying games), i also think it is useful to write a story that challenges your characters. Not "i have a setting. I guess the characters will kick it up somehooooooow?". Make it tailor made. Character is afraid of snakes? Throw a fucking naja at them. This is a critical moment, what happens? Whos affected? Why should we care? What are the consequences? That gets your brain running. "Character is very invested in (X)" ok, now crush it. Same questions as before, why should we care? Can you pierce it back together? So on and so forth.

When you're cobbling it together, think of what kinds of situations could make a good contrast to their personality, troubles, weaknesses and a little bit of their strengths. (Balance it out.) It keeps things more engaging and interesting if your character is walking towards something, rather than being limblessly pushed by a series of events.

Being acquainted with the characters you're writing, their ticks, interests and embarassing traits is very helpful here. Play to their tune.

Dont let your scenes be an afterthought. You'll still have to write them after all!!! Not every scene has to be a showstopper, but if you find yourself writing large swatches of text whose only purpose is filling up space and not doing much tonally, emotionally, or character-wise, what is the point? Write things you want to read about. Think of the minutiae. 'How is this meeting/development/conflict different from others ive seen? Is it funnier? Is it unexpected? Is it cute? Is it embarassing - how can i make it evoke something like these traits?'

Write to your/your audience's level. Purple prose is cool, but are you comfortable with it? Does the story call for it? Are you sure you aren't more comfortable with other structures? Homestuck fanfic is neat because it's the fandom where I've seen the most entertaining works utilizing second person, and they can really rock.

Be indulgent. Don't be afraid to be stupid. This is self-explanatory. Keep a little document with all your ideas and dumb thoughts, no matter how messy they are. You'll eventually thank yourself for writing them down and not losing them later. Who cares if you want to write a fairy themed romance set in space? Wait, thats homest

Read other fanfics, sure, but read things that aren't fanfic. A lot of fanworks follow molds that may not be the best to replicate in your own writing. (Remember the "genre" bit from above? This is also helpful here, because then you know what to look for.) Hell, you don't even have to settle down to read all 600 pages of a book. Read opening statements from different authors. Compare and contrast first chapters. Find out what you like and what you dislike re: writing and try to replicate it in the lab. Do you have a story hook? Do these authors have a story hook that made you want to keep reading? How was that applied?

You're not going to write the fucking Mona Lisa on the first draft. Get that concept into your head, make peace with it, there, now you're friends. First drafts suck ass.

First drafts should suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck big smelly turds.

You're not doing it wrong. Try not to be discouraged! Instead, take it as a chance to read over your story and figure out what is not working. Write it again, with improvements. Personally i can't write anything straight through and i know very little people who can without having planned it beforehand - thats another keyword. Loosely planning scenes and a sequence of events showing how things happen is good even if you're improvising most of it, it gives you direction. Even better, sometimes it can help you visualize entire chapters or stories before punching them out. Even better! Crossing out the little blurbs of scenes you've completed and seeing how many are left to go can keep you motivated to finish the whole thing.

Writing is a laborious process, you dont need to make it more mystifying. Most of the magic comes with editing, re-writing, and adjustements.

Also, when you're done writing let it rest. Coming back to a text you think is finished 1-2 days later can be very illuminating, as opposed to posting straight away.

I hope this is useful in some way, and if it isn't, maybe this could be more up to your speed:

(Don't be intimidated by the equation. That was a very optional tip in a runtime of friendlier ones)

This lecture has some engaging tips on quickly snapping up concepts for short stories - your intention may not be writing a short story, but you still can get a kick out of how quickly she can structure them, brainstorming, what is used to give a sense of narrative progress, how to break complex things into bites, etc. Don't be afraid to learn stuff from people who have been doing this for longer than you have, but remember no writing instruction is necessarily universal.