#wanted to challenge myself with drawing perspective without the use of a reference

[mininikiwi]

Sukuna lying like a lazy cat :3

[choochooboss]

Sketch dump! Vol. 5

September 2022 (Part 1/2)

The first piece on top summarised my cosplay rush for Tracon 2022! The second is an old idea for a charm.

"SURPRISE!!"

Back in 2022 I hosted an art raffle for reaching 777 followers on Twitter! The winner would get their submas themed idea realised (which was their friends throwing a surprise party for the twins!). I wanted to make a little comic and have the bosses walk in their office where depot agents, Elesa, Drayden, Skyla, Clay etc. would be waiting with decorations and treats and games.

Emmet is all smiles of course while Ingo gets so emotional he could only whisper a "super bravo".

Not really headcanons anymore but still funny ideas.

1. Emmet gets clumsy when off-rhythm! He starts walking in curves if there is nobody else around to match his rhythm with.

2. Emmet spaces out/forgets to say things aloud when someone speaks too long or when things go off-script! His thinking gets interrupted easily.

3. Ingo sometimes bumps into doors because he is too used to automatic doors!

4. When things go off-script Ingo speaks too much and rushes in straight lines"

Also my little inexpensive sketchbook & my trusty tools! Mechanical pencil and eraser pen are life when scribbling my skrimblos smaller than a postage stamp!

More Ingo~ I utilise a wide range of sources for references, including CSP's poseable 3D models, they can come really handy with perspectives and proportions!

The second piece is my very first attempt at cosplay in Tracon 2022: Blingo! I walked in with a sequin hat, leather jacket, leather pants and high heel patent leather boots.

The hardest part of cosplaying Ingo is remembering NOT to smile ahaha!

Some hairstyle tests

I drew these for a huge submas art collaboration over Twitter hosted by @/mimizukeii!! It was technically my first art collab before I started arranging them myself with Aggie/Magma.

While looking for train related songs I found this cute nursery rhyme to go with the marching:

"Over the mountains,

Over the plains,

Over the rivers,

Here come the trains.

Carrying passengers,

Carrying mail,

Bringing their precious loads In without fail"

I wanted to compare these silly twins, planning to do something more silly with them later. Also a sketch of @/fukurow's butler designs I never finished.. The capes compliment them so well, I love them!!

Prequel to this piece! Emmet is so confident in himself he thinks Pierce wants to learn from him but is invited for a duet on the stage instead!!

Emmet has really great voice actors in Pokemas! I especially love how his english VA gives him that bri'ish/posh/sophisticated vibe while also soft and melodic! I know for SURE this VA/Emmet can sing, I can show you later!

One of my favourite sketches!! I wanted to add a bunch of characters in the BG reacting to this sonic blast of emotion over a performance!

Heyyy it's the smile buddies comic!! I really hope Ingo gets to interact with Marnie in Pokemas one day!!

I feel Ingo's eyes in the mirror panel is a little off in the final comic, I meant to keep it softer like in the sketch!

It's Nimbasa trio!! Idea inspired by submas EX uniform colors. Might continue this later!

Some BG tests for this piece! Compositing is hard but absolutely worth the effort, it can make a huge difference in the appeal of your piece!!

Practise piece drawing over a photo I thought was cool! I want to get more experimental with lighting and perspective!

'How's it hanging bro?' Who hung him up there anyway??

Sketch for this arguing scene! Something REALLY BAD needs to happen for them to end up that tense! Even if I want to present them close to the canon material I still want to put them in really challenging situations to see how far I can push their emotions!

Thank you so much for coming all the way down here!! This set was pretty loaded, I hope you enjoyed scrolling through all this ahah!

Previous posts:

Sketch dump Vol. 1: April-June 2022

Sketch dump Vol. 2: July 2022

Sketch dump Vol. 3: August 2022

Sketch dump Vol. 4: July 2022 Part 2

[starrythroat]

hello! i've been following you for a while now and let me just say, your art is absolutely amazing. i especially love the way you draw bodies! could you give us some advices of how to improve anatomy skills?

Hello, thank you so much!

I struggle with anatomy very much and I have too little discipline to do studies often, so I'm implementing anatomy studies into my drawing process in the way the challenge is both not too great and not too low

For example If I feel too challenged by perspective and don't want to get too much stress I use dolls (these are inside csp), but instead of tracing them I make anatomy sketch on top in places i don't understand using variety of references to better understand what is happening (and in places I think understand I often just change some things):

But when I feel like It I try to assemble everything from the ground by myself, starting with boxes (or other primitive volumes, there are many different methods and i like trying new ones) in perspective

I cannot do anything regarding anatomy\figure drawing without perspective, I need at least to have horizon line (camera eye level, everything below line is something you look down on, everything above is something you look up to

When dolls (handmade or csp ones) are placed, i go for the references. For me learning bones and muscles is very hard, so I do it again and again and again and use it in practice. Here I recommend:

proko free anatomy course

anatomy-related videos of Mark Brunet

book "anatomy for sculptors"

book "anatomy for artists, drawing form and pose" by tomfoxdraws

making board on pinterest with muscles and bones and stuff

Main idea i got from anatomy struggle is that this stuff is hard, human body is hard, and If I want to draw here and now I need to realize my weaknesses here and work hard enough without loosing fun, because If I to lose fun I won't be making progress at all

Anatomy is hard subject but not in the scary way but like - I believe you need learn and practice (retrieving stuff from memory is important when you've learned it!!) same stuff many times to get something in your head. I'm still very bad at it and I don't remember most of the muscles although i look at them almost every day, but Im better than I was before and my shapes are looking better too

[hawkland]

Art Masterpost: Solitudes

Story by: ilovehowyouletmefall (@angelinthefire) Art by: sidewidner (@hawkland)

It's October and that means it's @deancasbigbang season once again! This year makes for my third time around for the event, although this year I only managed to participate as an artist (I'm still in a bit of writer's burnout since the summer). But, that meant I could put all of my focus and time into doing these four pieces for @angelinthefire's wonderful story "Solitudes." I'm gonna talk a little bit about my ideas and process and share some progress pictures behind the cut in a way that might be kind of spoilery, so if you want, just go read the story now! And then you come back here later to find out more if you wish. All works were completed in watercolor with some digital effects and filtering after completion.

I was really drawn to the imagery of the architectural elements of where the story takes place (an abandoned brutalist mansion) vs. nature and decay...plus the way light and shadow seemed to play such important roles in the visual descriptions. Dean and Cas spend so much of the story separated by supernatural forces even when they are in the same room I wanted to focus on that as well: being so near yet so far apart, not quite connecting or even able to look at each other without barriers.

I started on the banner art right away, thinking of Dean in despair (for reasons in the story) and Cas yearning/wishing he could reach him. Behind them both is the concrete wall covered in mold and moss (which was a LOT of fun to paint). The actual final watercolor painting came out as so:

(This is one of my favorite Deans that I've painted. His face can be SO hard to get right!)

Working with angelinthefire's suggestions I ran some different digital filters on the photo to desaturate/emphasize the light and dark for the final banner, and then with that in mind tried to keep the other pieces in a similar color scheme and tonal range.

The atrium painting was the biggest challenge. I knew I wanted to do a piece to capture the feeling of the house, the light coming in from an open skylight falling on brambles growing out of an old fountain spot. I was thinking of the Roman villa ruins I've visited combined with some actual Brutalist/modern homes I looked up. My original drawing plan was a bit more complicated and simplifying/taking out some elements definitely makes it more creepy/mysterious looking and less like a funky modern home.

You can see the vanishing/perspective point is right where Dean is looking at Cas.

The light falling down from above was partially painted with some interference/shimmer watercolors, but I amplified it (along with the shadows) with some digital effects at the end. This was before doing any digital magic:

Dean reaching for Cas: I made myself so sad working on that piece! It was also quite the challenge to get the likeness right at that angle and do the lighting the way I wanted, so again I used some digital effects at the end to really intensify it. Painting before filters:

I think my favorite part of that one is how I dry-brushed the ash wings in one shot and they came out just how I wanted! My main reference was, heh, that old classic shot of unconscious Cas being poked with a stick. I used my own hand for Dean's reaching out to what he sees through the harsh angled light.

The final piece is a direct companion to the one above it, and one I'd been thinking about for weeks, trying to map it out mentally before tackling it. Dean's face can be so much more challenging for me to try to capture well compared to Cas's and I really wanted to get his shock and horror in that moment while also being able to show (the real) Cas in the background/shadows...this was the third drawing pass before I finally started painting it. There's only a light bit of filtering over the final piece to push Cas back in the shadows (I didn't want to do with the paints for fear of muddying the colors...plus I was already painting Cas so small any wrong brush stroke could shift his likeness/expression.)

Overall I really like how unified these pieces all ended up feeling and I hope they manage to complement the story in a way that it deserves!

[grimvestige]

2023 Summary of Art!

This year was full of experimenting and trying new things, and I think it really paid off in the end. I'm getting more comfortable with pixels, I finally have a way of painting I can do reliably, and I feel like I refined my main cel-shaded style a lot! I also feel like I improved on fundamentals just a bit more, with more solidly constructed anatomy (which I want to get even better at in 2024), and shading that actually makes more sense.

I feel like I'm finally getting to a point where I like my art - and a huge part of that is my partner picking up the habit of asking me what I like about a piece whenever I showed him something I made this year. It was super hard when he started, but now I can find at least one, maybe two things that are my favorite. I used to feel really, really neutral to bad about most of my work. I just did it and it was done, and on to the next piece. I knew I was "good" at art, but never really in the way I wanted. Now I'm daring to set my own work as my desktop and phone wallpapers.

I also finished a yearly challenge for the first time ever! Not that I completed every day of it, but I tasked myself with drawing a "Daily Snake" each day - as in Metal Gear, not the creature. It was sort of like those year of Miku challenges, but with Snake that left me room to draw any version of him. It was a fun thing because at the end of the day it ended up being like a little diary of my art, I could tell how I was feeling, whether I had lots of time to draw, all that. I think there was one time when I drew Liquid, there was an ACAB Snake in there, and also a trans one for fun.

Going into 2024 I have three big overarching art goals I want to work towards.

I want to learn and improve my anatomy enough to be able to solidly construct a body in perspective without needing to grab reference. (Not that I'll stop using reference, this is meant to be a goal that forces me to learn even more anatomy to feel confident with it)

I want to push my colors to be a lot wilder and more interesting. Rather than just picking the correct "local" color and working with light, shadow, and gradient maps to tweak colors, I want to be able to make interesting color choices right off the bat.

I want to at least try to start figuring out 'the style' for ttrpg art. (That nice rendered painting style you see in core books!) I'd really LOVE to start working on those projects, but I know most of them shoot for a different art style than I have.

The general plan is to keep doing studies, with the first half of the year being anatomy, the second half being color, and the ttrpg style thing being spread out throughout.

Thank you to everyone who's supported me and hung out on Tumblr! It genuinely means a lot, as this has been my go-to site when I'm down, and the one where I feel most comfortable sharing my art because the platform itself isn't predatory. I hope 2024 brings everyone lots of comfort and joy this year 💕

[owlzer]

Week 9 - Racer Post Mortem

Fullerton has made some interesting insights in conceptualisation. Where do our ideas and inspirations come from? They talk about how some people that are very inspirational to me such as Shigeru Miyamoto have used personal interests and their hobbies as an influential part of the game design. I feel I have taken my personal interests to heart in all of my mini-games sourcing my own creativity and game mechanics around them. Fullerton talk about Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who has broken up creativity into 5 stages: preparation, incubation, insight, evaluation and elaboration. The 'creative process' is described as a very fluid thing and we are encouraged to become involved in many aspects of life to fuel our preparation and incubation stages. Although I feel like I have slowed down quite a bit in life with the amount of activities I do, I am still able to draw from a wide range of experiences for inspiration. I have done girl guides, dance, travelled, played and instrument just to name a few. I am going on another trip this year and I will take creative advantage of it. From my experience making my one sheet and one page, I really want to challenge myself going forward to make something completely original and my own and I feel it will really challenge me to go through all 5 stages of creativity and will be very rewarding.

Digital prototyping has really become a main focus of making these mini-games. Game mechanics, aesthetics, kinesthetics and technology are four areas of investigation highlighted by Eric Todd.

Throughout my process, I feel that I have investigated game mechanics and aesthetics the most. However, I have greatly neglected kinesthetics and technology. Kinesthetics are describes as the 'feel' of the game (e.g. responsiveness and how controls feel). Although I unintentionally focused on this in my first game when I was working on my main grapple mechanic, this was overlooked in my other two games. In my racing game I just kept the original controls which I feel like was a mistake. Although it worked and did its job, I feel like more experimentation with the kinesthetics could have made the game feel more immersive. My interfaces in all of my games were also really bland. My racing game had a decent title screen but the score and game over screen were really lacking as they were very simple text. A more effective interface could have really added to the player experience.

My racer game is the one that I felt had the most potential. This is why I used it for my one sheet and one page. This game, more than the others has shown me the incredible values of playtesting. This is due to the great amount of improvement the game has gained from the feedback I have received. I don't think the game would have reached this potential without it and I will carry these thoughts with me as I continue my journey as a designer. This game also really challenged me as an artist as I had to draw in top-down view, a skill I have barley developed yet. It has shown me that I'm still very early in my art journey and to really practice drawing in different perspectives. Making a powerup for the first time was really fun and if I were to make Captain Sora's Sea Scurry I would really enjoy the challenge of making the other powerups I came up with. I think I have really improved as a coder and in using Gdevelop 5 as I am constantly researching how to code new things and use other parts of the program. Although the game is still very simple, it has really taught me a lot about the true value of each and every stage of the process. I hope from these experiences that it will help me grow into a game designer that can truly master digital prototyping and take these skills with me as I develop my own game with my partner.

References:

Fullerton, T. (2018). Game Design Workshop: A Playcentric Approach to Creating

Innovative Games. ProQuest Ebook. Retrieved

from:  https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=5477698

[likegemstone]

I have been in a really good groove with creating lately, and just with like "working" in general. In the past, creating has often involved a massive and constant mental wrestling match against myself—second guessing every decision, fighting through constant discouragement, rarely if ever feeling confident in what I'm working on, etc. Just all this emotional/mental exertion on top of the regular emotional/mental exertion that goes into making art.

But lately I have felt really in sync with myself—we're dancing instead of wrestling. I've been brave enough to try out new things that I've never done before (which is REALLY hard for me, like REALLY hard), and been able to notice and accept the areas of my work that I can see need improvement without beating myself up bc they aren't "good enough" yet. It has been really nice, and has shown me that, when I can care for and take responsibility for myself properly (which I now have the skills and tools to do thanks to a lot of inner work and also therapy), I can learn, grow, and improve pretty steadily, and without all the agony of that fucking exhausting wrestling match.

However.

I made a post recently about how I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked (and also kicking ass), right? That is in great part due to the fact that I was, at the time, rereading Kengan Asura/Kengan Omega (which is an MMA manga) and I was Very Inspired. And I still am. I've been gathering reference and inspo ever since then. And today I ran out of Haikyuu!! to watch so I was like okay now is the time—I want to draw some sick action scenes with Daivad.

But then. Here comes the anxiety. The overwhelm. The "there's no way you can pull off some sick action scenes—you can barely place characters in a scene and make it look legit, you want to try to do multiple characters interacting in a scene in extreme and dynamic poses?? no shot. and once you try and inevitably fail then you're going to be discouraged and start beating yourself up again and you'll ruin this momentum we've got going on."

So, this post is going to be me using those tools and skills I have now to work through this. Because I know I can. I've done it before.

First skill I'm going to be using: recognizing what exactly is triggering this anxiety, and figuring out a plan to care for the Part of me that's triggered. I want to ensure I'm making my decisions from Core, not from a triggered Part, and I also want to ensure I'm caring for those vulnerable Parts!

I think the thing that is making me feel so anxious and overwhelmed is because dynamic action scenes are so far out of my comfort zone and I haven't come up with a plan for connecting the dots of my current skill to Dynamic Action Scene Skill. It's a whole big leap, and that Part of me sees aaaaalllll of those, like dozens of really tricky dots that I have not mastered yet (perspective, composition, conveying movement, dynamic poses IN perspective, and so on) and is like "!!!!! HOLD UP THAT'S TOO MUCH I CAN'T FIGURE THIS OUT ALL AT ONCE. Trying to master all that stuff will take literal years and probably good money to pay for lessons from people who know wtf they're doing!!"

So, I'll care for that Part by saying: That's true! And it's okay! I'm not going to try to get the perfect action scene down right away, because you're right. Trying to force that would absolutely wreck our confidence and be really frustrating as well. And I appreciate the reminder that biting off more than I can chew can knock me back a few steps. Small bites are best sometimes.

Next skill, now that that Part has calmed down a lot and also feels steadied: coming up with a plan. I want to draw Daivad getting his ass kicked, but don't currently have the skills to pull off a whole Dynamic Action Scene yet. So how am I going to meet that desire/feed my inspiration (Daivad getting his ass kicked) while still protecting my Parts, challenging my skills, and caring for my mental health?

One dot at a time.

I could start with just breaking down some of my favorite panels from KA. Examining how Daromeon frames his scenes, how he works with perspective, how he conveys movement, etc. But specifically I want to see Daivad getting his ass kicked—so maybe I'll start with just one pose that feels doable for my skill level, use KA as reference for the pose and put Daivad in it, and since I have gotten decent at capturing his likeness, I can challenge myself to put an extreme expression on his face and still have him be recognizable. That's totally doable—it'll take time and work and lots of effort, but it's doable! And it will bring me one step closer to Dynamic Action Scene skill level!

Alright, now I'm feeling excited and fired up and also I have an exact pose in mind and I think I already have it saved somewhere, so I am off to draw Daivad, Bloody and In Pain. Wish me luck y'all!

[dibbs-n-scribbs]

Fanwork creators self rec! When you get this, reply with your three best and/or favorite fanarts/fanfics/moodboards/whatever that you've made, then pass on to others. No self-deprecation allowed! Let's get this self-love going ON!

Sorry for the late response, but oh boy get ready for a lot of text! (Also thx for sending this Babs!)

My TF2 oc Darnell! I mostly post about her on my tf2 alt acc (haha plug moment @general-marzipan). I made her fairly recently (about 1-2 months ago), but he just gives me so much joy. Although originally made to be a self-insert character, they became their own character who has helped me learn more about myself as a person, & even find things that I actually like about myself. I love how her design is simple but still enough to differ from the engineer class, I love the little scenarios I think of with him in it cause they range from silly to serious & she also gives me so many creative ideas, something I haven't had in a while. So to sum this up, I love her I love her I love her I love her I love her!

My artfight attack for @/gearbroth's oc Star Gordon! I was super excited to see that one of my favorite artists was on Artfight this year, so I worked extra hard on the pose & overall expression of this piece so that the viewer can feel the intensity that the character is feeling in that harsh moment. I definitely experimented with different settings & textures, & I think I did pretty well considering the fact that I used a new drawing program for the piece! Overall I'm very proud of this piece & definitely want to try some harsh expressions some time again in the future!

My TF2 Scout x Reader Oneshot Fanfic! For years I've loved reading fanfics of my favorite characters, so after years of consideration, I had finally decided to write my own oneshot! I knew when writing this I wanted to write in the perspective of me being in that situation, cause I want something to be realistic yet a level of silliness that I would enjoy (I also like fictional men a lot haha). I may be a beginner at writing, but I'm pretty proud of this piece! I haven't read it in a while, but I remember staying up late to figure out how the scenes would be described, which teammates would cheer for who, what challenges would commence, how the romance would play out while also keeping the characters as close to canon as possible without making them too ooc. I tried to reference my favorite writing styles as much as possible, & I spent days thinking of different dialogue options & how the fanfic would eventually end. I could go on & on about this piece I love it so much. I'm even working on some other oneshots, so I'm glad I could start my fanfic writing off on a good note!

I haven't made a lot of stuff recently, since artblock's been kicking my butt for a while, but overall I'm quite happy with my creations & hope to bring more content in the future!

[vnnyy]

CTS _ A week 1 - Critical thinking

The way that I know about critical thinking is about solving problems, finding new perspectives, and being mindful of making a decision. But after the activities, I learned critical thinking is more than that, like we have to understand visual thinking, visual elements, and how to think designerly and be more innovative, like, (For example, when we have a research assignment to draw logos with our left hand, we have to find references to do logo. We used the logo that we took as a reference, we envisioned it to find our own ideas and sketch it out, then do observations and examine the details. I innovate it carefully because it is my first time drawing using my left hand. I also develop my innovative skill deeply, trying to use my ideas to provide value to others.)

What have you learned about Mindfulness?How might you integrate this into your learning environment?

The practice of mindfulness meditation has been shown to improve mental focus and concentration while also promoting physical and mental relaxation. i  intend to use this three-minute technique when I feel exhausted and want to relax because it makes me more focused.When my stress arises, mindfulness helps me to pause and observe my emotional state without judgment, then learned to acknowledging the tension and maintain it.

in weeks 2, we have group activities. I was very shy and quiet. There is 1 boy and 1 girl they are really friendly and humble. They change the mood of the group, which helps to make us feel comfortable speaking up and sharing our ideas for the project. I know I am an awkward person, especially with new people. That's why when I saw their action, it inspired me to feel more comfortable with my own skin and be more relaxed. After that, we continue to do line assignments together, and we make the air pollution from rope. This experience really helps me to be more open and be myself. For example, I will not talk to my classmates if these experiences didn't happen. But if that is the case, my other solution is that I will push myself to be social with other people or get out of my comfort zone to interact with new people.

Right now, by going through this experience, I noticed I have the belief in myself that helps me to be more sociable, humble, and have more empathy for my surroundings.

(391 words)

References:

By Jeff Archibald,Paper Leaf. "This means new challenges, new techniques to learn, and an ever-growing skill set. Design is an exciting field, thanks to its never-ending march towards progression." 12 Jan, 2012, https://paper-leaf.com/insights/the-best-parts-of-being-a-designer/ . Accessed 15 Nov.2024.

[plloydarts246]

Reading & Reflection 9

Type on Screen

This chapter discusses the challenges of preserving the integrity of type in on-screen design. It explains the limitations of rendering type on screens, such as the reduction in resolution and the jagged appearance of curved and diagonal edges. ​It also talks about techniques for displaying on-screen fonts, such as antialiasing and hinting. Which I never understood fully and I think is interesting to know about. ​Also it provides guidelines for selecting typefaces for on-screen use. For example, using sans serif typefaces for clarity and simplicity. ​ The use of grids is still very important when it comes to web design and creating web pages. I pulled the quote below because every designer knows the struggle of choosing a font. A good choice (would could take a long time) can make or break a design.

"As (web) designers gain access to a greater percentage of the world’s font libraries, the need to understand typography from historical, technological, and communicative perspectives is critical."

We finished up working on our Zine projects this week and I was dreading the process as usual. That being said, I like how it turned out, especially referring to the postcard aspect of the design. I feel like it was sort of different from the others that I saw. It was very challenging as far as placement goes for several panels because you have to account for "THE FOLD." I test printed and folded so many times to get it correct and I still managed to mess it up in the end.

Anyhow, our next 2 projects are a little daunting in my opinion. I have only just begun sketches and things. But I have a vision for what the poster could become, hopefully my skill will match that. I have completed a good amount of research into the national park that I am working with. The Sequoia national park is one that is dominated by the large redwoods. I am faced with the challenge of giving the viewer some notion of scale and grandeur and trees without just obviously using a tree trunk. I added some sketches that I liked here.

Below I added the design I made for the Friends of Congaree Swamp. I was tasked with remaking an old design, they only had a single photo of the bandanna, and they wanted it digitized. At first I tried to just pen tool it and add text with a font I chose. They wanted it all done by hand to match the original drawing style. So I used a stylus in illustrator and redrew all the lines and words by hand. I got ahead of myself and created this soundtrack and everything for the video below. I will also try to do the same thing for my current national park. But next time, I will have to make up my mind sooner.

[dashawfrostart]

This Week In "Time & Again" #9: LINEART IS DONE!!! And My Adventures With Krita Assistants! [Longread warning]

First things first! It took me a while (again) to make yet another one post, but taking a small social hiatus was totally and utterly worth it, let me tell you!!! Because here's the news:

THE LINEART FOR CHAPTER 5 IS COMPLETELY DONE!!! Yaaaaaay!!! 🥳

(happy cheering, happy music playing (my personal favourite is Skinny Puppy - very happy indeed), sounds of jolly hand clapping, and a cake, somebody please bring in the cake!.. wait... the cake is a lie... 😱 hmmm, every time I refer to this joke, I want to alter it and say, "A pie is a lie, but the cake is fake!" Personally, makes me happy, but also makes me sound a bit like Mad Hatter to everyone around😅 which is fine, I love "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland")

Not gonna lie, it feels like I spend a little bit more time on lineart alone comparing to what I've been expecting from myself: different factors have contributed to the delay, and among of them was a short-term loss of a creative spark as well (which is always incredibly unpleasant, yaaarrrr!), but nonetheless! It is done!!! And let me tell you - it is done in style 😎 Ich bin sehr froh 🥳 However, contrary to what I've just written above simply for fun, it's not time to celebrate just yet. I'll probably take a small 24 hour break from my project - to take a breather and recalibrate my brain to successfully switch to colouring mode, ya know - and I'll just keep working on it to keep up the pace! The Colouring Stage is waiting for me, wheeeeeee!!! ... Wait, but so happened I already had my 24 hours off drawing yesterday. 🤔 WELL, NO TIME TO SPARE NOW: BACK TO WORK!!!...

But only after I'm done writing this post, for I have a moral obligation to finish it up 😁

So, earlier I promised to share my experience with Krita Assistant Tool with you. This is going to be very technical, so prepare yourselves, happy folks. Here goes.

I've used Krita's Assistant Tool before. I started to use it quite extensively as the work on Chapter 2 began, for I had to represent strictly geometric shapes of rooms, and corridors, and even the whole floors, for almost the entire set of events was happening indoors. In a peculiar place. The entirety of Chapter 1 with the exception of, say, 2 or 3 panels at most, took place within Lothar's mansion in Sweden. That one also required quite a few geometric shapes, but for some reason I did well without any help of Assistant Tool - I don't remember for sure by now, but I only used it briefly for some panels/frames. And it did not require anything particularly complex then. Mind you, during the development of Chapter 1 I've been still learning my newly obtained graphic tablet - that was the first time I ever used one (and now I don't want to go back to neither mouse and keyboard drawing or a "blind" tablet - eff that! 🤣). In this respect, Chapter 2 was a game changer. I wanted to raise the plank further up and challenge myself to do even better with the perspectives of urban buildings and interiors. And since approximately that time, I believe, Assistant Tool has become a precious little helper for me. Thank you so much, Krita devs!

As you can see in the documentation, Assistant Tool has many features and different modes. I primarily use those tools to draw perfect - or almost perfect - urban perspectives, for those might be a bit tricky to do right off the bat. However, some of those tools might be used in a non-conventional or less expected ways. Let me show you some of my experiments with them.

Starting off with the basics, of course.

Above you can see the screenshot that illustrates how I used to normally set up the perspective assistant grid for the more correct view of a room - I've been doing that very thing beginning from Chapter 2. Basically I create a bunch of perspective grids and join them to create an imitated 3D view of a room. That really helps a lot.

I mentioned a certain video tutorial that really helped me out on my journey of meowstering - sorry, mastering the Assistant Tool in a way that's helpful to me. It was this incredibly helpful little video I watched trying to figure out how to build a one point perspective view for one of the panels I challenged myself to draw. However... I discovered something else instead: Parallel Rulers and an obvious "Snap To Assistants" function. Both of which are super helpful to use. I never paid attention to "snap to assistants" before. Now I wonder why 😅

Parallel Rulers help to draw totally straight lines when working on a perspective view - like the one that I was having a hard time dealing with when trying to portray an extremely skewed backstreet perspective. All of that is done without the use of the Line Tool.

While parallel rulers are something that I'm still learning and practising, the self-explanatory "snap to assistants" is an excellent function that just makes your life significantly easier.

I used a combination of Ellipse and Vanishing Point with "snap to assistants" function on to create spectacularly precise and nice looking sports wristwatch for Lothar. This is just how I love it: extremely geometric and correct, but with slight imperfections that make it lively and natural, with a visible hand-drawn "fluctation" to the outlines:

For example, here's a good comparison for you to see what I'm talking about: to the left it's a gif illustrating how I drew the wristwatch outlines with an Assistant with Ellipse setting that snaps to the assistants, and to the right there's a gif showing how to do the same (but way worse) simply using the separate Ellipse Tool using the same brush as an outline. Behold the difference:

For the record, I used the same neat trick to draw the nice lines around that "Hit!" special effect on another one page, to make it look cleaner and more professional:

Spline is yet another one type of assistant that might come in handy in certain situations, for some artists. In my case this time, I used it so add extra thickness to a certain line that has already been drawn to make it look more appealing and lively:

Thus, instead of trying numerous times to reproduce the same brush stroke (and inevitably failing at it repeatedly) to add just a little thickness to already existing stroke, one can simply draw a Spline "vector path" on top of it, turn "snap to assistants" on and draw a perfect, non-shaky line that doesn't stray somewhere you don't want to. Neat-o! If you're somewhat familiar with vector software (like I am), using Spline and making it exactly the shape you need is easy-peasy: it has two handles so that you could adjust the position and the curve of the assistant line. Works exactly as a basic Bezier Curve. Super simple!

That's gonna be enough for now. Since this post has grown fairly large in size (I never change, eh?), I'm thinking about taking a longer break in posting again. So I might return in about 2 weeks with more news on how the colouring of Chapter 5 is going!

Stay tuned, and have fun! Lothar is on his way back to you, and Jeanny will follow up, too 😉 Take care!

[tenasselin]

In 2012, there was a popular challenge running around DeviantArt where artist would pick an old artwork of theirs and redraw it. I jumped on the bandwagon without thinking much about it. But somewhere around the process, I decided I wanted to redraw this piece 5 years later, then perhaps 5 years after, and so on. Just like that, a tradition was born.

My art has improved over time for sure. Since 2012, I took an art course in college, attended several figure drawing sessions, upgraded tools, experimented with some techniques and used more reference pictures than before (I used to be like "I got this! It's in my head". Here's a tip if you want to improve your art: don't be like that).

But then, I stopped.

At some point, my inspirations faded away. I have always been, and still am, very imaginative, but I reached my limits drawing-wise. It's also around the time I started questioning my art and art in general, the type of questions that hinder your creativity more than it helps. So I stopped creating, instead I did drawing studies once in a while. Later, I moved out of town and went to university for a not-art-related course, and I quickly became too busy to draw.

Today, I work full-time in an office job, not making a lot of money but making much more than I ever did as an artist. I slowly picked up on painting and have maybe a few projects in mind. But I am coming back under one condition: I want painting to remain fun. Therefore, I won't pressure myself to become the better artist, I won't be chasing views or comments, and I won't do complicated perspectives or 3D stuff or anything I hate doing. I still do drawing studies because I enjoy learning and observing, and I still attend figure drawing sessions because it makes me socialize with people. But I also watch more movies and animes, I go out more, I picked up on other hobbies like sewing.

Enjoy my art and my overly personal reflections. More thorough analysis coming soon.

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[bratzboykai]

I'm gonna sound possibly mean? lol but something I dont get with people who learn art purely online and in very limited styles now a days is that there is such a complete lack of common sense or like idk artistic instinct??? I'm mostly self taught, both traditionally AND digitally and when I wanted to draw something I would seek out things I felt would help me. And no, I dont mean looking online because, frankly, my family could not afford at home internet services for a very long time up until I started college. What I mean by that, is that as soon as a started getting serious about drawing better I just kept practicing, using as many drawing mediums I could afford from fucking walmart like willow charcoal, charcoal, graphite, kneaded erasures, blending nibs, etc to figure them out, AND USED REFERENCES LIKE CRAZY (which is batshit to me that so many kids dont do cause they think its "cheating"...ITS NOT! I prommy!!!).

I kept asking my mom (a general audience perspective) and my uncle (a trained artistic perspective) on what I could do better (a lot of younger creatives I talk to have a really hard time with critique as well, you gotta learn to open yourself up to that). And more importantly, I would sit down and look at my art. I mean really and literally look at it from different perspectives. It would help best to look at my art from far away OR especially to take a picture of it to be able to break out of that hyperfocus you get when you're working on something. This would help me notice things I didnt like about it or what felt weak about it and figure out what needed fixing from the perspective of someone who didn't have all the tools and terminology to do it. I STILL have things my art is lacking but I make these very conscious observations and try to work on fixing them (for example, now that I'm more comfortable with color, I'm steadily teaching myself more about using color value with lighting etc).

I guess instead of like calling it a lack of artistic instinct I should call it a fear of exploring outside of what's comfortable. Digital art is a really cool medium with endless possibilities but I think a lot of people, especially younger ones, get trapped in comfort zones because of how like more accessible things are. But like I think it's really important to push yourself because otherwise you just get stuck doing the same shit over and over and, I think worse, saying the same thing over and over without elaboration. Art should feel like an extension of you and your voice, and if you've learned a limited, let say, "vocabulary" of sorts with it, how will you ever learn to fully express yourself? It feels good when you reach a point when other people finally understand you when your words link with what deep in your heart right? That's what exploring with art feels like to me!

I dont wanna be like "You kids should try some traditional shit!" But honestly it wont hurt to challenge yourself a lil bit every now and then cause you will benefit from it. Something as easy as like taking a lil break from digital between pieces and just doodle shit by hand. Just think of it as a fun lil exercise you can do to strengthen not just your artistic muscles, but your artistic instincts and introspection.

[hearthandhomemagick]

Food For Thought - Steven Universe

Hello there, I would like to tell you my story and journey with the amazingly beautiful, and wonderfully written TV Show...

Steven Universe.

I started watching this show when it first came out in High School. I mean, I was so excited to watch it that I anticipated the very first episode and sat down with snacks to observe it’s premier. I had become immediately enthralled not only with the art style, but also with the genuine wholesomeness and elucidations of processing emotions and life experiences. I was astounded that a kids show could express to me how to manage my emotions as well as connect with my moral standings. It’s a show I recommended to everyone, but often didn’t talk about because of it being a kids show, and me being almost being grown. It was my secret love until someone else brought it up.

This show stuck with me through the years, and helped me through some of my hardest moments in life. 

I remember watching the episode, “Mindful Education” and melting into Garnet’s lesson of mindfulness and self-awareness. I had been going through a lot at the end of 2016, graduating and going through a rough election along with having to move states for college. My opinions were forming in the extreme area and I had a fire to protect my thoughts and opinions with no restrain or any form of control of my emotional reality. I was rambunctious as much as I was head-strong and, at times, hard-headed all together. 

When this episode aired, I didn’t know why I loved Garnet and Stevonnie’s song, “Here Comes a Thought.” But I did, and it still carries with me into my life today. 

I want to discuss a specific time, though, that this episode saved my sanity and opened my eyes to a concept I didn’t understand when I first watched it. I was on social media, and was defending my opinions against quite a few people by myself. Eventually, I was getting nasty comments from a bunch of millennials telling me, 

“You’re too fucking stupid to understand, maybe you should go back to school, child.”

“You’re so emotional, and your emotions don’t matter here. Imagine being this dumb.”

“Imagine being a dumb bitch like Carly and saying you wanted to cut your penis off to look like a woman.” *NOTE I am not transgender, there is nothing wrong with being transgender and her insinuating such did not bother me. Her rhetoric insinuating trans was wrong is what irked me, this bitch was transphobic and had issues that she needs to repair in her own time. She wrote an entire post based around this context on her personal page using my real name, and she didn’t even know who I was.*

and my personal favorite, “Here’s the suicide hotline, I know your generation is prone to killing themselves and are overly emotional.”

Now, there were over 50, under 100, messages going back and forth where these people were just bullying me and I refused to back down. I wound up in a panic attack in my bedroom, literally wanting to kill myself because they were bullying me. The hotline would have come in handy if it were the actual hotline. I ended up going to my dad and older sister (my older sisters friend was the main one I was arguing with and her posy showed up on my post), because no one on the post was on my side.

Both told me, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” My sister told her friend to stop, and threatened the other girl for her nasty posts and comments. My dad tried to mediate on the post itself, but the people wouldn’t stop. I eventually had to take it down.

My family didn’t calm me down in this moment. Not even a little bit. It felt like a back-handed helping hand. Like they wanted to protect me, but also somewhat agreed with the people on the post.

The only thing that calmed my nerves in this moment, ultimately, was the song, “Here Comes a Thought.” 

I sat in my room, sobbing, hoping to myself that it would make sense as to why it was okay for these things to happen. The song soothed over my nerves, eventually releasing my muscles and giving me a sense ease. I was able to process and realized a few personal things as well. I didn’t realize it, but before long, I was meditating to the song on repeat. I kept telling myself, “I’m okay, this is a thought. A moment. I am not my thoughts. I am not this moment.”

This was simply one of the ways Steven Universe has helped me process and understand myself more. I bring this up because I came across and article today that disappointed me to the core.

The Steven Universe Fandom has toxic tendencies.

I was shook.

How could a child’s show be turned into something so negative? Something that was meant to promote self-awareness, self-love, acceptance of character, and understanding of others had been morphed into a gatekeepers safe haven.

Now I know this isn’t the majority, and before you get offended, hurt or start defending yourself, I want you to ask yourself if what you are defending is an action you would defend from anyone else. If it is, by all means defend your ground.

But the one concept that eludes me, and offers zero substance in terms of valid arguments, is that men can not watch this show. Let me explain why men NEED to watch this fucking show.

My boyfriend watched this entire show, episode for episode, and benefitted from it. This show offered him coping techniques, an understanding of why love should come before war, and mediating every situation so you see and understand every perspective. These are things children shows didn’t offer him growing up, he has often and openly verbalized his need for this show in his childhood because of certain traumas, and we often continue watching it even after seeing every single episode and movie.

This show was never meant for one or two groups of people, and if you feel that way then refer back to the writers themselves who were literally trying to teach the lesson in the show over and over again to NEVER EXCLUDE PEOPLE FROM YOUR GROUP. You exclude people, and you create a division, a war of sorts. You immediately have become the thing Steven Universe advocated against in the first place.

This also leads into the whole “art” situation in the fandom. 

This show is anti-bully. There are commercials for it and everything. It is expressed in multiple episodes why bullying is never a good thing in any situation. 

You simply cannot justify the hypocrisy in bullying someone out of self-expression that literally harms no one. You can’t justify it.

Think about it. You draw or sketch a piece of art that took you hours, or even a few minutes. It’s your favorite character, and maybe you yourself are going through some mental thoughts regarding your weight that lead you to draw the character thinner or bigger. Size shouldn’t matter in any capacity when relating a character to ones self. 

If you’re skinny, you’re beautiful. If you are thick or curvy, you are beautiful. If you are obese or overweight, you are beautiful. Weight doesn’t matter, but representation of body types in different characters does matter.

Imagine a child falls in love with a bigger character, but is experiencing body challenges where she is being picked on for being too thin or scrawny (it happens, I’ve seen it with my nieces). Who are you to say that making her favorite character look like her own body is wrong? Especially if art is a coping mechanism they use for mental health reasons.

Like Malachite, a fusion that was devastating and abusive in every way, you are taking the choice and voice of an entire being to make your actions and opinions “right” or “okay”.

There is so much more I could say on this show, and so much more I could say about the fandom. And I know it is not the majority of the fandom, but I did want to make everyone in the fandom aware that we are human.

None of us are stoic and balanced like Garnet, and even Garnet had problems in her relationship. None of us are strong and laid back like Amethyst, and even she had self-love issues. None of us are as analytical and organized as Pearl, and yet she had problems throughout the series. 

None of you are perfect, and to act as if you are is defeating the purpose of a show trying to teach you how to be responsible for yourself and your actions. I’m not perfect either, and preaching about a fandom I’m not a huge part of sounds counter-intuitive, I’m aware.

But my nieces want to watch this show. My nephew watches this show with me. My boyfriend’s niece is going to start watching the show. 

Please do not make a toxic environment for kids who need this show to grow up. Kids who experience trauma, and learn from this show deserve a safe space without people trying to justify bullying or force them to think that because they are a boy or girl, they can or can’t watch the show. Without people making people feel bad for being themselves.

Why don’t we create a new space? A space where everyone is accepted as they are, and negative behavior is addressed the same way the gems or Steven would address them. With education, perception awareness, and PATIENCE. 

I know some will say, “It’s not my job to raise your child.” and “It’s not my responsibility to make people aware of their tendencies.”

You’re right. It’s also not your responsibility to bully people into changing themselves to fit your dialogue. Simply put, you’re responsible for yourself alone. But you have no right to complain on someone's behavior, art or experiences if you are not willing to be patient with correcting said behavior in yourself first.  

Who knows, maybe I’m in the wrong here for not knowing the full story. All I’m saying is, if you see someone being a bully, being mean or even being a hypocrite, call them out in the sweetest way possible. Let them know we are facilitating a safe space for people who need a community rather than a closed off club.

Be the change you want to see in this world.

Learn, grow and prosper. 

I wish you all well and genuinely hope we can all expand our perspectives to fully understand each other in healthier and more communicative based ways. We deserve that sort of kindness from each other.

[thisstableground]

Hello! I wanna start drawing again and I'm really fond of your style, I was wondering, do you have any drawing tips? ❤️

okay sorry this took a couple days to reply to because i wanted to think about it, but i think my main advice is to divide up your artistic time into practice and art. this drawfee video on how to practice effectively explains it really well (this section is at around 13 minutes, i haven’t watched the rest of it yet bc it’s a long vid but i bet there’s other good advice in there too): practice is input, drawing is output. practice is learning new information about things you don't know how to do – you're not making a final piece. 

practice is things like:

experimenting with different ways of holding the pen/pencil. holding a pen/pencil for drawing is different than how you'd hold it for writing – you want to hold it higher up, and use looser arm movements. different angles will give different effects (see here). holding a pen for a tablet is different to both a traditional pencil and a writing grip. if you have a tablet that picks up on palm contact, try getting a drawing glove so that you don't have to hold your hand at an unnatural angle. draw different lines and shapes and get used to the different effects you can make.

experimenting with different ways of moving your hand. a general rule to follow here is the bigger the shape, the more of your arm you should use to draw it. a lot of people draw primarily with just their fingers or wrists moving because they feel more control there, which is great for fine detail work but doesn't translate well to bigger sweeping shapes, and thats where you end up with wobbly lines or having to draw several scratchy lines instead of one smooth curve. if you want more confident lines you need to draw from the elbow, or the shoulder. it takes some getting used to but it's definitely worth it for keeping your drawings lively instead of stiff, and your wrist will also feel less strain.

learning to draw basic 3 dimensional shapes. boxes, cylinders, spheres. just draw a whole lot of them from different angles.

learning how to break down a complex form into basic shapes. a good way to do this is tracing – tracing has a bad rap as being stealing, but as long as you're not uploading a traced image and passing it off as your own it's a great way to train your eye to understand how forms work together, particularly for something complex like anatomy. draw over an image and break it down into basic shapes. then try to copy those shapes onto your own paper without tracing. do it over and over until you're better at it. (this method of redrawing is called iterative drawing, it's a great practice technique). 

theres broader practice and then narrow. having a mix of both is good: quick sketching a whole figure some days, other days really focusing in on like “this is how a nose work”. go with what feels right in the moment.

and then the output, the actual drawing, is when all this practice pays off - these are your pieces that you work on to show people, or the things that you want to make, this is where you chase your creativity and passion. keeping them separate really helps to stop your art feeling like a chore and keeps you from overworking your full pieces (incorporating too much practice into your creative art); it also stops you stagnating or becoming frustrated with your lack of improvement (not practicing enough).

you don't have to be super strict with yourself about when to do which thing; you'll probably go through phases of doing a lot of practice, and then phases of doing a lot of drawing.  if you're really struggling with one thing, that's often a sign that you need to do more of the other to balance things out.

other advice:

learn to be bad at art. this is good during practice with things like timed figure drawing or whatever where you just don't have time to make it good, but it's also good in drawing/creating: just letting yourself make “bad” or silly or quick things for the fun of it or to get an idea out. nothing has to be perfect and the earlier you learn to be bad at art the quicker you'll get good at art, and the more you'll enjoy it too

to expand on that, while tablet drawing is great, i've found that i improve a lot more rapidly  when i do at least some of my practice a) on paper but also b) in pen or marker or paint, anything non-erasable. the ability to undo and erase infinitely in digital art is great for full pieces but doing your practices in pen means you're forced to be lot less precious and so you learn quicker how to be more decisive and confident with your lines because whatever you put there, you’re stuck with it.

if you're stuck, try something completely out of your comfort zone. use different materials, restrict yourself to a specific colour palette, ask for prompts, set a timer. sometimes there's just too much choice about what to do and it can be paralysing: giving yourself a totally arbitrary restriction can actually push you to be more creative and to get out of a rut (recommending more drawfee here, their random shapes challenge videos are a really good example of this)

you don't have to find your style. it'll find you. it's good to observe what you like about other people's art and try to consciously think about it, it can be really good to ty and mimic those elements yourself during your practice, but for your actual drawings you don't need to think about your style because as your ability improves it will come out naturally.

this applies mostly to traditional, but try to have your paper tilted slightly rather than flat on the desk – i prop my hardback sketchbooks up on a book. if you have your paper flat then you're more likely to get a little bit of a perspective distortion from top to bottom, especially if you're working from a reference, because you're looking at the paper from a different angle than you're looking at the reference so it can look fine when you're drawing but then when you look at it head-on it's just a little off. it also makes it easier to not hunch up over it and get a backache.

FLIP THAT CANVAS. i don't know why this works but its a time-honoured artist technique for making sure that there's reasonable symmetry especially for drawing people: draw your picture out, then flip it. you'll be able to see a lot clearer where the proportions are off. make changes, flip it again, keep doing that. it's harder with traditional media to do this but if you have some tracing paper you can turn that over, or just take a photo of your work and flip that.

a little frustration can be good if it’s motivating you, but if it's so much that you're tearing up your drawings or wanting to quit, you either need to change up your approach for a while or you need to take a bit of a break. i  know people say you have to draw every day and if that works for you then do that, but personally, i don’t: i go through phases of drawing all the time then not at all for a few weeks, and that works better for me than forcing myself to work on it every day and i often come back to it a lot better because i’ve given all the practice time to actually sink in. breaks are an important part of learning, whether its hour or a day or a week of just walking the fuck away from the sketchbook and doing something else.

stretch your arms and wrists often, especially if you're drawing for several hours. here's the routine i use, it’s only ten minutes but it makes a big difference. and if you've overdone it and your hand or wrist or back is hurting, don't push through it. drawing is surprisingly physical and i’ve fucked my hands up real bad several times not listening to a slight ache and having it turn into full on RSI

i hope some of that helps! there are a lot more specifics i could get into about a million different things but the overall gist of this is that you should be aware of all the different options you have and can dabble in, and try to find a balance of learning and creating that allows you to improve without sucking all the joy out of it.