A Long Time Ago An Anon Asked My Thoughts About Drawing Backgrounds, So I Finally Got Around To Putting

A long time ago an anon asked my thoughts about drawing backgrounds, so I finally got around to putting this together. It’s more prop-centric, but it still represents my philosophy to backgrounds.

I’ll try to do something more about drawing actual background spaces in the future! Please let me know what you think, if anything is unclear, or if you have suggestions for other tutorials you might find helpful!

🎨color study note

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malcontentmoon

3 months ago

[Banner ID: Text reading “Creating black characters*” and below that is small text that reads “*with intent!” In the left corner is the ginger cat and in the right corner is the person. The background is a gradient of skin tones that goes from dark to light. /End ID]

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Welcome!

I’m going to update this list as I post more. So make sure to check periodically!

Anon Office Hours: W-F 12:30-6:30 give or take

Feedback Rules

FAQs!

Lesson 1: “White Man Painted Black”?

Lesson 1.5: “Hair for Thought”- how visualizing affects your writing

Lesson 2: “That One Hairstyle? RETIRE IT!” Black Hair is an Art (pt.1)

Lesson 2.1: Addendum to Hair pt 1

Lesson 2: “It Takes HOW LONG?” Black Hair is an Art (pt.2)

Application! Ice’s Lazy Loc Wash Routine

Application! How to: Simplified Braid

Lesson 3: “Defying the Default”- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Application! What are Black fans looking for in Commissions?

Lesson 4: “Do Black People Blush?” Bringing brown complexions to life

Lesson 5: “The Same Place As the Music” Lighting & Color

Lesson 6: “Let’s Have A Talk, First” Stereotypes, pt 1

Lesson 6: “Why’s she so rude?” (She’s Not)- Stereotypes, pt 2

Lesson 6: “Is He the Threat (Or Are You?)”- Stereotypes, pt 3

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malcontentmoon

3 months ago

Made a twitter thread of the brushes and textures I use!! Wanted to share them here too

Links for everything can be found here

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malcontentmoon

2 months ago

people NEED to stop gatekeeping making music like ohhhh i don’t have an instrument ohhhhh i don’t know music theory ohhhhh i’m not gonna pay for some program. SHUT UP. take my hand.

you need NONE of that shit!!!!! there’s a website called beepbox.co. literally all you have to do is press things until it sounds a modicum of nice. it’s easy it’s free and it works on anything which has a browser because it’s a website.

if even ONE person starts making music bc of this post it will be worth it.

making bad music is just as important and okay as it is to write badly or draw badly or sing badly. you AREN’T BEHOLDEN TO MAKE GOOD MUSIC. making music is not utilitarian HAVE FUN. HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!

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malcontentmoon

3 months ago

Having troubles with facial angles in your drawing style?

Try a 3D sculpture of your art in your own style in a free program that is simple and very easy to use.

The program is called Sculptris and is a free off-shoot program from Zbrush, that program that you keep hearing about but either takes selling your kidneys or piracy to actually use.

If you download it and sculpt out a facial model, you can have references for your own work for all of time. No more endlessly searching Google for reference materials or twisting/rotating/flipping a drawing to see if there are flaws. And you can easily edit it to create more facial types. This way, you can make character references for any and every face and facial angle that you can think of.

The program offers mirroring right from the start, so your faces will be perfectly symmetrical. You can turn off the symmetry for things like scars or otherwise.

It takes a little time. For instance, I downloaded the program on Christmas and, in my spare time, this took a few days of getting familiar with the program (first day) and then sculpting for a few minutes each day, mostly due to my perfectionist nature. And this one isn’t even done. I still have to mold the mouth, ears, and other smaller aspects before I consider it done. However, I was so giddy over the possibilities that I wanted to share this with my fellow artists.

From now on, I have reference for a face in my own style and will be able to create things so much easier in the future. I hope that this helps you guys and that you have fun with it.

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malcontentmoon

2 months ago

Digital canvas titled "How to: drawing characters with paralysis on their face" with "since I barely see it and would like to see more" written underneath. It features three colored drawings of different characters with various kinds of facial paralysis, labeled "ones that look more like this", next to a drawing of a heavily exaggerated character with cartoonish facial paralysis labeled "and less like whatever this is". There is a diagram in the corner of all the cranial nerves in the brain, with half of them scribbled out. The rest of them are labeled "i.e. what happens when any of these get fucked up". In the corner there is the artist's signature "@saszor" as well as "by: someone who has it" written out.

Second digital slide. It's titled "basic information". Underneath is a spectrum colored from dark green to red, with the dark green end labeled "works perfectly" and the red "complete paralysis". The light green, yellow, orange, and light red middle is labeled as "some degree of paralysis. It's not a 0:1 thing". Below that are 4 very simplistic drawings using the spectrum's colors to show different kinds of paralysis, including Moebius syndrome (complete full face paralysis), trochlear nerve palsy (both eyes being mildly affected), Bell's palsy (half of the face being slightly affected) and "multiple (me)" with the forehead, mouth, and eyes being labeled in different shades. The text around the characters reads "All these people have some kind of paralysis on their face. Before actually drawing a character, you need to pick what part of their face is paralyzed and how much. Having your whole face completely paralyzed is really rare. Weakness on one side of the face is the most common. You probably saw someone with it since it's very common after a stroke". Another block of text in the corner reads "If you have a simpler artstyle, paralysis of the eyes and/or mouth is the easiest to show. Jaw or forehead are more subtle (usually)".

Third slide, titled "Ok, but how do I draw it? (With asymmetry, mainly)". There is a drawing of a man with Bell's palsy, captioned "I will be doing examples showing unilateral (one sided) paralysis to showcase this since it will be easier to show the differences". In the top right are two drawings, one in anime style and other in a western cartoon one. The text box reads "While I encourage to try out multiple options, focus on the features that are more important in your artstyle. Big eyes? Focus on ptosis. Big mouths? Focus on lopsided smiles, etc. Otherwise it can look out of place". The main section of the slide is titled "Upper third of the face". There are simple drawings to accompany the text. It reads "paralysis on the forehead: it looks like one-sided botox essentially. The wrinkles will be weaker or non existent. Paralysis of the eyebrow: moves less. It rests lower than the other eyebrow and can have a crease under. Eyelid paralysis (arguably the most common one): generalyl affects the upper eyelid. It rests lower and has less or no movement". There is a drawing of a pair of eyes, where one is so closed the iris is invisible. Text reads "Note: paralysis very frequently comes with strabismus. Severe ptosis+hypertropia can look like the eye is just white. The iris can be hidden like that". Another text box to another drawing reads "it does get a bit trickier in angles that don't show both sides of the face; IMO focusing on strabismus+eyebrows pointing down is the easiest way to get it across". In the bottom left is a diagram showing different eyes with increasing severities of paralysis. Text reads "As a rule of thumb, more severe paralysis = eyelid rests lower. Here you can see how much of the eye could show".

Fourth slide, titled "Eyes specifically since people tend to put more detail into them than the rest of the face". The "First step" has 2 characters with unaligned eyes, titled "Step 1: give them strabismus (easy)". Below that are examples of eyes with strabismus, captioned "literally just draw the eyes to be unaligned. Inward, outward, up, down, etc.". Step two is titled "Don't make it into the most unfunny joke possible (very hard)". It shows two characters, one having a very exaggerated strabismus and the other having a more realistic one combined with a falling eyelid. The first character is crossed out, and is saying "I'm stupid because I look weird haha (laugh)", while the second character has the checker mark and is saying "I have a personality trait that is not related to having an eye condition". The text below the step 2 reads "Not every person with facial paralysis will have strabismus but a lot do and I never see that in drawings". In the bottom right is a designated square with a character who has significant hypertropia and slightly red eyes. The text reads "rarely, people will be unable to close their eyes rather than the other way around. I meant to put it on the previous slide but I ran out of space".

Fifth slide, titled "mouth and smiling". There is a simple drawing of a man with bell's palsy smiling, there are red lines illustrating how the smile is lopsided and pulls towards the nonparalyzed side. There is another "correct/incorrect" demonstration with the incorrect one, labeled "not how faces work", having their face essentially halved, with one side smiling widely and one actively frowning, and the correct one, labeled "it just pulls to the nonparalyzed side", smiling normally on one side and having a neutral/relaxed expression on the other. The incorrect one has additional text box: "if it looks like the ancient Greek theatre mask, stop. I couldn't do this really downward frown on my paralyzed side even if I wanted to. You need to be able to move your face for that...". At the bottom of the slide are two drawings of the same character smiling; he has bell's palsy in one but not the other, highlighting the differences. The text reads "There are other things that can also be affected but smiling is the main one, especially for drawing. What is not affected are like, jaw muscles. Someone can have problem with that as well but it will be from something else". The rest reads: "A lot of people will overdo smiling so that other people can actually tell they're smiling and essentially do a really wide smile on just one side of the face. So things like gums showing, nose skewing to the side, lower eyelid going up, lip being thinner on the smiling side, etc.". There is a colored disclaimer "also a disclaimer (in case that's not clear): not all people with facial paralysis have it visible on their eyes. I do it here so that you can easily tell which side is supposed to be affected".

Sixth slide, titled "have fun smile emoji". It features a Hindu woman in a powerchair, a Black man walking with a cane, a Brown girl posing, and a white guy looking stern. The first two are captioned "Most people have facial paralysis because of a stroke/traumatic brain injury and a lot will have other disabilities". The girl is captioned "Some people are born like this also. You can draw people with facial differences as pretty people BTW, it's allowed". The last character is drawn with a straight line scar going through his eye. He is captioned "if you're giving your scarred OC #3743 this fuckass scar then at least give them nerve damage like get real LMAO. He would not be fucking ablebodied". While the main drawing doesn't show the character with any sort of paralysis, there's a smaller one where his eyelid and eyebrow are clearly paralyzed. There is another box of text in the corner reading "We are also just normal people and yous on;t have to name your OC with bell's palsy some combination of "half-face" or whatever the fuck".

[ID in alt]

Tutorial on drawing characters/OCs who have some sort of facial paralysis. It doesn't cover all possible variants because I was using mirror as my main reference lawl

Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍

Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.

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malcontentmoon

3 months ago

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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malcontentmoon

3 months ago