An Glorious Fuck-ton Of Kimono/yukata (for Females) References.

Hiya how do you draw arms crossed over?

some people expressed that they would like to see my process on painting eyes, so I threw together a quick guide. I’m really bad at explaining things, but maybe someone gets something out of it. Some other information: - I use a lot of hard brushes when sketching and painting, most of them are textured. Usually I only use the soft round brush when adding big shadowed ares and light effects. - Most of the time, I paint on barely more then 2 layers: Background and character. I don’t like painting with dozens of layers and prefer to keep things simple. - I love to overuse too many colors. It’s just a stylistic choice, but I like the look of spashes of different colors everywhere, especially when they are slightly desaturated. (as seen on the second painting step)

WHY IS DRAWING HANDS SO FUCKING HARD

high quality expression references with varied facial types

How to learn the cyrillic alphabet

The different alphabet often terrifies people who want to study Russian or Bulgarian or whatever language uses this alphabet, and sometimes even makes people choose not to study the language after all. 

I know how you feel, it terrified me too when I started studying Bulgarian. But what if I told you that it actually is very easy to learn? 

In this post, I’m going to show you how I managed to learn the alphabet in just a day. And trust me, this isn’t one of those impossible “clickbaits” like be fluent in language x in only 3 months. No, learning the cyrillic alphabet in just a day is very realistic.

STEP 1: DOWNLOAD THE CYRILLIC KEYBOARD ON YOUR SMARTPHONE 

The very first thing you should do, is downloading the cyrillic keyboard on your smartphone. Why on your phone and not your computer, you ask? Well, the letters on the keyboard of your computer won’t magically change once you’ve set your keyboard to the cyrillic alphabet. You’ll see the cyrillic letters on your screen, but not on the actual keyboard, which makes it harder to use. On your smartphone, you do see the cyrillics on the keyboard, which makes it way easier to learn and use.

The Bulgarian keyboard on an iPhone

STEP 2: GET A CHEAT SHEET AND START MEMORIZING THE ALPHABET

I didn’t use any textbooks or websites to learn the cyrillic alphabet. The only thing I used, was a cheat sheet with the sounds of all the letters. 

begin with the letters that are the same as the latin alphabet: a, c, e, k …

once I knew those letters, I memorized the letters that appear in the latin alphabet too, but have a different pronunciation: в, р, у, х …

The last step was to memorize the new letters: я, д, ъ, ц …

STEP 3: READ

Once I memorized the entire alphabet, I started reading a bit. I just went to a random wikipedia page and changed the language to Bulgarian (if you’re learning Russian, it’s better to set it in Russian instead). And then I just tried to read it out loud. 

You won’t understand a single word of it, and don’t be afraid, that’s normal. You’re just there to practice reading the alphabet, not to actually gain knowledge on the topic you’re reading. 

Don’t expect yourself to read as fluent as in your target language or basically any language that uses the latin alphabet. It will go rather slowly, but that’s normal. When you were 6 and just had learned the latin alphabet, you were a slow reader too. Don’t let this terrify you. 

STEP 4: WRITING NAMES 

When I was tired of reading, I started writing the names of friends, family members, classmates… and most importantly: my own name. By doing that, you practice your writing skills in the cyrillic alphabet. 

I do have to warn you, though: not all names can be written in cyrillic. I noticed that especially French names and names with a W in sometimes can’t be written in the cyrillic alphabet. 

Another tip I can give you, is looking for easy words in your target language (like good morning, hello, friend etc.) and trying to write these down. You can for example listen to the first Youtube video of Russianpod101 and try writing the words they are saying down. Afterwards, you can correct them, something you cannot do with the names. 

STEP 5: EXERCISE DAILY

The last and probably most important step, is to exercise daily. If you’re going to learn it in 1 day but then stop looking at it for a week, be sure you’ll have forgotten nearly everything. It’s important to repeat at least one of these steps on a daily base. 

Good luck with your studies!! If you ever need help, don’t hesitate to contact me! 😄

Pearl is one of my favorite characters from cartoons.

shading colour tips

hey yall its me the Art Mom™ to help you shade pretty

rule 1: DO NOT SHADE WITH BLACK. EVER. IT NEVER LOOKS GOOD. 

red- shade with a slightly darker shade of purple

orange- slightly darker and more saturated shade of red

yellow- i think like..a peach could work but make it a really light peach

green- shade with darker and less saturated shade of blue or teal

blue- shade with purple

purple- a shade thats darker than the purple you’re using and maybe a little pink (MAYBE blue)

pink- darker shade of red

white- a really light lavender or blue..or i guess any really light colour??

black- okay listen dont use pure black to colour anything unless you want to leave it with flat colours because you cant really shade black lol

grey- a slightly darker shade of purple or blue (less saturated)

brown- slightly darker and less saturated shade of purple or red

aaaaand thats all i got lol. let me know if there is anything i should add to this list!!

How I draw skin Part 2: DON”T DRAW NATIVE PEOPLE WITH RED SKIN!!!! A tutorial

For the first tutorial on how I draw skin, see the post here.

But seriously, I’ve seen too many drawings of Native characters with literal red/pink skin to count so just in case some of you are having troubles with drawing Native people, I’ve provided a guide for you. Please take my swatches if it helps!! and no more red skinned people, please <0<

Disclaimer: this tutorial is mainly about the artistic depictions of Indigenous Peoples in North America, where the slur and redskin caricature originated, but it would still be racist to draw other non-North/Central/South American Indigenous groups like this so…..don’t.

No one asked but here’s a brief tutorial on digital underpainting and how it can add some extra flavor to your art!

(I got asked this a couple times so just to clarify: I used “overlay” in the second slide… but the rest of these examples are JUST painted on, no effects! Try playing with the opacity on your pencil/water/brush tool to allow the base color to show through!)

FLOWER SYMBOLISM IN TOKYO GHOUL

 From this gif post (taken with permission)

First off, we have

 White carnation: innocence, remembrance

This could both represent the Keneki we see at the beginning of the series, and the inner reminiscing of the past by the current Kaneki.

Don’t forget, don’t forget

Remember who I am

The flower was stained in blood, resulting in a

Striped Carnation: refusal (I’m sorry I can’t be with you, but I wish I could)

This could be viewed as his necessary rejection of his past self, regardless of how strongly he has been clinging on to it so far. This reminds me of these two separate lines from the OP

The me that has stood in this shaken, distorted world-

Was pierced by the memory of the time I laughed so innocently

It starts as just a droplet of doubt, but Kaneki has to accept the reality, no matter how unpleasant it is

and finally,

Red Spider Lily/ Higanbana: the flower of death

Higanbana is a very famous flower in Japan so the meaning is clear here. This flower is associated with loss, longing, abandonment and lost memories. It is believed that if one meets a person one will never see again, this flower will grow along one’s path. I find that there are elements of yearning and regret a midst the finality and interpret this as Kaneki being forced to abandon it all- the death to his former self.

I have changed; I can’t return anymore