Art Tips - Blog Posts
Anatomy studies, hands.
I have some older art tips that I keep forgetting to post here. I'll add a few in the next few days, at least those that aren't too outdated!
This one is about giving an extra feel of weight to your characters.
Holy shit(???) this is so helpful tysm!
really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:
really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:
Nine❣️✨I don’t know if this is a common thing but I had a discussion with this girl where we talked about numbers being people/having personalities and colors. She gave me the idea to try drawing what I think the numbers would look like with their colors 😎✨. I decided to share with you how I see the number 9 :3
Also available on my art instagram @ LissyDoodles
(⚠️Please do not reupload or share this image without crediting me ty ~😋)
someone asked how i draw grass, so i made a little layer breakdown of the process.
brushes: only two for the grass, although you only really need one! one of them was for the strands of grass (just a pencil-y brush, had to do one blade at a time), and another to create those tiny cluster of dots! you can skip em, or do em by hand. the flowers were done using the same two brushes.
art program: sai 2, although you can do this in almost any art program!
this tutorial is also very helpful! it’s the one i based my breakdown off of.
and as always, study other people’s art and try to see how they do it! hope this helps!
I don't know what I'm doing when I draw 90% of the time but here's how I make my paintings✨
So many of you asked for a tutorial on how I paint faces/ add a light source, so here you go! 😍 Let me know if you guys have any feedback or if you want to try it yourself! 💜
a quick grass tutorial
I’ve never really wrote a tutorial before so apologies if this is bad
1. okay first thing I do is pick three colors, a mid, dark, and light. I like to check the colors in greyscale to make sure there’s enough contrast between each one.
I then plop down a blob of whatever my middle tone color is.
2. next, I take my dark color and just sort of randomly place it around. I try to make sure there’s a good amount of both the mid and dark tones spread throughout. I personally like to keep it kinda messy. I also have pen pressure on for both brush size and opacity, so I can have some blending action going on.
3. for the next step I do the exact same thing as before, except with the light color.
4. aight this is where we start adding details. see how you just have a bunch of colors and edges where two colors meet? use the eyedropper and go to an area where two colors meet, eyedrop a color, and then use that color to draw in your grass blades. I do this at every point where colors meet. should note I personally like to use a square brush, but you can really just use anything.
5. you can technically stop at the last step if you’re going for a more simple look, but to add more details I go to the “empty” areas of solid color and just draw in random strokes using a color nearby. it’s just a way to fill up the empty space.
6. basically more of the same idea of eyedropping and drawing. for more variety so things look interesting, I like to add random plant shapes.
7. and so the grass doesn’t look too plain, I add random dots of color and pretend it’s flowers and stuff.
and there you have it, this is how I approach drawing grass.
Any advice on artists who want to consider making comics? Or general advice on how you do expressions and canvas composition?
All of my advice is trash because I’m still SUPER inexperienced in the comics making department but general comic making tips:
• Read lots of comics. Watch lots of movies. Read lots of stories.
• Have an idea of where you’re going with your story before you get into the heavy duty work of making the comic. Trust me. You’ll be glad you had a direction to go in, instead of wasting your entire pilot episode like I did.
• TRY to keep the cast small and give good character introductions before adding new characters. (I didn’t do this. My story has suffered for it.)
• Make ref sheets for your characters. Bare minimum, if you don’t want to draw new sheets entirely, compile a collage of all the existing images you already use as ref for each character.
• Save your color palettes for each character.
• Draw your KEY panels first. Filler can be done last. Working linearly might cause your art to deteriorate as the page/episode progresses, so get those bigger impact panels done first, and smaller/less impactful panels done last.
Expressions?
• Mirror. Selfies. Etc. When idk how an open mouth looks from a certain angle, I’ll use my own face as reference. It’s fool proof.
• Use OBSCENE amounts of reference. YouTubers. Actors in movies. Etc.
• Appreciate the Art of Subtlety. Not every expression has to be big, dynamic, and bold. Practice working in both extremes. Soft, gentle expressions can be just as good storytellers as bold, extreme expressions.
Canvas composition?
• WOOF IDK IM STILL SUPER BAD AT THIS LOL
Things I learned about making comics
- Characters don’t have to always be detailed sometimes a small blob with a speach bubble is fine too
- Small panels can contain scenary it doesn’t have to be half page all the time
- Tilted panels shapes are cool but don’t do it in every page keep it for the action/tense scenes
- Don’t over do close shots or they lose their meaning
- Try to have a full body of your character (even if small) at least every 2 pages
- Let the audience breathe, characters don’t have to be in every single panel
- Same face angle is boring but too many different camera positions are confusing find a balance
- Backgrounds first, characters later
- Color backgrounds one page at a time but color objects all at once through all the comic (all the faces then all the air and so on)
- The closer the object the thicker the lineart
- THUMBNAILS THUMBNAILS THUMBNAILS
- Write down your text near those thumbnails you won’t remember shit later
- ALWAYS think ahead of the space for the speach bubbles
- Give your characters a dark and a light color each so they will pop against any background
- For a fast shade fill the shadow layer set it to multiply 20/30% and erase the lighter parts
- Compare the pages one next to the other the panel lines should not touch or be too close
- 4 pages at a time the layouts should all be different
- By all means do get your characters out the frames but if you gotta do it do it all the way, a single strain of hair sticking out just looks weird.
- Don’t be scared of empty sections
- There should be a difference between the orizontal and vertical spaces between the panels
- Study other comics especially ones with good visual flow
- Everything should have a purpose and sometimes to be fun to read is enough
something i realized abt art eventually is that a huge part of having a style is abt what textures you want to depict the things you draw as having and that has nothing to do with realism.
ive looked at the works of some artists with rly impressive, sleek, cool styles, and while they definitely have a solid knowledge of realism the coolness doesnt really come from realism like at all. some people render hair like they render glass or jello so the hair looks so colorful and shiny but rhat is absolutely not realistic. some people render their characters clothes like latex or leather or silk so the fabric looks so glossy and sleek when thats probably not what theyre realistically wearing, but it *looks* cool and pleasant.
this really answered my age long questions abt why i spent all my time in art school but still struggle to make my arts like, specifically stylistically appealing, in ways those artists do it. because real life isnt appealing all the time. i can render skin as realistically as possible and i deflate and feel like i shouldve just kept it flat, because maybe i wouldve rather imagined i was looking at paper rather than human flesh. this doesnt mean all that time studying realism was a waste though because you still need to learn how to render materials/textures like glass and silk realistically to achieve those forementioned styles.
thats just me tho not everyone aims for their styles to achieve the effects that i personally find fun. the point of this post is to inspire people to pay attention to how textures affect style more. do you want your art to have a warm cozy feel? study the textures of blankets and plushies and try applying them even if its not realistic (eg hair). do you want your art to be cool or pretty in a delicate way? study how porcelain or glass reflect light and maybe render skin like that… the possibilities r endless
a little hand drawing tip i picked up from tik tok. (i don’t know the name of the user)
Some sample pages from Andrew Loomis’s series on how to draw comics, 1939-1961, concerning perspective and composition. (The changes in font and layout stem from the fact the pages come from different prints.)
I tried to collect the most useful pages, but of course I’m limited to only 10 images per post.
This is a follow-up of sorts of the Disney “how to draw comics” handouts I posted earlier, and which can be found HERE.
I ADORE your art and how well you match the ISAT artstyle. I've been being alot of studies to try replicate the style and draw characters 3d but stylised. Are there any tutorials that have helped you, studies you do, or things you keep in mind whilst drawing to make the characters look so 3d?
Oooaaahh thank you!!! This is a really good question. I say that because I feel like I "2D cheat" ISAT art a lot. It's very comfy to draw bc my normal art is like that too, with angles that shouldn't be able to exist but look right bc it's 2D so your brain forgives it. Design of the art > accuracy of the anatomy, y'kno?
The hair kind of gives it away in most cases. It's meant to be such a specific shape, it kind of stops looking like the character if it gets too 3D? But drawing it more 3D has huge utility too, especially for animation n stuff. It's just something I've noticed about the style! It's very designed for 2D. It's very "the shape of the lines" > "the shape of the 3D object"
It's helpful to remember that ISAT characters are all made up of really simple shapes. Like Siffrin's head is just a ball from nearly any angle but the side. Their body is a cylinder but one end is wider than the other. Odile's face is a ball but the bottom is long, like an oval. Isa's is a ball but his chin is square, it has soft corners. Even Bonnie's face is a ball you just add a cheek bump. Etc etc.
^Notice how i can't simplify the hat down into a consistent 3D shape bc otherwise it just. kind of. doesn't look like Siffrin's hat LOL
If you have the simple 3D shapes down then the rest of it is all 2D cheating and focussing on details! Having character refs nearby at all times especially when ur tryna figure out how to draw the character is KEY so you can keep looking at it and comparing. Try to pay attention to the little quirks of the art style that differ from yours and try to mimic them. But don't be afraid to let your style infect it a bit if it helps you to create something more dynamic looking.
It helps that i've been drawing for ages. I know 'practice' is the age old advice but here's my spin on it: just draw, keep drawing what u want no matter if it looks bad or if some professional artist tells you you're doing it wrong. So long as you keep drawing you are learning. Indulge and draw what you want so you get to keep all the motivation and keep going.
oh and PUSH YOUR POSES/EXPRESSIONS!!! By this I mean, draw it once, and then lower the opacity and draw it again on top but pushing everything a little bit further. If a pose feels stiff this tends to fix it.
uhmmm i rambled on for ages but i hoped it helped u Tea (or anyone else reading)! thank u for the excuse to draw a bunch of funny isat doodlies :D keep going you have GOT THIS!!! THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO MAKE OR ENJOY ART! YAY
i watched one (1) video on how to draw hands that changed my life forever. like. i can suddenly draw hands again
these were all drawn without reference btw. i can just. Understand Hands now (for the most part, im sure theres definitely inaccuracies). im a little baffled
I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!
*(*´∀｀*)☆ - How to draw honey/shiny stuff :
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Quick step by step originally asked by @floatingmegane-san and @suke1234.( thanks for asking! )
i doesn’t really explain anythin’ but that’s how i do it !
I added two quick color palettes and an exemple (a kind of honey bear made for school )
very useful - I’m just getting back into art (admittedly I’m doing it digitally rather than on paper now) - also lol - some relatives of mine have straight hair on half their heads and curls on the other. It’s something for sure.
I got an ask from someone who felt timid about drawing curlier hair and wanted some advice! This is by NO means exhaustive and is mostly just my thought process for my own stylization. There are tons of resources for drawing more textured hair, so for this I just wanted to focus on curls. hope it helps!
Art tips? <3
I think the only advice I can give "for art" is to improve your mental health and reach out for help, because you can 'only' get inspiration when you're living your life. You don't have to be making memorable adventures, but it will help you improve in art when you have a life and have mental help. Not all Artist have to suffer to make good art.
And remember to do stretches and have breaks