my friend alauda suggested i make an art thread bc theyre fun and i wish they were more of a thing too!! i aim to update this thread about once a week wheneva and talk about each piece a little. i hope u enjoy your stay :3
about me: im a university graduate and career artist and my favourite things to draw are figures, horses, clothes and patterns. i usually draw for several hours a day and i mainly use procreate on iPad. you can also find me on twitter, tumblr, FA, and my commission info is here. you can also support me on kofi!
thanks for looking!!
lestikitty thank you 🥰 yes they are... the cutest in the WORLD
today... is horse studies i did in may. i think i traced that skeleton at the top. tracing is a cool learning tool guys!!! usually when im approaching a brand new subject ill trace it, because our eyes lie to us constantly. i also use the eyedropper for my coloured studies. if you think you know what something looks like... you don’t. use reference.
nyainou horses actually used to scare me too, then as i took the time to learn to draw them i started finding them really cool and cute and lovely! they are seriously scary irl though. i want to touch a horse but i dont want to be crushed beneath their hooves...
not just silly, eeevil!!! pure evil. besides getting everyone to use references so they can be the best artists ever, my other agenda includes pushing the reality that all art is derivative and we should let go of the pearl-clutching preciousness of our ideas and the subsequent fear of copying :—D no fear...
today im uploading a little bit of furry :3 um.. this is sfw right?! just a little bit of bum... pls dont ban me. what can i say about this piece... how cute are lions?? did you know there's 2 subspecies of lion (African and Asiatic) - asiatic lions have smaller manes, which gives the impression of bigger ears. so. cute. i think by january (when this was drawn) i was thinking more about simplifying muscles so they look bulky and natural and relatively soft rather than crispy and fake. so like a big problem when you try to look up muscle photo reference imo is a lot of actors and bodybuilders will dehydrate themselves and contort themselves and do all kinds of stuff to give the impression of bigger, bulging, varicated, striated muscles. it can work if youre drawing that kind of thing but it doesnt really reflect reality. i am always looking to draw more realistic (albeit exaggerated) bodies, i find life drawing helps and also (candid?) photos of athletes are a really good resource. anything not super posed or hollywood!
nyainou NOOO ok well i have reuploaded it now... just for u.
yeah i love seeing living breathing ppl in motion!! just so much to appreciate. i feel like, bc we believe cartoons and realism are on opposite ends of some imaginary scale, a lot of artists feel they have nothing to learn from observing life and their drawings suffer for it. i think even in stylised work people are looking for something they can relate back to their experience of the world (hence wacky interpretations of abstract paintings- 'this looks like a boat on top of a giraffe!'). i love drawing figures so for me i really aim to get a balance between cartoon and true to life and have those aspects be in harmony, cuz when we draw we're really trying to convince people that this bunch of lines actually represents something, and details like a recognizable bend to the wrist (not necessarily realistic, it can be anatomy that adheres to the rules set by the drawing) can really convince people this thing is, in a way, real (and the opposite- when sth is poorly drawn or incongruent w the rules set in the image it can really break immersion) .. i think, haha. 0_0
a couple of little landscape studies... im really inspired by landscapes and nature photography. usually before i do a character illustration i’ll go and look up travel photos and find an environment they could be in- it helps give me an idea of the lighting, palette, how they’d be posed/feeling, it can give context for who they are. it’s become a regular habit now and i think it’s a simple way to move up from *character standing in void*. i should probably dig up some of my early attempts at this.. i feel like ppl are very scared to tackle bgs. well im not amazing at it and many of my attempts look wack haha but i feel moderately confident w the simple stuff now. lately im trying to kick this up a notch and learn more about composing a whole piece, instead of foreground middleground character background. and perspective eek. it’s also important to remember that due to the magic of photo editing the lighting/contrasts etc dont always reflect reality, but ig that’s not super important unless youre a realism painter (i learned this from Color and Light by James Gurney)
yesterday i mentioned posting some of my old stuff from when i first started drawing backgrounds so this is some of the oldest i could find, from around 2016 or earlier
my process was i would do a blobby background study (like yesterday’s post) and then draw the characters into it... lol. i would keep the colours relatively harmonious by picking them from the environment. this only works until you have a character wearing a purple shirt in the desert, and then youll need to learn colour theory and lighting and all that. i think these are kind of OK to look at but with the wisdom of hindsight i can see how not knowing what i was doing lead to some random choices (hard shadows, where is the sun, making things pink cuz pink is pretty), also these would take me a very long time and many of them plain sucked (i had a really bad habit of deleting all my stuff back then). now i think i could probably replicate some of these in an hour or so. obviously im not posting these to Dunk On Myself but just to say these things take time and continual effort, and educating yourself on artistic fundamentals will reduce (not eliminate) creative frustrations.
nyainou thanks for your comment, you made some really good points!! about like... avoidant learning styles lol. i pretty much did exactly what you’re describing, just like slapping paint around and crying. i mean it still feels like that sometimes but i have way more direction now ahaha. i dont think doing the background first and then editing the characters in was a good method because it had no regard to composition, mood, perspective etc, also the rendering of the blobs is so bad lol sometimes it looks ok from afar but mostly i think it looks careless. probably the best way is to try to think about the characters and background simultaneously which is like. A muscle you need to train.
i have a recent painting where i documented all the thumbnails, ill post it tomorrow and u can see how my methods have improved >:3
ok so as promised here is my current process for painting illustrations ^.^ *4 yrs in the making* *still needs work lol* i mentioned doing thumbnails in an earlier post but ill explain them in more detail here... so first i did a composition study exercise of a dean cornwell painting i liked and wanted to learn from. dean cornwell is really famous for his amazing monochrome pieces, and my friend emily had recently challenged me to do a blue painting, so, the time was right.. the study exercise involves marking the major value relationships in b&w and then next adding temperature information.
so then i start thumbnailing my original composition (these are lele’s ocs btw) im not sure how many i went thru before i settled on this one, but the important thing is to consider different ones (from Edgar Payne’s book). i attended an online illustration workshop recently where the speaker suggested 20 thumbnails a day to keep ur ideas fre$h... my compositions are still pretty basic but i hope to gain confidence..
ok then add the values from the master study... then flesh out the details beyond scribbles. i actually did perspective on the bench like with a vanishing point and everything. idk if it really came out good though lmao. then i blow up the last 2 thumbs and start painting! and this part takes forever and i scream my head off... but there u have the finished product :—)
