skin color ref because some of yall non-black poc and whites keep fucking up as if yall don’t know there’s other shades of brown when u racebend for woke points or something
(non-black artists please reblog)
Please reblog regardless of your race/ethnicity.
heres a chart I made for myself showing diffrent undertones and how that affects the skin if anyone’s intrested
Use this to make a skin palette in your art program!
Also! This photography project by Angélica Dass has thousands of photos of people, with a Pantone color assigned to each! It’s very helpful as a resource !!
I was using Sketchfab for a while for art refences, and it’s really great. You can find all kinds of stuff on it, poses, characters, environments…etc. I made this list, because I was lazy to search for them all the time, I hope it will be useful for other artists as well!
How to Draw Native People: a Tutorial/Reference Guide
As requested, here is a basic guide for how to draw Indigenous peoples (mostly focused on North America)! Also please note that this is not an exhaustive list of Native American phenotypes/features, and more like an intro on very common features that can be found in us, and even then, not altogether at once on a single person’s face. I highly encourage the use of references and care taken into research when drawing. I may do a part 2 that goes slightly more into depth, but for now, enjoy part one.
How to draw East Asian People, a guide by Chuwenjie, for mixed Asian Natives AND because it includes a lovely tutorial on monolid eyes, a shared feature of Native people
The creator of the original, the animal reference tool, made their own human reference tool which allows you to search based on different body parts and poses!
HEY THIS IS IMPORTANT whats your favorite place to find drawing references?
so far we’ve got
senshi stock
croquis cafe
line-of-action.com
quickposes.com
posemaniacs
clip studio paint models
pexels.com
sketchdaily
eggazyoutatsu atarichan drawer
designdoll
if you have any more please reply!
Unsplash: All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible. More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.
Freeimages: You can use the images in digital format on websites, blog posts, social media, advertisements, film and television productions, web and mobile applications. In printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, product packaging for decorative use in your home, office or any public place or personal use. The rights granted to you by FreeImages.com are: Perpetual, meaning there is no expiration or end date on your rights to use the content. Non-exclusive, meaning that you do not have exclusive rights to use the content. FreeImages.com can license the same content to other customers. Unlimited, meaning you can use the content in an unlimited number of projects and in any media. For purposes of this agreement, “use” means to copy, reproduce, modify, edit, synchronize, perform, display, broadcast, publish, or otherwise make use of.
Stocksnap: Every single image on StockSnap are governed exclusively by the generous terms of the Creative Commons CC0 license. Specifically, that license means you can do any and all of the following: Download the image file.Publish, revise, copy, alter, and share that image. Use the image (as-is or as you’ve altered it), in both personal and commercial contexts. Moreover, you can put StockSnap CC0 images to any of these usages without buying the right to do it, acquiring written permission from the image’s creator, or attributing the work to the image creator. In other words, there’s no fee to download or use these StockSnap images in accordance with the CC0 license. They’re free to download, free to edit, and free to use - even in a commercial project! You don’t even need to attribute the image to the creator, the way you do with other CC or traditional copyright licensing schemes. (However, even though it’s not required, we here at StockSnap do encourage you to include an appropriate attribution. It’s a nice thing to do.)
Burst.Shopify: Burst is a free stock photo platform that is powered by Shopify. Their image library includes thousands of high-resolution, royalty-free images that were shot by their global community of photographers. You can use their pictures for just about anything — your website, blog or online store, school projects, Instagram ads, facebook posts, desktop backgrounds, client work and more. All of their photos are free for commercial use with no attribution required.
Pixabay: Images and Videos on Pixabay are released under Creative Commons CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Pixabay have waived their copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images and Videos. You are free to adapt and use them for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. Although not required, a link back to Pixabay is appreciated.
Viintage: All images hosted by Viintage.com are considered to be public domain images, each image is presumed to be in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as permitted by applicable law. Viintage.com assumes no ownership of the images and they may be downloaded and can be used free of charge for any purpose. They may be downloaded and used for commercial and personal use. Understand “public domain” as the permission to freely use an image without asking permission from the photographer or the illustrator. Thus, the creator of the work will not sue you for violating his/her copyrights. It is your responsibility to make sure, displaying the image does not violate any other law. Viintage.com assumes no responsibility for how or where you use the images found on the site.
Gratisography: You may use Gratisography pictures as you please for both personal and commercial projects. You can adapt and modify the images and get paid for work that incorporates the pictures. This includes advertising campaigns, adding your logo or text to an image, printed in any size print runs (e.g., book covers, magazines, posters, etc.), on your website, blog, or other digital mediums, and on merchandise as long as the picture itself is not the merchandise.
As someone who draws a lot of faeries, Faestockis godlike.
A wonderful addition to the list!
Unsplash. Another whopping huge free images site like pixabay: free for commercial and noncommercial use and remixing; just don’t sell the photos unmodified or add them to other photo-sharing sites.
Morguefile.Big old free photo archive from the dawn of the web. “We are a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not. The photos have been contributed by a wide range of creatives from around the world, ranging from amateur photo hobbyists to professionals.”
Open Access at the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: “Whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 406,000 images of artworks from The Met collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.”
Smithsonian Open Access. Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images […] from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
Limited use, if you’re doing a Science and need control panels/rockets/futuristic an image search with qualifier site: nasa.gov You have to double-check a photo’s caption it’s really a NASA photo, but photos which were taken by NASA spacecraft and astronauts are public domain, since they’re funded by taxpayer dollars. (This also goes for images of animals archived at the USFWS Digital Library, i.e the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or rocks and landscapes on USGSwebsites.
Okay updating and consolidating lots of info here; as well as adding links for ease of access. Adding a brief description for some too; as is the case that not all of them have descriptions above. (Warning that some of these links contain nude refs, I will try to mark where possible which ones have more prominent ones.)
Posing Sites and Apps:
Adorkastock. Stock photos for pose refs. DeviantArt gallery started in 2007.
FreePhotoMuscle.com. (translated page link click here) Japanese stock photo pose site that includes buff people, but in funny poses and costumes.
CroquoisCafe. (NSFW, nude model poses warning) A stock photo pose site. You should be aware this org has been linked as pro-Trump. I leave it to y’all to decide if you want to use the resources or not. I highly encourage not financially supporting them and trying to support the individual models if you can.
Line of Action. Fantastic site that includes posing refs, community discussions from other artists, figure study, anatomy, etc. So much stuff in here.
PoseSpace. Extensive library of poses. Some free resources others are paid. I’ve not fully evaluated both, but you should be able to use this all mostly free and get great use out of it.
SketchDaily. This one is one of the better ones out there. You can time yourself, search by pose, clothing options, body type, perspective, etc. All real models.
JustSketch.me. A pose app for any device. Has apps for most devices and a webapp. Customize and pose models/props/scenes.
Quickposes. Pose site that gives you timed challenges to become more proficient at poses.
POSEMANIACS. Ref site with anatomical poses. All the ref pics are of 3D models with only the bones and muscles. Can be helpful for seeing how muscles behave in certain poses. limited to two body types tho.
MagicPoser. A wonderful app that’s great on mobile. Lets you choose size of models, number of them, style, etc. Significant features are use of snap point with the physics engine, adjustable lighting, multiple perspective, 360 angle, articulated hand posing.
Clip Studio Paint Modeler. Free 3d tool that works with Clip Studio Paint. You can import your own data or other models you find online. Not quite an alternative to Blender, but the integration with CSP is very nice.
Egg a Zyoutatsu Atarichan Drawer. (requires enabling flash player or downloading and using standalone flashplayer) Drawing tool for pose practice. The developer is working on an html5 version.
DesignDoll. One of the best pose tool apps out there. You can customize so many things. They also have an extensive collection of ready made poses here. You can use the free or pay once for life and have the poses integrated into the client as well as the ability to export your obj to other programs like blender or smt.
freeimages.com. Another stock photo site, less features than some others.
StockSnap.io. Stock photos with a creative commons CC0 license, which essentially means you can use the photos however you want and don’t have to attribute to them. (though its nice if you do attribute)
Burst.Shopify. Tons of royalty free high quality images. Similar licensing to StockSnap.
pixabay. I feel like most people know about this one, but it features entirely free CC0 licensed Photos, Videos, and Music. No attribution required, but still nice to support a giant site with all this content.
Viintage. Big collection of public domain vintage photos.
Gratisography. For commercial or personal use. They specialize in odd, quirky, wild stock photos.
pexels. Great free stock photos and videos. Only a few stipulations of what they don’t allow, but their license info can be found here.
Faestock. An artist and model with a huge amount of fantasy and fae and other types of photos available. Their terms for use are here.
MorgueFile. Old stock photo archive that’s been around a long time.
yo here’s a useful tip from your fellow art ho cynellis… use google sketchup to create a model of the room/building/town you’re trying to draw… then take a screenshot & use it as a reference! It’s simple & fun!
Sketchup is incredibly helpful. I can’t recommend it enough.
There’s a 3D model warehouse where you can download all kinds of stuff so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.
reblog to save a life
This is an incomplete tutorial, and it drives me crazy every time I see it come around.
We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.
Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:
How do you populate your backgrounds?
Well, here’s the answer:
If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.
The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.
How do you fix this?
Well, here’s the simplest solution:
This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.
Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.
Your creations live in a unique world, and it is as much a character as any other member of the cast. Make it as believable as they are.
Great comments and tutorials!
I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!
Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!
Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totallycustomized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)
The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and veryfiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.
By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!
Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.
We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!
Proper 3d modeling software is immensely powerful, and if you wanted to, you could model a complex environment that occurs regularly in your comic or illustration work (say, a castle interior, or an outdoor forest environment) and populate the scene with as many perspective-grounded characters as you need!
reblogging to save a life
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at this amazing addition! This is fantastic!
Not just poses, you can also do this with lighting. Playing with lights in Blender is pretty fun.
Another cool thing: http://www.makehumancommunity.org lets you generate a human model. Like a character creator in a game, but more flexible, and the result is ready to import into a 3d editor like Blender.
This was a lot shorter last time it appeared here. Reblogging for the updated tips and to save a life!
Maybe none of these peeked your interest. Maybe you’ve been wanting to create an o.c, but never really knew how to start, or you just enjoy making O.C’s.
Hell, maybe you have a Gemsona/Transformers/Southpark character that you want to create, but don’t have the energy to draw!
This part of this list is specifically for OCs and Oc building. It can also apply to developing RP characters~
I added a couple of links-((In the appearance, details, and the whole of item names section!)), and the Gemsona area-((above)), as well as the couple of Transformers and Southpark character builder links below..Basically everything I made bold, because I am complete fandom trash…
For artists who have problems with perspective (furniture etc.) in indoor scenes like me - there’s an online programm called roomsketcher where you can design a house/roon and snap pictures of it using different perspectives.
It’s got an almost endless range of furniture, doors, windows, stairs etc and is easy to use. In addition to that, you don’t have to install anything and if you create an account (which is free) you can save and return to your houses.
Examples (all done by me):
Here’s an example for how you can use it
Great find, thanks!
OMG HEAVEN!!
Bless you!!!!
Very nice resource for those looking to improve their perspective, composition, and background rendering skills!
She makes a shit ton of poses (like 16,000 or some crazy nonsense). I used this lovely lady to draw so much as a teen. Whether it was some nerdy pose for my Mary Sue as fuck OCs
or for full on fight sequences
or for tragic deaths of my OCs in the arms of a totally OOC main protagonist.
this bitch hooked me up.
And with the wildest, craziest stuff that you could see in your head but had no way or resources to reasonably draw like
or this
or this
DUDE! INASNE SHIT!! So I was using her for a pose reference and decided, you know what, I owe this bitch some cash. Lemme dole it out for her. BUT then, I looked and saw she only has 286 fucking patrons!! This chick gives out free shit and spends countless hours arranging these shoots and setting this stuff up.
I’ll fork up the cash, SenshiStock. You’re worth it.
I have been following her for years on deviantart.
Highly reccomend checking her out. She’s the best. If I had any money to throw I’d throw it at her for providing such a big help in my life.
This hero doesn’t wear capes, she instead wears (and looks utterly flawless) in tank tops(?)
Interrupting my regular Star Wars BS to reblog this because @senshistock is amazing and beyond worth the follow and support! I first started using her refs gosh I want to say back in maybe 2008, and I’m happy to be a supporter of her over on Patreon. If you’re an artist please go find her stuff on all the platforms, you will not regret it!
Yessss, she is so awesome! Been following her for years. My favorite stock artist is jademacalla, who is, incidentally, in the last two images above. He has a lot of great angles, costumes, gear, etc! I love his hands, too.
rb to save an artists life
Just so everyone knows, she recently stopped using the name SenshiStock and switched to AdorkaStock! All her links and socials have switched to that. Also she has a TikTok of her doing the poses live, which is stupid useful because you can pause it at any point in the pose for just the right reference.
Literally just used a Adorkastock reference the other night, god bless them
