Your time spent enjoying the creative process is infinitely more valuable that any final project you create. So stop putting yourself down for never finishing or posting those WIPs because every moment you spent creating something you loved is a moment not wasted. Your progress and talent is measured by your passion not your number of posts.
This post went from 3k to 7k overnight and that just goes to show how many of you need to hear this so make sure you don’t ever forget it
Do you ever think about pixel art and 8-bit music? Stuff we unironically enjoy today just because it looks and sounds nice?
Do you ever think about how they only exist because, at one point in our technological advancement, we just didn’t have the tools, skills or knowledge to make something better?
Idk man, something about how the stuff we make along the way could also be stuff some people might end up loving. Even if we don’t think they’re good anymore.
Something about just enjoying the things you make now. Instead of constantly worrying about getting better.
I’m that irredeemable sinner who uses a paintbrush to apply glue and then leaves it overnight, trusting in my fancy Artiste Soape to remove the hardened shell in the morning.
since there’s apparently some sort of confusion on the matter (read: people are idiots)
also, ppl need to get reminded about linking the artist in description since many doesn’t do it.
i’d like to add:
posting art with a source, but still not asking for permission is still shitty.
reblogging art posts/reposts and removing the caption for some stupid aesthetic reason is also shitty (seriously they make themes that hide captions if your stupid aesthetic is so fucking important; don’t remove captions).
I saw a post going around recently from a Pixiv artist (from Japan iirc) expressing frustration about the number of messages they and other artists (who had expressed the same concern) were getting, many of which were literally the exact same message sent over and over and over again–because they were from a tumblr copy-paste template.
Reaching out to non-English speaking artists for permission to repost their art is cool and everything, but for god’s sake, don’t spam the shit out of them. Imagine waking up one day to a whole bunch of messages in your inbox and each and every one of them were worded exactly the same. You’d probably be frustrated and a little creeped out, too.
So be wise before you just start casually shooting off “templates” to Pixiv artists.
I’ve seen this done a lot for fanfics and writers, but I haven’t seen many for artists, so I decided to make one! feel free to rb and do it with your followers as well c:
ART ASK GAME
how would you describe your style
what’s your favorite thing about your style
what’s your least favorite thing about your style
favorite thing to draw
least favorite thing to draw
warm colors or cold colors
show us a WIP
what’s the most fun and the least fun parts about your process
show us a finished piece right alongside the original sketch
how many different sketches do you usually have until your piece is finished
show us the last thing you drew, be it a finished piece or a small doodle
show us an old drawing
how long do you usually take on a piece
digital or traditional
if digital, what program do you use
favorite media to work with when drawing traditionally
what do you love getting compliments about
are you satisfied with the attention your art usually gets
how often do you draw
a piece from this year that you’re really proud of
something you would like to improve on
what inspires you
what’s something you hope people notice when looking at your art
A comic to answer a question I get asked far too often.
As somebody who’s been drawing for upwards of 10 years and still has SO much to learn, please take my advice when I say: this mentality SUCKS. You should absolutely reference other artists as a way to learn, but not as a means to feel bad about your own skills.
Learning is not linear, and the way that I or any other artist draws does NOT affect your own skill. Just have fun and you’ll learn as u go.
being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five
someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help
me: my what
What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.
when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much.
Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential.
So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’
1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust!
2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:
a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it!
In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support.
I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose
b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me!
c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface
d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)
e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them
f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics.
g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper.
h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more.
And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc.
This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah.
Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks.
so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings!
How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense
In uni they told us that animators working on a specific character will spend a half hour before starting the actual animation to just quickly sketch out that character in a bunch of different poses and faces. Like just super quick sketches. Gets you used to the character again even if it’s only been a day since you last drew them.
I started doing that and oh boy does it help significantly for keeping characters consistantl and also helping you draw them faster when it comes time for the actual piece
