Don't worry

mein drawing process

pollums:

First, start with a shitty sketch in an obscenely bright color, so that not only are you the only person that understands the sketch, but you are also the only person that can bear to look directly at it without hearing the pained sizzle of your previously functional retinas.

This is, obviously, to protect the state secrets you’ve kept encrypted in the sketch itself. You are a patriot after all, and you would kill to keep your homo drawings safe for your country.

Next, lower the opacity of your sketch layer to 30% or below, so that you need to tilt the screen and crane your head at a weird angle to see the sketch. Then make a new layer to ink on. You tell people that this is so you can preserve the spontaneity of your line quality so the drawing doesn’t become stiff.

In actuality, this crucial process ensures that you have no fucking idea what you’re doing at any given time.

Next, make the sketch layer invisible and make a new layer over top of it. Using fillbucket, slap an arbitrary base color down. A midtone is best because it gives you the flexibility to go lighter or darker with the rest of your colors, but if you’re a fucking asshole, you can choose brighter or darker colors just so you can heavily regret your decision later.

Then using as many layers as you require, do some shitty colors. Bitterly reprimand yourself for not making closed shapes in your ink layer so that you have to do all the colors by hand instead of just fillbucketing this entire step.

Try not to use too many colors. I usually max it out at 1) a few neutrals that relate to the base color 2) a bright color that also relates to the base color and 3) one complementary-ish bright color that pops. All other colors are just slight value/saturation variations on these other 3 colors

Finally, disregard all the work you did and overload your smoldering turd with Photoshop filters. 

Post the image. Hope no one notices that you have no fucking idea how to draw black people. Cry uncomfortably loudly to yourself over a chocolate cupcake while sitting in a public place.

Now you are an artist.

A lil’ Q and A, part one

beatonna:

Hey there!  It’s question and answer time!

A few weeks ago I put out an open call for questions about the comics industry.  A penance maybe, for having so many unanswered emails on these kinds of topics.  I’m sorry!  My email is terrible.

Anyway: I said I would answer the most frequently asked questions, to the best of my ability.  This isn’t a book on how to make comics, I can only speak from my own experience (in some places this will be painfully obvious), so keep that in mind.    Questions came from all over the spectrum of artists, so if you are, say, a teenager and read an answer that seems crazy inapplicable, I possibly had another type of person in mind when I typed the answer. 

This is part one, part two will have the big two questions that I got asked most of all- “how do I get people to read my comic” and “how do I generate an income.”  Anyway I’m still talking, as usual, too much of that, let’s get going.

(hope you like my meandering answers, I love meandering like babies love their mommas)

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A lot of really good words about comics. 

Style development and you

chasingthewisp:

I wrote up this post because I missed my style development panel at FC due to food poisoning.  I was honored to ask to do it in the first place, and it was a huge disappointment to me to have to miss it.  The idea that I could be considered an authority on this in any way is pretty crazy to me!  I’m still developing my style, but I’ve picked up a decent bit of knowledge so far, and I’m happy to share it.  So here’s pretty much what I was going to say at the panel.  

It is a HUGE topic, so for now I’ve dropped the media specific stuff.  If you get to the core of what’s required to develop your style, media actually matters very little.  You can use professional grade paints and pigments, but note that it does nothing to make you a better artist.  That is and always will be up to the hand and mind of the individual.  It’s great to be passionate about your tools, but it does you no good to be elitist about them.  It will only limit you as an artist.  For example, Bill Sanchez, one of my teachers at the Academy of Art, was doing a demo.  The charcoal kept snapping in his hand and he eventually had enough of it.  He dragged his thumb along the now charcoal dust covered easel to coat it and proceeded to knock out a gorgeous figure study.  With his THUMB.  It struck me as incredibly badass and left quite an impression on me.  Skill is in the mind and hand of the artist, always. 

  Obviously there are technical aspects you have to account for here and there, but there are a ton of tutorials out there on those specific things, and if anyone has any questions about anything I don’t cover, PLEASE feel free to ask!  I am happy to help in any way possible.

 Keep in mind that style is a deeply personal decision.  My way is certainly not the only way, and if there’s anything here that doesn’t completely gel with your way of working that’s totally ok.  In the end, you will develop the quickest if you stick with what feels right.  Not EASY, mind you, but right.  There is a large difference.   

That said, there are a few facts that are absolutely constant no matter what style you are trying to develop, and here they are:
The only way in the whole wide world to get better at drawing is to DRAW.  There is no magic pencil, no mystic pixie dust.  Believe me, I’ve looked.  XD 

Every artist anywhere has a minimum of like… 10 million bad drawings in them.  Best to start practicing now and constantly and get them out of the way!  When you make a mistake, FIX it our FORGIVE it, but do not linger, always keep moving.  Love all of your art, even the ugly pieces, because even they propel you forward as long as you make sure to learn from them.  If you figure out why they don’t work, they actually push you forward more than your successful pieces. 

Look to others for inspiration, and always try to keep your horizon as broad as possible.  If you keep lofty goals, you will never stop improving.  If you go about it trying to imitate a single person, all you will ever be is a dime store version of them.  It will never come naturally to you, and frankly?  It’s not something to be proud of.

Immerse yourself in art, artists, ANY material that inspires you.  Learning to draw is like learning a new language, the best way to do that is to surround yourself with it and the culture it comes from.  Taking in everything helps you identify what you like and don’t like aesthetically, it ensures that you will always have ideas to draw on, and you will constantly be shaping your own unique style.  Look at it like vivisection, analyze why you like the things you like, ask yourself exactly WHY it works for you.  Just as important and often overlooked    , study people that don’t do it for you, analyze exactly why it doesn’t!

On effective ways to use reference – First, when referencing, decide what your goal is.  Do you want to study gesture?  Value?  Color?  If you pick to focus on one element at a time, you’ll learn more effectively.  
A good exercise is to study your chosen reference for about 30 seconds, taking in key points, then put it away and draw from memory.

 For gesture drawings, I highly recommend noting the angles of the head, shoulders and hips, those are reliable landmarks. If it’s value or color, separate those into shapes and block them in.  The exercise is an effective way to teach yourself to make very quick, solid decisions.

If you are hitting a wall with certain subjects or specific poses, there is another exercise you can try, which is tracing.  Now, HEAR ME OUT.  Because the last thing I need is for this to be taken out of context.

It should ONLY be used as an exercise, meant to accommodate for the fact that our eyes sometimes interpret shapes and angles differently from what is really there.  Often times we feel we know what something looks like, so we make assumptions without really considering and measuring what is in front of us.  If you approach it with the proper mindset, you will feel the shape, length and direction of each line, which ingrains itself to muscle memory.  Again, ONLY meant to be used as an exercise you do on the side, you should then take the acquired knowledge into your freehanded art.
 
If you are just starting out, I highly recommend referencing from life until you feel very comfortable.  Simply jumping in with references heavily stylized work has the potential to cripple you.  It’s very important to draw from life when you’re starting out, that way you have a solid grasp as to why the artists you will eventually reference made the decisions that they do. 

It will come to a point where studying from life will become a way of measuring what you need more practice in.  At that point, if you find that you’re having trouble, go look at the work of artists that you’re into and see how they solved the problems that you are currently having.  It’s been my personal experience that if you only ever draw from life and NEVER look at others work, you run the risk of making the same mistakes in your work over and over again.

When you are first starting out, your work will be very unoriginal.  That’s completely normal.  It means that once you do get to the level where you can start developing your own style, there will be a level of sophistication to it because you took the time to break your back practicing the basics, and it’ll be coming from a heavily researched place. 

I also VERY highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the psychology of color and shape.  These are both HUGE subjects that I will only be able to touch upon.  Circles are associated with cuteness, friendliness, implies that something is soft and harmless.  Reds are obviously associated with anger, dominance, and even devouring.  You’ll notice that almost all fast food logos ever incorporate the color red.  It supposedly induces hunger.  And the reason donut boxes are pink is that when tested, people will swear the same donuts taste better out of a pink box than a white one.  So for whatever reason, it tricks people into thinking that something is more appealing and desirable.  Triangles, with their sharpness tend to imply that something is dangerous and quick.  Squares imply a character that is stable and steadfast.  Obviously there are exceptions, which is why it’s great to research stuff like this so you can learn how to effectively break the rules.
 
Onto the art slumps that people feel they hit as they go along… there’s simply no such thing.  Not in my opinion, anyway.  I believe it is the disconnect between your hand and your mind.  Sometimes your mind will make leaps and bounds forward artistically.  Maybe you saw some kickass work and you leveled up in your head, which leaves your hand in the dust.  It hasn’t had the chance to practice what your mind has taken in.  You physically have not caught up yet, so all of a sudden it feels like you’re not performing well, that your art is coming out worse.  The good news is that all you have to do to fix this is to draw, draw, DRAW.

Now maybe you feel the art slump also includes a lack of “inspiration”.  I put quotes around that for a reason, and I’ll get to that in a bit.  What you may need to do is stop thinking about what you want to make, and start thinking about what you want to SEE.  What do you seek out in other artists and illustrators?  Be that for yourself!

 That doesn’t work for you?  Get a junk ass sketchbook and start drawing from life.  In PEN.  Figure studies, hands, feet, anything you usually avoid or feel that you’re bad at.  IN PEN.  One sketch doesn’t go well?  Look at what you did wrong, what line you tipped just a little too far in or out or WHATEVER and do it over again.  Do it as fast as you can, try to see how fast you can go and still keep it coherent.  Do it slow and see how much detail you can pack in.  Over and over and over.  In art it is always ALWAYS better to do it poorly than not at all.  If you are attempting hands, feet, whatever and they’re dragging down the piece, you are still doing better than the person hiding the hands and feet, no matter how great the face is.  You will NEVER do something well until you have done it poorly. 

On the topic of inspiration, know this.  YOUR ART WILL NEVER CHASE YOU.  EVER.  So you are just going to have to HAUL  ASS after it.  Inspiration is for amateurs.  Anyone serious about their art just gets to work.  The coolest thing about just buckling down and getting to it is that you will find that ideas grow from the work itself.  Things start occurring to you as you go along.  You will try something, but then reject it in favor of something else you just thought of, pushing it in another, stronger direction that would not have occurred had you sat around waiting for the lightning bolt.  Always remember, the only difference between you and that amazing artist you admire is thousands of hours of back breaking hard work.  Which should be great news, as anyone can be hard headed and work crazy hard! So get out there and DRAW! :D

“Pretty Art” and superficial appeal

pollums:

Okay prepare yourself for a long post anon ahahahah! Sorry!

I have this term that I’ve been throwing around for a few years to refer to a very specific tendency in art- I call it “Pretty Art”. 

Pretty Art in its most simplest explanation is when an artist spends SO much effort on making the subject of their art “pretty” that the quality and progress of their work actually suffers.

There’s no way to cite examples of what I mean without insulting a whooole lot of young artists that you probably know and love, but it’s not like I’m exempting myself from this tendency. I think many of us, if not ALL of us, are guilty of this tendency so long as we’ve been exposed to the false idea that superficial beauty regimens determine the value of a person and have at some point in our lives transposed this horrible idea onto our art without realizing it.

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whaoanon:

30 Day Original Story Development Challenge

aticklefuck:

uretnik:

Here is a 30 day original story development challenge. It can be filled by prose or illustration or comic or even just script, whatever works for you and how you’ll be displaying the setting. Feel free to reveal as much or as little as you want.

Day 1 - A main protagonist, their bio.

Day 2 - A main protagonist’s love interest(s), their bio(s).

Day 3 - A main protagonist’s best friend(s), their bio(s).

Day 4 - A main antagonist, their bio.

Day 5 - The place a character sleeps.

Day 6 - The place a character works/goes to school/hangs out whatever.

Day 7 - A major story location.

Day 8 - A character’s parent(s) or guardian

Day 9 - A minor antagonist.

Day 10 - Your character when they were young(er)

Day 11 - What kind of people show up in the background in your world?

Day 12 - How does a character comfort themself?

Day 13 - What kind of foods are popular in the setting?

Day 14 - What is a character’s biggest regret?

Day 15 - What are a character’s bad habits?

Day 16 - What was a character’s first romantic and/or sexual encounter like?

Day 17 - What are popular sports and hobbies in your setting?

Day 18 - What would your protagonist do if they saw your antagonist on the street?

Day 19 - What would your antagonist do if they saw your protagonist on the street?

Day 20 - Demonstrate a character and their best friend and/or love interest interacting as they most commonly do.

Day 21 - What is a character’s deepest desire?

Day 22 - What animals appear in your setting?

Day 23 - A unique place in your setting.

Day 24 - Where did you draw inspiration for the setting/story from?

Day 25 - A character’s proudest moment.

Day 26 - What special talents or abilities does a character have?

Day 27 - Describe/illustrate is an average day to a character.

Day 28 - A character’s most embarrassing moment.

Day 29 - Describe/illustrate an important thematic element.

Day 30 - Describe/illustrate a major event in the setting’s history.

Time to violently plow through my artblock with a huge artdick.

you know i totally scrolled past this at first because i’m awful at art challenges and never finish but that the hell!!! this looks like fun

I’m going to try and do this again

I’m gonna try to do this too. 

Maybe if I do a few a day I’ll actually finish it.

(Source: hangbird)

RABID WRITER CAPSLOCK RANT GO

jumpingjacktrash:

let me just start by putting this on the table so we can all see it:

the way literature and creative writing are taught in schools is completely and totally wrong.

it is. it’s fucked up. it’s backwards. now, to be fair, i don’t have an alternate suggestion for schools. i’m not school guy. but i do have an alternate suggestion for writers, and it begins with looking back on everything you learned in those classes, and throwing it the fuck out.

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