I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
PoseManiacs
Human-Anatomy-For-Artist.com
MagicPoser
MIXAMO
I've been sharing some stuff I use on tt and ig so here's a compilation of it for y'all too
all except for two of these are totally free btw
happy arting 🤙🤙
and added a transcript:
hexcolorpedia.com - A bunch of color palettes with hex-codes ready to use.
x6ud.github.io - References of various animal heads at all angles.
sketchfab.com - 3D models to use for art references or for modeling.
pattern.monster - Create and customize patterns to include in your textures or backgrounds.
referenceangle.com - Search for refs of people of different genders, ages and expressions at various angles.
vishopper.com/cut-out-people - High quality people references with a great search engine. You can search by number of people, genders, ages, activity, angles, and more.
color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel - Create color palettes using specific color harmony rules (it has some other useful features too).
texturefabrik.com - Huge collection of high quality textures you can add or overlay on your paintings or designs to add a bit of spice.
figurosity.com - Huge library of action pose models/references, includes a tool for gesture drawing.
unsplash.com - A ton of royalty free images you can use as references or for photo bashing/matte painting.
pureref.com - A very useful software that helps you organize your references while drawing. It always stays on top of your workspace and you can optimize it to your needs (it's a pay what you want download, you can put in zero and try it for free).
reshot.com - Really big library of free to use icons and vector illustrations.
help-me-draw.tumblr.com - Greatly organized library of references, tutorials, tips and tricks. Almost anything you can think of, it's in the tags.
creativemarket.com/free-goods - Four free design assets every week. You can get anything from fonts, textures, mockups, templates, brushes, and more (yes, it still works, contrary to popular belief).
coolors.co - Very quick and simple colour generator. It gives you a new palette every time you press space.
Magic Poser, Easy Pose, Poseit - Three mobile character posing apps. They give you a doll-like character to pose in any way you need it to for your reference.
screenmusings.org/movie - A great library of movie screenshots you can use for studies or reference.
open-foundry.com - A bunch of open-source free to use typefaces.
posemaniacs.com - A huge library of posed characters you can view at different angles and in various lighting scenarios.
colorhunt.co - Site with ready to use colour palettes. You can choose what type of colours you want.
pixabay.com - A huge library of free to use stock images. Great to use for references or photo bashing/matte painting.
patterninja.com - Great site that lets you make patterns by using their own clipart icons or you can upload your own images. Highly customizable.
quickposes.com - Great site for gesture drawing. Choose a type of poses you want and the interval and it'll spit out references for you. Keep in mind that there's nude models in there. There's also a regular library option where you can browse for ref pics.
eplans.com/search - If you need a consistent house plan for your comic or story, this site lets you choose a type of house you want by number of rooms etc. and gives you a floor plan to use as a reference.
posemy.art - Simple but effective 3D model poser with a huge animation/poses library to help you create pose references for your art.
flaticon.com - A huge library of free to use (with attribution) icons. Great tool that allows you to save time and make your design work look more professional.
artstation.com/artwork/GX3Ax1 - Full head reference greatly showing the planes of the face. You can turn it to any angle and adjust the lighting too.
wildlifereferencephotos.com - A continually expanding database of royalty free wildlife photos, in form of digital downloads, to use as a reference for your art.
line-of-action.com - Free online tool that offers timed photo sessions that allow you to practice sketching just like you would in a life-drawing class. You can choose between figure drawing, animals, faces, hands, or environments, and set duration from 30 seconds to 10 minutes per photo.
BONUS: The Sims 4 on Steam - If you're looking for an easy to use tool to design environments/buildings to reference in your drawings or comics, The Sims is a great tool to do just that. It's available on Steam for free (not sponsored lmao)
More notes on World building. I have a bunch more about HOW to use the skills,boarding for exploration. color. lighting and eventually how to find you voice as an artist ( which,yeah..I mean..I guess EVERYBODY has advice on that). Any other topics I should cover??
Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality
Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway
Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups
Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay
Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward
Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient
Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative
Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!
Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community
DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!
Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?
Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.
Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability
Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough
Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing
Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work
Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market
Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question
Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them
Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area
Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...
Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable
Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact
Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive
Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people
I made the textures by hand in my sketchbook. They're pay what you want with no minimum.
for those of you who remember cgtextures circa 2008, texture.ninja has a large repository of public domain textures without annoying hoops to jump through.
my color tips pdf is now available ! i had a lot of fun with this, i hope you enjoy ^^
BUY HERE or HERE
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
How to Make Your Art Look Nice: Thumbnailing
It’s here! For those artists who spend loads of time trying to figure out why their art is not coming out the way they want it to be, making thumbnails (or making studies) is the thing for you! It’s also great of getting rid of the habit of zooming in.
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Mindsets | Reference and Style | Color Harmony | Contrast
[ID in alt]
Tutorial on drawing characters/OCs who have some sort of facial paralysis. It doesn't cover all possible variants because I was using mirror as my main reference lawl
Keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People 👍
Consider supporting me on ko-fi if you find this to be helpful.