Art Advice - Blog Posts

Image one has delicate lineart that while it shows varying degrees of pressure, the characters are overlapped in a way where they are too homogenous. My solution to this issue is to clearly define each character with a uniform outline running along the very outside edge of the character while adjusting inner outlines as needed to unify the appearance of the outlines overall.

If you are using color to complete your image, image one is fine enough for that because the colors will make the characters stand out as long as the palettes are different enough. However when we are working in screentones / monochrome, a thicker outline provides more clarity amongst the dots and lines.

"Art regression" this. "Art regression" that. Progress is not linear and your style will continue to ebb and flow, expand and contract. Not every piece of art will be a masterpiece and that is alright.

What IS important is that you don't listen to negative people and you keep drawing. It utterly breaks my heart to see young artists give up on their passions because of stupid bullies on social media making fun of their style.

Never stop creating. You're doing great! ✨💖

Resources for Artists!

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard)

Aaron Rutten (free)

BoroCG (free)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates)

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, ect Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Those are the ones I can recall.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

Can't afford art school?

After seeing post like this 👇

And this gem 👇

As well as countless of others from the AI generator community. Just talking about how "inaccessible art" is, I decided why not show how wrong these guys are while also helping anyone who actually wants to learn.

Here is the first one ART TEACHERS! There are plenty online and in places like youtube.

📺Here is my list:

Proko (Free, mostly teaches anatomy and how to draw people. But does have art talks and teaches the basics.)

Marc Brunet (Free but he does have other classes for a cheap price. Use to work for Blizzard and teaches you everything)

Aaron Rutten (free, tips about art, talks about art programs and the best products for digital art)

BoroCG (free, teaches a verity of art mediums from 3D modeling to digital painting. As well as some tips that can be used across styles)

Jesse J. Jones (free, talks about animating)

Jesus Conde (free, teaches digital painting and has classes in Spanish)

Mohammed Agbadi (free, he gives some advice in some videos and talks about art)

Ross Draws (free, he does have other classes for a good price. Mostly teaching character designs and simple backgrounds.)

SamDoesArts (free, gives good advice and critiques)

Drawfee Show (free, they do give some good advice and great inspiration)

The Art of Aaron Blaise ( useful tips for digital art and animation. Was an animator for Disney. Mostly nature art)

Bobby Chiu ( useful tips and interviews with artist who are in the industry or making a living as artist)

Sinix Design (has some tips on drawing people)

Winged canvas (art school for free on a verity of mediums)

Bob Ross (just a good time, learn how to paint, as well as how too relax when doing art. "there are no mistakes only happy accidents", this channel also provides tips from another artist)

Scott Christian Sava (Inspiration and provides tips and advice)

Pikat (art advice and critiques)

Drawbox (a suggested cheap online art school, made of a community of artist)

Skillshare (A cheap learning site that has art classes ranging from traditional to digital. As well as Animation and tutorials on art programs. All under one price, in the USA it's around $34 a month)

Human anatomy for artist (not a video or teacher but the site is full of awesome refs to practice and get better at anatomy)

Second part BOOKS, I have collected some books that have helped me and might help others.

📚Here is my list:

The "how to draw manga" series produced by Graphic-sha. These are for manga artist but they give great advice and information.

"Creating characters with personality" by Tom Bancroft. A great book that can help not just people who draw cartoons but also realistic ones. As it helps you with facial ques and how to make a character interesting.

"Albinus on anatomy" by Robert Beverly Hale and Terence Coyle. Great book to help someone learn basic anatomy.

"Artistic Anatomy" by Dr. Paul Richer and Robert Beverly Hale. A good book if you want to go further in-depth with anatomy.

"Directing the story" by Francis Glebas. A good book if you want to Story board or make comics.

"Animal Anatomy for Artists" by Eliot Goldfinger. A good book for if you want to draw animals or creatures.

"Constructive Anatomy: with almost 500 illustrations" by George B. Bridgman. A great book to help you block out shadows in your figures and see them in a more 3 diamantine way.

"Dynamic Anatomy: Revised and expand" by Burne Hogarth. A book that shows how to block out shapes and easily understand what you are looking out. When it comes to human subjects.

"An Atlas of animal anatomy for artist" by W. Ellenberger and H. Dittrich and H. Baum. This is another good one for people who want to draw animals or creatures.

Etherington Brothers, they make books and have a free blog with art tips.

📝As for Supplies, I recommend starting out cheap, buying Pencils and art paper at dollar tree or 5 below. If you want to go fancy Michaels is always a good place for traditional supplies. They also get in some good sales and discounts. For digital art, I recommend not starting with a screen art drawing tablet as they are usually more expensive.

For the Best art Tablet I recommend either Xp-pen, Bamboo or Huion. Some can range from about 40$ to the thousands.

💻As for art programs here is a list of Free to pay.

Clip Studio paint ( you can choose to pay once or sub and get updates. Galaxy, Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, Android, or Chromebook device. )

Procreate ( pay once for $9.99, IPAD & IPHONE ONLY)

Blender (for 3D modules/sculpting, animation and more. Free)

PaintTool SAI (pay but has a 31 day free trail)

Krita (Free)

mypaint (free)

FireAlpaca (free)

Libresprite (free, for pixel art)

Drawpile (free and for if you want to draw with others)

IbisPaint (free, phone app ONLY)

Medibang (free, IPAD ONLY)

NOTE: Some of these can work on almost any computer like Clip and Sai but others will require a bit stronger computer like Blender. Please check their sites for if your computer is compatible.

So do with this information as you will but as you can tell there are ways to learn how to become an artist, without breaking the bank. The only thing that might be stopping YOU from using any of these things, is YOU.

I have made time to learn to draw and many artist have too. Either in-between working two jobs or taking care of your family and a job or regular school and chores. YOU just have to take the time or use some time management, it really doesn't take long to practice for like an hour or less. YOU also don't have to do it every day, just once or three times a week is fine.

Hope this was helpful and have a great day.

"also apologies for any spelling or grammar errors, I have Dyslexia and it makes my brain go XP when it comes to speech or writing"

Hey y'all!

I've been planning on jumping ship from Adobe Photoshop (needed it for school unfortunately) to Clip Studio Paint for a while now. Now that I'm done with school, I figured now was as good a time as any.

I was hoping some fellow artists could give me some tips on using CSP? Especially people who used to use Adobe themself.

I'm particularly looking for some help with brushes. I'm hoping to find something similar to what I used with adobe (the basic hard round pressure size brush and hard round pressure opacity brush). And then of course anything to do with navigating CSP would be helpful.

I know a big part of me learning CSP will have to be me figuring out what I like myself, but any help (personal tips or useful online tutorials) would be much appreciated <3

My new book How to Webcomic is now available! 

HtW is the culmination of everything I’ve learned from over 10 years making online comics, written out in a handy book format! It’s 140+ pages of information, with additional illustrations and diagrams to help readers navigate the visual language of comics.

With this book I aim to teach you everything you need to know to jump into the wonderful world of online comics, to help you get your story out there and succeed online! Topics in the book include (but are not limited to):

Concepting

Writing and scripting

Drawing for comics

Paneling and visual pacing

Art programs

Building a website

Webcomic platforms

Self-promotion

Social media marketing

Monetization (Patreon, etc.)

Building a community

…and more!

Are you ready to jump into the wild world of comic-making? Then this is the book for you!!

Physical and digital versions of the book are up in my store! Go grab yours now!

I feel like you should know that your art has singlehandedly inspired me to take up digital art again, do you have any tips for starting out?

Omg thank you so much, that is really wholesome and I am glad to hear I was able to inspire someone! The number one tip I have and it is a very predictable one but IT IS PRATICE! There is no running away from practice! Just keep drawing and YOU WILL SEE AN IMPROVEMENT! However, the way I learned to draw was by looking up a bunch of artists I like online and discovering videos and resources! So I will share here a list of cool and fun youtube channels that helped me over the years and still do to this day! Some of these channels have tutorials, art talk, speedpaints... So hopefully you will find something useful here! ^^ Here's a list: Kienan Lafferty: https://www.youtube.com/@KienanLafferty/videos Sinix Design: https://www.youtube.com/@sinixdesign/videos Marc Brunet: https://www.youtube.com/@YTartschool/videos Atey Ghailan: https://www.youtube.com/@ateyghailan9353/videos Ahmed Aldoori: https://www.youtube.com/@AhmedAldoori/videos Proko: https://www.youtube.com/@ProkoTV/videos Sam Does Arts: https://www.youtube.com/@samdoesarts/videos Kiwi Byrd: https://www.youtube.com/@KiwiByrd/videos ABD Illustrates: https://www.youtube.com/@ABDIllustrates/videos Jenna Drawing: https://www.youtube.com/@JennaDrawing/videos Bluebiscuits: https://www.youtube.com/@bluebiscuits/videos Kaycem: https://www.youtube.com/@KaycemCrew/videos

I'm debating continuing to add them to my posts or not. I've always included them because I feel like I need to give proper credit to the original source but also feel like they clutter my post and notice other artist don't always include them either.

Maybe a nice alternative is to include it a little further down in my post rather than right below my art? What do you think?

I was bored so I decided to hurt my eyes

Sorry I was late again. I'm still trying to finish my summer work. School starts in 1 more day. One more day left of freedom... (I'm still cooked)

Anyways, I drew out my profile picture as pixel art. I originally tried it on a 32x32 board, but it looked weird, so I switched a 64x64 board. I didn't want to exceed that since I'm still new to pixel art.

This is not too bad, but it was super simple since there was not really much involved in the process.

Sorry for posting late. In was busy with school work. School starts in 2 days and I had to finish my summer assignments. I'm cooked.

Anyways, this is a scroll. In my opinion, this looks disgusting (which is kind of what I was going for, but i dont really like this). By the way, the green bar is supposed to represent mana or something like that, and the red is supposded to be health. I got that idea from a friend, and it kind of works I guess.

Also, the text on the scroll is Minecraft Enchantment Table, so try to translate it you feel like it (it's cringe). I also got this idea from the same friend.

Was originally going to draw a tennis ball... that ended up becoming a tennis ball in space... then it turned into a tennis ball in space that has water on it in such a way that it might harbor life. The creative process is something else I guess...

Tried making some cherry pie. It's not the best, but it's definitely better than my pumpkin pie from yesterday, so that's still a win. The more I look at this, the more I feel that something is missing... 🤔

This is supposed to be a slice of pumpkin pie. To be completely honest, I'm not really that proud of this. It doesn't really give me that "pumpkin" feeling.

Just started creating pixel art a few days ago (maybe 4-5 I forgot). I thought that I'll start posting my pixel progress every time I create something. Maybe I'll post some of my pixel art from the past few days.

ALSO I accept all forms of advice to improving my pixel art because it will probably be helpful for me since I just started.

To start, I'm not too happy with how this turned out (especially that grass, and the colour of that cloud thing). Advice and constructive criticism will be very much appreciated.

Also, it's kind of blurry because this was from a screenshot I took of my art. I currently am using the aseprite trial version because I want to use it and see if pixel art is for me. So maybe sometime in the future I'll buy it, but for now, I'll use the trial version. Sorry for the blurriness, but it might stay that way for some time.

Art Advice, Inspiration, and Motivation

Goodday Guys, I would appreciate it if you read this but it's alright if you don't want to. I just happen to have a few questions... Do you have any art tips or secrets that you would care to share to me? I've been so bored lately with nothing else left useful to do. I want to learn more about art, like maybe some theory or fundamentals that I might haven't learned or heard of before. And maybe some tips on how to stay motivated and inspired? I've tried many methods but it just won't work. I feel so weak-minded, but maybe it's just me.

If you ever feel like talking to me, then I would gladly appreciate it too. Maybe I just need someone to talk to, to stay motivated and learn more from new experiences . We can talk about anything you want to, specially if it's about something new and different. I love learning new things and that's why I'm here on tumblr, because sometimes I could stumble upon a post with some interesting news, topic, or lesson. ☺

WIP (only part of the canvas)

I totally regret making so polished design refrence drawings. Paiting is going great and they looking gorgeous, but I can't shake off a feeling of repetition since there isn't that much to add and invent. I'm upgrading and fixing mistakes from before, but it don't bring same satisfaction.

Anyway, I'll continue drawing it bit after bit everyday, intertwining with more doodly drawings.

the milanote queue lolz^

Big booty he got lol

Tbh, I wish I can give you good advice for this perspective issue but perspective is something I’m still trying to learn. My suggestion is to probably make his body wider, so that his behind isn’t so off

(Based on what your planing it draw, I probably just convert it into a little side angle if that makes sense)

Guys help I'm not liking this. It's the back that's bothering me

art advice

If you want to try to make your art more realistic try to found grayscale pics of people’s face so you can see the shadows better also don’t forget if your gonna try to be more realistic draw cartoony or less realistic SOMETIMES  so you still know how to draw them realistic and cartoony