Artlyartlyarts

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. 

https://paintschainer.preferred.tech/ here

A new set of brushes is available now on my gumroad! It includes 3 painting brushes and 7 special brushes you can use to add some detail to illustrations or environmental drawings. I really hope you’ll like it and also check out the free palette that’ll work perfectly with the brushes!

Available here:

Here it is! Sorry its so late! This is a lil tutorial on how I do eyes!

Hope this helps! Here are some additional eyes!

I’ve never really wrote a tutorial before so apologies if this is bad

1. okay first thing I do is pick three colors, a mid, dark, and light. I like to check the colors in greyscale to make sure there’s enough contrast between each one.

I then plop down a blob of whatever my middle tone color is.

2. next, I take my dark color and just sort of randomly place it around. I try to make sure there’s a good amount of both the mid and dark tones spread throughout. I personally like to keep it kinda messy. I also have pen pressure on for both brush size and opacity, so I can have some blending action going on.

3. for the next step I do the exact same thing as before, except with the light color.

4. aight this is where we start adding details. see how you just have a bunch of colors and edges where two colors meet? use the eyedropper and go to an area where two colors meet, eyedrop a color, and then use that color to draw in your grass blades. I do this at every point where colors meet. should note I personally like to use a square brush, but you can really just use anything.

5. you can technically stop at the last step if you’re going for a more simple look, but to add more details I go to the “empty” areas of solid color and just draw in random strokes using a color nearby. it’s just a way to fill up the empty space.

6. basically more of the same idea of eyedropping and drawing. for more variety so things look interesting, I like to add random plant shapes.

7. and so the grass doesn’t look too plain, I add random dots of color and pretend it’s flowers and stuff.

It is! I always make sure to try and break the pose into shapes and work from there. I also like to use arrows to show the flow of the pose!!! I then open it next to my picture and draw the shapes scaled up in size as I draw on a 4000px x 4000px canvas usually. You can also use posemaniacs.com for referencing, if you scroll down the right side and click “model” it has hands, a torso, and a head for practicing with.

Here’s 2 examples!!!

Making someone bigger than ref’d person:

Making someone smaller than ref’d person:

Late last year I wanted to start a series of short tutorials called Tip Jar, as a way of saying thanks to my fans and giving back to my patrons. This is the first of the series I have made, showing my technique on quickly filling in lineart so you can get to painting without coloring outside the lines faster. 

Someday I hope to turn these into video tutorials when I have the income and the time, but for now I hope that I will be able to share useful tips in this infographic format.

Full tutorial image

I’m kicking off this little tutorial series with one of the best tips I ever got! More obvious tips coming soon ~

I’ve never really wrote a tutorial before so apologies if this is bad

1. okay first thing I do is pick three colors, a mid, dark, and light. I like to check the colors in greyscale to make sure there’s enough contrast between each one.

I then plop down a blob of whatever my middle tone color is.

2. next, I take my dark color and just sort of randomly place it around. I try to make sure there’s a good amount of both the mid and dark tones spread throughout. I personally like to keep it kinda messy. I also have pen pressure on for both brush size and opacity, so I can have some blending action going on.

3. for the next step I do the exact same thing as before, except with the light color.

4. aight this is where we start adding details. see how you just have a bunch of colors and edges where two colors meet? use the eyedropper and go to an area where two colors meet, eyedrop a color, and then use that color to draw in your grass blades. I do this at every point where colors meet. should note I personally like to use a square brush, but you can really just use anything.

5. you can technically stop at the last step if you’re going for a more simple look, but to add more details I go to the “empty” areas of solid color and just draw in random strokes using a color nearby. it’s just a way to fill up the empty space.

6. basically more of the same idea of eyedropping and drawing. for more variety so things look interesting, I like to add random plant shapes.

7. and so the grass doesn’t look too plain, I add random dots of color and pretend it’s flowers and stuff.

ALRIGHT I saw a tutorial on blood going around earlier and it was just sooo abbreviated that it made me kind of peeved so I set out to give what little blood knowledge to the test to make a slightly more robust tutorial. (Credentials drawing? 4 years of art school plus like 16 as a hobbyist. Credentials with blood? I liked watching Dexter once and I have a period.)

OTHER THINGS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:

Drawing from reference is your friend! If you can find life references to go from, fucking GO HAM. Study the shit out of that, the best way to mimic something is to watch it in action. This was put together very quickly but I made sure to do a couple google image searches while I was doing this to see if I was getting the right ideas. This still isn’t perfect. I’m not perfect, I can be wrong! 

ALSO: Do yourself a favor and look up stuff about Blood Pattern Analysis, I found This PDF while fact-checking and that gives a good overview of the basics, though you can probably find even more extensive information with a good google search. Forensic scientists use this all the time as a crime-solving tool and you bet your hiney there’s gonna be resources out there documenting the information. These make handy reference tools!

Menstrual blood was added for educational purposes, I don’t know if you’d necessarily be DRAWING it but if you have a period, it might be something you see regularly and might want to observe. In that case, I tried to document what’d make the composition different because it IS pretty different than blood coming from the rest of the body, if only because it’s usually seen with tissue or other fluid.

Someone asked for a few tips regarding coloring skin tones so I threw this together real quick lol. 

Hello there!

Yes, we haven’t done this in a while… but our inbox and chat are swamped with questions on the subject, so this article was very much needed.

it’s a simple list of art apps, but we know you love those :D

Enough with the intro, here it is, a list of twelve art apps you may want to check out.

ArtRage is an art program for beginners and professionals. With its minimal interface, it’s easy to keep the essential tools at hand without stealing space from the canvas. Panels can be moved around and tools can be customised. We all know how important it is for digital artists to be able to modify brushes!

Pros: easy to use; friendly interface; essential tools from professional apps available; available for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac

Cons: it may get sluggish with big files and when using big brushes, but performances also depend on the running machine; limited selection of editing tools if compared to Photoshop - ArtRage is more of a painting program rather than an editing one.

Paid

ArtRage Lite is a different version at a cheaper price, mostly for beginners, but also for professionals if they need the essential.

Now free, Sketchbook is the famous app created by Autodesk for various platforms.

Pros: clean, friendly interface; easy to use; professional features

Cons: lack of official tutorials; doesn’t offer as many tools as other apps (it’s down to the essential); paid subscription in Adobe style for the pro version

Free and paid

Black Ink is a powerful little program few actually know, but there’s a reason: this isn’t your classing drawing app. What’s cool about it is the vast selection of special brushes, completely non-realistic, and definitely able to boost your creativity.

Pros: vast selection of customisable brushes; excellent performance

Cons: not very easy to use; non-intuitive interface

Paid

This is probably the most complete software for painting, drawing and animation. It was originally known as Manga Studio, but with its updates and addition of features, it became Clip Studio Paint. 

This doesn’t say much about the quality of the features themselves considering the affordable price (if you haven’t used the app yet, that is), but among graphic apps, this one is the top seller.

Pros: professional features for illustrators; layout tools for comic/manga artists; 3D reference models; customisable tools; various sales with special prices

Cons: the interface may not appear intuitive at first; the program may lag (again, performance also depends on the running machine)

Paid

GIMP is the famous open source image editor originally created for GNU/Linux and available for OS X and Windows. 

Best known as Photoshop’s main competition, this is a manipulation program for both beginners and professionals who love design.

It offers many professional features, making the program a powerful tool.

Pros: professional editing tools; supports different formats; supported by different platforms; active community

Cons: in spite of the simple design, many options are hidden and it takes time to discover all the features; slow startup

Free

Krita is an open source painting app created by artists for artists.

Pros: easy to use; intuitive interface; great brush workflow; brush stabilizer; customisable brushes; general good performance; very enthusiastic, although small, community

Cons: it may be slow or even crash depending on the running computer and the app’s version; very few editing tools compared to Photoshop

Free

MediBang Paint is a free and light app for drawing and painting, perfect for manga and comic creation.

Pros: vast selection of brushes; cloud sharing; friendly, minimal interface (non-desktop app); also available for iPad, iPhone and Android

Cons: requires an account to use all features; non-intuitive interface (desktop version)

Free

Mischief is a sketching app with essential tools, useful for brainstorming and ideation.

Pros: infinite drawing canvas; friendly interface; easy to use; cheap pro version

Cons: few updates; offers only the essential (but that’s the point); no editing/adjustment tools

Free and paid

Corel’s jewel, Painter is the most famous software that offers digital tools able to give a traditional feel to brushes and canvas.

Pros: different selection of media; many professional features; PS-friendly

Cons: certain brushes may work slow; not easy to use at first; the software may crash (this is the most common report); pricey

Paid

Paintstorm Studio is a professional software for digital painting. It’s focused on the use of brushes and blending, which makes the software a little gem in the digital painting field.

Pros: good brush workflow; brush stabilizer; “close gap” feature; customisable interface and tools; professional features; affordable price

Cons: non-intuitive interface (desktop version)

Paid

Procreate is the powerful drawing app for iOS. 

With the very sensitive Apple Pencil, Procreate is so easy to use that many artists chose the iPad over the most famous graphic tablets.

Pros: friendly interface; makes it easy to organise files; excellent brush workflow; customisable brushes; video recording; affordable price

Cons: hidden features; only available for iPad

Paid

SAI is a simple app for artists who want to focus on painting and drawing. 

It’s well known for its good pressure support and its essential tools for manga artists, but SAI can be used by any kind of artist who wants to paint.

Pros: easy to use; friendly interface; light software; customisable brushes; tons of (non-official) tutorials

Cons: limited selection of tools, even basic ones; limited canvas sizes and uses; it might crash from intensive work, especially with big canvases and brushes; supports only RGB colour mode; lack of support

Paid

We hope you’ll find this list useful. 

If you think there are other apps that should have made this list, don’t hesitate to let us know!

Thank you and peace out,

G&M

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