Art Tutorials

my recipe for drawing hands!

(small note that this is a shortcut that is more abt style and ease than anatomical accuracy. it helps to take time to really properly study hands, makes it easier to bend the rules a bit like this and have it still look good!!)

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May I present to you, nationalclothing.org?

The Sari Series: a digital anthology documenting India's regional saree drapes though short films

Purushu Arie's blog; started when he was studying at NIFT, the blogger has gone on to become a leader in the neo-traditional fashion scene in India.

Sinix Design has longer videos but they are also very clear and helpful with slightly more intermediate advice on digital painting, style, and composition.

Art By Annabelle's video on color theory is a very concise and visually descriptive guide if you're not familiar with basic color theory.

Derek Yu's website has lots of very clear advice on how to get started with pixel art.

I can't link them but I recommend the Morpho books, they have VERY valuable advice regarding anatomical studies. In particular the books on fat and skin folds, muscled bodies, and hands/feet will be invaluable if you feel you already have a decent grasp on drawing form and want to improve and add variety to the bodies in your art.

it took me a long while! I figured out some tricks a while ago when I was trying to Actually Draw Horses for some semi-serious art. The real trick is that the cartoon designs are made of some really simple shapes!

My big tip is to stop thinking about them as real-life horses and start thinking of them as shapes that can bend and stretch and squash. The ponies in MLP look nothing like actual real horses; they're more like quadruped short-necked rainbow giraffes! Once I gave up on the fear of them looking anatomically incorrect and started looking for the specific "shapes" the art style was built out of, I had a much easier time. This can even work for more serious art!

(these are a little old and from when I was first trying to learn how to draw pony-type fellas from last year, but I think the principles still stand!)

A couple people have asked about muzzles and how I draw them, so I whipped up this super quick little guide. These are in my own personal art style of course, so play with the shapes and find out what works best for you!

disclaimer: I'm notorious for going off-model with my own guidelines due to my art style [especially in equines/bovines] and i'm vERY SORRY aAA;

This is a modern riso ink swatch, but still you find a similar and limited selection of colors to mix with. (Mixing digitally as to emulate the layering of ink riso would be coloring on Multiply, and layering on top of eachother 👉)

If you find some old prints, take a closer look and see if you can tell what colors they used and which ones they layered... a lot of the time you'll find yellow as a base!

Misprints can really reveal what colors were used and where, I love misprints...

Something else I keep in the back of my mind is: how the human eye perceives color on paper vs. a screen. Ink and paint soaks into paper, it bleeds, stains, fades over time, smears, ect... the history of a piece can show in physical wear. What kind of history do you want to emulate? Misprinted? Stained? Kept as clean as possible, but unable to escape the bluing damages of the sun? It's one of my favorite things about making vintage art. Making it imperfect!

You can see the bleed, the wobble of the lines on the rug, the fading, the dirt... beautiful!!

Thinking in terms of traditional-method art while drawing digital can help open avenues to achieving that genuine, vintage look!

YELLOWING!! Digital art is very blue-light based. Cold, clean, flat. But traditional art has warmth to it. Why?

Over time, paper gets yellowed with dust, oil, dirt, and nicotine from cigarettes! So colors got warmer. This makes art look pretty aged, on top of the slight toned papers and hand made/factory made inks they printed with.

The most in depth line art tutorial I can make! I tried to include everything I could think of. Please ask questions if you have them, and let me know what other tutorials you would want to see!

If you want to watch me draw live and get your questions answered in real time, follow me on Twitch: Stupid Dinosaur’s Twitch

here's a landscape tutorial!

i focused on natural environments for this one, if you find it helpful I'll be back with how I learned to draw buildings.

Hey! i’m not an expert at comic making but there are some basic rules i always look out for when i’m planning my comics:

1. follow the line of vision (not sure if that’s exactly what it’s called)

this is just so you don’t end up confusing the readers. most people know how to read comics and subconsciously follow this line. obviously, your panels are going to be different in every page but it’s good to have an idea of how you can make your panelling least confusing as possible. same goes with dialogue placements. make sure they follow the line

2) save your bigger more important shots for the bigger panels. and your shots of close ups and small details on the smaller panels. when you’re figuring out your story, try to understand what expression/scene/detail you think deserves a bigger panel/full spread. trust your instincts!

3. make sure your speech bubbles are readable!! especially if your comic is going to be printed. go for a good font, space and size it well!

4. don’t feel like you have to restrict yourself to the boundaries of the panels. have fun. your characters and text bubbles CAN move out of the frames. this makes it fun to read. you make the rules.

5. if you want to establish a big space, a double spread is always a great option! especially after pages and scenes with heavy dialogues, it feels good to take a break and just have a visual treat.

One example page with some of these rules i applied:

even though the dialogue jumps from panel 1 to panel 3, i added a very minor detail of them halting in panel 2 so when the reader goes back to it, it’ll be like an extra detail they can catch. not necessarily important to the storytelling.

I've made a little $2 tutorial! It's up on itch.io!

this is a pretty broad question and im guessing/hoping you meant “how do you color in black and white in your comics” so have a few random tips about values and paneling and stuff i guess

My first anatomy tutorial. How I connect arms to the torso. Simplified the muscles for better comprehension

PS. Pectoral is misspelled as “pectorial” in the picture. Don’t make that mistake haha

And I’d love to see the art made from using these as reference, you can message or tag me.. whatever you want

Edit: The extended names of the muscles:

Neck - Sternocleidomastoideus

Traps - Trapezius

Composition is always a big consideration to plan for when you’re drawing, especially traditionally when you might only have one shot to get it right! It’s something I spent more time than usual considering in my most recent post.

This is a tip my dad, a photographer, shared with me for framing photos: you never want to cut someone’s limb out of the shot at the joint. It feels weird and unnatural! It’s better to have the limb cropped out between two joints.

The same goes for any strong line in the environment. It looks awkward to have it right at the neck or hips! Better to have it between the two. (The last drawing, where the framing cuts off marinette right at her hips because i was focused on the bushes, is a good non-example dlsdkjf)

HEYY my 2nd color tips pdf is now available ! ^o^ hope you enjoy!