Art & Write Refs Repost

As an editor, I spend a lot of time correcting fallacies that people have learned through media and/or fandom.

One of the biggest is what to do if someone’s been hurt. It’s also one of the fastest fourth wall breaks if someone gets it wrong. I mean look at my reviews of You Don’t Know Me and Deep Blue Sea (The top has links to the previous parts of the rant) to see me ranting about how human bodies don’t work that way.

While online sources like @scriptmedic and various manuals are great and you absolutely should read them. Nothing beats as close to hands on experience as you can get, and that means taking an actual in-person class.(Some of it is muscle memory – the more reminders you have on how to do a thing the better you perform it) The red cross does offer online courses including ones that provisionally OSHA certified, but I’ve found that most people learn better hands on. So once it is safe (Or if it’s safe where you live), if you plan on writing anything that features first aid, medical crises, or CPR, then take an actual updated First Aid and CPR class.

It isn’t that expensive, some employers may subsidize it too. The certification lasts for a while. And your writing accuracy will be so much better. Also, if you haven’t taken CPR/First Aid in the last 10 years you need to know that the rules changed on how to do CPR. It’s not like how I learned it in health class.

Also CPR isn’t pretty or clean. Defibrillators don’t work on flatlines. If you’re doing CPR correctly, there will likely be broken ribs (this is pretty much 100% true if the person having CPR done to them is over 50, our bones get more brittle as we age). Vomit is possible, very possible.CPR also tends to have a low survival rate, it’s better than nothing, but the odds aren’t great. And there is going to be a hospital stay in whoever gets CPR done on them. Same thing is true if someone drowns. Or stops breathing.

This fabulous bitch

She makes a shit ton of poses (like 16,000 or some crazy nonsense).  I used this lovely lady to draw so much as a teen.  Whether it was some nerdy pose for my Mary Sue as fuck OCs

or for full on fight sequences

or for tragic deaths of my OCs in the arms of a totally OOC main protagonist.  

this bitch hooked me up.  

And with the wildest, craziest stuff that you could see in your head but had no way or resources to reasonably draw like

or this

or this

DUDE!  INASNE SHIT!!  So I was using her for a pose reference and decided, you know what, I owe this bitch some cash.  Lemme dole it out for her.  BUT then, I looked and saw she only has 286 fucking patrons!!  This chick gives out free shit and spends countless hours arranging these shoots and setting this stuff up.  

I’ll fork up the cash, SenshiStock.  You’re worth it.  

Um… Hello! I need some help with basically everything but especially with clothing folds, color theory/skin tones and hair. The dots on this character’s chin/jaw are supposed to be shaving scars, and his ears are meant to be slightly pointy. It was supposed to have the perspective of someone taller, but, uh… I need help with foreshortening/perspectives too.

submitted by @ theyonagoda

Redline by Mod Future

Okay, I’m going to choose the three topics I think would be most helpful to you. Clothing folds, perspective, and the hair. I’m unsure what you mean by color theory. Familiarizing yourself with the practice via Youtube videos and other texts about color theory might be a good start in that regard. The color palette you’ve chosen for this character is naturalistic and the colors work well together.

Clothing folds

The biggest issue here is with the interior lines not giving a connected sense of flow. The creases we see in clothing is because of the fabric draping and being pulled by opposing forms of our bodies. 

The key creases are the ones at the armpit. Adding the seamlines can also help give it a more realistic look. I like to simplify those creases with a V shape. For the rest of the shirt, since it’s a regular t-shirt with no irregular tension (i.e. being pulled by something else), I just put a few lines to indicate where the shirt “hangs off from”, and where it lands. Usually the shirt will hang from the widest part of the body, which is usually the chest (or stomach). 

Here is a clothing fold tutorial by juliajm15 on deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/juliajm15/art/Clothing-and-Folds-Tutorial-543588852

Hair

I would think of the hair as ribbons, or for more curly hair, as sculptural 3D forms. Right now the issue is that many of your strands of hair do not group together into larger shapes. There are lots of little strands, but no big or medium groupings of hair. 

The shape of the hair is important as well. Exaggerating the shape language of the hair - whether with sharp points or poufy curls or limpy flat blocks - can give us insight into the character. 

Last, and this applies to all design, have a variety of Big, Medium, and Small shapes. This gives contrast while still retaining a balance of shapes. Study the designs from any animated character, and you’ll find this principle applied. 

Perspective

This is a little tricky. Even I struggle with heavy perspective. My best advice would be to be able to break the human figure down into basic, simple parts such as with boxes, cylinders, and spherical shapes. Then you need a lot of patience to learn some perspective.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDKYLefDoZl/ This is a good quick guide by Bridget Underwood (brigitiri) that can help you get started with perspective. 

Storyboard artists are good people to follow. They know a little bit of everything: environments, perspective, staging, acting, the works! Storyboard artists saved my life ToT

thank you a lot anon!! (  /)w(\) here, i made a few notes about the steps i follow while drawing feet:

^ that’s assuming you’re not drawing from a low perspective, as if the camera was on the floor or something like that!

I apologize if this seems too blunt, but this is a blog about writing. I would have hoped to see you address criticism in a way that is less reactive and more open. Your last post in particular seems rather angry when I felt there were better ways to deal with the topic that invited understanding and education.

If it makes you feel better, I can assure you, I’m not angry. In fact, posting while angry is a bad idea, and something you should want to avoid.

The author of that torture question annoys me. She comes back a couple times a year, and more often than not we simply deep six her posts without comment. We’ve gotten pretty familiar with her writing, and can usually recognize it on sight. In particular, any asks where she tells us to direct our followers to her blog will not see publication.

It’s important to understand that, not all critique is valid. Not all opinions have merit. In this particular case, this is a very significant factor. As I’ve said, my degree is in political science. When you get into international politics and the use of coercive force, torture comes up a lot. In contrast, the ask author’s background did not prepare them to address torture.

I made an off-hand comment comparing them to an anti-vaxer, and that analogy is more solid than it initially appears. They are, literally, telling an expert that he’s wrong because they prefer their cherry picked, and intentionally misrepresented source.

They are an amateur telling an expert to sit down, shut up, and let them do the talking because they feel morally superior.

To which, I said, “no.”

Similarly, when someone accuses you of something you didn’t do, that critique is invalid. They’re not criticizing you, they’re inventing a version of you that they can attack. This is a dishonest debate tactic called a “straw man fallacy.” They cannot win in an actual argument, so they create an artificial, and untenable position, and attempt to force their opponent to defend it.

To be fair, they’re not very good at setting up straw man arguments. Most of their fabricated positions fail to appear legitimate if you have a functional memory. Several of them can leave you scratching your head going, “where did you get that idea?” More often than not, it leaves the impression that they have very poor reading comprehension, rather than that they’re intentionally dishonest.

For example, their accusation of, “you’re a torture apologist!” as a response to, “torture is evil.”

The expectation is that you won’t realize you’ve been maneuvered into defending a different argument, and won’t be able to evaluate the weaknesses of that new argument.

Except, they’re not that subtle, and as a result, their attempts to manipulate the discussion tend to be more baffling than effective.

Remember, there were a lot of accusations in that ask regarding behavior that never happened. That’s pretty solid tip off that the author is coming to the discussion with unclean hands. They didn’t want an open and honest discussion.

Their entire goal is to get us to shrink back into corner, and allow them to speak for us because we’d be too afraid to offend someone, or too busy pleading, “please don’t hit me anymore.” If you’ve spent any time reading our work, you can understand that their goal wasn’t realistic.

There’s merit in saying that there are better ways to address asks like that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to believe the best in people. However, in this case, that ask was not what it appeared to be. If you wanted to say that I simply should have nuked the ask without comment, that’s valid. Michi almost did until I stopped her.

In an environment like Tumblr, you are under no obligation to give someone a platform to attack you through misrepresentation. If you get someone in your inbox who is accusing you of something you didn’t do, you can simply block them.

I chose to respond, because I felt there were meaningful comments to be made along the way. Not because I was upset.

Personally, I really enjoyed writing that post. In your defense, I don’t often go for the throat on this blog, so there’s no fault in being surprised by that response.

-Starke

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Matara-jin and associatied figures - English language resources masterpost

Taotie as a monster and an art motif

300 followers special: debunking Arahabaki (important addition, addition 2 courtesy of @researcherposts)

Japanese epidemic deities

Struggling with backgrounds are a very typical problem amongst growing artists ( and established artists too even ). We have a tendency to gravitate towards drawing characters, animals or objects when we start out - then as we progress we want to branch out and tell stories with our pieces, which is where the presence of a background can become an invaluable tool. 

Though knowing how to construct backgrounds is a very timeconsuming endeavour. Especially due to how different each environment, scene and atmosphere can be, and what matter of fundamentals the likes of drawing scenery requires to look convincing. Because of this freedom and variety in what backgrounds can and cannot consists of - it’s possible that you’re looking to improve your skills on drawing anything that you haven’t practiced before. 

So let’s take a look at it. 

 Backgrounds as a scene, not an afterthought

First and foremost, considering which background to incorporate into a piece is, for many who have predominantly been drawing characters or objects with no background, secondary. 

We tend to consider our character the star of the illustration. That’s why we tend to give that character the majority of space in our illustration. This can work for illustrations that should feature the character in a context where their presence is the most important part. But if we put our character slap-dab in the middle of the composition, taking up the classic 2/3rds of the canvas every time - we miss out on the incredibly powerful ways a fleshed out backgrounds can tell the story of the image. Sometimes, an environment needs to take center stage to tell the story most effectively. 

For inspiration on this, we look to comics. Comics and graphic novels have long been contending with the masterful craft of compositioning characters and backgrounds into meaningful images, that through the background and the character(s) placements conveys a comprehensive scene. 

https://www.pinterest.dk/pin/695735842416817035/

Especially eastern comics have perfected this particular way of compositioning through some of the genre’s great works. 

But like comic artists, we illustrators ( and aspiring comic artists ) must start considering the use of the environment as a key part of our planning progress. 

This conscious design process can be explored through the use of thumbnails. Small experimentative drafts that shifts our character(s) and environments around to find the most optimal placement for each, in order to tell the story of our illustration the best. 

More on how to thumbnail here: https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/179392771897/how-do-we-draw-thumbnails-before-drawing-i-dont

Considering composition

Naturally, knnowing how to composition an image properly is going to help you find out how to layout your background the best. I remember at first ‘knowing’ that good composition was ‘good’ for your art. But the moment i realized how much the layout of an image can change the way viewers percieve it, i was immediately hooked on exploring the matter, and make it one of my predominant studies for the better of two years. This is still very much a craft i’m only getting started with, but after having studied composition somewhat consistently, the discipline completely re-ignited my interest in visual storytelling as a static medium. 

Learning the basic grips of composition, such as rule of thirds, fibonacci, the way contrasts frames focal points, and how to create flow in your illustrations - is going to elevate your pieces before you even start planning out the fineprint of your backgrounds.

https://keithhornblower.wordpress.com/tag/composition/

https://www.pinterest.dk/pin/430586414367069135/

Another appealing thing about knowing your way around composition, if the promise of stronger pieces isn’t enough for you, is that putting down a solid layout for your background, means that you have a lot more freedom to be as simple or complex as you want, and the piece will still look compelling due to the strengths of it’s composition alone.  

https://www.behance.net/gallery/28573195/Sketch-Series-Light-Composition-Illustration

More on composition here: https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/623115556175888384/can-you-explain-the-rule-of-thirdsthe-golden

Get your grips on perspective

Just like the basics of composition, i highly recommend you start looking into the fundamentals of perspective. The use of perspective makes for very dynamic compositions, and in backgrounds - it is a cornerstone to conveying environments ( unless you do more abstract backgrounds for your pieces ). 

And if you master the skill of seeing, planning and executing things in perspective, you will have immense and incredible freedom to do almost whatever you want with your environments. From basic street layouts, to fish-eyelens shots or warped, distorted dreamlike landscapes, you’ll be able to make almost anything look interesting. 

I personally think it’s worth trying your hand with as many perspective types as possible, but for starters - i recommend looking into the basics of 1-point and 2-points perspectives. These are typically the ones we encounter in real life, and thusly will be the more common kinds of perspective used in illustration for storytelling. 

https://artdepartmental.com/blog/perspective-drawing-lessons-thomas-romain/

More on perspective: 

Background and perspectivehttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/182875714745/i-have-a-bunch-of-tutorials-on-buildingobject

Drawing in 3Dhttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/182344072564/hai-im-sorry-if-this-sounds-stupid-but-do-you

Character interacts with background

https://www.boredpanda.com/may-the-mermaid-of-lily-lake-illustrated-story-andy-ivanov-part-two/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

When planning out your composition, there are little tricks you can deploy to make the character integrate more with the environment, and more effectively convey the story of your image. Having your character interact with the environment in some kind of way is a very effective method for this kind of intergration. Above^ - the mermaid and her companion cause ripples in the water, and part the algae on the water mirror as they move through the lake. This indication of motion and interaction is not that complex, but it still relays plenty of information about direction, speed and movement to our viewers, which makes us merge the characters with the background itself. 

Subcontextual symbolism and metastorytelling

In addition ( and yet not really ) to the point above: you can relay subcontextual storytelling to your viewers by having characters react to objects ( or other characters ) in the environment. A hungry child staring at a cake through the baker’s window. A scared girl hiding away from a grandfather clock. A man glaring at his reflection in a mirror.  Or as in the example above, a character staring at a ring on his sill from his bathtub. 

All of these setups tells us that the character is in some state of mind, prompted by the environment they’re in. This makes our characters, not just “ additions” to an environment, or an environment a “prop” to the character.It makes them co-dependent and working symbiotically, as the story would’ve never have been conveyed at all, had one of the two been missing. 

Interaction across the planes

Usually, we divide our compositions into layers depending on which plane is closer to the “camera” and which isn’t. Something like this: ForegoundMiddlegroundBackgroundThere’s nothing wrong with doing this, it can help you in the early stages of planning, and also help you decide on colours and lightsetting ( say if, for an example - you want to work in the LMD (or DML ) spectrum for that cinematic light ). However, incorporating objects, characters or other elements that travel through multiple layers of this 3-part division ( like the snake-creature above, which stretches from the middleground to the background ) conveys depth and gives flow to the piece. Now for this - you are going to rely heavily on your perspective skills, so make sure you have those at the ready when trying for something like this. 

 Referencing the specifics

https://www.normandythenandnow.com/gothic-architecture-in-normandy-photos-from-1865/

A common pitfal for the likes of us who aren’t used to putting much thought into backgrounds is that we forget to research the design for the worldbuilding we want to do for the illustration we’re making.

This can result in us falling into stale, overdone or plain shapes and sizes, that never really takes us out of our comfortzone, and fails to interest our audience. 

This can be especially damning if you’re working with environments with lots of architecture involved. We all know how to draw a house, a birch tree or a field of grass - but do we really know how to draw it well and interestingly?

Never skimp on your research. Let yourself be inspired by any specific type of foilage, building or layout, so that your background will spice up and live up to your characters. 

More on referencing here: 

What is a reference?https://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/177721492973/im-sorry-but-what-exactly-do-you-mean-by-a

Finding referenceshttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/184999456720/so-i-know-of-multiple-reference-sources-that-i

Using a reference without tracinghttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/189480282011/not-really-a-dumb-question-at-all-simply-put-in

Build from the ground up

So you planned it all out, you’re ready to start drawing your background. Nice! 

Remember to go slow. Construct everything from the ground up, so that you don’t miss out on crucial perspective flaws, or errors in the consistency between shapes. 

It’s okay to spend a long time on backgrounds. Especially if they make for a significant part of your image. So take as much time as you need, and don’t let yourself be stressed out if you have to go over certain parts again and again, for it to look right. 

If you work digital like me, i can recommend “building” up your background in layers. Use a new layer everytime a new layer of “depth” is added to your background. Like this you can always toggle layers on and off for the perfect overview of your environment. Plus, you have all the freedom to go back and erase, change or alter something in the base shapes wihout having to disrupt the more detailed layers.

I don’t typically add the final lines until i’m completely satisfied with the background. Everythings constructed and very little is left for later-me to fill in. This helps a lot, as i am also new to backgrounds, and need things to be pretty cut out for me the moment i start laying down the final linework, otherwise i might misinterpret part of my sketch and get something wrong in the lineart. 

More on linearthttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/187696646782/do-you-guys-have-any-tips-on-making-the-lineart

Detail and rendering

Howl’s moving castle

When drawing backgrounds it’s worth asking yourself how much detail you want to add in. Usually, this can come naturally as part of your style. Though sometimes the likes of clutter, detailed textures or a busy background can forego the confinements of style and relay information about the story. The clutter in Howl’s room for an example, tells us of an eccentric character who has been far and wide collecting all these marvelous items. This walks hand in hand with Gibli’s use of highly detailed environments in this ( and many of their other movies ) flick. Though, it is not always that the presence of many “objects” is the solution to a naked looking environment. In fact, sometimes this kind of clutter can, in worst case become too chaotic looking to fit the scene, and at best-  a lot of work that could’ve achieve the same as something half as cluttered. 

To know just how much detail you should put into your illustrations, it is worth diving into how many other artists have done backgrounds, take inspiration from them, and tweak it to fit your style and to your illustration. 

https://www.themarysue.com/comics-to-read-for-new-hellboy-movie/

Opposite Ghibli, comics like Hellboy and Vagabond frequently show environments with “few” objects in them, or at least very simple objects.

Hellboy treats its backgrounds with a level of roughnes derrived from its use of pitch black shading to carve out blocky textures in the objects in the environment. Giving us just about enough information to be able to decipher the feel of the environment, but not much more. It has a simple grade of rendering

https://qmanga.com/mangareader/vagabond/reader?page=304

 Vagabond on the other hand, makes use of pen and ink and a painter-esque approach to its backgrounds, which results in the objects in the backgrund often boasting thousands upon thousands of penstrokes that conveys depth and value. This comic has a complex grade of rendering. 

Both of these comic book’s styles are highly artistic and effective in compliance with their own styles. Though they all invoke very different feeling for their environment and their respective story. 

You should delve into your own use of detail and rendering when you set out to draw backgrounds consistently. Find out what level of detail you’re willing and able to default to, and what benefits your style most. Keep in mind that just because a background has many things in it - doesn’t necesarily make it a good background. It just makes it a busy one. 

Consider your pallette

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Yqob

Naturally, you might want to try and integrate the pallette of your characters with the lightsources and pallette of your environment. At least unless you’re working with some more abstract techniques to frame your character in the environment. 

Seamlessly blending your characters into the environment consists of mastering ( editing ) your colours so that their values correspond with the hues in the scene. Like above ^The characters, despite wearing blueish outfits are all topped off with a red overlay, that mimicks that of the firey light source in the room. Some people can plan for this kind of mastering in the pre-stages, but for me, i mostly always get around it at the later stages of my process.

 Light it right

https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/the-best-illustration-stories-of-2018/

A good, directional light can set the mood and lay down the atmosphere for a illustration perfectly. The use of light is easily one of the most effective ways to establish the tone of your piece. So make sure to pour some much needed attention into it. No matter if your environment is simple or complex, splashing it with anything but ambient light will make the composition jump out at the viewer. 

And remember to colour your light! The colour of your light and your ambient shadows will relay information about the temperature of your scene, or information about the general environment you’re in. Say for an example, how the golden light of the image above^ tells us of a warm sunset. Or how the picture below indicates a cool, mystical room. 

More on lightinghttps://theredlinestation.tumblr.com/post/186754404056/do-you-have-a-tutorial-or-reference-for-making-the

Atmospheric detailing

Last but not least i want to give a quick nod to the use of special effects in art. ( predominantly digital art ). Where the use of a well placed gradient between your foreground and background, or a dab of fog, godrays and clouds can make anything look epic and grandscale. As well a help us distinguish the planes of the background from one another, by giving depth to the invisible space between the planes. Naturally, not all styles or scenes can make use of these kinds of effects. But i reckon you’d have fun experimenting with them nonetheless, and maybe you’d be able to develop your own little tricks for your backgrounds. 

Whev, ok! I hope this was of some help. I know this one took forever to go through, but i needed a while to contemplate how to methodically go though something as broad as backgrounds.

There’s a lot to it as you can see. And i’ve only touched on some of the more meta-contextual things you can do with a background. So to actually go and study the likes of architecture, perspective, landscapes, etc - is next up for you to do. 

Remember that it takes a long time to master something like backgrounds, because you are teaching yourself a completely different skillset from drawing characters or objects. But don’t give up! Slowly things will click into place, and you’ll start seeing your pieces get a lot more interesting to look at.