LUKA

Having troubles with facial angles in your drawing style?

Try a 3D sculpture of your art in your own style in a free program that is simple and very easy to use.

The program is called Sculptris and is a free off-shoot program from Zbrush, that program that you keep hearing about but either takes selling your kidneys or piracy to actually use. 

If you download it and sculpt out a facial model, you can have references for your own work for all of time. No more endlessly searching Google for reference materials or twisting/rotating/flipping a drawing to see if there are flaws. And you can easily edit it to create more facial types. This way, you can make character references for any and every face and facial angle that you can think of.

The program offers mirroring right from the start, so your faces will be perfectly symmetrical. You can turn off the symmetry for things like scars or otherwise. 

It takes a little time. For instance, I downloaded the program on Christmas and, in my spare time, this took a few days of getting familiar with the program (first day) and then sculpting for a few minutes each day, mostly due to my perfectionist nature. And this one isn’t even done. I still have to mold the mouth, ears, and other smaller aspects before I consider it done. However, I was so giddy over the possibilities that I wanted to share this with my fellow artists.

Blue’s Feathers and Wings Compendium: Standard Wing Shapes

Part 1 [Standard ]| Part 2 [Atypical] | Feather Markings | Tail Feathers

I have expanded the traditional 4 types; Highspeed, Elliptical, Low Aspect and High Aspect ratio, because they were very narrow and vague categories for the most part, adding High Energy, Thermal Soaring, Night Glider, and Passerine wings. I feel that these extra types make it easier to understand and visualize the differences and similarities between wing shapes.

I’ve renamed Low Aspect to Powered Soaring, and High Aspect to Dynamic Soaring for the purposes of the fact that names made it hard to understand purpose and were easily confusable. 

A lot of these wing types are also affected by tailfeather shape and size, and that will change their agility and energy expenditure as the tail also generates lift.

No matter how far you try to run.

You’ll always be found.

You may be familiar with beaded lizards like this one! I made my manta friend using the same concepts, with a few tweaks.

First, you’re going to need some beads and string, as well as something to cut with! The sizes of these don’t really matter (as the pattern will scale up or down), but the beads should be large enough to fit the chosen string through it several times.

To make a manta with the same proportions as mine, you will need at least 68 white beads, and 19 yellow beads. In addition, my manta uses 5 cream colored beads, but you can substitute white for these if you would like. (If you would like a colorful “eye” for your manta, save two beads of the desired color as well!)

Okay! Now the actual creating! Lay your beads out in a manta shape like so! Make sure to keep your beads in rows, as you’ll be needing those rows later.

Cut a length of string! For a manta made from standard plastic pony beads, I used about 5 feet of string. Make sure you have some extra, as we will be needing more string later. If you have smaller beads, feel free to use less! If you run out of string partway through, never fear! You can tie additional string onto the ends of your original string. Just be sure to tie it tightly!

Thread your string through the first row of four beads in the pattern. Try to center them on your string: this can be done by holding up the two string ends as the same level and letting the beads slide to the middle.

Now thread the next row of beads onto either side of the string. be careful not to let them get mixed up with the first row!

Thread the other half of the string through the second row of beads, from the opposite direction that you threaded the first half of the string. The two string halves should switch sides!

Pull the strings somewhat tight, but leave them a little bit lose, as we will need to work with these rows of beads again later.

Continue stringing and crossing rows of beads. Try to keep your manta laying flat, as this will help keep some of the longer rows from getting tangled.

When you’ve strung all of your rows of beads, your manta should look like this!

Tie a knot at the end of the manta’s tail, to prevent the beads from coming undone! Make sure to double or triple knot it for safety. You can also cut the extra string ends short here!

You now have a manta! But… Their middle rows of beads keep getting tangled? They’re just so long…

Wide bead creatures are often prone to this issue. However, we have a solution for that! Untangle your manta friend and lay them out flat, then cut a second length of string. This string can be a bit shorter than the first, but should still be fairly long.

Carefully thread your new string through the first row of beads of your manta, the row of four.

Then, thread the string though the middle three beads of the second row, the same way you threaded all of the beads originally.

Continue stringing middle beads. The middle four of the third row should be strung; the middle three of the fourth and fifth, the middle four of the sixth, the middle three of the seventh, the middle two of the eighth, and the middle one of the ninth. 

Once you thread the ninth row’s middle, you can knot off your string once again, and cut the ends short. Be careful not to cut the other string!

Aaaand… you’re done! You have made one (1) friend. Enjoy! :D