archive

My day gecko...

Blue Silk Dress with Chiffon

1900s

Unless you're drawing explicit realism, in my opinion, expressions should be exaggerated to some degree. If you aren't doing a 1:1 recreation, the point is to get the FEELING across. Try making the expression you want to draw and feeling how your face pinches and stretches.

Skin doesn't just "disappear" when your face moves it around --- that's where wrinkles come from! Pay attention to where your skin creases when you emote, and use it to your benefit. It's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it -- find your own balance.

Ultimately, every expression has a little bit of push and pull, unless your face is completely neutral (and even then, there are still some wrinkles...). Learning to think of expressions as actions and reactions is VERY helpful in learning to draw them without needing a reference, and in learning how to stylize and push expressions based on references as well!

I think a lot of people end up with stiff or unexpressive emotions in their art because they're just trying to recreate a picture instead of understanding WHY and HOW the face is moving --- and it's a tough thing that takes a while to really pick up and learn. Hopefully is helpful in showing a way of thinking about it that can influence your process and approach to emotions!!!

Also, bonus: even without the lines, the planes alone still show a LOT of emotion.

i can try give a summary of da basics i use! if you want more in depth tutorials i suggest 'cherylynn lima', 'sorry stacy' 'keven' & 'brain graft' on youtube!! these are ppl ive watched alot of nice tutorials & workflow vids from, brain graft doesnt really do tutorials BUT does alot of lowpoly models w high quality handpainting and does speedpaints of the process!! so my tips personally if you want to make a lower poly model with painted textures, 1# is make a reference drawing of from & profile of ALL the elements u want to make of your model beforehand... helps u decide what the important big-shapes and overall balance is, its really hard to do it without dat in blender.... between orthographic view & perspective it changes how you see the proportions....

also another is probly model IN orthographic view. its the most accurate view of the actual proportions you're modelling! after you have you click the Y to snap to front y-axis in ortho view,

THEN you should add in your reference image, bc the image will orient to whatever angle the viewport is at the time of adding it...

then to finish setting up for modelling, add a cylinder but DONT CLICK ANYTHING YET bc u need this menu that pops up

and change it from 32 vertices to 8 or 6, dis will be the base for the legs

then w that selected, go to modifiers tab & add 'mirror modifier'

and keep in mind you will turn on clipping LATER.... clipping basically joins together any mirrored vertices that touch eachother, so for now you dont want that... and then you can just follow your front & side view references you added (snap to X and add side view reference) theres ALOT of key shortcuts i cant really say allof them, but just know that even if u dont know any key shortcuts, there probly a UI button for it!

for ME the most helpful shortcut is M (merge!)

and also F (creates a face/plane between selected vertices, if only 2 vertex selected then it makes 1 edge!)

& ofcourse E to extrude, but also Shift + L will select all linked pieces! so if you have a bunch of disconnected pieces in a mesh, you dont need to try xray mode track down what vertex belongs to what, just select one face/vertex and do the shortcut!

the other one isssss after you select edges you want to make into a UV 'seam' (u have to do this anyway for textures) you can press ctrl + E to bring up dis menu and mark seam!

an important thing thatll make things MUCH easier for you, is when you model keep the seams in mind, you can use 'knife cut' tool to make new topology for it if you have to! and when you eventually UV -> unwrap the model after making the seams, its up to you what method u want to texture it with,

Halberd, Arms and Armor

Medium: Steel, wood

Gift of William H. Riggs, 1913 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Evening Dress

c. 1855

Crème silk and wool mixed gauze with floral print; triple-flounced skirt.

France