ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Okay, let me tell you that your hinata drawing, the one you have as a header is totally amazing and beautiful and I fucking love it, you capture that willnes and passion of him very fucking well and your art it's absolutely perfect and bYE 

!! thank you so much wTF. that’s exactly what i wanted to achieve so i’m really glad i managed to pull that off aaaa

OH MY GOD YOU DRAW AKAASHI WITH AN EARING JFC HOW DID I NOT NOTICE. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING Thanks to an anon ask that you got earlier addressing this, I am now aware and dying.

WINKS

Oh my god I'm in love with you and your art <3 Do you think you'll ever do a speedpaint of some of your work or no?

THANK YOU ♥ and perhaps! i jump between different drawings a lot and take very frequent mini breaks, all of which isn’t ideal for recording a process video, but we’ll see! it’d be a good exercise to help me focus.

Oh my lord your art is amazing. Pls make more haikyu, I love it. Bless you and your art. :3 

waah thank you so much! and can’t imagine i’ll be stopping anytime soon 👌

I used to be really negative about my art and whenever I would finish something I would always think "ugh this sucks" but your positivity has definitely rubbed off on me and because of that I've been able to make a huge amount of improvement! Art is also a lot less stressful and much more fun, so I just want to say thank you, :)

you know sometimes people say things to you that are so lovely and kind and make you so happy that you don’t even know how to reply in a way that feels appropriately grateful. that’s me right now, has been me ever since i got this. curls up into a ball and jumps straight out of the atmosphere to become a new star shining with happiness thank you for messaging me i’m so so delighted to hear all of that!

your Akaashi is so gorgeous...... like.... better than official art omg..... 

ffhfufhgfg thank you omg that’s a huge compliment ;v; all thanks to furudate for his lovely design 

THE WAY YOU DRAW AKAASHI IS JUST 👌👀👌👀!!!!!!! so freakin beautiful ✔ that's some good👌👌shit👌👌 right👌👌there👌👌👌 mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌 THANK YOU FOR BLESSING US WITH YOUR BEAUTIFUL AKAASHIS i just stared at that one post with Bokuto taking his photo for like 20 minutes i'm not even kidding you are a TREASURE

AAAAA I’M GLAD YOU LIKE THAT BOKUAKA IT WAS REALLY FUN TO DRAW thank you <3 <3

Your art though. I'm amazed by the naturalness of your style and your colouring and your take on ships and characters i.love.your.work and also how nice you are to people and patient when you explain stuff, not many people are as constructively open as you are. I'm also grateful for your bokuaka comics btw god bless. May you have the best year, Teddy and may inspiration never leave you hugsss

good lord this is one of the sweetest messages i’ve ever gotten thank you so much wtf ;; thank you for sending this and making my day, seriously!! have a fantastic year as well!

OMG your art is amazing and Your bokuto is so adorable! ^-^

thank you so much! ;v;

have you ever drawn kindaichi or kunimi?

alas, not yet! but there might come a time when i do, who knows :3c

hi! do you keep any online art references? (not tutorials youve made-- i mean references that you use). may i have a link to them?

i do have a blog where i collect tutorials and stuff right here @cyclopedic!

Knowledge is endless and even professionals learn something new about art, so what are some things that you are trying to figure out with art or trying to let's just say improve?? 

oh dang that’s a loaded question. clearly i need to improve in all areas! but generally i’m focusing on anatomy right now. and always always composition (when i do proper illustrations, which i rarely do in fanart). in original art i’m really pushing myself to vary body shapes and facial features lately. and i need to stop only drawing backgrounds and characters seperately and never together in one image, haha!

Can WE PLEASE GET MORE IWAIZUMI HAJIME OR IWAOI

WHENEVER INSPIRATION STRIKES PAL, YES. OF COURSE.

Ahh was that the first time you had posted art (or drawn in general) Suga? If not then i apologise but ah he looks so pretty in your style!! 

yes, pretty much! here’s one i uploaded on instagram ages ago, but that hardly counts. it’s a shame really because i adore suga to bits, i hope to draw him more in the future! so i’m really glad you like him in my style, thank you!! 

your art style is wonderful, I'm crying, if I could marry your third year noya I totally would,, bye

wipes your tears away WAHH THANK YOU

Omg the way you draw Kags is soooooo adorable!! I love your style so much!!

shrieks thank you!! i’m really glad to hear that! ♥

SMILING IWA-CHAN AND SMOL TOBES AND PRETTY SUGA YOU HAVE SLAIN ME TEDDY. (also IWA CHAN OH MY GOSHHHH HES SO... BEAUTIFUL...)

A RARE BUT POWERFUL CHARA COMBO (THANK YOUUU)

hi teddy! what does "fub free" mean? i saw it on your twitter bio.

follow/unfollow/block free! meaning everyone is free to follow, unfollow, or block me without any consequences. it’s a very common thing in the korean twitter fandom (and perhaps others? i’ve mainly seen it on korean profiles) and since i do have quite a few followers/profile visitors from korea i figured it couldn’t hurt to clarify.

you're art is so amazing!! ♡♡♡

YOU’RE AMAZING FOR DROPPING BY TO SEND ME THIS thank you! <3

Hello Soodyo! I saw your drawings since long time ago but I didnt knew that you have a tumblr! And all those drawings, oh god they inspire me to improve my drawing even more. I know you get ALOT of compliments and im gonna add another to that list,I absolutely LOVE your drawings and i really like your personality! You're awemazing!

that’s so incredibly sweet of you oh my god ;_______; floats into the sky and reshapes a could into the shape of a heart, thank you so much!!

yoURE SUPER NICE AND SUPER HELPFUL, YOUR FOLDS TUTORIAL HELPED ME SO MUCH !!! THANK YOU!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAA THE TUTORIAL IS ALREADY PRETTY OLD BUT I’M GLAD IT STILL HELPED 

is your url a reference to Kyungsoo?

that it is. that it is.

Hello! So apparently i was kinda sad with yknow my shitty life and stuff and i havent drawn in months but then i saw your art anD GOD I CANT BELIEVE THAT MOMENT EXISTED FOR ME??? THEYRE SO CUTE AND I WANT TO DRAW AGAIN?? YOURE THE AKAASHI TO MY BOKUTO?? I wanted to write a genuine comment to tell you how thankful i am (and how you're such a sweet person cough), but hell im bad with words uwawawa so!! THANK I LOVE YOU?? UR SO INSPIRING?? I GUESS OH GOD HAHAHA ᕕ( //ᐛ// )ᕗ /runs away

sits ur shitty life down in a time-out corner so it learns some manners and stops being shitty. BUT AAAAA THAT’S AN INCREDIBLE THING TO HEAR THANK YOU SO MUCH I’M FLATTERED AND SUPER TOUCHED MY ART COULD HELP YOU LIKE THAT ♥ GIVES U A TINY FLOWER TO WATCH OVER U AS U DRAW

Hi! I've got a pretty stupid question but it bothers me so I ask you anyway: I remember seing a drawing of Hinata, Kags and Yachi but with Twelve, Nine and Lisa's designs and I was half persuaded it was from you but I can't seem to find it on your blog. So I was wondering, was the drawing deleted or am I just completely wrong and this drawing isn't yours. It's silly but it bothers me not to the answer... Anyway, I hope you're fine and I wanted to tell you how much I love and admire your art :)

ohh no that wasn’t by me!! it’s by the super lovely @lazy-afternooner and can be found here! and thank you so much <3 hope you’re doing good too, anon!

@ the two people asking me about my girl volleyball ocs: i wish i could take the time to talk about them properly but as of right now, i really can’t, so i’m keeping those two asks in my inbox for later! i very much appreciate your interest though!

@ the no motivation anon: i will be answering yours in a seperate post soon (this week)! sorry for the delay!!

and now all the art-related questions

Hello! I just found your blog recently and I think your art is really lovely and the art advice you give is really helpful! I wanted to ask how you go about choosing lineart colors when it comes to skin? When I try it either comes off too saturated or the opposite and it sticks out and I'm not quite sure how to go about it;; Ty for taking the time to reply. I hope you have a lovely day/ night!

there really aren’t many rules to guide you for this, and i think perhaps it’s not so much a question of skintones but more colour theory in general. for that, this tutorial by purplekecleon is fantastic and i highly recommend you check it out! some general things you could try: avoid the (highly saturated) orange/brown range, those colours are tricky to work with. go for something with at least the same amount or more red than the skin colour. try a black lineart layer with lowered opacity, the colour you get from that will always work, albeit be a little boring. pick that colour up with the colour picker and go a little more saturated, a little more red/pink perhaps. here’s a little demonstration for a light skintone: 

anon: hey. i just found your blog some hours ago, and really like your drawings. i just like those warm colors.. but i also got a question, have u got any tips for drawing without outlines like at here or here? i got big problems with this.. :( i love you!!

hmmm i can’t really think of any helpful tips to share for this right now, i’m sorry. :( but my work process is basically this: sketch >> clean up the sketch/draw lineart >> base colours underneath >> block in rough shadow/light areas, other details i might want >> then i paint over it on a layer above all the others. so technically i do use lineart! it’s just no longer visible in the end. here is an old process gif of a drawing i did, which shows a very similar approach.

anon: I hope you don't mind me asking , but how do you draw your heads? you draw them so perfect

thank you!! but it’s primarily a matter of simple practice i believe :( and to be frank heads are usually what i struggle with the most (one time it’s the hair, another the face, another the jaw, etc.) but proko on youtube has some nice videos about the anatomy of heads (and much more), if that’s what you’re struggling with!

SOS! I would like help drawing arms and shoulders because I can't seem to for some reason and if you can't thats totally fine :) You draw arms really good so I was just wondering? Thank you so much!

hi!! i don’t think i can add anything particulaly helpful to what you can find here: for shoulders and for arms, so i hope you won’t mind that i’m just sending you off to check those out. ;v;

Hi Teddy! How do you use each of your brushes when you make art? I've been curious about it for a while. You're super awesome btw. Have a wonderful day!!!!

from the brush pack here i use those four the most:

sketch fine: the name is a lie i use this for both sketching and lineart. (though recently i’ve taken to turning off the texture option in the brush panel, and kicking up the minimum diameter a bit, to soften everything a little)

airbrush: i usually use this at a very big size for glow effects (on a layer set to overlay), and to even out paintings (i pick a colour and go over the whole image or certain areas with faint strokes to unify them a bit, you can see this near the end of this process gif)

colour blocking cloudy: i haven’t used this in fanart a lot so far, but when i use it it’s usually to block in background colours with a bit of texture. it’s a fancy version of the airbrush, basically

painting soft chalk: you can trust the name here. i use it for painting/shading, and i love this thing to bits

i’m not sure how else to answer this so i...hope this was at least kind of what you’re looking for? aah ANYWAY I HOPE YOUR DAY IS WONDERFUL TOO AND THANK YOU

Ok ok so I don't have photoshop, I have procreate (for iPad). How do you find skin tones and such and rendering and dodging? P.S. Your art gives me so many feels that I started crying once

regrettably i don’t have any experience with procreate, so i’m not sure how to help you with this. ;; colour picking should work the same way as in photoshop though? and as for skintones: one two three 👍

Are there any tips you can give for line art besides practice? Like what kind of brush to use, how thick should they generally be, etc. The small things that have a big impact on the overall drawing.

make the canvas big enough that you can use a decently sized brush; i recommend 5px and up (you can always resize your drawing in the end!)

a big canvas is a cure for shaky lines too, since you lose the little bumps and involuntary jagged edges when you resize

the kind of brush you use depends entirely on you, you can make anything work: soft ones, hard ones, gritty ones, it’s all a question of style and how you present it!

same goes for how thick the lineart should be. i’ve seen and loved drawings with very delicate and tapering lines, some with still tin but blocky lines, some with very thick lines. you do you

another thing i like to do: i don’t actually do lineart. i do a somewhat neater sketch and clean that up. keeps things lively!

hello teddy! i bought a graphic tablet a while ago and stopped drawing with it bc all my lines were so shaky and they wouldn't go where i wanted them to...i know that i have to train eye-hand coordination and i tried! but doesn't seem like i improved? and all the drawings looked so bad... but i wanted to give it another try! and i've heard that moving you whole arm is better than the wrist?do you do that? if you have other tips it would be awesome! thanks for answering!! i love you art so much!!

yes i primarily use my shoulder and elbow to move my arm, and my wrist only for drawing very tiny details! my fingers are always static. do keep going though because i am dead certain that practice will pay off in the end! draw simple shapes daily (circles, triangles, a lying 8), and try tracing them over and over again as accurately as you can. for lineart tips in general check out my answer to the ask above this one! good luck!! (and thank you <3) 

i am but a meandering buffalo, and i wandered upon your blog. first off, just by saying 'i love your art' doesn't even begin to describe the amount i fuqin love it. one thing i really look up to in terms of your art would be how you draw faces, and proportions in general; so i guess my question is, how does one proportion? (⊙ᗜ⊙)

thank you so (fuqin) much! ♥ as far as proportions go, there’s really no magic trick, so this is all it comes down to: study anatomy. there’s no way around that. here’s a little guide for basic proportions. there are loads of fantastic tutorials and references out there, so even just a little google search for “human proportions/anatomy” should get you great results!

aaaa your art is super cute and the tips you give to others are really helpful!!I really enjoy drawing but I constantly compare my works that I do now to my better, previous ones, and it really discourages me. Do you have any advice for dealing with something like this? ;v;

that sounds to me like you’re either just out of practice as compared to when you did those other pieces (happens a lot to me, it’s incredibly frustrating but it’s a simple matter of getting back into the swing of things), or you’re trying too hard to do better, fancier stuff and forgetting your basics. but you’ve already done good stuff before, so you’ve got it in you! trust in that! there’s no way you could just lose those skills entirely without any means to regain them. keep going, keep working through the frustration, and trust in the universal rule that practice will help you improve if your heart is in it! ☼

Soodyo-chan! First of all, I really like the way you color your artworks in PS (which it's something pretty difficult in my opinion) and I would love to learn some tricks about blending colors and using the layers mode in PS (which is something I always have gotten problems with). Thanks a lot for your time!!

blending:

if you have a tablet, turn on the pressure sensitivity for opacity. 

for most standard photoshop brushes i recommend not using the brush with a minimum opacity set to 0% because that will get you mushy results. try something around 20% first. 

alternatively, you can try the painting soft chalk one from this brush pack with its default settings and see how that works for you, it’s the one i use.

use the colour picker! just hold alt as a shortcut to access it, and pick up colours directly from your drawing while you’re shading it.

use a very large, soft brush (airbrush) to unify colours

layer modes (my favourites): 

multiply: great for darkening. it basically multiplies this layer with everything that’s underneath

overlay: probably my favourite mode, because it helps with making things shiny and vibrant

color dodge: a little tricky to understand, i use it to add a strong light to my drawings. i explain how i use it in my colouring tutorial!

here’s a great in depth description of them all. if you can spare some time, do read through the entire article from the beginning (skip the math, unless you’re into some extra knowledge that won’t help your drawing skills) instead of just the description part i linked.