Art help for nonhuman drawings

"Well if it was important why didn't anyone say it sooner?" "if it was important, why didn't they say it was racist?" peer, a good 75-80% of what I might say to the white and/or nonblack people that offend me directly goes swallowed for the sake of my paychecks and running water, or God forbid to avoid a bullet. Or if I'm online (where that number shrinks significantly), to be left the fuck alone 🤣

Oh gosh, thank you! I do pride myself in my bug mouths, actually. It’s not only hard to find good reference for arthropod mouths, but basically all cartoon bugs in media have humanoid mouths, so i had to figure out how to draw and simplify them from scratch.

Anyways, I couldn’t find any specific references for a domino roach, so here’s my best shot using german cockroach mouthparts:

Roaches have pretty typical mouths for chewing insects, but for general reference, here are some other typical arthropod mouths simplified:

morpho books

figure drawing for all it's worth (+ creative illustration)

framed ink

will eisner comics and sequential art

will eisner graphic storytelling and visual narrative

understanding comics (+ making comics)

folder of various animation production art

burne hogarth drawing dynamic hands

perspective for comic book artists

michael mattesi force drawing

the animator's survival kit

color and light james gurney

Bounce light is something I didn't cover but I adore it!

Gamut Mask

(image via )

James Gurney is an absolute master and gives really good clarity on colour techniques. Yes, it is traditional paint focused, but the principles are the same. Yes it is informed by the environmental colour but as a painting technique it is achieved this way!

While it's not super important to know about the mathematical side of blend modes, I think it's worth knowing at least enough about how each of the categories of blend modes works and why they do what they do; if for no other reason than having a starting point when you start experimenting with them in your work.

An overview of the basic blend modes and how they work from Genevieve's Design Studio: Accessible with minimal color knowledge; practical and illustration focused. https://youtu.be/kMc87hQrJd0?si=TWCB365pKSfWS8p0. (16 minutes) This creator also has a ton of free resources you can download, including a Blend Modes cheatsheet, but fair warning: you have to create an account to get them!

so. i was not happy with the 3D models of horses on offer in the CSP store or literally anywhere else i could find them, i needed one to use for my work, and i went ahead and made my own that is now available for the low low price of FREE in the CSP assets store.

textures included are greyscale basic shapes, multicolor basic shapes, and white with no shapes (but eyes, mouth, nostrils, and hooves emphasized for ease).

shape is ROUGHLY based off the silhouette of an Andalusian. size-wise, it by default stands at around 16 hands, but of course it can be resized to suit your needs. for that, I recommend sizing a human pose doll to the correct height (in centimeters), lining them up on the same plane, and resizing the horse to match the human doll's height. remember that a horse's height is measured at the shoulders!

it also comes with the following preset poses:

I have a really bad habit of misjudging values when I paint, and this trick I learned in college has been a massive help, so I wanna pass it on

These are both details from a project I’m working on right now- left is in indoor lighting, second one is with 0% saturation

The one on the left looked flat to me in places, but I wasn’t 100% sure how to fix it, so I took a photo in the most neutral lighting I could get and then stuck it under a black & white filter.

Now on the left, I can see black with high-contrast white highlights showing the folds in the fabric, and even at a distance that purple and blue sheet reads as draped cloth.

Now in the teal sheet on the top right corner, and to a lesser degree in the upper middle part of the wrist on the hand, there’s a lot of flat grey. The shadows are darker grey, but the main body of the material is pretty much the same grey as the highlights, so if I really want it to pop I need to darken those shadows and get a brighter colour or shade to highlight the folds.

Before this, I put a lot of time and energy into the SHAPES in the fabric, and couldn’t figure out why it still looked fake. The whole time, it was the values.

Now what I’m gonna do when I get back to it is give it a bit of chutzpah with a complimentary wash and then go over those highlights and shadows again to match the rich and heavy look I’m aiming for.

(Hope I’m using the right terminology, it’s been a long time lol)

WOW, how many people, I never thought that I would ever be able to get so far away, but i did. I am really grateful to all of you who follow me, I just wanted to thank you for supporting me, thank you all for liking my posts and reblogging my palettes. You all are so awesome! The colors palettes, png grids and gradients is in size 5000x5000px so you can use in your edits, icons, or even as wallpaper, any way you want!

Like or reblog if you download.

This pack includes:

200 Color Palettes (preview)

10 Fonts  (preview)

100 Gradients  (preview)

9 Grids png  (preview)

72 Maps Gradients  (preview)

20 Textures light peak  (preview)

I hope you have a wondering day or night!! Lots of love 💕 (Can’t wait to devour more of your art!)

Hi! Thank you so much! ^^

One of the most reliable ways to keep your values and composition in check is by constantly checking your work in grayscale and at a tiny size. If you shrink your image down to the size of a battery and convert it to black and white — and you can still tell what’s going on — then you're on the right track. But if it turns into visual chaos or becomes unreadable, that’s a sign there are issues with tone or too many unnecessary details.

As for color — I really like working with analogous palettes and adding one accent color. I’m also a big fan of "glowies" and often try to include them in my art. Combining those techniques, you can get things like blue-purple interiors lit by warm yellow sunlight, or beige characters standing out against green backgrounds.

An accent color doesn’t always need to be the light source either — sometimes placing a cool color like blue in the shadows of a warm object (like red) can make the whole thing feel more vivid and interesting.

HEY DID YOU GUYS KNOW ABOUT THIS. THAT AFTER THE INCIDENT, SIFFRIN USED WISH CRAFT TO MAKE SURE HE'D NEVER FORGET HIS FRIENDS. DID YOU KNOW THAT. BECAUSE I DIDN'T.

FIRST OF ALL, MY HEART

i was just looking through the memories and,

THIS IS HOW YOU REMEMBER THEM

NOT AS IN "THIS IS THE KIND OF PERSON YOU REMEMBER THEM TO BE"

Here's my "lazy" foliage tutorial! 🍀

(I say "lazy" in quotes as I consider this method a shortcut, but still requires some effort for the drawing to look nice)

Gif version of the process:

Thanks for reading!