[hoards art]

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

for no reason at all i've begun messing with this color mixer website definietly not for the dreamtale au im working on cough cough

check it out if you wanna

Shirt stays: these go around your thighs to hold your shirt down, so that it stays smooth and tucked in. They're usually elastic, with 1-3 clips, and if you wear skirts frequently this is a GREAT way to make sure your top doesn't ride up. The clips will be visible if you're wearing something tight, so loose pants or skirts are where these do best. There's also an insane version that clips to your socks, but that is for lunatics. If you wanted, you could also use one of these clips to hold up thigh-highs.

These do a great job of smoothing and narrowing the waist area by keeping your shirt from bunching there.

Sleeve garters: usually metal, leather, elastic, or silk. These are usually worn with button-down shirts to adjust where your cuff falls on the wrist or hand. They're properly worn on the upper arm, and you pull the fabric of the sleeve above the garter until you cuff is where you want it. Because this creates a puff of sleeve at the bicep, it also broadens the appearance of the shoulders. It's great if you're working with your hands or if your sleeves are often too long for your preference.

Waistband clip or belt adjustment clip/buttons: Three different ways of tightening the waistband of a pair of pants or a skirt. You're not going to get more than an inch or so tighter without weird bunching, and for most of these you'd want them to be hidden under a shirt or jacket, but they do the job if that's something you're having issues with.

Collar pins: There are so many fun ones out there, both with and without chains. They're not terribly practical, though the slight weight may help keep your collar where you want it. Also consider collar tips, which pin (surprise) to the very tips of your collar points.

Sweater clips/guards: meant to hold your sweater or cardigan mostly closed. Great if your cardigan doesn't button, or if you don't like it to be buttoned all the way.

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

Absolutely love this Twitter thread from The Menswear guy. Love it so much I have to post it here.

First of all, if you're going to accuse The Menswear Guy of snark based on moral judgement, it's worth noting that the Duke of Windsor was an unequivocally AWFUL person. He struck a deal with Hitler to let Germany conquer Britain so he could be king again. But he was one dapper motherfucker.

A lot of times, I ask myself a lot why it is someone like Ben Shapiro would come begging to you for fashion advice like there's some x+y=z secret code to being fashionable. (Yes, The Menswear Guy has shown screenshots of Ben Shapiro's assistant asking him for fashion advice.)

When the fact is there is no real formula to being fashionable, you have to express yourself and take genuine pleasure in what you're wearing. Ben Shapiro has never felt pleasure in his life without hating himself afterwards.

I rarely repost from others, especially about mostly modern things, but Menswear Guy is so closely and similarly adjacent to our camp here at RHP he might as well be in it (and maybe he is! Are you there? 👀).

Half the fun of looking through all these patterns is seeing how to apply these measurement rules, seam styles, things like that, to your every day life and even shopping. When I go out to look for a coat, the first thing I do, thanks to all the research for this blog, is look at the seams- is it princess cut? Semi? Or does it have more modern lines? Things like that.

This helps keep all this "old" knowledge not only relevant and fun to keep using, but also to help us shop to our best interests and figures. There is nothing criminal or even bougie about that!! Wearing properly fitting and flattering clothes seems almost like a pipedream today, but mostly because so much dressmaking and tailoring knowledge has been lost in the tsunami of die-cut fast fashion.

That's where RHP becomes useful and how more vocal folks like Menswear guy become teachers. These aren't stuffy, long-nose resources meant to make you feel bad or looked down on from some ephemeral far-off ancient pedestal, but to show you things even your hard-working grandparents and great-grandparents took for common knowledge in their day but is simply missing now.

I have been screaming from the rafters since day one that these patterns and these books are universal cultural heritage and should be freely available as intangible treasures. That's a similar vibe and point I feel Menswear guy is also trying to get across.

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

This is a modern riso ink swatch, but still you find a similar and limited selection of colors to mix with. (Mixing digitally as to emulate the layering of ink riso would be coloring on Multiply, and layering on top of eachother 👉)

If you find some old prints, take a closer look and see if you can tell what colors they used and which ones they layered... a lot of the time you'll find yellow as a base!

Misprints can really reveal what colors were used and where, I love misprints...

Something else I keep in the back of my mind is: how the human eye perceives color on paper vs. a screen. Ink and paint soaks into paper, it bleeds, stains, fades over time, smears, ect... the history of a piece can show in physical wear. What kind of history do you want to emulate? Misprinted? Stained? Kept as clean as possible, but unable to escape the bluing damages of the sun? It's one of my favorite things about making vintage art. Making it imperfect!

You can see the bleed, the wobble of the lines on the rug, the fading, the dirt... beautiful!!

Thinking in terms of traditional-method art while drawing digital can help open avenues to achieving that genuine, vintage look!

YELLOWING!! Digital art is very blue-light based. Cold, clean, flat. But traditional art has warmth to it. Why?

Over time, paper gets yellowed with dust, oil, dirt, and nicotine from cigarettes! So colors got warmer. This makes art look pretty aged, on top of the slight toned papers and hand made/factory made inks they printed with.

you get 3d model pose references with the option of having a male or female anatomy for each pose

they have a WIDE VARIETY of poses that you can search for using a TAG SYSTEM

(as you can see by the scroll bar in the second image there is Even More Tags)

you can select a pose you like for larger viewing and the convenience doesn’t stop!!!

you have full 360 viewing range of the pose plus zooming in and out

and what’s that? a TOOLBAR?? MENU?? THING??

Correct!

the eye button hold a very fun menu

negative space blacks out the background and fills the pose with a solid white silhouette

the “texture” refers to the skin situation of the model with the “color” and “grey” shown below

(i usually use color personally)

then there’s the option of different sized drawing grids(4 and 16 below)

idk wtf bounding box is about but it looks like this if it matters to you

“floor” toggles all shadows on the floor, “floor grid” you guessed it puts a like perspective guide grid on the floor that goes to forever, and “shadow” toggles ALL shading. there is NO lighting happening if you turn that off. NONE.

NEXT ITEM! that box thing with the line through it? flips the pose horizontally.

the little person symbol? lets you switch anatomies

camera icon? you can choose from a selection of preset camera angles PLUS an option for … idk what to call it but you can do this!

less flat right!! i’m sure there’s a word i just don’t know but this is maximum *that* so there is less *that* if you want it

the lightbulb gives you a menu like the camera one but it offers a selection of lighting styles with variable intensity

CHARMING!

and that’s not even everything this site provides!!!!!!! they have tutorials, instructional videos, lessons, all sorts of shit!!! (although they are vast majority if not all in japanese just a heads up)

AND ITS ALL FREE

DONT EVEN NEED TO SET UP AN ACCOUNT OR APPROVE OF COOKIES JUST GET IN DO YOUR THING GET OUT NO STRINGS ATTACHED

and if you don’t have ad blocker or are on mobile(like me) NOT TO WORRY

the ads are few and far between! ZERO video ads, NONE take over your screen or glitch you at all, they are of no concern i forget they’re there!

@thedisablednaturalist @fagtabulous

If you’re like me and you like to play around with your OCs a lot, here’s some things you can do with them!

ART & CRAFTS

Put your OCs in character scenario memes! Here’s some I found on Deviantart.

Do an art trade where you draw someone’s OC and they draw yours!

Use those "Draw The Squad" templates and draw your OCs.

Crochet/knit/sew/etc. a plushie of your OC.

You can also make a paper doll! You can find tons of tutorials on youtube.

You can also make a figure of them out of something like clay, cardboard, or another material.

You can build them out of Legos!

You can also create a hand or finger puppet of them.

Draw a comic featuring your characters!

Create an animation of your character.

Draw your characters as animals!

Create pixel art of your OC! Maybe even make it look like video game sprites.

Draw your characters as playing card designs.

Draw your characters as tarot card designs (Suggested by @ultragirl-parsley)

Create a coloring book full of your OCs!

Create a large cardboard cutout of your character. There are tons of tutorials online!

Put your OCs as designs on cookies, cakes, etc. (I kinda want to do this one but I know it won't turn out well for me 'cuz I suck at handling food T_T)

Design your OC's home.

Make a board game about your OCs and their story

Make Minecraft skins of your characters

“Drawing techniques to improve the shape of baseball caps.”