Drawing Tips From Tumblr

When an artist shares their work for free online, it can be easy to assume the art is free for everyone else to use too. So you grab it and include it in your own project, and all of a sudden an artist is mad at you, their fans are calling you out, you’re getting threatened with legal action—or even scarier, the artist’s publisher is threatening you with legal action. One-shot comics and minicomics are especially susceptible to this misunderstanding because often they are seen as viral memes instead of art, or treated as public property. But is this really the case? This guide will help you navigate using art you’ve found online. We’ll start with three basic questions: 1. Do I need to ask permission from the artist? 2. Do I need to give credit to the artist? 3. Do I need to pay the artist? After that, we’ll offer some tips on how to approach the artist.

I wrote an article for Cartoonists United! CU has a great collection of resources to help the art community, and I was really excited to contribute.

If you don't know whether it's safe to use a piece of art you found online, if you don't know how to ask permission to use art, and if you are unsure of how to approach artists, read the article!

And if you're an artist who frequently finds your work being used without permission, spread this around so more people know the etiquette around using art online!

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

The perspective examples I showed above look complicated, but the underlying technique is very simple. You just keep splitting the rectangle until it's divided up evenly as many times as you need it to be.

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!

How to Draw Native People: a Tutorial/Reference Guide

As requested, here is a basic guide for how to draw Indigenous peoples (mostly focused on North America)! Also please note that this is not an exhaustive list of Native American phenotypes/features, and more like an intro on very common features that can be found in us, and even then, not altogether at once on a single person’s face. I highly encourage the use of references and care taken into research when drawing. I may do a part 2 that goes slightly more into depth, but for now, enjoy part one.

Resouces:

How to draw Native Skin tutorial (don’t draw us red!)

List of Native American Celebrities, which include their tribe(s) and home country, with 1,250 names, to use for your referencing pleasure

How to draw black people by Peachdeluxe, & Black hair in depth by misslaney for mixed black Natives

How to draw Asian People, a guide by Chuwenjie, for mixed Asian Natives AND because it includes a lovely tutorial on monolid eyes, a shared feature of Native people

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 made the textures by hand in my sketchbook. They're pay what you want with no minimum.

It's done! You can find the Absolutely Ripping It Up pack here.

Tear your artwork. Decay it. Blast a giant hole into it. Go nuts. Note that these are compatible only with Clip Studio!

please check out the photo ref i used!!

quick bricks

draw bricks. you know how bricks are patterned. don't draw an evenly spaced grid.

round the corners of the bricks.

add line weight to the bottom of some bricks. SOME. not all.

scuff the bitches