I Can Art If I Really Want To

I can’t stress enough the importance of stretching your hands, and forearms every morning and every evening, spend 5-10 minutes going through a stretching routine. These are very easy to do, takes little time to do them. It’s VERY common in all animation studios. Conditions can slowly develop, the most typical one is Repetitive Strain Injury, it’s a prevalent condition resulting from overusing the hands to perform a repetitive task, such as typing, clicking a mouse, writing, and of course drawing. In simple medical terms, repetitive strain injury (RSI) stems from prolonged repetitive, forceful, or awkward hand movements. The result is minor damage to muscles, tendons, and nerves of the neck, shoulder, forearm, and most commonly hand and wrist, which can cause pain, weakness, or numbness. If you’re feeling some pains, tingles, weakness, or numbness in the wrist/forearm; one of the best ways to heal quickly are ‘Contrasting Baths’. What crazy voodoo am I speaking of? A couple different physiotherapists and massage therapists had recommended this technique to me several years ago, and for anyone I knew that tried it, they all say the results are fast and effective. Commonly used by carpal tunnel suffers, it’s a method of treating muscle soreness, swelling and inflammation, it’s also known as Hot/Cold Immersion Therapy. You can use the double sink in your kitchen at home, if you don’t have one, then get your hands on two very large identical bowls, it needs to be big enough to submerge your entire forearms from wrist to elbow. Fill one up with ice cold water (with a couple dozen ice cubes floating in there). The other with very warm water, not tea-kettle boiling hot water, just hot tap water, or as warm as you can handle, no sense in burning yourself of course. Have a stop watch or clock ready, and submerge your arms for 30 seconds in the hot, then switch to doing 30 sec. in the cold, and repeat a few times back and forth, 30 sec. a piece. After only a few times you’ll notice the hot water getting cooler and the cold water getting warmer, so then the technique grows to be less effective, but by then, the job is done. The idea is that the extreme heat and cold contracts and expands your blood vessels, promoting greater blood flow to circulate and flush through your arms, and increased blood flow is what aids in healing faster! Enjoy!

[Source]

For artists and animators. Take care of your body and your body will take care of you.

Hey.

Hey pssst.

Want a solid, time-tested, surefire way to accelerate your artistic development and skip years of misery and wasted effort? No really, it exists. And I’m about to give it to you.

Practise every day.

Confront your weaknesses.

Try new things.

See? Now you’re in the know. Step one is easy enough. Steps two and three take a little more thought, but don’t worry – that’s exactly why I’m proud to introduce:

The Basic Skill Compass 

You’ve been avoiding something. Yes, you. There’s a particular thing you never practise. Maybe you hate it, maybe you don’t understand it. Or maybe you’ve just never heard of it until now. This is the biggest problem with self-teaching. Without somebody looking over your shoulder, it’s really easy to let these things slip by. So whenever you feel lost, undermotivated, frustrated with your progress, come back and consult this guide. Find the thing you’ve been neglecting, read over the suggested exercises or come up with your own, and strike out in that direction. Confront your weaknesses, try new things.

Gemsona Starter kit

MYTHOLOGICAL gemstones and minerals:

x

crystals and minerals found in the human body

x x x

Lists of gemstone species:

x x x x

BY COLOR x

Lists of gem meanings:

x x x x 

gemology terminology and trivia

x x x x x

art references

x

GET INSPIRED

got more info? add it in a comment!

I did a passive aggressive tumblr tutorial I don’t recognize myself anymore.

But seriously can we cut this out.

Let’s talk about trees - a practical how-to for populating your natural environments and landscapes with trees and plantlife in drawings

I’ve seen a lot of people who really want to do nature/landscape drawings but struggle with filling the space. I’m by no means an authority on this matter, but I thought I’d share my observations and ideas about filling nature shots with cool stuff because I really like drawing them and spend a lot of time doing it.

Some observations:

It’s hard to figure out what’s in a natural landscape unless you take time and really make a mental inventory of everything you see. Go explore and memorize

Draw from life and references

It’s too easy to fall into the habit of making ‘convenient shapes’ with trees and branches. Look for alternatives, examine how abruptly branches grow into different directions and split.

Mix and match. I never draw a scientifically exact tree species, I mix the relevant qualities from the kinds of trees I know that fit the image. Combine stuff you’ve seen and your imagination.

I try to ‘layer’ the vegetation. A forest looks empty with just trees. Think about the medium and low-height vegetation and bushes and then what’s closest to the ground and ON the ground.

Take into account what you want to convey with the vegetation; seasons, is the environment lush or harsh, is it creepy or idyllic?

Well, assuming you’re working digitally that will partially be down to it being digital.

Digital art is naturally very smooth, which can cause problems when trying to paint texture. I’d look into natural media brushsets, digitalbrushes​ and ptsbrushes​ are a good place to look.

But most importantly - it’s down to how light affects different textures!

I would highly recommend reading androidart’s tutorial, here’s a couple bits from it:

There’s really just one kind of light. It bounces. You can only see the light (photon) if it enters your eye.

Light does two important things when it hits a surface.

First, a part of it is absorbed. This is how colors are made. A red apple reflects mostly red wavelengths, the rest are absorbed and turned into heat or something. That’s why black stuff get so hot in the sun.

Anyways, the reflected light bounce away differently depending on the surface. If the surface is bumpy it will bounce away sort of randomly, like a tennis ball that hits rocky terrain.

If the surface is smooth it will bounce away in a predictable path. A mirror is very smooth so the light comes back undistorted, so we can see our reflection.

Note that all surfaces have speculars, because speculars is just reflected light. It’s just more broken up/diluted on dull surfaces.

Here’s an example of various materials and how i render them.

Cloth - Hardly any speculars, just shadow and light. Sometimes strong light can penetrate thin cloth and cause some sort of subsurface scattering.

Leather - Can be a little gloss and thus have a few speculars. Also, don’t make it too saturated.

Trees and wood - Dull. Not very saturated either (sort of grey-brown-sienna).

Stone - A bit like cloth. The surface is often to rugged (both at micro and macro levels) to have any serious speculars.

Plastic - It seems like the speculars and reflections are colorized in the color of the plastic. Plastic can also be a bit transparent.

Gold - Gold isn’t orange. I use black - desaturated orange sometims with hints of green, then up to yellow and white.

Silver - More or less like a mirror.

Metal - In the case of armours I often push the values a little more, not as much midtones.

Brushed metal - It’s sort of like an inbetween of a grey surface and a silver surface.

Glass - Often just transparent with distortion. The speculars come suddenly and are often white. In the case of car windows you might have noticed that it’s easier ot see what’s behind if there’s a shadow over the window. The brighter reflections obscure.

Wet stuff - more speculars, can become transparent in the case of cloth, and stones get more saturated and pronounced details.

FACES

Drawing a face (the circle thing)

How to draw faces

Heads in profile

Drawing heads

A face tutorial

Avoid same facing

Diversify your faces

Face shapes

To make your drawing look like the person you’re drawing

Make your faces look like the person

Expressions

More about expressions

Drawing lips

Lip tutorial

Drawing ears

Drawing eyes

Realistic eyes

Drawing a nose

Drawing kisses

Drawing glasses

Drawing hoods

BODIES

Guide to human types part 1

Guide to human types part 2

Guide to human types part 3

Different kinds of athletic body types

Ladies tutorial (nudity)

Fellas tutorial

Curves on girls tutorial

How to draw necks

Drawing shoulders

Drawing arms

Drawing hands

Hand tips

More hands

Hands tips and techniques

Hands, arms, legs and feet

Legs, torso and expressions

Drawing boobs

How to boob

Boobs and hips

Drawing abs

Beer belly tutorial

Drawing backs

How to draw back views

Legs reference

Drawing knees

How to draw butts

Penis tutorial (nsfw)

Drawing feet and shoes

Sitting reference

Realistic woman body shape chart

Hair

Drawing hair

Hair tutorial

Drawing curls

Drawing braids

ANIMALS & CREATURES 

Canines vs felines

Drawing cats

Drawing cats tips

How to draw big cats

Drawing rats

Basic deer tutorial

Deer sketching

Dog anatomy

Dog anatomy tutorial

Dog nose tutorial

Dog paw tutorial

Basic wolf tutorial

Horse tutorial

Sheep vs goats

Drawing giraffes

Basic owl tutorial

Bird wing tutorial

Drawing bird beaks and faces

Butterfly tutorial

Drawing animal legs on humans

Winged people anatomy

Dragon tutorial

Drawing dragons

Dragon wing tutorial

Fur tutorial

Drawing sharp teeth

OTHERS

Drawing clothes

Clothing folds tutorial

Collars, vests and pants reference

Hats reference

Drawing jeans

Drawing bows

Drawing trees

Tree tutorial

Drawing water

Water tutorial

Drawing crystals

Ice

Clouds

Creating form

Perspective tricks

Character design reference

How to draw better (video)

Learn how to draw better

Art reference & tutorials blog

Tutorial masterpost

It’s called Krita. Maybe you’ve heard of it, but in case you haven’t, seriously, check it out! It’s really nice!

The best way I can describe this program is that it’s a combination of Easy Paint Tool SAI and Photoshop. And the best part is the program is completely free to download from their website. I think what I like most about it is that not only does it have a Stablizer like SAI does, but it has practically all the tools I ever use from Photoshop. Not saying it’s going to replace SAI or PS for me (at least not yet; I’m still learning my way around Krita lol), but it’s probably the only thing I’ve ever found that is coming close to doing it.

I put some screenshots under the cut!

In the past, I’ve gotten some questions about the business of illustration & about how taxes work. Filing taxes is a bummer, but it sucks even more when you have no idea what you’re doing. After progressing from Completely Clueless to Somewhat Experienced* during the past 5 years of doing my own taxes, I thought i’d write (& illustrate!) a generalized rundown. Here’s hoping it might provide some insight for the curious!

*This info is from my own experience and I am by NO means a tax professional! I’m simplifying a lot of the info here, so please don’t take my word as law—check out the specifics on the IRS website instead.

First, the basics: If you earn an income, you have to pay income taxes, and Uncle Sam has a “pay as you go” system. If you want to avoid a pricey penalty, you are expected to pay taxes throughout the year as you earn income, not all at once when you file your income tax return. There are 2 ways this happens:

1. For people who receive regular paychecks from an employer, your employer will withhold a certain amount from your paycheck to pay for federal (and state) income taxes—you fill out a W-4 form when you’re hired, which determines how much they withhold for you. Easy-peasy!

2. If you’re a freelancer, you don’t have a regular paycheck or a regular employer to withhold your taxes for you, so you have to pay quarterly Estimated Taxes yourself. Estimated taxes cover your income tax and self employment tax*, for both the federal gov’t and your state gov’t (if applicable).

*Yes—as a freelancer, you not only have to pay income tax, but you also pay self employment tax! (basically, a tax that goes to Social Security/Medicare)

I’m just going to focus on federal estimated taxes first:

If you’re a freelancer, the trick is to make sure you pay enough in estimated taxes throughout the year to avoid the underpayment penalty. You will avoid the penalty if you:

Owe less than $1000 in taxes after subtracting withholding and credits OR (A)Have paid at least 90% of the tax amount owed for the current year, or (B) have paid at least 100% of the tax shown on last year’s return — whichever is smaller.

So let’s break down these scenarios a bit: If you’re a student just graduating from school and you haven’t done many freelance jobs (i.e. probably making less than $8,000 in taxable income from freelance), it’s likely that you don’t have to pay estimated taxes, because you’ll probably owe less than $1000 in federal taxes from your freelance work. So don’t sweat it!

If it does look like you will owe $1000 or more in taxes, you have 2 choices for calculating how much to pay in estimated taxes—the aforementioned (A) or (B). (A) Make sure you pay at least 90% of the tax amount that will be owed for the current year. OR (B) Make sure you pay at least 100% of the tax shown on last year’s return.

There’s an estimated tax worksheet that you can use to help figure out either one.

Since my freelance income fluctuates and I’m lazy enough that I don’t like trying to predict how much tax I will owe for the upcoming year (and adjust quarterly payments if needed), I prefer to just use option (B).

That means that I can just pay an equal amount each quarter, and make sure all 4 estimated tax payments add up to the tax amount I paid for last year’s return (or more). So, for instance, if I owed $7000 total in federal taxes for 2012, I won’t be penalized for underpayment if I pay at least $1750 each quarter ($7000 total) for my 2013 federal estimated taxes—regardless of whether I owe more taxes in 2013 or not. If I earned a higher income in 2013 than in 2012 and didn’t pay enough estimated taxes to cover it all, I’d still have to pay the difference at tax time, but at least I wouldn’t have to pay the underpayment penalty! Not too difficult, so long as you have enough in your bank account, but tricky to figure out at first!

All of this information also generally applies to state estimated tax payments, though the specific numbers and percentages can change and a few states don’t charge income tax at all. In most states, you have to pay a state income tax as well as a federal income tax, so I pay quarterly estimated tax payments to the federal government, as well as quarterly estimated tax payments to Maryland, my state of residence.

Federal estimated taxes are handled on Federal Form 1040-ES, but you can fill out the form and schedule your payments online for free at https://www.eftps.gov/eftps/

Your state will also likely have a free online tax system you can use.

Some tax filing methods: -Just use a tax professional! Seriously, especially if this is new to you and you don’t have any outside help. I know plenty of professional illustrators that use one. Better than messing things up and getting in trouble with the IRS.

-Use online tax software that helps to walk you through the tax experience and will do all the calculations for you, like TurboTax, TaxAct, etc. (I use TaxAct) They usually have a free version for your federal returns well as pay options, (which may include your state return as well). They will also let you schedule your federal estimated taxes, which I take advantage of. I recommend having a tax-savvy friend or relative you can call if you get stuck! I owe huge debts of gratitude to my own tax-savvy relatives that patiently answered questions & put me on the right track.

OR

-Print out all the pertinent tax forms and worksheets, start to fill them out by hand, alone in your paper-strewn room, and then jump out the window in wild frustration when you can’t figure out all the jargon and your math skills aren’t as good as they used to be.

(not recommended)

Row 1&2, (Source)

Row 3, (Source)

Row 4, (Source)

Row 5: Feet Study, (Source)