Dive Into The Art World of Peppermint-Kel!

some basic stuff for cis artists looking to avoid caricaturing trans guys 

below are some full examples of it in action

please draw us like normal people!!  because we are normal people!!

I have some hours before work so I’ll use them to actually detail why I’ve found CSPaint to be so efficient for bastard-aligned painters who like to take shortcuts.

This will seem familiar to most of you guys, but this functions a little bit different from Photoshop. It turns everything you draw on the layer into editable curves, but retains the aliased smoothness of an ordinary raster layer. Practically a cheat to access the whole suite of amazing tools CS offers for lineart. Such as:

The vector eraser is The Best™. You can be as messy as possible and this tool erases the excess. One pen-flick and it’s done. Much faster than cleaning it up by hand. You can also tweak the settings of this brush to encapsulate more/less lines as you erase but that’s getting a little more involved. Anyway, last thing:

Maybe the only thing better than the vector eraser. There are multiple settings, but these three are the most handy. You can smooth wiggly edges, connect broken strokes, and tweak the width/weight to exactly how you want it. This also has a ton of settings you can play around with. It’s great!

I’ve always wanted to make one of these. Here’s my first expression meme!

Upon request, here is a lovely pastel kawaii outfit prompt!

As usual with drawing prompts, you reblog it, accept requests and your followers can send you a letter + number + character and you’ll then draw them in that outfit! 

\o/

WebGL Water is a great water simulator, with a sphere that can interact with the water’s surface. It can be paused which means you can then use it as a reference for lighting, reflections, refractions, etc.

Painting Tutorials:

Water in Motion 

Ocean Waves

Water Bubbles

Water Surface

Stormy Sea Waves

Condensation

Water Droplets

WEEEEELLLL…THIS IS A LITTLE AWKWARD BUT I TOTALLY FORGOT MY TUMBLR FOR….7 MONTHS HAHAHA! sorryyyyyy <3

I’ll back to spam some of my Patreon’s studies! All of this stuff is free! they are just the previews and you can find them on Facebook  Patreon and Deviantart !

You can use my work even to draw commissions! But please don’t them and IF U CAN put the credits, ok? 

I decided to try my hand at creating an art challenge, and what better way to challenge yourself than with poofy petticoats and fluffy ruffles? I tried to stay away from some of the stereotypes, except a few I couldn’t resist. 

1. Start With the Classics! (Classic) 2. Shiro/ Solid White 3. Kuro/ Solid Black 4. Casual Lolita 5. Sweet Lolita 6. Aristocrat 7. Ero/ Lingerie (NSFW or SFW; your choice) 8. Steampunk 9. Ouji/ Boy-Style Lolita 10. Harajuku 11. Hime/ Princess 12. Sailor 13. Gothic 14. Guro (NSFW or SFW; your choice) 15. Wa 16. Qi 17. Country Lolita 18. Favorite Food Inspired Outfit 19. Favorite Style 20. Favorite Season Inspired Outfit 21. Favorite Drink- Inspired Outfit 22. Zodiac (Chinese or Astrological) 23. Favorite Animal- Inspired Outfit 24. Favorite Flower- Inspired Outfit 25. Favorite Holiday- Inspired Outfit 26. Favorite Color 27. Day & Night 28. RPG Inspired Outfit (Dungeons & Dragons, Final Fantasy, etc.) 29. Draw An OC in Lolita! 30. Lazy Lolita (Plain and Simple~)

BITMAP WATERCOLOR BRUSHES, Y’ALL!!! Want to make some SAI brushes in FireAlpaca? Check out THIS handy Guide!

Want to make this brush? Just make a perfect circle and save it (I call mine “round”) and use it as the bitmap, and copy the settings above. It works pretty nicely :D

UM, WHILE I’M HERE:

Here is where you can download FireAlpaca (it is completely free software)

*If English is not your native language, you can download it in other languages.

Please download from the official FireAlpaca websites, because a friend of mine simply googled FireAlpaca and downloaded from some random site, and she got malware! So PLEASE be careful.

FireAlpaca has a suggestion/bug reporting box on their site so you can request features, or let them know if you’re having any issues! Also FireAlpaca works fantastically on Mac computers! (though I will say the only time FA has crashed on me is when I used a Mac, so PLEASE save your work often)

Also, please visit these tumblrs if you do get into using FireAlpaca:

“I’m not going to help you if you don’t ask me for it, otherwise I won’t actually know if that’s what you want.”

“Stop supplying me with random trivia. It’s always disturbing for some reason. If anything, I’d much rather hear about baby echidnas or something.”

“Weren’t you supposed to be pretending? When did it become so real for you?”

“You know me well enough that if I’m baking, I’m too stressed to do much else.”

here’s a fun drabble game since i was on the hunt for one and decided i should just make my own instead.

 send in a character, an au, a trope, and a prompt, and i’ll write a little drabble based on it!!

au:

roommates!au

hogwarts!au

spy!au

mafia!au

ceo!au

coffee shop!au

bookstore!au

college!au

camp!au

high school!au

travel!au

babysitter!au

soulmates!au

parent!au

sports!au (name the sport)

supernatural!au (specify)

band!au

celebrity!au

trope:

friends to lovers

enemies to lovers

meet cute

meet messy

unrequited love

fake dating

childhood friends

exes

strangers to lovers

prompt:

“are you sure this is legal?”

“fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck this shit. fuck.”

“i don’t even think i want to know.”

“you said so, didn’t you?”

“you have the emotional capacity of a brick.”

“what is that?”

“you had no idea, did you?”

“wait, wait. say that again. please.”

“why are you awake so late?”

“you know i’ll do anything for you.”

“i know that it’s the thought that counts but this doesn’t even look like you thought about it.”

“is that the best you can do?”

“it’s been so long since we did this.”

“okay, maybe i’m crazy but did i just hear you say that out loud?”

“i’m rambling again, aren’t i?”

“my hands are really dry. sorry about that.”

“hold your fire!”

“this can’t be real. i feel like i’m having a fever dream.”

“suck on that.”

“it’s just so hard not to fall in love with you.”

“for the last time, please stop trying to airdrop me.”

“did you hack into my hotspot?”

“you know that your book is upside-down, right?”

“alexa, play wonderwall.”

“i know this looks bad, but i swear, it’s not.”

“sometimes, i sit in bed and wonder what would happen if things were different.”

“that was a very bad idea. 0/10 would not recommend.”

“do you ever feel like you’re far away no matter where you are?”

“hold on.”

“need any help with that?”

“you never saw me.”

“shut up for a second, will you?”

“now what?”

“i don’t even know why we’re doing this.”

“don’t tell me you spent actual money on that.”

“i let you mooch off of my netflix and this is how you repay me?”

“don’t you want to know how i feel?”

“i think i would rather eat expired spam.”

“you confuse me.”

1. “Some tomfoolery is happening, I can sense it.”

2. “Are you trying to scare the the mail man again? I think he is immune to our bullshit.”

3. “I was left alone for far too long, so, naturally this happened.”

4. “This took a very unexpected turn. Huh, neat.”

5. “I think your cat has unlocked the secrets of the universe and is judging us for being stupid.”

6. “Did I do something illegal? You bet I did! Was it fun though? Hell yeah!”

7. “Oh, come on! Nothing says friendship like planning murder together!”

8. “Listening to you two talk is honestly the most painful thing I’ve ever endured in my life.”

9. “Dramatic? You think I’m being dramatic now? Oh! You just wait! I’ll show you dramatic!”

10. “I’m flourishing, thriving and living.”

11. “Am I supposed to feel threatened by you? That would be the equivalent of me being threatened by a chihuahua.”

12. “Am I having a bad day? Yes. Am I still on my quest to make pancakes? Also, yes.”

13. “I thought we agreed no murder weapons at the table.”

14. “That is such an oddly specific threat.”

Drawing basic facial expressions is not the hardest. Most people can draw a sad face, a happy face, angry etc., but making more multidimensional expressions is more of a challenge. I have gotten a lot of compliments on how I draw facial expressions, (specifically “angsty ones”) telling me that they are very dramatic and well… expressive! And there are actually only a few things I think about when I draw faces that take them to the next level, so I thought i’d illustrate them all here!

SUPER IMPORTANT TIP BEFORE WE START: Look at your own face when you draw faces. Even making the face when you are drawing (you don’t even have to look at it), will give you some sense of how the face muscles pull and where things fold and stretch, because you can feel it. You are the best reference when it comes to facial expressions!

Angles 

Draw the head in an angle that matches the expressions you want to make. It is not a requirement, but is going to add to the effect.

Symmetry vs asymmetry 

A face is rarely symmetric. Unless the face the character is making is 100 % relaxed or even dissociating, the eyebrows, mouth and facial muscles will have different placements of their respective side. This image shows the dramatic impact asymmetry has on a face: 

That’s the difference between a smile and a smirk!

The first one’s like “oh yeah?” and the second is like “oH YEAH??”

The “balloon squishing principle”

This is something I did subconsciously, and I didn’t know about until I made this tutorial. And this principle goes hand in hand with an asymmetric face. Basically, if you squish one part of the face, you need to even out the empty space by “inflating” the other part of the face so that it doesn’t appear shrunken. The picture hopefully explains it:

Teeth 

Don’t forget to add the gum when the mouth is open to its full potential!

Squinting and folding

Adding folds around the eyes when a character is squinting makes a HUGE difference. It makes a smile more genuine and a growl more intimidating. Adding folds to the face in general makes your characters more lifelike and ‘visually relatable’. Like, they look human, and less plastic or fake.

and so on..

Pupils and irises 

The placement of the iris and pupil in relation to the eyelids is very important! The less of the white you see, the more relaxed the character is. 

And then of course eyebrows and eyes go hand in hand!

Gestures, spitting, sweating… 

Adding more elements than just a face is key to making the character actually look like they are feeling what you want them to feel. Just the tiniest sweat drop adds to their anxiety, spitting adds frustration to their rage, slouching shoulders, waving hands, a double chin, extreme angles, the list goes on! Add whatever and see what kind of impact it makes! Does it do the trick? Great! Add it! 

Over exaggeration!! 

Remember that you can almost always exaggerate more. Don’t be afraid to do draw “too much” because you’re just experimenting. See what works and what doesn’t. What do you like to exaggerate?

Now that you know some theory, it’s time to practice!

Practicing!! 

The 25 Essential Expressions (a classic! I’ve done it multiple times)

And the one I do when I’m bored:

Fill a page with circles and fill them in with different expressions. Try and exaggerate as much as you can! 

This is mostly for experimenting. They are quicker to draw than complete faces, but the same rules should apply!

And that’s about it!