Art references

Revising some of my horse drawing tips pages, starting with necks!

hello i am here today to not lose track of the art cheats i have discovered over the years. what i call art cheat is actually a cool filter/coloring style/way to shade/etc. that singlehandedly makes art like 20 times better

80’s anime style

glitch effect

glow effects

adding colors to grayscale paintings

foreshortening ( coil )

foreshortening ( perspective )

clipping group (lines)

clipping group (colors)

dramatic lighting ( GOOD )

shading metal

lighting faces

My mule has cuter gaits than most horses I know.

Hiya anon!

Well, I’m still learning myself, but here’s a few tips I usually keep in mind!

1.) “Fat” is not just a big belly!

Fat distributes everywhere, but not necessarily equally! Like at any weight, every body is different and has an unique shape! Some keep a hourglass shape, some become more pear-like, some are shaped like teardrops or apples… but the basic thing is, fat doesn’t just choose one place where it WON’T gather. It may not be as visible in some area compared to another, but in real life, it’s reeeeaaaaalllllyyyy rare to just find a person whose fat only stores in their bum, thighs and tits, leaving their waist, arms, neck and etc slim. Keep the body pleasant and thick all around, not just in the places where the weight-gain is the most imminent!

Keep the round shapes in mind!

2.) Rolls! Folds! What are they?

What are they? Not something to be afraid of, that’s for sure!

Basically, don’t hesitate to give your characters fat rolls. Skin folds, stretches and moves along with the body, and so does the fat under it! However, a lot of people who draw rolls tend to give the character many super small ones — this is not how rolls work! Usually, the thicker the person, the thicker the rolls — they increase in size, not necessarily in number.

Rolls are the most preminent in places where the body moves the most, AKA the joints. Fat folds over itself and creates creases and ‘rolls’.

3.) HOWEVER….

(No references here, sorry!!!)

When we age, our skin loses its elasticity and it can’t keep the rolls and folds thick and perky. In our youth, our weight can be held up way better than in our elderly days due to the stength and adaptivity of our skin which disappears as we age. Thus, fat tends to droop lower with older people, and the rolls appear thinner. This can also happen if someone who has had a LOT of weight packed up suddenly losing a big chunk of it — the skin can’t adapt and will begin to “droop“ down and lower. Make sure to keep such factors in mind when drawing and planning how the weight of your characters should be carried!

And then, a lil tip that;

4.) Study references and real life!

If you yourself pack some weight or have access to internet, libraries or just life on the street, you will see how bodies at different weights and shapes work and move. Use references, see for yourself — try to find how fat distributes and especially, HOW IT FOLDS! Folds and rolls seem to be one of the biggest problems many have while drawing thicker characters, and that’s ok — we’re taught as a society that fatrolls are inherently bad and disgusting, therefore there are not many situations where we’d find ourselves just… staring and studying how the fat in our bodies works and moves. You’ll learn quickly, though!

An exquisite fuck-ton of canine references.

To see the text of the larger images, you gotta reverse-image search ‘em.

GOTCHU COVERED ANON

Hey friends!

A growing collection of animated Pixel Art Tutorials by Pedro Medeiros (@saint11) of Studio Miniboss (they previously worked on TowerFall and are currently working on Celeste and Skytorn)

All +40 Pixel Art Tutorials can be found on blog.studiominiboss.com/pixelart (10 Pixel Art Tutorials are posted below)

GESTURES. GESTURES. GESTURES!

Studying anatomy is fantastic. Whatever you do, don’t stop! I’m going to suggest gestures but that is by no means a suggestion to swap. Just start implementing gestures as well. 

Okay. So. Look at this.

This is a still from Glean Keane animating Tarzan - and it exactly nails what a gesture is. Just a few simple lines that are full of movement and you can tell exactly what the heck is going on. All with a few simple lines. 

Learning anatomy is great - but learning how to implement it is another thing. If I focus too much on nailing anatomy - the drawing starts to feel stiff, exactly as you’ve stated. 

Gestures are all about forgetting what you think you know about muscles and structure and instead drawing what movement in a body FEELS like. That might sound cooky but that’s kind of how I approach it in my head. It’s all about those lines of movement and contrast and CURVES. 

I think loosening up and forgetting about how technically correct a drawing is and instead embracing something rough and full of movement, and looking at how the lines in the human body contrast themselves will do you wonders. Keep learning anatomy, but look at how we move and look the weird shapes we can make with our bodies. Look at the way we slouch and stand tall. The way we dance, the way we run. Sit in a coffee shop and try to draw the heart of someone’s pose in like 30 seconds. 

Observe MOVEMENT AND RHYTHM AND MY GOD THE HUMAN BODY IS POETRY *GESTICULATES WILDLY*

Even just grabbing a photograph from the net and looking at it objectively - how would this pose break down into a few simple lines? It’s so damn simple to look at something this way. You can endlessly improve your knowledge of anatomy and your technical abilities - but I think so many of us (myself included) stumble at the simplest foundations. 

My last suggestion is a wonderful book (videos are floating around on youtube as well) from Mike Mattesi in which he talks about Force. It’s fascinating stuff! I love this example of a simple gesture being built up on. 

omg dont be ashamed at all!! Hands are generally tough to get used to, lots of artists struggle with it! so dont be ashamed i feel you.

and I actually have made a hand anatomy guide before in fact! If you want to get better at drawing hands I def recommend you learn the basic anatomy first. Please check out the ones I made, I try to make it simple and easy to understand:

Artistic Anatomy: Hands Part 1

Artistic Anatomy: Hands Part 2

There’s my guide to the anatomy, but here’s some more tips that I’ve noted to myself that I’d like to include

First off, I’d like to just note on the fingers: if you pay close attention to your own hand, you may notice the fingers are ever ever so slightly curved inward. It’s a very subtle detail, but I noticed that, despite how slight it is, it can make a hand look more lively, and less stiff.

Second, the “M” on the palm! Your hand moves in many ways, and because it does it creates creases in your hand. The most prominent creases appear to make an M shape; this is handy to remember for what I’m going to talk about next. (It also could be a “W” I guess, or to be more specific a “ )X( “; just think of it in whatever way helps you remember!)

SO now that you see the M, draw your hand as a basic blocked shape and add your details. As you do, you can see that the M divides the palm into four basic parts!

When the hand moves, parts A, B, or C of the palm, alone or in different combos, will create the general poses that the hands do normally. These parts are the parts that move, with D being stationary, no matter what!

Here’s a chart of all the possible combos. Once you have down what part of the hand moves for a certain pose, you can change up the fingers and tweak it a bit to do what you need to make it more specific!

This is simply my method of drawing hands. God knows there are hundreds of tutorials out there by other artists, but personally, this way helps me the best (after learning the anatomy first). 

This way I can divide the hand and combine the parts in any such way I need! 

Hands take a lot of effort to grapple, and you need to practice them a lot, especially foreshortening of the hand; that’s really something you need to learn through your own studies. Look at your own hands, draw hands from life, from magazines, shows, comics; just draw hands! You’ll eventually figure out a method that works best for you. So to get better at drawing hands; draw hands!! And don’t stress over it, have fun with it!