Garden of Earthly Art Delights

Comic Panels Reference

IT EVEN HIGHLIGHTS THE ULNA BONE  

Arm view: Red = Deltoids (all three heads are in one color) Blue = Latissimus Dorsi Green = Biceps Brachii Yellow = Triceps Brachii

Forearm: Red = One of the wrist flexors Blue = Brachioradialis

Back view, left side: Red = Deltoids (all three heads are in one color) Blue = Latissimus Dorsi Green = Infraspinatus, Teres Minor, Teres Major Yellow = Trapezius (all groups one color)

Just in case you forget this exists.

You can browse the most popular ones or search for certain colors, themes, and even specific hex codes!

When you find one you like, you can download a wallpaper swatch of it and also select the specific colors it uses to look at more palettes that use those same ones.

http://posemaniacs.com

Requires flash to rotate the models, but hella worth it in my opinion

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!

Part 2 of cino art tips is some basic tips on shape and silhouette design which are also principles I think about a lot :)

(also i'm so sorry i chose comic sans to write this in idk what i was thinking but i already flattened the layers)

Shining Through - Submitted by deeeeerr

The number one reason I stop reading a story is because I just don’t care. I don’t care if your protagonist lives or dies. I don’t care about the stakes. I don’t even really understand who they are. I’m sure a lot of readers are like me in that way. They want to feel emotionally connected to the characters in some way. They want a reason to keep reading.

If you’re finding your protagonist isn’t that interesting or you don’t know how to improve the way you’re writing them, try these tips:

Start Right Away

Don’t make your readers wait to find something to care about. Get your message across as quickly as possible. Who is your protagonist? What do they want? What’s threatening what they want? There are subtle ways to let readers in on your protagonist’s life without giving away everything at once, so don’t info-dump. Most people will stop reading if there’s nothing something interesting happening within the first chapter. This doesn’t mean there needs to be tons of explosions and death—we just need to understand what the deal is.

Make the Stakes Reasonable

The stakes can’t be too low or too high. I know this sounds confusing, but it needs to be something the reader can fully grasp. The stakes should directly impact the protagonist in some way. In other words, readers aren’t going to care too much about your protagonist being 5 minutes late to work. They’re also going to have trouble caring about a fictional planet light-years away being destroyed. You need to give us a reason to care and have the stakes match the tone of the story.

Give us a Reason to Like Them

Protagonists need to be likeable in some way. I’m sure some writers would argue with me on that, but I need a reason to root for the main character. Sure, there’s such thing as an anti-hero, but they usually have some redeeming qualities. Let your readers know why your protagonist is a decent person. Do they have family they care about? Are they protecting something? Why should we like them? Take some time to focus on these questions.

But Don’t Make Them Too Good

Flaws are very important if you want readers to care about your protagonist. A “too perfect” protagonist is very annoying and won’t feel real. Give them some flaws that explain their sometimes less-than-perfect reactions to situations. Are they too quick to act? Are they sometimes a little selfish? Do they crave power in some way? No one in this world is flawless, so your characters shouldn’t be either.

Scifi is especially guilty of “if we don’t fix this problem, it will be literally the end of the universe.” Which. Um. Look, does anyone think they’re not going to solve the problem?

If that’s your stakes - “if we fail, everyone and everything we care about will be destroyed” - then the reader needs to care how they solve the problem, because they will not question that it will be solved.

Maybe it won’t. Maybe your story is an epic tragedy and the end is, indeed, “rocks fall; everyone dies.” But readers are not fond of “the protagonist tries hard and utterly fails” stories. If there’s no hope, no silver lining, no fragment of “well yes that was awful, but at least….” at the ending… they won’t pass along your story/book/whatever to the next reader. They’ll warn them: Hey, no happy endings here; only read if you want your spirit crushed. (Some people do. And those people look long and hard for reading material. But. It’s a damned small audience.)

Anyways here's the most detailed OC profile sheet ever:

ended up making a whole painting just to break it down and explain my general process for subjects lit from behind so heres that + a timelapse!

main thing for drawing anything with a strong light source behind is to make the main subject Darker and more desaturated to convey that the light is behind them rather than to their sides (face cant be properly lit if the light is behind). Also making the Main highlight the brightest hue in the image helps to intensify it. I tend to use teeth/eyes as a good comparison point