Just Tiefing along.

I have scanned about 70 nice paper textures in a pretty good definition and you can find them all here in my google drive link.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IeCdPlEIK697r03qBH3Na_M0U8qR6fPO

And while the textures can be used freely for personal or commercial use, I would really appreciate any coins thrown my way. 

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about how I made my Companion Card for Hawke, so I wrote an in-depth tutorial as a sample pack for my Patreon! You can download the rest of the pack here for free - including the brushes used and the high resolution .psd c:

How to draw Dreadlocs!

See Part One: Rendering Natural Black Hair Coming Up Next: VOTE by sending to my Ask box!  (Until March 1st). Feel free to suggest any style or subject matter within drawing natural hair!

Questions? Comments? Tell me all about it!

winking

clenching

pulsing

fluttering

contracting

twitching

sucking

quivering

pulsating

throbbing

beating

thumping

thudding

pounding

humming

palpitate

vibrate

grinding

crushing

hammering

lashing

knocking

driving

thrusting

pushing

force

injecting

filling

dilate

stretching

lingering

expanding

bouncing

reaming

elongate

enlarge

unfolding

yielding

sternly

firmly

tightly 

harshly

thoroughly

consistently

precision

accuracy

carefully

demanding

strictly

restriction

meticulously

scrupulously

rigorously

rim

edge

lip

circle

band

encircling

enclosing

surrounding

piercing

curl

lock

twist

coil

spiral

whorl

dip

wet

soak

madly

wildly

noisily

rowdily

rambunctiously

decadent

degenerate

immoral

indulgent

accept

take

invite

nook

indentation

niche

depression

indent

depress

delay

tossing

writhing

flailing

squirming

rolling

wriggling

wiggling

thrashing

struggling

grappling

striving

Arouse -  agitate, awaken, electrify, enliven, excite, entice, foment, goad, incite, inflame, instigate, kindle, provoke, rally, rouse, spark, stimulate, stir, thrill, waken, warm, whet, attract, charm, coax, fire up, fuel, heat up, lure, produce, stir up, tantalize, tease, tempt, thrum, torment, wind up, work up

JUST SOME THOUGHTS! I don’t really like the “go from the top up” advice on drapery/clothes - if you’re having difficulty try it like this!

I use paperclay (ignore the cherubplay notif lmao) over aluminum foil for small horns and insulation foam or styrofoam for big horns. For styrofoam you want the kind made out of bubbles, not the crunchy kind.

(Also comes in pink and purple, you can find insulation foam boards at Home Depot or Lowes or places like that. They’re very big so if you have a tiny car like me you’ll have to snap it into manageable chunks in the parking lot to fit it in and you’ll have everyone stare at you)

Here’s an aluminum foil base. Sorry about the gross carpet s:

Here’s insulation foam bases. To make these you cut out the shape of your horns and hot glue several layers together (if you’re using thin layers) then sand them into shape. You do the same thing when using styrofoam except you can’t sand that I think? Granted I never tried, I just used scissors or an xacto blade and hacked off chunks.

Stick your clay on and don’t worry about making them super smooth or anything, it doesn’t matter. Just don’t put on a ton of clay; the less clay the better because it means the horns aren’t as heavy. Ideally you want the finished product to be a few millimeters thick, with the tips of horns being thicker to prevent breakage. Let them dry, don’t sand until they’re fully dry.

Also another important thing. Don’t do that thing where people don’t add enough clay to the bottoms of their horns. Rounded bottoms don’t look good and look fake af. That’s not how actual horns grow so make sure you add extra clay to the bottom. When you’re done with these you don’t want the horns to taper at the bottom; the bottom should be your thickest point and it should be flat.

When they’re dry I take an xacto blade and cut off any lumps to help make sanding go by faster.

Sanding is the most important part, it’s how you get nice, smooth horns. I start off with 60 grit sandpaper and sand until smooth, then I add on more paperclay to any uneven parts, cracks, dents, and areas that are too thin. If there’s aluminum foil or foam showing through, cut some of it out then refill with clay. Wait until dry, resand, and repeat as necessary until the horns are perfect. It’s very tedious and annoying but boy is the final product Noice. After that I sand them with 360 grit sandpaper to remove the marks left by the 60 grit (360 grit is super fine while 60 grit is rough.)

^^^ the same pair of horns, post sanding. Next to them is the insulation foam core before I sanded it into shape. At this point you can poke a hole in the bottom of the horns and hot glue in a screw anchor.

Here’s a pile of sanded horns ready to be painted. After you sand, the last thing you need to do is angle the bottoms (Some horns won’t need to be angled, like Terezi horns.) If the bottom isn’t properly angled your horns will stick out badly. I cut off just a tiny bit (I start off with around ¼ to 1/8 of an inch) to get the horns to point more inwards/backwards/wherever they need to go, you don’t need to lop off a ton. Start off with a little, it’s easier to cut off more than to re-add more clay because you cut off too much. Every time I cut some off I screw them into the wig to see how they stand up. This is also a good time to say that once you’re completely done with your horns it’s probably a good idea to replace the screw anchor since it could be pretty stripped. You might not screw yours into a wig to test them as much as I do, and if not then you might be fine.

Your horns should be ready to paint at this point. Wipe them down with some damp toilet paper to remove any dust first in order to prevent lumps in the paint. 

I use cheapo acrylics to paint my horns. I like my yellow to be thick but my orange and red to be thin to paint on layers easier, but it all depends on how you like to paint your horns. If your paint is too thick you can simply water it down. I also like to GENTLY sand off any bumps in the paint with my fine grit sandpaper between layers. Once they’re painted, seal them. I use Krylon aerosol sprays to seal them but I heard from someone that you can use Mod Podge hard coat as well? I like sprays because there’s no brush marks, but if you use those spongy brushes that could be a good way to eliminate brush strokes with Mod Podge. I’ve never tried it so don’t take my word for it.

If you want shiny horns get the spray in gloss. I use two different sprays, both matte finish, but one says dries in minutes and the other says clear latex finish (look where the red line is). I apply the latex one first and the dries in minutes one after. 

I use the screw method to install my horns. Horns on headbands looks downright awful. I used to use cardboard to stick the screws through but I use wonderflex now (the white stuff) but use whatever you’d like, so long as it’s sturdy. Make sure to use a washer (the donut looking thing) so the screw doesn’t push through the cardboard/wonderflex/whatever you have. For Captor horns I use a single piece of wonderflex per side because it’s a lot easier to screw them in if they had separate pieces per horn instead.

Screw anchors WILL get stripped eventually from screwing and unscrewing horns (you can tell when because your horn is no longer stable on your head and it wiggles around everywhere.) Just take some pliers and yank them out then hot glue in a new pair.

^ Screw anchors look like that.

For Nitram horns and tall horns like Makara horns, I screw them in as well but I also stabilize them with wire. I don’t exactly remember which gauge wire I use but I think it’s like… 14 or something??

Make sure to shape them to your head. Not too tight or else you’ll get a wicked headache while wearing your wig and horns. I make a hole in the wonderflex next to the screw hole and also a hole in the horn to stick the wire through; I screw the horns in first then shove the wire in. For Nitram horns angle the wires up to account for the weight of the horns so they don’t droop on your head. You’ll be able to angle horns whichever way you need if there’s wire in them.

(Ignore the yellow text.)

The pictures above were for a pair of tall horns, just stick one side in and bend the wire at the middle to get the other side in then rebend to its original shape.

This pair was specifically requested to be on a headband (which I don’t do anymore) but the ONLY time I will put horns on a headband is if they’re MONSTER HORNS that need more support. 

The headband goes UNDER the wig and the screws stick out of the wig, then you can screw the horns on that way. I do this for Dammek horns, ancestor horns, or big fantroll horns where wire support isn’t enough to keep them up.

Sometimes horns break, but they’re easily fixable. (God, a lot of these next pictures are of old horns and the paintjob sux, gomen)

This is a picture of Dammek’s horns when they broke while being sanded. I removed all the broken clay and added new clay. This was also during a stage where I was repairing thin spots.

That’s what they look like fixed. Notice the different colors from the patch job. Sometimes when I’m in a rush I’ll bake the horns to speed up drying but ONLY do that if your core is made of aluminum foil DO NOT bake your horns if the core is made of foam, it’ll melt. The darker clay is from when I baked it and the lighter clay is the patch job.

This is from when someone at a con snapped one of Dammek’s horns right in half.

Cut away any hanging bits and sand away some paint around the edge of the hole, then add some paperclay and let it dry. Sand it and repaint and reseal and they’ll be good as new. If there’s a crack, superglue it shut and fill in any gaps and paint over it. 

If you get a huge dent in your horns (This is one of my Tavros horns, which tend to be a little more fragile due to their size) Just cut away the clay and do what you’d do for horns made of foil. When transporting Nitram horns please please bubble wrap the hell out of them, especially if you’re flying. Airports are not kind to your luggage and this is the result of someone tossing my luggage around really badly when I hadn’t bubble wrapped my horns.

This is the horns mid-fixing after discovering that huge dent. I smack these against everything when wearing them so I fixed other dents and holes while I was at it. 

>>Now Available on Gumroad<<

15 lengthy tutorial .pngs from when I was still offering them on Patreon.  I made them until I couldn’t think of more things to talk about, so it’s pretty comprehensive!

Hi, Anon! I’ll definitely try my best. Horns are a little tricky since they’re so subjective and the styles/textures vary so drastically.

Mostly I’m going to be talking about texture here and I’ll try to keep it simple since they’re time consuming to draw.

Smooth horns are great and easy, can come in any and all shapes, but if you want to add more interest and character to the horns, it all comes down to how you texture them.  Here’s a simple smooth horn. It’s okay, it’s basic, but it works and will especially work better once it’s colored if it has a sheen or a matte look.

You can add simple lines to it to give it a bit more interest, but you can take it farther than just the cylinder look like drawn here. The lines give it the easy, quick illusion of being more dimensional, but it’s not the most interesting or dynamic.

You can play with the lines however you like to give the horns more uniqueness, such as a line down the center to sort of pinch it inwards. Still more dynamic than the smooth horn, but more interesting than the rounded one.

You can leave the lines as they are for an easier horn, or take it a step farther and use them as guides to texture them. This is where it gets fun, but time consuming. Definitely look up references of what you want to go for if you’re not sure. I highly recommend Ram, Ibex or Antelope references, Antelope being my favorite. They have so much texture to them in the forum of smaller and larger ridges, so here’s a horn based loosely (artistic liberties taken) off a mix of Ram and Antelope.

Getting into plates which are my favorite, there’s little to reference off of. Here’s a more dynamic, spiky look with plates using the guide lines as a base to get an ideal direction you want the horn to shape into.

Just take your guide lines and then extend outward. Add as little or as much wear, tear and damage as you want. Horns can get dry and crack, they can take a hit and break, age can cause grooves, your imagination’s the limit.

Outside of plates, you can look up any horned animal to get ideas for texture, anything from steer to deer and elk (if you want to get more into the antlered look), or mix and match textures from a few horn styles you like. Hope this helps! Sorry I can’t go more in depth, but I tried to explain it as best as I know how. Good luck with your horns!

oh hey new guide thinggg~ some basics on how to practice! there’s SO much I could add to this, so it’s just the basics :O

sorry im not quite sure what you mean but im assuming youre talking about the rainbow shit

i dont know all the art terms so bear with me

to add to this post, i start by just putting some random colours down then blending them out. for trolls i use lots of green blue and purple cos i guess my ocular cones n rods tell me cool colours are closer to grey than warm ones are

then i pick a colour for the high points and blend out with adjacent colours to get that rainbow effect

yellow is a good colour cos you can blend from yellow to red or yellow to blue and it will look nice + allow you to include lots of different colours which adds to the holographic/iridescent/whatever effect and still give an impression of depth without having to add heaps of black and muddying up the colours

you dont have to use yellow though, i just reckon its the easiest jumping off point. below i just changed the hue in photoshop n got cyan. it still looks like its got depth and all that but now are colours are limited, we missing yellow and orange. try different shit out though. pink is nice too 

these are like fairly bad pics but below are some ways to do this with yellow as the colour of your high point/bits where the most light is bouncing off

think of the arrow going from the highest to lowest points. i like doing it the way i have in the middle pic cos i reckon its a bit more fun and dynamic. but yeah dont limit yourself to yellow! plenty of other colours out there in the big wide world. and dont worry if it looks garish you can always edit it later on 

anyway you dont have to think too long and hard about like colour order or anything though. the main thing is just putting the right colours next to one another, so if youve got a green patch and a red patch blend them together with some yellow, orange/red goes between yellow and purple, etc etc

sometimes its better not to plan things too much

You should be looking at the visual development work coming out of studios right now. What level of work are they producing? Of course, that will depend on the studio and artists, so you should start researching where you might want to work, and who works there. Look for vis. dev. artists’ blogs. Soak up their work. Look for tutorials or tips from them. Here are some helpful sites:

Deja View

Tulptorials

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels

The Living Lines Library

Character Design Interviews

Rad How-To

Chris Oatley

Paperwings Podcast

Books:

James Gurney’s Color and Light

Dream Worlds

The Skillful Huntsman

The Art of Layout & Storyboarding

I give it MASCLES

And I wanna stress that when i say “top of the leg” i’m not talking about the crotch (please don’t flag me tumblr it’s an anatomical term) i’m talking about the point where the femur connects to the pelvis, which is higher up on the hips:

It’s easier to see what I’m talking about in this photo of a man squatting: 

So yeah if you use that measurement when using this technique you should get fairly realistically proportioned legs:

But remember! messing with proportions is an important and fun part of character design! Know the rules first so you can then break them however you please!

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.