Unknown Paths

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

Hey everyone! Just released my brand new tutorial on Gumroad! There will be another coming soon on arms. 

please check out the rest of my tutorials as well :) I’ve gotten some great reviews from customers, so I’m no longer hesitant to recommend them xD

https://gumroad.com/cosmicspectrum

FREE ART PROGRAMS I USE AND RECOMMEND

MEDIBANG PAINT PRO

FIREALPACA (the lightweight version of the above and really good for a slow computer)

GIMP (I use this primarily for editing purposes not drawing).

KRITA

WHERE I GET MY SUPPLIES:

JETPENS Check it out!!! 

Jerry’s Artarama

Dick Blick

REFERENCE  FOR DRAWING PRACTICE

jademacalla

null-entity

senshistock

posemaniacs

DIGITAL ART STUFF

Palette Generator

Color Blender

CHARACTER DESIGN STUFF?

Comparing Heights

There are a few programs I use on an almost daily basis as an artist and illustrator which I find invaluable, but that seem to be unfortunately more secret than they deserve to be. Which is too bad, because they solve a lot of small workflow problems that I think a number of people would find useful!

I’ll keep this list limited to my big three, but it is organized in order of usefulness. (And incidentally of compatibility, as the latter two are Windows-only. Sorry! Please do still check out PureRef though, Mac users.)

1. PureRef

PureRef is a program specifically designed to make it easier to view, sort, and work with your references. I actually put off downloading it initially because it seemed redundant– couldn’t I just paste the refs into my PSD files? Indeed, the only real barrier to working with PureRef is that learning the keyboard shortcuts and the clicks to move around the program takes a little while. But getting over that hump is well worth it, because it has some distinct advantages over trying to organize your refs in your actual art program.

Firstly, you’re no longer bogging down your actual PSD file with extra layers, nor having to fight with said layers at all– PureRef has no layer panel, so you never have to scramble to grab the right one. All images you paste into the program retain their original resolution data, so you can resize, rotate, crop, etc as needed without distortion. If you find yourself needing to adjust the values, color, etc of a ref image, you can just copy paste it into Photoshop, make your adjustments, and copy paste it back into PureRef.

The other great advantage is that you can toggle the program as ‘Stay On Top’ and keep it above Photoshop (or whatever else)– which was always a problem when trying to make a reference collage in a separate PSD file. I find that I just don’t look at my references as much as I should when they are on a second monitor, and this solves that problem.

I’ve used it religiously for about a year now, creating a new PureRef file for every illustration I do, as well as a few for specific characters, cultures, or settings in personal projects. As you can see in the example above, I like to sort my images into little clusters or ‘islands’ of specific content, so that I can easily scroll out to see the entire reference map, then zoom in to the relevant cluster easily.

There is one big tip I would suggest for using this program, if you have the harddrive space: As soon as you get it, turn on the ‘Embed local images in save file’ option. This will make your PureRef files bigger, but you’ll never have to deal with a ‘broken link’ if you move around the source files you originally dragged in.

2. Work Timer

This is such a simple little app that it doesn’t have a very formal name, though I think of it as ‘Work’ or ‘Work Work’ (for some reason.) It’s a timer that counts when your cursor is active in any (of up to 3) program you set it to count for, and stops counting when you change programs or idle. No starting, pausing, stopping, or forgetting to do any of those three things.

I use this one to accurately track my hours, both to inform myself and for commissions or other client work. At the end of a work session, I take the hours counted and add them to the hours I’ve already spent on that image in a spreadsheet.

I have it set to count my three art programs (Photoshop, Painter, and Manga Studio), so based on the settings I use, it doesn’t count time that I spend doing relevant work in my browser (such as looking up an email to double check character descriptions or ref hunting), so to counter that, I set the ‘Timeout’ option in it’s menu to 360. This means it will count to 360 seconds of cursor inactivity before it considers me idle and stops counting. Since it instantly stops counting if you switch to ‘non-work’ a program, I figure this extra time just about cancels out relevant time that it ignores in ‘non-work’ programs by counting an extra minute or so when I walk away from the computer to grab some water or what-have-you.

3. Carapace

I use Carapace the least of these three, since my work doesn’t often have a need for creating perspective lines. But when there is architecture involved in something, this proves invaluable in simplifying that process.

Carapace lets you copy paste an image into it, and then drop in vanishing points and move them around to create perspective lines. (Though you’ll want to scale down your full res drawing or painting a bit to avoid lagging the program.) Like with PureRef, fighting the shortcuts is the worst part of it, though for myself it’s more of an issue in this program because I don’t use it often enough to remember them. Still, it gets the job done, and it’s easy to adjust the points to feel things out until you get them ‘right’. Then you just copy and paste the grid back into your art program and you’ve got that information to use as need be on its own layer.

Of course, using Carapace isn’t a replacement for actually knowing how perspective works– you still have to have a sense of how far apart the vanishing points should be placed to keep things feeling believable. But it sure does save you a lot of trouble once you do have that knowledge.

So, there are my big three recommendations for programs to help your art workflow. I hope people find them useful– if you do, please share so that they climb a little higher out of their unwarranted obscurity! And if you’ve got a favorite tool like this that I didn’t cover, feel free to share it in the comments. I know I’m curious to see what else is out there, too. Also, if Mac users have any suggestions for programs that fill similar functions, feel free to share there as well!

Timewarp

updated: Jun/25*

This is not coding related, I know, but gamedev-learning related enough to be here! :) I’ve been asked about learning resources for 3D modeling and tried to make a list of tutorials I could remember - I’m highlighting the ones I’ve tried myself but I’ve heard good things about all of these. This list is low poly focused but the knowledge can be applied for anything else. 

I haven’t been doing this for long - I started learning 3D a year ago and have been ever since but as a 2D artist the technical side of it still overwhelms me a lot. I’ve gone nowhere near animation yet but I’ve been adventuring with low poly quite a lot (which you can check out in #OceanHeart (image above) and #GemuNoGemu, - I also put up assets pics in a Trello here as well as stuff on my website). I mainly use Maya (now Maya LT) but I’ve been trying to tackle Blender too. Here are some helpful goodies I’ve found:

Maya:

I started learning Maya with this series of videos on youtube by Misterh3d. I watched through units 1-7 and it’s a pretty great introduction! Nicely paced, covers a bunch you gotta know.

A series on Low poly for game assets using Maya 2015

Blender:

Blender 3D - Noob to Pro: for the basics! :)

And another Blender course for beginners

The super popular Secrets to Creating Low Poly Illustrations On Blender - great intro to making some low poly goodness :)

Blender Cookie - CGCookie is a website that has a bunch of awesome tutorials (loads for free) on many softwares, including Unity. Take a look at this Low Poly Game Asset Creation tutorial.

Some character creation tutorials by ward7299

Bunch of really cool low poly tutorials here by Manuel Graphics!

A Minecraft character modeling and texturing tutorial

All things 3D/low poly:

Creating a low poly treasure island

PigArt: rad speedart/timelapses of adorable looking low poly art, lots to learn from watching these :)

Digital Tutors has loads of 3D modeling tutorials, some free some paid. Tried a few of those and they’re pretty cool!

Cool Misc stuff:

Blender Cycles rendering introduction

Creating flat colored low poly art. This is how I currently color all assets for Gemu (I used to color using materials or vertex colors before because I can’t stand UV unwrapping but this is a pretty easy alternative) 

Please do check the Polycount forum, so many cool references and useful info! Also do check their low poly thread :)

There’s also reddit’s /low_poly

Study Files:

Cocefi kindly uploaded a low poly model for download here :)

You can download models on Sketchfab! Here are some popular low poly ones

Lots of cool Cinema 4D project files for download here

Missmoo 3D:*

Streaming: I often stream some of my modeling on Oceanheart and I’m always happy to share what I know :)

My Sketchfab: I’ll be uploading some models for download shortly here

This is how I texture my models for Oceanheart - I’m always sharing wip and processes in our devblog

Rad people making awesome 3D stuff:*

@PIXELATEDCROWN

@turnislefthome

@chickysprout

@metkis

@korigame

@GarretRandell

@IMPLODINGORACLE

@ultrakurtzwelle

@khalkeus3d

@AckkStudios

@q_dork

@andmish

@heatpenn

@dicey

@torahhorse

@mushbuh

ever wanted to do some stuff? like, different stuff? tired of having to scroll through your huge ref tag? LOOK NO FURTHER!! Have a masterpost of LITERALLY EVERYTHING which took me 5 hours to make so reblog it

Art:

Painting tutorial

Female/male arms

Kneeling + Sitting ref

Dragon head view tutorial

SAI brushes 86786

Drawing expressions

Sai Brushes 1

NGE colour palette 1

100+ colour palletes

Avoiding same face

Face contours/highlighting 

free art MyPaint

Body anatomy help 1

How to shift images using blur in PS

Drawing clothe folding

How to draw ice

Colour palette 1

Colour palette 2

SAI brush settings 2

SAI/PS pixel brushes

Warm/Cool gray

Flower crown tutorial

Skin colour palette

Pink colour sheet

How to draw butts&thighs

The male torso

Drawing glowing stuff in SAI

Drawing horse/animal legs on humans

Drawing clouds

Muscular male with bow stock photos

Pastel colours

Drawing grass fields in SAI

Expressions&Legs

All about the human body

20+ colour palettes 

Colour conversion

Kissing ref

Creature design 

Colour meanings

Creating expression

Tutorial masterpost (100+)

Lineart

Canine

How to colour

Pose studies

Feline comparisons

How to draw penis

Leaf pressing

100+ anatomy references 

How to draw folds

SAI brushes 3

Sitting poses

Colour palette 4

Cloud painting

How to draw 3D rooms

Colour info

Colouring ref

Hair tutorial

Clothing ref

Bodies and poses

SAI brushes 5

Colour scheme designer

Folding ref

Heads&Angles 

Paint tool SAI masterpost

Drawing ref masterpost (10+)

Hair+Fur

How to draw faces

SAI brushes 4

Anatomy of mutant humans

What should I draw?

Free art software

pastel colour ref

Mass art ref

Soft SAI brushes

ways to draw stuff

SAI brush settings

baseball cap ref

Penis ref

Drawing human wings

Cool free art software

Huge art ref

Colour blender

2 SAI brushes

Photoshop for free 

Writing:

Inspiration 1

Instead of ‘whispered’

Music for writing fight scenes

Writing fantasy

Emotions vocab sheet

How to reveal character

Writers block resource

Writing a death scene

BIO help

Music to help you write

Writing prompt generators

Got writers block?

How to torture a character

Degrees of emotion

ULTIMATE writing ref, 500+

Character names

Body language

25 days of fic

HOW TO DRAW ANYTHING

Writing people of colour

nanowrimo start kit

character flaws

General: 

Becoming an adult masterpost

cute OTP things

Resource masterpost

For bored people

Anime + Manga recs

how to make a blanket nest

Getting an apartment

what should i read next?

If you’re bored

Delete tourists from photos

Cute pet nicknames

Family tree explained 

Pulling an all nighter 

masterpost of themes/pixels/emoticons

List of demon names

Demons & Deities in the bible

Moss graffiti 

Types of attraction

Trampoline = outside bed

College textbooks

God masterpost

Creepypasta

OTP necklaces

Super silky summer legs

Plastic keychains

How to write cover letters

make music on itunes sound great

Documentarys 

Classic lit

Makeup:

Black/gold ref 1

Cosplay eye makeup

Halloween eye gore makeup (tw eye gore)

Rotting skin halloween makeup

Eyeliner ref

bloody halloween nails

Gender:

Getting gender-neutral pronouns on facebook

Backgrounds:

Pokemon mystery dungeons iphone

Ghosty backgrounds 

Themes/pixel/backgrounds

Clothing: 

1000+ everything clothing ref

Awesome jackets

Cheer up/Be happy

If you’re having a bad night

Movies to watch when you’re down

Confidence

Sowing:

8ft giant squid pattern

Food:

Cheeseburger cupcakes

Deep-dish cookie for one

Exercise: 

Burning stomach fat

Games:

PokéRadar guide

Play pokémon games online

Pkmn Shiny hunting guide

Animal crossing new leaf face/hair guide

Free RPG games

Mental health:

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

Krita is a painting program that has been around for a while, and in the last few years, underwent major changes and improvements.  Because of these improvements, many artists are using it not just because it is free, but because it offers amazing features.  These are by no means all of the great things Krita has to offer, but simply some of my favorite features of the program.

1. The Brush Engines.

Yes, engines.  As in plural.  There are many.  And they all do different things.  There is no way you could possibly capture all of its possibilities with one screen shot, but here are just some of the possibilities. Along side standard round, square, and shape, and textured brushes, there are brushes that smear, blend, and create interesting abstract strokes.  There are brushes for filters, and one of my favorites, the Experiment Brush, which is basically a pre-filled lasso tool. 

Brushes also support weighted smoothing, or brush stabilizers.

This is incredibly useful for line art.  And while I do not usually use this feature, it is something that I feel many programs are lacking, such as Photoshop.

But its brushes aren’t the only thing about Krita with variety.

2. Color Selector Customization. 

Whether you prefer something basic, or something more complicated, Krita will likely have what youre looking for.  You are not likely to find yourself missing your other program’s color wheels.  There are even more options than this, and other color selectors.

Gotta love that customization.

Krita also has some great naviation tools.

3. On the fly rotation, zoom, and brush sizing.

With krita, zooming, rotating, and brush size scaling are all smooth, and dynamic with the use of hot keys.  These are features I miss when in other programs.  To zoom, Ctrl+Middle mouse button, hover over the screen to zoom in and out.  The same with shift rotates (press the ‘5’ key to reset rotation).  Holding down shift and draging your brush on the canvas dynamically changes its size, allowing you to see the change, and get the exact size you want without brackets. Brackets also work, if that’s what you are used to.  Krita also has highly customizable hot keys.

4. The Pop Up Pallet

The pop up pallet is a set of your 10 favorite brushes (which you can edit), and a built in color wheel that appears when you right click on the canvas.  It is incredibly useful for switching between those few brushes that you use in almost every picture.

5.  Real time, seamless tiles creation.

Pressing the W key in Krita will infinitely tile your canvas, and allow you to work real time on simple to complex tiled images.  You can zoom in and out to see how your tiles work form a distance, and paint freely to create seamless artwork easily, without having to check using filters and manually tiling. Very usefull for patterns, backgrounds, and games.

6. The Symmetry Tool

This one goes without saying, Krita supports both horizontal and vertical symmetry, along with a brush that is capable of radial symmtry with as many directions as you like.

Go nuts, kid.

There are many more reasons why this program is awesome.  And it is only going to get more awesome.  And the coolest thing about it, is that it is 100% free.  So go check it out!  There’s nothing to lose. Krita isn’t for everyone, it can be hard to get the hang of, and it is not meant for photo editing, it is a program completely focused on digital painting from start to finish. 

Bodies:

how to draw arms

*Hands*

How To Draw Hands

hands hands hands

more hands

another hand tutorial

How to draw butts&thighs

draw knees

draw feet

Kneeling + Sitting ref

Body anatomy help

The male torso

Muscular male with bow stock photos

Lots of Stuff

All about the human body

Pose studies

100+ anatomy references

Sitting poses

pose reference blo

realistic woman body ref

male body

Pose Maker

Poses

hundreds of pose references wowie

a guide to figure drawin

torso reference

How to draw penis

Penis ref

Kissing ref

Faces:

Drawing expressions    

Creating expression

Avoiding same face

How to draw faces

*Heads

Heads&Angles

contouring and highlightin

drawing eyes

*How To Draw Noses

drawing ears

how to draw profiles

*How To Draw Lip

lips ref

lip tutorial

Hair:

Hair tutorial

Hair+Fur

how to draw curls

*How To Draw Hair

Clothes:

Drawing clothe folding

How to draw folds

Folding ref

how to draw jeans

hat ref

*How To Draw Fabric Folds/Creases

how to draw shoes/feet

hecka lot of clothing refs

Other (Person Related):

Flower crown tutorial

Drawing horse/animal legs on humans

Anatomy of mutant humans

Mass art ref

Drawing human wings

draw wings

*How To Draw Cuts And Bruises

wings

Other (non-specific):

How to draw ice

Drawing clouds

Creature design

Tutorial masterpost (100+)

How to colour

Drawing ref masterpost (10+)

paint blood

shadow help

draw grass

All References Male Clothing Female Clothing

Genres High Fashion Steam Punk Goth Street Fantasy

Modern Vintage Historical

Shirts Blouses Vests Jackets Coats Cloaks Hoods Corsets

Pants Leggings Skirts

People are asking us how the art we share can be so good.

The answer this time isn’t so simple. An artist has his own way on shaping his style, he takes his time to experiment and so it becomes quite difficult for others to try learning his art style and making it their own. It’s even wrong.

But we can tell you that many artists learn by getting inspired by others’ art. Watching an artist while he paints can be motivating - and of course it can teach you a few technical tricks.

So, here there are ten YouTube channels you should check out.

1. FZD School of design

It’s a school founded by Feng Zhu, amazing concept artist with a lot of experience in video games, films and commercials. His videos are real episodes/lessons and they are very helpful. And, well, they even have a school in Singapore…

2. China digital painting

This channel doesn’t feature tutorials but shares full video processes by Chinese artist. In this period we are seeing many young artists inspired by an art style that’s typically Chinese - it features dramatic lighting and mood. Though such a technique can be found in other artists like Bouguereau and  Rembrandt.

3. Ctrl + Paint

A channel dedicated to the digital painting in Photoshop. Very helpful for those beginners who want to learn how to use this software and how to get better with art in general.

4. Level Up!

One of the most known groups of digital art of Facebook can be found on YouTube as well. The founders are Wojtek Fus and Darek Zabrocki. Each session (episode) features a different digital artist. This is great because you can compare the different painting processes. The main theme of this channel is concept art and fantasy/sci-fi illustrations.

5. JJ canvas

This is the channel of Jorge Jacinto. He uploads speedpaintings, but they are very inspiring if you want to look at how a wonderful surreal landscape can be created in twenty minutes - in time-lapse of course.

6. Webang111

Another channel with time-lapse videos. Very inspiring if you are into colorful and cartoony illustrations.

7. Ross Draws

His art is wonderful and his videos are super funny! Check out his channel if you want to see how a fantasy illustration can be created from a simple idea - I mean, he starts with two rough lines to close the video with a breathtaking illustration. Crazy.

8. The Portrait Art

Okay, we know. This channel is not about digital art. But it’s amazing art anyway and if you are into realistic portraits, you can get inspired by watching these videos.

9. Cubebrush

Another channel with time-lapse videos, but a few are commented. The videos are about 2D and 3D paintings.

10. Noah Bradley

This artist is a master in the concept field and he doesn’t only talk about his digital method but about his career as well, giving lots of hints on how to become a better artist and how to enter in the art industry.