Nestor's Art Tutorial Collections

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I’ve been getting a lot of asks lately about the brushes and textures I use in my work, so here’s a BIG FAT REFERENCE POST for those of you who were curious! Bear in mind that I’m really lazy and don’t know what half the settings do, so don’t be afraid to experiment to figure out what works best for you :>

BRUSHES

Pencil I use the pencil tool with SAI’s native paper texture both for sketching and for applying opaque color with no blending. Lower opacities give it the feel of different pencil hardnesses, while full opacity makes it more like a palette knife, laying down hard-edged, heavy color for detail work or eventual blending with other brushes. Ink Pen Mostly made this because I’m lazy and I didn’t want to have to keep turning my textures off/opacity up when I wanted to ink something (even though I don’t do it very often), or lay down flat colors. I find the line quality to be much more crisp than Photoshop, and you can manually adjust in-program stabilization to help smooth out hand wobbles. Round Brush The plain ol’ brush tool acts as sort of an in-between for me in terms of brush flow. It’s heavier than my usual workhorse brush, for faster color application and rough blending, but not as heavy as the pencil tool, which has no blending at all. I like to use the canvas texture on this brush to help break up the unnatural smoothness that usually accompanies digital brushes, but it works just fine without. Flat Brush A brush tool set to flat bristle (try saving this bitmap file to your elemap folder if your version of SAI doesn’t have it) is by far my favorite to paint with. I don’t use any textures with it because I think the shape of the brush provides enough of that by itself. I use it for everything from rough washes to more refined shaping and polish. It’s just GREAT.

Watercolor Best used for smooth blending, washes, gradients, and smoky atmospheric effects. Cloud Basically a grittier version of the watercolor tool, because too much smoothness weird me out. Good for clouds and fog, as the name suggests, or just less boring gradient fills.

TEXTURE OVERLAY

To further stave off the artificially smooth look of digital painting, I almost always overlay some sort of paper texture, and it’s almost always this one, which I scanned and edited myself. You’re all welcome to use it, no permission required!

Using overlays in SAI is just as easy as using them in Photoshop. Just paste the texture into its own layer above everything you want it to apply to, and change the layer mode to Overlay. That’s it!

Want a more prominent texture? Up the contrast. Something more subtle? Lower the contrast or reduce the layer opacity. You can also use a tinted overlay to adjust the overall palette and bring a little more color unity to an otherwise disparate piece! Just be aware that too much texture can hurt the readability of the work beneath it, so I’d err on the side of subtlety.

Hope that helps!

After much ado, I’ve rummaged around in my program folders and found an image in SAI’s elemap folder called Flat Bristle.bmp that you should be able to just grab and use! I edited this link into my original post as well, but it’s gotten so many reblogs I don’t know how helpful that will end up being…

In any case, I’ve also taken the liberty of zipping all of my blotmap, brushtex, elemap, and papertex folders and hosting the file on my site just in case whatever borked version of SAI people are encountering are missing all this basic stuff. There’s not a lot in there, but the settings in the original post don’t make any sense if you don’t have them!

You can download the zip file here.

Happy painting!

This obviously needed its own post and here it is, a collection of blog posts and resources I have found and used for my own writing, I hope they help you too! Go forth and write that spice!

The Smut Writers Dictionary By @maybeeatspaghetti Seriously, how many different way are there to write cock? Does anyone else wonder if they've used the word 'lips' too many times? Well, this is a good place to start!

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Smut This is the first one I found and I go back to it frequently! There's also some great information about specific areas of sex that may not be common knowledge for first time writers!

How to Write Smut By @urfriendlywriter Another great source of information from different verbiage to use and a few tips to hel you along (giggity)

Smut Thesaurus By @prurientpuddlejumper just what it sounds like and you can never have too many words at your disposal.

6 Steps to Writing Better Sex By @chaoschaoswriting If you're at a loss or just want some more help this is antoher fantastic blog!

Writing Prompts NSFW By @seidenbros Need some dialogue? Or a story idea? Have a look!

#100 NSFW/Smut Dialogue Prompts By @a-cure-for-writers-block More? More. This is also a fantastic writing blog with lots to offer!

Intimate + Sexual Headcannon Questions By @petalsprompts Good questions to ask your characters to get to know them better and make more well rounded characters!

Smut & Mature (18+) Master List By @pendarling A great list dialogue prompts, scenarios, and helpful bits!

Poly NSFW Alphabet By @smaoineamhsalach Another great way to get to know your characters and maybe a handful of ideas for story ideas.

Kink Prompts Another from the previous blogger above and I didn't know what half of these are! I'll work on a kink dictionary next!

Writing Smut 101: Overcoming Smut Shame @slightlyrebelliouswriter23 There's a lot to be said for this particular subject! It's hard to write stuff like this, so how do you get over it? Start here!

How to Write a Kiss Scene By @youneedsomeprompts Yes!!! I still struggle with this one! There's a thousand ways to kiss, find your favorite!

Smut Oneliners By @deity-prompts you can never have enough one-liners!!

How to Write a (Great) Sex Scene Another great article for new smut writers

9 Tips for Writing Steamy Scenes More tips to help you wirte good steamy stuff!

How to Write Erotica and a Damn Fine Sex Scene A WEALTH if information on writing, structuring, and helpful tips!

@saradikahas a fantatic blog with graphics for you to use to add some fun to your posts. Things like MDNI Banners, 18+ Content Warnings, Support Your Favorite Writers and Reblog banners! They are free to use but she does ask that you reblog her stuff if you do! She's also a very talented writer and she writes some AMAZING Din Djarin stories!

Gay Sex Positions Guide This is a WONDERFUL adition and thank you so much @b7bubby for bringing this to my attention, I didn't have any resources for writing M/M fairings but this is a much needed addition to the spicy community! i've never written an M/M pairing and I feel like such an idiot for overlooking the need for a resource like this!

Writing the Perfect Kiss Scene provided by @writers-potiona fantastic little guide to writing better kisses!

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRg6YsKN/

DIY Ultimate Know Your Dress Shapes Guide Infographic from Enerie here. For examples of which designer made which silhouettes famous go to the link. For more ultimate guides from Enerie go here:

Fashion Pattern Vocabulary Part 1 Infographic.

Fashion Pattern Vocabulary Part 2 Infographic. 

Know Your Sunglasses Infographic. 

Know Your Shoes Part 1 Infographic. Lobster Claws anyone?

Know Your Shoes Part 2 Infographic.

It's time for a studioCARTRIDGE mini tutorial!

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Art Book Recommendations

anatomy masterpost 

perspective masterpost

Resources to help you master color theory & color theory primer

Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art

Beginner’s guide to traditional art

Ultimate guide to photography for beginners

How to find and develop artistic style

Surefire Ways to Defeat Artist’s Block and Writer’s Block

How to create a free portfolio and blog site

Learn How to Market Your Art the Right Way

A Collection of Great iOS Apps for Artists

Community Tested Social Networking Tips for Artists

Artist Utilities

Idea Generator

Visual Reference Boards

Random Color Palettes

Free Habit Tracker Printable

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HII my character & shape design tips PDF is now available! ^_^ hope you enjoy !!

Here's my "lazy" foliage tutorial! 🍀

(I say "lazy" in quotes as I consider this method a shortcut, but still requires some effort for the drawing to look nice)

Gif version of the process:

Thanks for reading!

FIRST THINGS FIRST: if you want characters to feel like they have weight, they gotta have balance.

Overview of some topics when it comes to drawing characters who are burn survivors.

DISCLAIMER. Please keep in mind that this is an introductory overview for drawing some burn scars and has a lot of generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. I'm calling this introductory because I hope to get people to actually do their own research before drawing disabled & visibly different characters rather than just making stuff up. Think of it as a starting point and take it with a grain of salt (especially if you have a very different art style from mine).

Talking about research and learning... don't make your burn survivor characters evil. Burn survivors are normal people and don't deserve to be constantly portrayed in such a way.