Ishel's Art Blog

Based off my old post I created a headcanon! I’m really into headcanons for small details that barely cross anyone’s mind

Percy Jackson: deep voice. baritone at least, but could also sound like a booming bass the next day. his voice shifts with his mood. whenever he laughs people confuse it with an earthquake. has the laugh of a maniac villain but it actually sounds funny. he has the voice of a leader, of a politician. but unlike most, you actually would trust him with your life.

Annabeth Chase: girlish. possesses a high voice she hates. she suppresses the posh southern belle accent that she naturally has and tries to adapt a New Yorker accent and speak in a deeper voice that demands respect. the less she thinks about how people perceive her and as soon as she lets her guard down her natural voice shines through.

Jason Grace: hushed. once he finds a topic and common ground his voice lifts up and shines with confidence. questions sound rather stern for which he always apologizes. he’s the type of person that sounds like a narrator whose voice memos help you fall asleep.

Piper McLean: melodic. the clearest enunciation you’ve heard. you never misunderstand her. her voice reminds you of your favorite song. she barely needs to raise her voice as everyone loves to listen to her. don’t upset her, however. the tone and choice of words will break your heart.

Frank Zhang: soft voice. high voice. he sounds coarse sometimes, like he had forgotten to drink something in a while. he harrumphs and coughs often, especially whenever he’s nervous. he has a weird laugh that sounds like he’s almost choking on his spit but it is so incredibly contagious.

Hazel Levesque: very high voice. she’s a kid and her voice will get a different and deeper timbre over time. Her NOLA accent is adorable. she still uses old-dated slang which confuses people. Whenever she asks a question her voice goes even higher as if she would pronounce the question mark as well.

Leo Valdez: surprisingly deep. you would have never guessed. he speaks fast, almost too fast. his mouth tries to keep up with his thoughts and that makes him nearly sound sluggish as he swallows consonants. He has a tex-mex accent and whenever he gets lost in words he accidentally speaks spanglish and only notices once he looks at your confused face and he repeats himself and apologizes.

Nico di Angelo: he sounds tired. a little bit worn out. he actually yawns a lot. his laughter is beautiful and rich. it’s able to part clouds, lift spirits and puts a smile on everyone’s face. he hates it as it reminds him that it sounds nearly identical to that of his deceased sister Bianca. he tries to avoid laughing and breaks it down to a sarcastic chuckle. has a slight Italian accent.

Hello!! I’m open for commissions <3

Please send me an ask or email me at [email protected] :) Check out my IG for more samples

We live in a pretty great digital age and we have access to a ton of amazing tools that artists in past generations couldn’t even dream of, but a lot of people look at a cool trick and only learn half of the process of using it.

Here’s the missing part of this tutorial:

How do you populate your backgrounds?

Well, here’s the answer:

If the focus is the environment, you must show a person in relation to that environment.

The examples above are great because they show how to use the software itself, but each one just kind of “plops” the character in front of their finished product with no regard of the person’s relation to their environment.

How do you fix this?

Well, here’s the simplest solution:

This is a popular trick used by professional storyboard and comic artists alike when they’re quickly planning compositions. It’s simple and it requires you to do some planning before you sit down to crank out that polished, final version of your work, but it will be the difference between a background and an environment.

From Blacksad (artist: Juanjo Guarnido)

From Hellboy (Mike Mignola)

Even if your draftsmanship isn’t that great (like mine), people can be more immersed in the story you tell if you just make it feel like there is a world that exists completely separate from the one in which they currently reside – not just making a backdrop the characters stand in front of.

I’m a 3d artist and have been exploring the possibilities of using 3d as reference for 2d poses. I want to add a couple of tips and things!

Sketchup is very useful for environment references, and I assume it’s reasonably easy to learn. If you’re interested in going above and beyond, I highly recommend learning a proper 3d modeling program to help with art, especially because you can very easily populate a scene or location with characters!

Using 3ds Max I can pretty quickly construct an environment for reference. But going beyond that, I can also pose a pretty simple ‘CAT’ armature (known in 3d as a rig) straight into the scene, which can be totally customized, from various limbs, tails, wings, whatever, to proportions, and also can be modeled onto and expanded upon (for an example, you could 3d sculpt a head reference for your character and then attach it to the CAT rig, so you have a reference for complex face angles!)

The armature can also be posed incredibly easily. I know programs exist for stuff like this - Manga Studio, Design Doll - but posing characters in these programs is always an exercise in frustration and very fiddly imo. A simple 3d rig is impossibly easy to pose.

By creating an environment and dropping my character rig into it, I have an excellent point of reference when it comes to drawing the scene!

Not only that, but I can also view the scene from whatever angle I could ever want or need, including the character and their pose/position relative to the environment.

We can even quickly and easily expand this scene to include more characters!

Grover, tears in his eyes: I am begging you, Percy. For once in your life, go home. Please. Just this once. Go home