So You Wanna Draw Turtles!
i’m gonna apologize in advance if any of this is overly rambly or makes no sense, i am just really bad at explaining things. also it’s not like super technical it ended up more like… theory, I guess? I can definitely make a more technical explanation but these things are what helped me figure out how to draw the turtles specifically since I already have a background in knowing how to draw people.
also this is primarily based around Rise, I don’t really draw any other flavor of turtle atm soooo yeah let’s get into it I guess!
rise is a very stylized show, water makes things wet, everyone knows what a horse is. a big part of why I like it so much is it’s so anime influenced, it just scratches a very specific part of my brain and I love it.
that being said, it definitely still leans a lot more into western animation with a large emphasis on shapes which was a challenge for me bc I don’t draw like that lol this is very evident in my early art.
the boys’ heads/faces are naturally one of the most important things when it comes to drawing them, and I really struggled when I first started making turtle art because they’re SO shape and everyone’s bald and I was dying ok i’m a shoujo girlie I need my long flowing hair.
I was really struggling to learn how to draw the turtles the way the show does and I decided to just redraw some scenes from anime I liked to try and get more comfortable drawing them. this actually worked really well for me?? and it unlocked the secret of drawing toidles, being able to directly see how the head was angled let me figure out how to draw their snouts/noses and I felt really dumb bc it felt really easy after that.
a lot of folks have already make tutorials about the more technical side of how their anatomy works so i’m not gonna get too into that, especially now that the art book is out. I honestly don’t think I could explain it very well anyway, i’m not even sure how it works it’s just one of those things I just… do.
their snouts aren’t all that complicated, I was just not really thinking about the anatomy of them when trying to draw them. I was like… oddly focused on their lack of noses and didn’t realize I didn’t have to draw noses, it’s basically like drawing a stylized anime face just with a more pronounced cheek.
your mileage may vary with this though, my usual art style is already anime so once the pieces clicked into place it was easy to draw the turtles, plus I have the advantage of having been an artist for over 20 years under my belt.
the quickest way to get comfortable/get used to drawing something is just to draw it often. redraw memes or screenshots or pictures (that lingerie ad of Leo is something i’m insanely proud of despite how low-effort it felt), you gotta draw 10,000 shitty bicycles before you draw a good one. there’s a lot i’ve drawn that’s just… unfinished sketches, rough drafts, etc that doesn’t really get shared anywhere, it’s just to practice drawing things.
that being said, I do still struggle with a lot of aspects!! drawing their heads straight on is still a challenge for me, and i’m still getting a sense of how to draw their carapaces & plastrons. I’m still learning and sometimes what I draw can be pretty inconsistent, my proportions will be off, but that’s just part of practicing!
hopefully this helped?? i’m so sorry if it doesn’t, I, again, am not good at explaining things.