lydia's art blog

This is simply lovely. The attention to detail in the design decisions really shows what a person can do when they’re not just making a design for the tiddy. I’d love to see her with her weapon. The engravings are a bit too much for me, but honestly, I can totally see a noble family overdoing the fanciness on their armor to one-up the other nobles.

Star Cape and Northern Sky Dress, by Fairytas on Etsy

I made a thing! I was thinking about this for a few days - because I realized that when I was young, I was also frustrated about being given the same advice over and over - without really knowing what it meant!!

Here’s 5 techniques which I have done before which have helped me grow as an artist, which are good for 5-minute warmups or just straight up challenges for your sketchbook! 

Obviously, these are not the ONLY techniques - they’re just the ones I find most fun! And maybe they’re not the most ‘correct’ ones out there, but it’s better than another comic about practicing more, right? 

I’ve found that drawing the head starts to make a lot more sense once you start thinking about cheekbones and cheeks, and how the fit into the head structure.

You might be aware of the Mysterious Indent that Looks Good Next to the Outer Part of the Eye, or the Mystery Indent for short. 

Drawing a Mystery Indent may serve you fine if you only draw the head from flat angles, but it falls apart when you get adventurous.

Why isn’t this making sense anymore?

Drawing a ‘Mystery Indent’ is an attempt to imply cheekbones without knowing how they actually incorporate into the skull, and this is why it looks so unconvincing when you use it to draw the head in anything other than ¾ view.

The cheekbones wrap around the head and eye sockets from above the bridge of the nose.  The concave you draw if you draw the ‘Mystery Indent’ is a misunderstanding.  There is no concave.  You should instead be thinking of this as where the eye socket/brow overlaps the (convex!) cheekbone.

Compare the cheekbones on both sides for placement.  They should match up and correspond with each other.

(Knowing cheekbone structure helps when drawing gaunt characters, because their cheekbones may stick out.  Remember to compare the cheekbone placement on both sides!)

NOTE: one type of fold will rarely appear on its own - they interact with each other quite a bit! for example, spiral folds might define the outline of a pant leg, while the interior folds might be zig-zag folds.

Litzibitz Trost - requested by @faintlyorganisedchaos