We're All Mad Here

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Shon Howell was a good friend of mine. He's better known as King Cheetah, a prolific furry artist that had been active since the 90s. In early 2019, he died from cancer, leaving all of his art and social media accounts abandoned.

Once this policy was announced the other day, I realized what that meant. So I went back to check Shon's Twitter, and...

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential. 

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’ 

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust! 

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it! 

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support. 

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me! 

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics. 

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper. 

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more. 

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc. 

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah. 

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks. 

https://youtu.be/NBE-RTFkXDk

Also for the arm thing to train it into you if yoube already formed the bad habit of using the wrist (like we do for writing think of it as a flicking motion of the wrist) get some big paper (cheap newsprint pr any other cheap large pads you can find CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP it's fine go cheap do it) & either charcoal (can sharpen with a knife & keeps a log lead that way so it's nice also it works well on cheap stuff cause it's soft!) But whatever works really and just practice drawing I say with your arm over shoulder be a use it sounds right & sits in my brain better, keep the paper up & away from you if you can if you don't have an easel it's okay maybe stand at our table what ever keeps you from resting your arm or elbow on the pad (that's how you will fall back into the wrist movements instead of arm movements) & literally do the warm ups explained above & then maybe move I to gesture drawings if you like drawing people of perspective cubes & such if you like backgrounds & then into drawing drawings to get the muscle memory of using your while arm not your wrist if you still find it really hard get a cheap wrist brace so help you stop using your wrist but & I STRESS THIS if your wrist starts hurting in the brace from using it while drawing TAKE IT OFF STRETCH YOUR WRIST & TALE A BREAK again I have RSI issues & I have to use a brace for wrist pain but sometimes it starts to cause me pain & I have to take a break from the brace being immobile or trying to move when/where it can't also can make it hurt also keep it loose cause you don't need it for support but jut to stop you from drawing with your wrist! I accidentally trained myself to draw more with my arm because in college I had to use my brace a lot & had to learn to draw with my whole arm (or from the shoulder as others say) which is why I say f you are truly struggling give it a shot cause if you keep drawing with your wrist & don't do the stretches you'll need the brace eventually anyways but for support😬

Also trust me the warm-ups are not a waste of time & don't have to be a waste of material either it doesn't have to be the exact same material you are going to use like if I'm using watercolor I can do warm ups in my sketch book or on news print & with a cheaper pencil or cheap paints, once it's dried you can even use the warm up sheets often if you aren't found the more precise ones like the dot connecting & such but when your done with them you can also turn them into something I mean look at the people who take kids scribbles and do outlines with them & stuff, or if you're doing watercolor like I said you can shred it or cut it up & wow you got colorful confetti right? Obviously with digital you just trash the Lauer or make new ones but I know people who are strapped for cash may not do the warm ups because materials cost money & I know I get it so much so don't worry if you got to get sheep stuff to do the warm ups it's just to warm up it doesn't have to be premium stuff & really shouldn't be anyways!

Art by Floriane Bodereau

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