Hi everyone. Sorry I’ve been gone so long. The evil finals are finally gone, so I’m back, hopefully for good. I hit a little burnout last week, but now I think I’m finally ready to go.

The tutorial I have today I came up with spontaneously while working on a picture of a tribal character I’m working on. He’s from the prehistory Phillipines, an area that I’ve never heard of a story being written about. Such a fascinating area.

That picture up there shows Snake Island in the Philippines. The completely naturally formed landbridge connecting two islands is shaped like a snake. Click the thumbnail to see how beautiful and clear the water looks. Anyway, I can’t get myself to draw the main protagonist as I see him in my mind.

Anyway, as I was working on trying to draw him a few nights ago, I realized that a lot of people draw the majority of their characters the same way. They’re always standing forward or to the side with their legs straight or slightly bend. But in real life there is a whole range of positions and motions that an individual can do. So I decided that my newest tutorial would be on how to draw a character sitting. Click to read more …

Tags: Anatomy, character, characters, draw, drawing, Drawings, drew, How to Draw, Life, lines, Night, Perspective, picture, poses, profile, proportions, real, Returning, side, Travel, Tutorial, Tutorials, Work

My semester is officially over! Now all I need to do is take my two finals for my psychology and English classes, then I will sit and wait patiently for my grades. I’m so TIRED from this semester; I’m so glad it’s over finally. Time for Christmas! Woo!

Today, Alex and I went to Dunkin Donuts for coffee before we went to our Literary Study class. While we were there, we were greeted by a guy dressed as a pig. The pig made Alex and I laugh, then we found out that the pig was part of a dance troupe that dresses like animals in order to encourage young people to stay in school and get an education. I really hope they succeed in their mission and that they’re around next year, because Alex and I were planning on hiring the animals to entertain one of our professors! *Giggles.* Click to read more …

Tags: Art, Asian Female, Digital Art, Eyes, Frankenstein, hair, Larry the Cable Guy, Lips, Photomashing, Photoshop, Pigs, profile, traditional Art, Tutorial

Proportions are Hard! But Possible.

Tags: angle, face, frontal, Perspective, profile, proportions, quarter, side, view

From a frontal perspective, features are mostly symmetrical. An artist doesn’t have to worry about the size of one eye in relation to the size of another eye. Drawing a face might become pretty easy, even routine. That is, until the artist is forced to turn the figure’s head. The eye that is closer to the point of view suddenly gets larger, while the eye moving away from the point-of-view shrinks. One ear gets bigger, while the other ear might completely vanish. The sides of the faces become distorted, with one side becoming rounder than the other. The face changes, and one of the illustrator’s biggest challenges is to adjust the proportions so that they look natural. Click to read more …

Tags: 3-D, 3D, draw, drawing, Eyes, face, features, frontal, illustrator, Perspective, profile, quarter, side, sketch, sketching, symmetry

New artists sometimes panic over proportions. I remember when I first tried drawing at age 7, all my character’s hands were bigger than their heads. Later on in life, I struggled to draw legs that looked right. My legs looked enormous while my bodies looked like oompa-loompa bodies.

Well, it turns out that I wasn’t completely off base if I were a Japanese cartoon artist. Really short, stubby arms and legs are the style found in chibi-style drawing. Really long legs are common in Shoujo manga, while really big heads are given to characters in order to increase their comicalness. Click to read more …

Tags: anime, cartoon, cartooning, chibi, comic, draw, drawing, figure, manga, Perspective, profile, proportion, shoujo, sketch

Okay… none of the two techniques worked for you. Don’t worry… they didn’t work for me either in the beginning when I first entered the art realm. I used to think guidelines were dumb until I learned how near impossible poses and action movements are to draw. I also avoided free sketching until I started worrying that everything I ever drew was just a copy of what someone else drew or photographed. But every new piece of artwork is like a new friend (to quote the great Bob Ross) and with all the awkwardness that comes with starting a conversation with someone you never talked to before. You have to break the ice, and sometimes breaking the ice feels near impossible. Click to read more …

Tags: anime, Art, character development, draw, drawing, getting started, manga, profile, sketch, sketching