I love to write more than anything else in the world. But there are some things that you can’t really show with text and pictures. Also, some people just learn better with video. So to be helpful in that way, we’re going to be posting videos in some of our tutorials on how to draw and create other forms of art. Please comment and let us know what you think.

These tutorials were done using Photoshop CS2. Don’t worry, we’re getting a digital camera soon so that we can post video tutorials on how to draw traditionally.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

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.

There’s a ton of ways that characters sit, so covering them all in one tutorial would be crazy. So instead, I’m going to focus on how to draw characters sitting in chairs. The way a character looks when sitting in a chair varies depending on how the body is shaped and what the character is wearing, but there is a general shape that the legs take when in a sitting position.

(Click the picture to make it larger).

Side Profile

Start by  drawing a slight vertical line that curves outwards to the right (or left). This will be the character’s butt.

At the bottom of the line you just drew, continue with a very slightly curving line that curves downwards and to the right. This line is part of the character’s butt and thigh.

Continue the line as it travels more and more horizontally, becoming less and less curved. This forms more of the thigh.

Draw a line that attaches to the last line you drew. This line will be drawn vertically and curve slightly outwards. The bottom end of the line will travel to the left (or right).

Here I switched the line I just drew to the line of a pair of pants, but you can keep the original line if you want. Draw a horizontal line that travels to the left and slants slowly upwards. Then have the line curve dramatically upward and to the right, forming the toe of the foot. This will form the bottom and front part of the foot or shoe.

There should be a point where the thigh and the calf intersect. At this point, draw a curving line that travels downwards and to the left. The line will also curve outwards and to the right.

Have the line that you just drew curve outwards to the left (or right). Have this line travel downwards, forming the back part of the other leg.

Continue with the line you just drew, drawing a small bump where the heel should be. From this point, draw a curving line that curves slightly upwards and travels to the left. This line curves slightly upwards because it is forming the arch of the foot.

Draw a line that travels upwards and to the right, curving upwards and to the left. This will form the top part of the other shoe or foot.

Now, switch over to the other foot, drawing the curving horizontal line that makes up the shoe or foot for that part of the body. Have the line curve slightly upward and travel to the right.

Draw a line that curves horizontally and slightly upward. This will form the top part of the other thigh.

Continue this line by drawing a line that travels vertically, curving to the left until the line reaches the ankle, where it then curves to the right. The line finally curves to the left again to meet the lower foot.

Make adjustments to the leg.

That concludes part one of the sitting tutorials. I’ll be covering different positions and different sitting styles. I’ll keep covering this until I’ve run out of sitting styles or until someone emails me at sketchinghouse@gmail.com with a different topic. Just no dirty or degrading requests. I really want to cover how to draw every topic under the sun, but if this bores you to tears, send me an email and I’ll teach other things.

Best wishes,

Alex

For one, I’m trying to post on here as often as possible, but I got bogged down with a lot of papers for class, but all is well with that spectrum of the universe now. I can finally catch up with all my articles for Demand Studios and for here. Another reason why I haven’t been posting so much is because I got a new job teaching a few Korean computer graphics professors English. They already know English, of course, but they want to learn it better so they can get teaching jobs in the States. I’m excited about this opportunity and it will help me get a job once I graduate with my Master’s degree. Today, I got to help one of my students practice for an interview she has with the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. I’m excited that I got to help with the interview and I wish her luck. To me, working with students is like raising children. You give them wings to fly and once they leave the nest… it’s so sad. One of my coworkers said I should be happy when the students leave because it means they gained confidence in their writing and speaking abilities, but for some reason, I don’t feel that way. A deep sense of sadness overcomes me. I don’t know if I’m suppose to feel that way, but I always do. Maybe someday, I will understand that feeling.

On Monday, someone stole my flashdrive from the computer lab. My resume, art portfolio, Writing Center work, ESL worksheets, and all my thesis work was on it. I posted fliers all over campus pleading with the person who took it to give it back, but no one has integrity anymore. We live in a pathetic world anymore when someone would even steal a flashdrive. All I did was go print a paper and staple it. That’s all it took. Honestly, the person can have the flashdrive, but I would be super happy if they would just send my work to me. My email address is on the flashdrive, afterall.

In other news, I previously mentioned a forum I was part of that discusses the show All My Children. I am now officially an outcast on there because people think I’m a troll. The thing that kills me is that on a forum, we’re all just a bunch of screen names. No one has faces. Some of the people on the forum have been trolls and I’ve been a regular poster during those times. Suddenly, everything turned on me because I reported on a bad day I had and everyone’s like “OH! TROLL!” No one gives anyone the benefit of the doubt; it’s instant paranoia. If you talk to some people more than others, you’re automatically accused of being that person if someone doesn’t like that individual. You can explain everything until you’re blue but they still won’t believe you. People automatically think that they know someone when they really know nothing. Only that person knows who they are, no one else, and I think that’s something a lot of people haven’t learned yet. Everything is so high school still. You defend yourself, call others on their follies, but it’s still never good enough. Unfortunately, it’s not behavior that’s only familiar on forums, but it’s becoming a common problem in society. Sure, it’s been a large problem for years, but it’s only getting worse.

In other news, I finally found time to write. Tala and I are probably going to start working on our manga very soon, and she’s working on a web comic. Alex is also working on his story. As for me, I’m working on a short story for my university’s Stark-Tinkham writing contest. I haven’t any idea as to what I’m going to stick with, but, right now, I’m writing a short story about two girls in Arizona who are sold into sexual slavery; another story about two friends who don’t realize they’re in love with each other until it’s too late; my third idea involves writing about my hometown. There’s always crazy things going on in my town. I turned a short story in for my advanced composition class once that focused on my life in my crazy neighborhood. It was great because my professor knew what I was talking about because she lives in the same city as I do, so we were able to talk in-depth about the crazy happenings of city life. She’s the one who encouraged me to expand on my piece. We’ll see where that takes me.

Technically, I don’t have an art tutorial to post today. Instead, I want to pass on some words of encouragement when it comes to photography. Personally, I’m not that good of a photographer, but I have fun taking pictures nonetheless. A while ago, I had a good camera, but my niece and I broke it running away from the Baptist church in hopes of breaking my “Baptist Curse” (this was 4 years ago, LoL). I have a Kodak camera currently, but it only has 3X zoom and sucks. All the pictures are still pixelly, but what can I do? But I’m getting off track.

There are a lot of people who are afraid of delving into the wonderful world of photography because they’re afraid their pictures will be ugly and blurry. Like I mentioned, I’m an amateur photographer, but I find the art to be very relaxing. A lot of times, I take my camera out and I take pictures of the sky, my dog, or geese (Alex says I have an obsession with geese ). Sometimes, buildings intrigue me or just random things lying around the house. Sometimes, I just feel inspired. Today, Alex and I skipped our Chaucer class because I had a headache and it was the last class before spring break. Our professor for Chaucer doesn’t usually assign work so Alex and I went out to have fun (we have a hilarious story to tell also!). We went to JoAnn Fabrics where I needed to take pictures of topiary things for a tutorial I’m doing for Demand Studios. I found some lovely fabrics to use for a skirt I wanted to make, but that’s besides the point.

Anyway, as we were driving to JoAnn’s, I felt inspired to take pictures as we were driving. So as we were driving, I took pictures of the road, restaurants, and random things along the way. Why? Because everything is aesthetically beautiful to a certain extent. I know a lot of budding photographers get psyched out when they go to professional photography sites and see all these beautiful portraits and say “I can never be like that!” Truth is, with practice, you could be like those photographers. For me, I’m really not interested in becoming a professional photographer, I just like to take pictures for fun. Here’s my advice, start taking pictures for fun with whatever camera you have, especially if you’re like me and you have a piece of crap camera. Take it slow, shoot things that are simple. When you’re ready, begin playing around with various shots at different angles and get creative. With photography, the possibilities are endless! Here are some shots I took from today:

Fireworks store: There

Ortega Supermarket near my campus.

You may see a lake; it's a flooded golf course.

It's me! It was very cold out today.

See, my pictures suck, but with practice, I’m sure I’ll get better over time.

Happy days ahead!

Marisol “Kita”

Arm #1

This arm is hanging straight at the character’s side in such a way that the palm of the character’s hand would be facing the character. This is an important arm to learn how to draw, since characters commonly hold their arms this way.

Draw a slightly curving line that travels downwards.

Draw another long curving line parallel to the first line you drew. Make this arm less curvy than the other line and have the line travel farther downward than the other line.

From the bottom of the shorter line, draw a more curving line that slants more towards the other line as it travels downwards.

Arm #2

This arm has the palm facing away from the point of view. This is often the way the arm looks when a character is holding on to an object that is between the character’s body and arm.

Draw a curving line that starts off traveling horizontally and starts to curve until it suddenly travels downwards sharply, very far downwards.

In whatever direction that the previous line curved, on the opposite side draw a line that curves in the opposite direction. This line is not as long as the other line.

At the end of the line that you just drew, draw a second similar curving line. This line is the same only longer than the previous line.

Draw a second line that is similar to the line you just drew but which curves in a different direction.

Arm #3

This arm is similar to the arm above, but the hand is swung more towards the center of the character. Otherwise, this isn’t a much more difficult arm to learn how to draw.

Draw a curving line that travels horizontally and then curves suddenly downwards, traveling vertically and slightly curving outwards.

On the other side of the line you just drew, draw a line that curves outwards slightly, mostly traveling vertically.

From where this line ends, draw another curving line that bulges at first and then tapers off gradually.

From where the opposite line ended, draw a line that curves very slightly and then travels somewhat towards the other line that you just drew.

Arm #4

This is the arm of a character who is swinging her arm, raising it, or stretching her arm out to grab someone’s hand. Her arm looks somewhat curved, like a banana. This is a lightly tricker arm to learn how to draw.

Draw one curving line.

Then draw another. Both of these lines will curve in the same way, curving in a somewhat downward and Eastern or Western direction (depending on which arm you’re drawing).

With the line farther away from the character’s body, draw a smaller line that curves in the opposite direction.

Where the last line left off, draw another line that curves in the opposite direction.

Go to the line opposite of the lines you’ve been working on drawing. Draw another curving line that is similar to the first curving line, but have that line curve more towards the other line.

Arm #5

This is the arm of someone who has his elbow by his waist and is raising his forearm without moving his elbow from its position. This arm might be easier to learn how to draw if you look at your arm in the mirror and experiment with different arm positions.

Draw a curve that looks like a hook. Draw a really small curving line that will represent the shoulder. As the line travels downwards, the line will become almost perfectly vertical with a slight curve to it.

Closer to the human body, draw a line that slants slightly upwards towards the body.

Back to the first line you drew. Draw a line that curves sharply upwards and outwards.

Draw a fourth line that curves in the same way as the third line, but tapers and draws closer to the third line.

Arm #6

This is the arm of someone who is holding her skirt, curtsying. This will be last type of straight arm that I can think of that an artist would want to learn how to draw.

Draw a curving line that travels diagonally across the page.

Draw a second line that curves in an opposite direction and is not as curvy as the first line.

Continue the second line, curving it out slightly a second time.

Continue the first line by drawing a really big bulge that tapers off gradually and travels closer and closer to the other line.

Woo! Next arm tutorial, I’ll be hitting bent arms. I dunno if I’ll do that in the next art tutorial, since writing about the same things all the time gets kinda dull. I’ve spent a lot of time working on drawing the human figure, which is really important. But I’m up for a change. Please email art tutorial requests and specifically drawing tutorial requests if there’s anything specific that you want to have an art tutorial on.

Alex

Elderly men do not dominate manga and cartoons, but you can sometimes still find them playing a few important roles. These characters are given extra lines on the face to emphasize wrinkling and the sagging of a face. The elderly face usually has some features that are drawn out more than you would with a younger face. It seems like the older a character is, the more realistic the features are drawn, while the younger the face, the more details you omit. For instance, some young children do not even have mouths drawn. The elderly face can be really complex and the extra angles can end up requiring some really innovative shading. For this drawing tutorial, a more simplistic face is going to be drawn.

Draw a line that curves upwards. This will be a tiny line that represents the corner of the eye. Then draw a second line that travels outwards, curving slightly. Finish with a long, curving line that represents the bottom of the eye. These will be the eyelids.

Draw two curving lines in between the two eyelids. These will represent the irises. Notice how the entire eye isn’t completely shown. Instead, the top and bottom parts of the irises are covered by the eyelids.

Create a duplicate but reversed version of the eye you just drew.

Draw a line that slants downwards and to the left. This line will be beneath the eyes in the middle of the face. Yep, this is the nose. This line will then suddenly travel downwards and to the right, forming a right angle. The corner of this right angle will be rounded.

Draw a broad line that curves only slightly downwards to show a slight smile. This character is meant to be somewhat older, so I put slanting lines in the corners of his mouth that slant downwards.

Between the nose and the mouth, draw two lines that start somewhat near the nose that curve outwards and travel down towards the mouth.

Draw some curving lines beneath the eyes.

Draw two curving lines somewhat beneath the mouth that are small and very curved. Start drawing the jaw. The jaw will be less pointy than usual on this guy, since sagging skin will make his jaw seem wider.

Draw the rest of the head. Have the lines that make up the head slant outwards as they travel upwards. When you’re ready to draw the top of the head, draw a curving line that connects both slanting lines.

Draw the folk’s ears. Draw a curving line that starts at the edge of the head, curves and then travels downwards a long way becoming more straight with a slight curve. Have the line curve at the bottom until it touches the side of the head. As for the inside of the ear, you will probably need a human model
. No matter what, the ear is always drawn with curving lines near the edge of the ear within the ear. What’s tricky to draw is the opening of the ear canal near the ear lobe.

Draw the hair however you’d like, though it’s a bad idea to draw every individual strand.

Alex

Start by drawing a curving line that slants towards the head.

On the part of the ear that’s farther away from the head, draw the line as a curve that suddenly goes into a slant that moves towards the head.

Draw a line that starts near the bottom middle near the edge of the ear. This line will travel along the outer edge of the ear until you reach the top corner closest to the head. Then the line will curve downwards and away from the head until it stops.

Where the last line you drew ends, place your drawing tool slightly above the end and draw a curving line that travels downwards. Continue until you draw a half circle.

The next part looks sorta like an upside down S that is a little more elongated and attached to the half circle you drew.

At this point, draw another S that is right-side up and attaches at the bottom to the line that you just drew.

Now locate the inner curving line and draw two curving lines that travel downwards and attach at the tip like a triangle or a strand of hair.

Finish by drawing a line that travels near the inner line that you just drew on the outer side on the inner side of the ear (good thing there’s pictures, this is confusing). At the bottom of the ear, draw a small curving line that curves upwards.

Next, let’s try another type of ear (woo!). Start off by drawing a curving line that looks like a hook. The line will be curving towards wherever the head is supposed to be.

Wherever you want the bottom of your ear to be, draw a line that curves downwards.

On the side of the ear that is away from the head, draw a slightly curving line that connects both of the other lines.

Draw a curving line within the hook part of the line and have that line travel along the outside part of your line until you stop somewhere near the top.

Where the last line ended, move up a little and draw a line that travels downwards and curves, attaching to the outer part of the ear. This line will travel down, slant downwards and to the left and then slant more steeply until it touches the outer part of the ear.

Now head over to the other part of the ear and draw two lines, one that curves upwards and one that curves downwards. These lines will be curving away from each other. The bottom line will slant downwards more and father out than the upper curve.

From where you left off, draw a line that travels downwards and curves towards the character’s head.

From this point, draw a similar curving line that sorta forms a small M but stops early and slants more towards the head.

The next part’s incredibly difficult to describe. Yeah, the ear is kinda tricky. Luckily, most people aren’t experts in what an ear looks like and most people won’t notice if there are minor errors in the ear. Of course, if you’re trying to get the ear really right, you’ll need to draw from an art model.

Now, let’s draw the ear that’s really difficult to see. The ear that is drawn from the back. Start by drawing a slightly curving line.

Draw a second line that makes a pass at the first line. This line travels more downwards and is even less curved.

At the bottom of the last line that you drew, draw a second line that curves in the other direction.

At the bottom of this line, draw a small curving line that travels away from where the ear connects to the side of the head and curves downwards. Then draw a line that travels directly upwards.

Where you left off at the straight line, draw a second line that curves upwards and away from the ear.

Draw a slightly curving line that connects the two lines that are traveling somewhat vertically up. Draw a line that hangs freely to the left of the ear. Find the bottom of the ear and draw a line that curves away from the ear and upwards.

Start off by drawing a head. Theoretically, you could just draw the arm. But arms are hard to draw if you aren’t seeing them in proportion to the rest of the body and you might as well get more practice with figure drawing. So draw a circle.

Now, figure out proportions. We’re not going to draw out the entire body, but it helps to get the entire body down when drawing a picture if you have enough room. Bodies are typically seven and a half to 8 and a half heads long. If you are drawing a live model, you can then get the proportions right by using the head as a frame of reference. All you have to do is simply stretch your arm out and close your non-dominant eye, which is the eye in which objects move when you close your other eye.

Once I have the heads all drawn out, I find it easy to create markers at different places on the body in order to know where I’m at. For instance, I know that the breastbone is slightly above the third circle. So draw the whole body out. I didn’t try to draw a perfect body because I want to focus more on the arms, the whole point of this blog post.

When hung straight, the arms usually stretch far enough that the hands are level with the point at which the legs spread apart. You might want to draw these first since then you’ll know where to go with your arms. For this tutorial, do not worry too much about the hands, since we’re not focusing on hand art.

Next, draw the circles where the elbows are supposed to be at. These circles are slightly above the point where the torso and hips meet.

The rest of the arms you can draw in any order. For the outer part of the arms connected to the shoulders, draw the lines with a slight curve. With the human body, everything has a curve in it. So be sure to always include that.

Next, draw the armpits. Why? Because the armpits will connect to the inner part of the arms. Armpits are really simple curving lines that aren’t even noticeable when the arms are close to the body. However, if the arms are raised above the head, the armpits will change greatly. However, this will be covered in a different tutorial.

The elbows, when the arms are straight, have slight curves inwards.

I think the way the arm is drawn works for most drawings. But you might want to get even more realistic with the form of the arm. I decided to redraw the left arm and focus on that solely. The left arm is turned with the top part of the forearm facing outwards. What this is going to create is an arm that has the inner part bulging while the outer part is somewhat flat.

If the arm is twisted in the right way, the outer part will have the bump where the elbow is found visible. From the elbow to the deltoids, there’s a curving line like that shown in the picture that almost goes within the arm, thus the line drawn inside the arm.

For the inner part, there will be more of a bulge if the arm is twisted with the bicep facing the person’s side. The deltoid overlaps the bicep in a way, so more muscular characters with a low body fat index might have a slight fold in the inner arm as well as the outer arm.

Some people find arms easy to draw while others find it wildly hard (like me). One tip for drawing the arm also fits for drawing really anything else. If you get to a part where you’re having trouble drawing, just draw it really slowly. Take your sweet time and focus fully on what the arm should look like.

Another tip for drawing arms is to simplify. This is an especially good idea whenever you draw cartoons. In fact, with cartoon art, there is no limit to how simplified your line drawing can be. Keep the arm as simplified as possible until you have the arm that you’re looking for. Then, you can start adding details and making the arm as you see fit. Just remember that arms are never straight and always have at least some minor curves.

Once you start drawing arms frequently, you will start to notice that arms really only are made of circles. You can really draw an arm in any position as long as you visualize the circles in the arm.

Drawing arms straight isn’t too tough, but what really gets tricky is when you try to draw arms in different positions. That asks for a whole different tutorial for a different day. For now, just practice getting the proportions right and finding the muscles that are found inside the arms.

Hmm, the arms are out of proportion. Make sure that the upper and lower arm are of equal length. Also, make sure that the fingers touch the mid thigh (as quoted by the lovely Marisol! Hi Alex! I took over your post! I’m posting about arms too in a little while).

Alex

Where was I? Working, school and being lazy. I’m sorry! I know, it’s been awhile. Marisol and I were trying to get an apartment but we ended up working so hard that everything started to suffer. From now on I’m going to stick with contributing to our tutorial art gallery.

Anyway, here’s another art drawing tutorial on nothing specific in particular. This tutorial focuses on drawing face art, rather than body art, giving explanations on how to draw out each part. I added advanced sections, even though they’re not really that much more advanced. They’re really just extra things you can look out for when you’re trying to go the extra mile with your art lessons.

Outline of the head

Make light strokes in a slightly curling motion when drawing the line art for the head. Stare at the edge of your reference photo and try to visualize the shape of the outline of the head. Advanced: pay extra attention to special details like whether or not the face is round or sunken. If you can capture each indentation of the face, capture it.

Mouth

Mouths can be an incredibly simple part of line drawing. With the mouth, draw a very simple curving line. The way I drew the mouth gave the character a slight smirk. Now, to draw the lips or not to draw them. Advanced: The mouth is drawn sorta like a small m. There is a dip in the middle, though the dip varies from person to person. Some dips are tiny, while others take up a little more space. Since the lips are not directly facing the camera but are faced slightly to the left, make the left side of the lips more rounded while making the right side more slanted in order to create that illusion.

Why draw the lips? A lot of don’t include the lips, which can create a very cute picture. Some artists even avoid drawing the mouth in order to emphasize the character’s youth. Plus, lips often look somewhat strange on drawn character, though they don’t have to be. Much of the beauty of lips comes from the right shading and highlights, which will be in another tutorial. For now, you can stick with drawing simplistic lips, which work well with ethnic characters.

Eyes

A lot of artists start with the eyes because the eyes often determine whether or not the rest of the picture will end up working. But where you start really does not matter. For these eyes, take the reference picture and try to capture the outline of the eyes. For cartooning, this does not have to be exact and be sure to draw somewhat larger than what is in the real life picture. Draw the bottom part of the eye with a bulge in the middle bulging downward. The outer edges of the eyes can be drawn slanting up or down. Usually they are slanting downwards.

The top part of the eyes curve sharply upward from the outer corners of the eyes and form a gentle round curve. I removed the inner corners of the eyes because they did not look attractive. I then enlarged the eyes because I was worried that the eyes would be too hard to see. Advanced: start cleaning up the eyes. Use an eraser or white coloring to color over the parts of the lines you want to erase. Always erase in a way that will increase the roundness of the eyes.

Choose a color that you would like to use for your eyes. Fill in circles that fill up the entire eye lid. Draw a nice black line around your irises that is somewhat faint. Then switch to white and draw in a glare that is on the same spot for both eyes. This will be a small white circle that represents the light reflecting off of the eye. Advanced: Add a faint white line at the bottom of the irises.

Eyebrows

Add the eyebrows. Much of the individuality and emotion of the character comes from how the eyebrows are drawn. The combination of eyebrows and mouth form a large percentage of the emotions depicted through drawing. Also, since eyebrows vary, you can be somewhat creative with them. For these eyebrows, put a lot of weight on the inner part of the eyebrows in order to make them look thick. As you slant upwards and curve to the outer part of the eyebrow, make the line progressively fainter and thinner.

Hair

Draw the bangs as curving triangles. You can start by drawing the outline of the hair or add the bangs first. Bangs can be drawn in all sorts of ways. The types of bangs I drew were the ones that curve inward and are triangular. With these bangs, the messiness or neatness of your character can be emphasized by whether or not you have the bangs all going in one direction or not.

Coloring

Coloring, one of the most awesome parts of creating an image. This is especially awesome when you are using a Photoshop program. Not only can you choose among a seemingly infinite array of colors, but you can also place different colors on different layers and then alter these colors using hue/saturation.

Regardless of what you use, make sure that you color very carefully by going along the edges without going over them. If you’re drawing traditionally, it is recommended that you go over your artwork lines using and then finish coloring with high-quality markers. Alternatively, you can draw everything using your tablet or mouse and then create new layers for each color. Then, be sure to set each layer to multiply in order to avoid coloring over the lines that you worked so hard to draw.

That’s all it takes to construct a typical face (at least in the anime world). It really all comes down to personal taste. Draw a little here and see if you like it. Erase something there when you realize that it looks really dumb. Slowly clean up every stray pixel or smudge until everything starts to look polished.

I’m suppose to be studying for a Linguistics quiz right now, but I’m very far behind on things. I have six articles I need to write for Demand Studios, two blogs for Divine Carol/Country Living, help Alex with some of his blogs (if he would ever sign online and let me know where he needs help at) and I need to come up with a ten page paper for my other job. Yes, for my tutoring job, we need to write papers to be reviewed. We also need community service. What is that? That place is ticking me off something horrible and I’m terribly close to quitting. If it wasn’t for the fact that I like working with the International students, I would leave. But, I guess I should be grateful for the fact that I have a job, that I’m not amongst the unemployed. But everything is looking desperate anymore. C’est la vie. However, yesterday, Alex and I developed a plan that would fix the economy for awhile… now if we could run for joint presidency…

On Valentine’s Day, the best possible thing happened. *Jumps around excitedly.* Pitchers and catchers reported for spring training! YES! The baseball season is right around the corner (Go Yankees! Go Cubs!)! Woohoo! And today is the Daytona 500! I hope my beloved Denny Hamlin wins! He’s my Sunday boyfriend, unless he races in the Nationwide Series on Saturday, then he’s my Saturday and Sunday boyfriend. All my boys of summer are back. Feel the speed, smell the green! Boogity, boogity, boogity! Let’s go racin’ boys! Play ball!

As mentioned, yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Alex and I went out to breakfast, went to the mall, took a long walk, had smoothies, went for dessert, went to Borders, and watched a movie called Towelhead (if you haven’t seen this movie or read the book, I recommend you do). It was a simple day, overall. I like simple, but I guess there’s a part of me that yearns for more romance. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic at heart: always hoping for more.  I guess the romantic side of me is the side that wishes for “the next step,” even though it scares me at the same time. I’m very afraid of that “next step” because of the drama it will cause. I’m tired of drama, fearful of monster in-laws, and all the meddling. Thinking of that “next step” makes me anxious–good and bad. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want a whole big shabang, instead, eloping sounds nice. Think of the money we’d save! But, taking that step is just a distant and frightening thought. I’m not going to bother with it any longer. But, I’d give up my heart for him, since he already owns it.

So what kind of tutorial shall we do today? I’m not exactly sure what I have to offer today. Since I haven’t had time to draw in awhile, I’m going to have to use a tutorial I did over the summer for another website. Let me see… how about how to draw elf ears? I promised an ear tutorial a long time ago, so I guess this counts.

Start by creating your basic ear shape. The basic ear shape can be described as C-shapes–one facing the correct way, the other facing the opposite direction. Inside, place a curvy C-shape inside and connect to a loosely drawn wavy E-shape.

Add details to the ear you just drawn. Create the ear ear canal entry and all the curves (what I like to call peaks and valleys) inside the ear. Look at pictures of ears in order to see the structure. All ears look different, so practice with a lot of different ear styles until you reach the desired look.

Create a dotted line that stems from the ear you just drew. This dotted line will indicate how large you want the ear to be, as well as the shape and width.

Trace over the dotted line and create a secondary line inside this now extended ear. This secondary line should be about a quarter of an inch away from the new ear line. Erase the outside rim of the old ear shape. Add three curved lines to the inside.

Next, shade the ear. Start with the dark tones and lead into the mid and light-tones. If necessary, create shading guidelines for this task. Once shading is complete, your ear is finished. Hopefully, you have a character for this ear (as well as another ear) in order to have a finished drawing.

So there it is: an ear. Did you find this tutorial useful? I hope so. Any questions? Comments? Well, we do love feedback. Comment below or shoot us an email at sketchinghouseonline@gmail.com! I’m off to go cry in my coffee. Dale Earnhardt Jr. caused a major crash during the Daytona 500, knocking my beloved Denny Hamlin into the grass. Denny had a chance to win the race, but no! Fate was not on his side. Rain in Daytona shortened the race to 151 laps; Matt Kenseth won. Now I am sad.

Until next time,

Mari

I’m not even sure who this character will be but she’s temporarily named Angora. I might not even use her since I don’t hold on to characters unless they feel right. Maybe she needs some redesigning.

My story takes place in a setting inspired by pre-history Philippines. I’d draw her wearing the clothes that people wore during that time frame, but they mostly wore nothing. That reminds me of a museum exhibit I saw of Native Americans. Some of the figurines of the Native Americans were completely nude. That was so weird since I was shielded from all nudity as a kid and then I’m exposed to a culture that sometimes runs around naked. I guess I learned from that how values can be way different from culture to culture.

You might think “hey, she doesn’t look Filipino.” Well, actually she’s Negrito. From the research I did, Negritos settled in the Phillippines before the Austronesians, an indigenous group from what is now called Taiwan.

That is the initial sketch I started off with. I like that sketch and might use it for a different drawing. How did she change so much? A whole bunch of reasons. The main reason was that I wanted to practice foreshortening, which is something I need to learn how to do with the body. Well, I didn’t really succeed at foreshortening her because that is tough!

What’s foreshortening? Foreshortening is how objects seem deformed at different angles. I guess I made her arms somewhat foreshortened, but their sizes are roughly the same and not large enough to show a real contrast.

So now what? I drew new torso lines in order to make her body appear turned to the side. I also foreshortened her shoulders, making one appear larger and one smaller to indicate that one shoulder is turned farther away from the point-of-view.

Next, I made her sides more shapely and raised her chest. Now she doesn’t look like she has the body of a 90000 year old woman. (I meant to say 900, not 90000).

At this point, I decided to redraw her clothes. Why? She looked like she was wearing a kimono or tunic, which doesn’t really fit with her character. But nudity doesn’t work for me, so I made up some clothes. I also redrew her arms. I liked how they looked, but they look way too long right now. I think this is where I was getting tired two nights ago because her proportions are extremely out of whack. I started drawing her legs because I wanted to shorten her dress. With dresses, its really important that you draw all of the legs out in order to make sure that you have the proportions right.

I did a little resizing and drew out the basic shape of the head.

Then I drew her face. I was aiming for a face that was both delicate and Negrito, but I ran into a problem. Most cartoon and manga faces are European/Asian inspired. Rarely do you see other races represented. I really had nothing to go off. I wanted to emphasize this character’s ethnicity, but I also wanted to keep her features relatively simple. So I experimented with the nose and lips until I got the results that I wanted.

I also added hair, my favorite part.

Then I added lineart and widened her features. I don’t know why I did this and I think I’m going to change it back later.

As you can see now, I colored her. I don’t know if I gave this advice out yet or not, but setting your coloring layers on multiply allows you to color without coloring over dark lines. This is good if you have a hard time coloring within the lines.

Then I used a handy-dandy color scheme generator at: www.colorschemer.com/online.html

Just plug in the value for one of the colors you’re using and it’ll generate colors that are compatible. These colors should pop out more when put together.

So I drew her and showed her to Marisol and she drew all over her. She took her mouse and drew all these lines all over my drawing like it was nobody’s business (joking. I asked her to).

This is sort of like an artist’s version of proofreading. It really helps to have someone else look at your artwork before you finish it because they can see mistakes that you missed. Being an artist doesn’t have to be lonely.

I took her advice and adjusted her. But I gave her brown eyes instead of blue.

Like usual, I have to finish most of my tutorials in multiple blog posts. This isn’t because tutorials take that long, but because I have to write these in gaps of time between school and work. I wish I could write more tutorials, but time is always so short. Still, Marisol and I promise that we’ll always keep updating. We won’t be those people who stop posting out of the blue.

I love you all,

Alex