A personal sideblog of art references and tutorials. I like to draw cartoons so most of the stuff on here will relate to drawing, but i'll put other stuff here too.
I made this blog so I can improve in drawing. I'm by no means an expert but i'll link you to other tutorials and try my best to answer questions you may have.
Feel free to submit something!
gif from here
Again, not mine. But omg this is so good aaaaaaaaaah
Varying Your Body Types
By me, Sara D. (Heh.)
I think it’s very important for artists to vary the types of bodies they draw! Not only does it add visual interest and diversity, but different body types can enhance your characters! (Plus it’s more realistic; when was the last time you walked down the street and everyone had the same body type?) I know I have a hard time drawing different bodies, especially with men, so I’m making this tutorial to teach myself as well (I’ve heard the best way to cement learning something is to teach someone else).
So! Bodies! I’m going to use women for this tutorial because I feel they have more variety in their bodies. One of the most obvious ways bodies differ is in their amount of fat.
On average, people store fat mostly in core areas like the bust, the waist, and the hips. It is important to remember that people gain and lose weight differently, and this is true no matter how fat or skinny one gets. However, these are common places people store fat:
The face and neck can be immediate indicators as to how much fat the rest of the body has; when someone loses or gains weight, it’s initially obvious in the face. This is possibly because the eye is (usually) drawn first to the face.
In addition to differences in the amount of body fat, bodies vary vastly in their proportions. The two main ways they differ is skeletally and in fat distribution. The hip to shoulder ratio is skeletal, and someone with wider shoulders might look more powerful or masculine, and someone with wider hips might look more grounded or feminine.
The torso to legs ratio is also a skeletal ratio. Someone with long legs in comparison with their torso might look taller than someone of the same height with a long torso, and they might also look skinnier.
(I say as I finally get some visual variety all up in here.)
Because the hips are also one of the places with the most weight gain in women, large hips can also be a matter of fat distribution. The three main places where the fat ratio really matters is in the bust, the waist and the hips (making up the core of the body).
While men usually carry weight in the belly area, the fat distribution can really vary with women. Some women carry more weight in the bust, some in the belly, and some in the hips/thighs. Some women carry more weight in two areas, like the bust and the hips, the bust and the belly, or the belly and the hips. Some women show no obvious bias to any area and carry weight equally.
Taking into account skeletal ratios, fat distribution patterns, a vast human weight range, muscle tone and age, there are endless permutations of body types. It would be a shame if you used only one!
Oh, and that first image looks really interesting as a gif.
I forgot that ArtRes.com existed
Basically it’s a website full of art resources
(but I just now got distracted by the fashion section and h-hhnnngggg)
Alright so here is a very wordy/slapped together tutorial for how I study faces! Specifically for how I go about identifying and translating traits into less realistic versions. Hopefully my random notes make some sense, but if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask!
I used Chris Pine because I haven’t drawn him before, and I figured it would make the process more genuine.
Learning anatomy drawing is important. Period. Whatever you plan to draw and however you plan to draw it you need to have an idea of what it actually looks like, practice in realism, before you plan to move on to creative interpretation.
Here are examples of all different kinds of athletic body types to illustrate the importance of knowing what sort of “built” look you will need to go for when drawing and designing a character. Not all fit is the same fit and it is so hard to find adequate variety when looking for references. These were linked by a talented comic artist Nina Matsumoto. Here site can be found here http://ninamatsumoto.wordpress.com/
A good sampling of her art can be found here http://spacecoyote.deviantart.com/
Alright so here is a very wordy/slapped together tutorial for how I study faces! Specifically for how I go about identifying and translating traits into less realistic versions. Hopefully my random notes make some sense, but if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an ask!
I used Chris Pine because I haven’t drawn him before, and I figured it would make the process more genuine.
Using Real Psychology in Your Writing
- What Will Your Character Do When Disaster Strikes?
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD- Characterization and Conflict: Using Psychological Tests to Improve Your Writing
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD- Gathering Information from Characters: Types of Questions
by JJ Cooper- Using Body Language in Writing
by JJ Cooper- Body Language Cheat Sheet
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
USING ARCHETYPES IN YOUR STORIES
- A Primer on Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
Writing Better Romantic RelationshipsThis series looks at the Anima/Animus archetype, which is most often seen in romantic relationships, and how to use it to create more compelling romantic relationships, regardless of genre. Looks at what the anima and animus are, how they’re formed, and why fiction writers need to understand them. There’s also some and what makes love grow - and how happily ever afters really work.
- Creating Riveting Romances: The Anima/Animus Archetype Defined
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD- Writing Romance: Three Influences on the Anima/Animus Archetype
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD- The Perfect Hero and the Perfect Heroine: Dark and Light Sides of the Anima & Animus
by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD- What Does it Really Take to Live Happily Ever After?
A look at the psychological research on what makes or breaks romantic relationships. - by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
Creating Better Antagonists
- Three-Dimensional Villains: Finding Your Character’s Shadow
Using Jungian archetypes and hands-on exercises, this article teaches fiction writers to tap their own dark sides to create realistic villains who will really challenge the hero/es and keep tension high. - by Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD
FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY
- Basic Information on Forensic Science by Juan Salvo
- The Truth about Forensic Psychology by Lisa Featherston
Let me add two of my favorite texture resources (now that I’m at it)
- Lost and Taken (and its Tumblr)
- ~beckas on deviantART
Hat Lieberman: Stuff I’ve Learned About Storyboarding, Part 3
[Part 3]
These next few tip sheets examine the elements of design; line, shape, space and value, and how to incorporate them into your storyboards to help direct the eye and clarify information. The focus here is not the cinematics of stroyboarding but the execution of idea to paper and ultimately how to utilize design principles to achieve desired results in an efficient way within a given panel or shot. Storyboarding is not necessarily about drawing ‘good’ but drawing effective.
NOTE: There are two other elements of design, texture and color. However they would only be used in rare cases with storyboards and when employed probably wouldn’t be for design purposes but most likely for clarification (I.e. using colors to keep track of specific objects of similar size and shape in a given sequence, such as stones or gems, that each have varying story-specific trajectories).
Below are a few examples of how incorporating varying line thickness into a panel can help clarify not only the information presented, but the depth of the shot.
