Some things I’ve taught myself through out the years. I have not gone to college for art or comics, these are things I’ve learned by just trying to make comics by myself.
I’ve also learned this stuff on the fly, through reading and doing. Regarding that last one: you can also use other elements to guide the reader’s eye through the page - shapes of objects, perspective on elements that “zoom” from top to bottom or right to left, etc.
Feet are so complicated, much more so than hands, and we don’t even see feet that much unless it’s the summer and people are wearing sandals. I could probably draw like 10 pages on feet so … I hope I covered enough in this tutorial. For those of you who can’t draw feet, enjoy it!
OK SO i get asked about colors a lot and i’m really sorry i am so lame at giving detailed answers SO I’M GONNA ATTEMPT TO FORMULATE SOME„, BASIC TIPS I GUESS
LET ME JUST START OUT BY SAYING i’m not really a very skilled or fancy or formally educated artist (shocking i know) and i don’t take drawing very seriously, BUT I HOPE A FEW THINGS I HAVE SAY WILL HELP YOU(extra commentary in case anything is hard to read, here is the whole thing in one pic and not an obnoxious photoset)
1. HAVE FUN WHEN YOU ARE COLORING JEEZ don’t loose hair over trying really hard to study and adsorb shading and lighting ‘ruuuules’!! and while enough basic understanding is obviously important and necessary in creating believable and realistic pieces, being creative is also really important as well!! the bottom line of art is that there ARE no rules, and if you really do want to be happy with your work, i find a lot of satisfaction arises in knowing i made something only /I/ could make!! and besides, if i didn’t have fun making art, then i wouldn’t do it, frankly
2. PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT TONE YOUR COLORS PORTRAY this is especially true for people and expressions and setting
since color is such a big part of a piece, it also plays a big role in setting the tone of your work!! take a minute to evaluate the context of whatever you’re drawing and then try to see what colors would best parrallel that! and especially don’t be afraid to venture into palettes you don’t normally use!! but once you choose a palette that matches the tone of your work BE SURE TO STICK WITH IT so it is contiguous in both the background and foreground
(i used twilight princess and skyward sword as an example, i hope my analysis makes sense)
3. be sure to scribble with and test how colors look together BEFORE you take them to your lines!! and finally HAVE FUN WITH YOUR COLORING i know i already said this but it’s simply tragic when an artist becomes bored/uninterested/frustrated with colors ahhh!!! remember that every artist has different coloring styles so try you best to observe others’ techniques!! pay attention to what you like about them, but ALSO pay attention to what you dislike!!
practice a lot of styles, and ask around which programs/brush settings artists use if you find yourself interested in them!! i’m sorry i can’t help you with more technicalities, but learning for yourself is also half the fun!! plus i’m a lazy motherfucker and i’m bad a tutorials anyway
OKKKKAAY THANKS FOR READING OLLIE OUT
How to make the “Just add water” tool in Photoshopwoot! Not that I’m planning to do any actual painting in the near future… but you never know!
BRILLIANCE
and then she realized she knew nothing about photo shop.
holy shit
A good overview of the stuff that I talk about when I say comics are harder than you’d think and why I think that I myself am really not all that great at them. (I…I make a lot of these mistakes.)
Something everyone making or considering making comics should read!
ATTENTION CARTOONISTS, THIS SHIT IS MAD RELEVANT
Okay, so this was going to just be tips on how to draw stuff, but then I decided that I’d go into something that I find more important instead, which is variety in your characters. I probably did a bad job of explaining, but I tried. The basic idea is natural and appropriate variety vs contrived and formulaic variety and how actual structure of the face gives a character a lot more personality than whether they have spiky or flat hair, yellow eyes or blue eyes.
IDK hopefully this helps some people. I’m going to do another thing about dressing characters after I eat dinner.
Oh woah I missed this one. Hi, who is guilty of sameface? I know I sure am occasionally. Good post.
I made a thing about mouth movement/position in comics (it’s got homestucks in it, sorry)
Very good notes! Always think about using the whole face to really sell a character’s emotions.
There are exceptions, and some artists do get away with close mouths on their characters during dialogs. I’m looking at you, Naoki Urasawa (and you do it so beautifully too <3 ).
Okay! Finally answering this, because I wanted to talk in-depth and needed some time to get my thoughts together! Hold on to your butts, because this is gonna stretch your dash worse than a traffic cone up a porn star’s vagina. PRESENTING:
Doctored, Strange Colors
or
How…
A quick analyze of how the hips affect the shape of the thighs - which also affect the main difference between a masculine or feminine body shape.
(Masculine legs are based on Glen Keane’s design of Disney’s Tarzan - which btw IS anatomically correct if we exclude the size of the head and so on.)
Disclaimer: I don’t think “exaggerated” was the right word for those legs. “Slimmed down” would probably be more correct. Anyway…
