Creative Corner

I love what you've done! I agree with what's been said lately, draw from life! Something I actually need to do a lot more lately lol. Another good practice would be to draw simple opaque 3-d shapes like cylinders, cones, and spheres and the like, focusing on the values of the shadows. Then to add depth to your drawings, imagine everything as those shapes (limbs as long cylinders, heads as spheres, etc.) Most of all, just keep practicing!

@WolfSelkey
Hi! :D

Just wanted to say that your art subjects are super cool and unique, and it's awesome that you're actively seeking critique uwu

I'm not the greatest at providing critique but I can def help with tutorials, like 99% of my likes on tumblr are dedicated to tutorials ;u;

X for poses
X for like...everything; if you scroll down to the 'art' section there are a lot of links to really great tutorials!
X another 'everything' guide with another great section for art!
X for great perspective/foreshortening etc. references and guides!
X for expressions and specific anatomy (hands, legs) as well as some basic clothing folds!
X another giant collection of references and tutorials! art only, this time, instead of general.
X Tumblr dedicated to art tutorials! Not limited to drawing (there's cosplay and other stuff too) but definitely worth a look!
X another art tutorial masterpost!

UM one quick tip I guess??

I don't know how much digital art you do or plan on doing, but a really nice tip for that is to work on BIG canvases. It can be the difference between neat and messy lines, since making your lines a little rough can still make great-looking lines when zoomed out! You just want to make sure your piece is big enough to zoom out properly without ending up with a tiny piece, unless that's what you want. c:

Tried to keep these pretty general, but I do have a bunch of more specific links if you want any of those, just let me know! I have, off the top of my head, saved references on: men's suits, feathers, big cats, dog/cat paws, guns, bows, clothing folds, varying body type, mouths, noses, coloring/shading, choosing colors, texturing objects...the list goes on haha.

Best of luck with your art! :D I'd love to see more of it uwu

@WolfSelkey
Aah I'd say that depends on
i) the original size of the canvas, and
ii) how thick you want your lines to be. c:

A good starting size I personally usually use is 2000x2000 (or occasionally 4000x4000 but too large a canvas can sometimes slow down my laptop and make it annoying to draw), and at the end I reduce it by 25-50%. So if you use a 2-pixel brush, after you zoom out, it can get really thin.

For example, my current WIP: X has an actual canvas size of 3500x3000 and I lined it with a 4-pixel brush (just the standard pressure-sensitive one in PS). I've zoomed it out to 25% of the original. (I like thin lines, but that's a personal preference and I also can't seem to make thicker lines look nice haha a_a)

Likewise, X was reduced to 33% of the original and I believe I used a 2-pixel brush to line; the original canvas size was 1736x1179 (started as 2000x2000, I believe, and cropped once I got the sketch down).

I'd recommend starting with a big canvas and trying to get your sketch to take up as much space as possible in at least one dimension (obviously, if you're drawing a standing person, they'll likely fill the vertical dimension, as opposed to a snake or something, which would span the horizontal, since things are rarely perfect squares). Then just draw a bunch of lines in varying brush sizes (and try playing with opacity a bit too--a brush at ~67% opacity can look really nice c:) and zoom out to what you think you'd like the final size to be and see which one looks best.

My personal favorites hmm
X is great for gun references; the tumblr is no longer posting new things but also has some nice pose references but may be nsfw (nudity). There's no NSFW-ness in that post, though!
X same Tumblr, this post is for animal legs/paws.
X for knife blades. Not really specific to drawing, but is pretty cool to read and incorporate into drawings c:
X posting this one for the texture bits in particular...note that the actual drawing bits, where they have 'female eyes' and 'male eyes' is pretty limiting in terms of facial diversity :< The Tumblr itself is also pretty awesome!
Finally, X for lighting references and X for choosing interesting colors!

If you don't already, I recommend following like, HOARDS of awesome artists on Tumblr or dA. I know that esp. on Tumblr, people often post unfinished sketches, WIPs, and so forth, and those can be even cooler and more inspiring to see than finished works, since you can follow the progress of insanely good artists and try out their techniques in your work c:

(AH also I'm so sorry for the novel aha man i f I could write my paper as easily as this I would be so set I'm sorry a_a)

@wolfselkey

psst. grab the Onta Brush Pack for SAI. You can download it for free, you just gotta look