dishface:

A friend asked how I do this thing, so I decided to make a tutorial for it! FYI, this is Photoshop CS5. Hope it helps in some way! If there’s anything that completely confuses you, don’t hesitate to ask me. :) 

Here is a fullsize version.

(This font’s exclamation point looks too much like an “L,” so I apologize for sounding too excited in my tutorial.)

hospitalvespers:

mollywog asked: I’ve been wanting to improve my art and achieve a better grasp on color theory, so I was wondering if you still have/remember that tutorial you made to explain some color theory and if you could maybe post it? ;-; I used to reference it all the time. Or if you know if any great websites that cover it, that would be great!

Sure, here you go! Sorry it’s so… old…

xenozombiemorph:

supaslim:

because it is the bane of my existence to see artists who don’t even TRY to get bird anatomy right, when they’ll gladly put forth the effort to learn mammalian anatomy

BIRDS ARE SO EASY TO DRAW

THERE ARE NOT MANY MOVING PARTS ON THEIR FACE

NOT LIKE US SQUISHY MAMMALS

still debating if I should make my own HOW TO DRAW WINGZ ref or just link to some good ones I’ve seen, since there are a plethora of both good and god-awful tutorials out there for wings already. I’ll probs make my own because other guides neglect to mention that GASP DIFFERENT BIRDS HAVE DIFFERENT SHAPED WINGS BECAUSE THEY FLY DIFFERENTLY

THIS IS AWESOME BUT JUST ONE NOTE

Almost all birds are capable of moving their upper beak, aka prokinesis, it’s just that parrots have the most obvious degree of it.  prokinesis is the movement of the beak at the point at which it is hinged to the skull of the bird.

There’s like a million different types of kinesis to do with the beak/rhamphotheca/whatever but yeah, parrots aren’t the only ones :D

I can’t find any good pictures to demonstrate but yeah, it’s present in almost all birds.  Loons and ducks are good birds to look at c:

paperseverywhere:

kalidraws:

Today I gave my students a quick presentation on some of the basic considerations for composition, which I am now sharing with you! I’ve given them separate talks about color and tonal value/contrast, which are also super important compositional concerns. (I’ll be sharing those presentations too once I properly format them)

I personally love learning about different compositional techniques. It’s fun to think about the ways that the brain views & sorts images, and how we can trick it into feeling a certain way or looking at certain aspects of an image first! It’s easy to fall into compositional ruts (which I am also guilty of) because a lot of art gets by with mediocre, though serviceable, compositions. If you can generally understand what’s happening in an image then it’s generally fine. However, it’s the truly great compositions, where everything in the whole image has been considered and ‘clicks’ together, that bump up an illustration to a visual slam dunk. NC Wyeth is one of my favorite artists for this reason: his compositions are rock solid, varied based on the image’s intent, and always enhance the mood or action he is depicting.

For extra reading, some online compositional resources that I’ve found helpful or interesting include:
Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis (download it for FREE. Such a great book all-around.)
Gurney Journey (check out the “Composition” tag, but really everything he posts is great)
The Schweitzer guide to spotting tangents
Cinemosaic (a blog by Lou Romano with some truly WONDERFUL compositions captured from various films)
Where to Put the Cow by Anita Griffin

Happy composition-ing!

We’ve all seen the rule of thirds, but these have additional tips that are extremely helpful.

sweet-bitsy:

nechayano:

Ok I was recently reminded that this exists (i-I think someone DA-famous linked it or something because WHAT) and I think this may be relevant to tumblr’s interests so here’s my~female body variation tutorial~ whoo~

This came from some things I scribbled down when I was trying to keep my character designs consistent, and I realised that it kinda made me see bodies/proportions somewhat differently so I pasted it into this smarmy old tutorial, now cut up into (I hope) tumblr-friendly chunks so right-click for full size I think? (disclaimer: I don’t know anything and it is so far past my bedtime that it’s been tomorrow for a whole day so I’m going to nap and then maybe regret posting this.)

Sehr gutt! I love the exercise of making different bust-waist-hip-thigh combinations ^^