wrathes:

finished piece for tania! sorry it took me so long to do so little ahhh

reedit; 8( i don’t have words anymore, thanks everyone!

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wannabeanimator:

From ~Maidith on deviantART:

“How do I improve my art work?” is one of the most asked questions in art related forums, mainly regarding drawing and painting in any media. Because the question is recurring so often, I wrote the following tips that I still copy-paste in various threads. 

You can apply these universal strategies not just to traditional and digital painting media, but most of them even to photography and collage.


- Look at pictures by artists you admire, and try to figure out things. How do they handle light and color? What edges are sharp, and what edges are soft? Why do they use that particular color there? What technique did they use? How did they work? The more you look at work of others, the more different kinds of styles and techniques you will see.

- Learn from the masters. Copy works you adore. Not for imitating the artist or showcasing your copy, but for the sake of learning. Don’t be shy, ask your favorite artist everything you want to know, such as “What paper do you draw on?”, or “How do you go about painting a picture, do you start with a sketch?”, etc. But be specific, don’t ask “how can I paint like that?”. And check the artist’s website, chances are they already have tutorials, a FAQ or step-by-step tutorials there.

- Challenge yourself. Never used a particular medium? Then buy it, no matter how poor you are, and try it out. Never drawn a still life? Do it. Never used that particular color scheme? Give it a try. At a certain point, when you are afraid of repeating yourself, you are on the right track to improve.

- Use reference. If you aim for realism, you can’t paint most things straight from your imagination. The old masters always made preliminary studies of life models, and did most paintings from life models too. For example, if you are unsure how to paint a head with the light source from below, look up a photo, or take it yourself, or have someone pose for it. It is worth every effort!
Stock photos from deviantartists can be a valuable resource also and provide inspiration.

- Draw from life. It’s probably the most valuable practice that there is. Sign up for a life drawing class so that you’ll be actually “forced” to do it. Believe me, it works wonders.
As for studying anatomy from books about figure drawing (Loomis, Bammes, etc.) a good exercise is to copy the body parts and figures in there and then trying to draw the same from your mind to see how much you remembered.

- Look up tutorials. Browse through the tutorial section and study the many different ways and media of the different artists. Also visit the websites of the great artists here - many have tutorials up there.

- Collect pictures. On my harddisk, I have different folders of fantastic art.
They are very inspiring to browse through and can give you new ideas in terms of technique. Whenever I feel uninspired, I look through my folders.
The images I’ve collected over time, mainly from Cgtalk.com, Deviantart, Epilogue, Artrenewal.org and many other websites.

Further Reading:
Why Reference is not a crutch

Useful resources
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Forums for those who want to learn
ConceptArt
Sijun

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theartofanimation:

Cyril Rolando

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(Source: jimrugg, via meggannn)

"I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can." — Neil Gaiman (via thatquote)

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pandanoi:

vicious-violet:

masaothedog:

damnlayoffthebleach:

Hey there! I have no whitewashing to point out, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people commenting on this blog think colouring/picking the right colours for lighting and shading dark/non-white skin tones is hard. I think this skin chart by navate would be quite useful for everyone who has a hard time picking the right skin colours! Combined with this tutorial by the same artist it should give people a good idea of how to apply shading and lighting to the different skin tones.

Practice makes perfect, everyone! Good luck c:

Now if I could just find something like this for copic/traditional media. I’ve been looking… to no avail.

If I were more confident in my skills, I’d attempt a tutorial. I’m rather surprised such a tutorial doesn’t exist already, but I guess there are factors (such as fussy scanners) that deter such an effort.

This is actually really useful. I for one have a hard time picking the right colors whenever I paint non-caucasian characters, specially black people, they always look tanned instead :_( 

dothelalalaaa:

Link’s Upthrust by *fluxen

devilssynphony:

Triforce Triptych by *messa