Do you all have any like art tips or advice that you wanna share to everyone?
Like for any kind of art like sfw, nsfw, macro/micro, etc.
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Get obsessive with what you like and draw the most you can
Ask other people how can you improve and try new on things too, challenge yourself, mostly if you think you can’t but want to do something. be curious and research (from real sources, not AI)
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As a concept artist by trade and previously an art tutor, I could talk about this for hours, but here’s what’s called the BLAST method for painting. (coined by James Gurney, author of Dinotopia):
(B)IG BRUSHES FIRST (Use the biggest tool you have as long as you can, then when you can’t use a big brush anymore, switch to a smaller one. That way you’re not fretting over details and can focus on the larger more foundational aspect of your image, which is more important.)
(L)ARGE TO LITTLE (Similar to the first tip, start with big shapes and masses of value, and whittle them down smaller as you progress. Details are more fun to paint generally, but the bigger picture is more important. So for example, do the background before you do your fiddly little foreground characters. It’s kind of like eating your vegetables before you get to your dessert so you don’t spoil your dinner.)
(A)CCENTS LAST (Another foundational vs details thing, but this time with colour. Nail your main big colours of your entire piece first before you spending time on focal points and areas of interest.)
(S)OFTEN EDGES (This one means to keep an eye on the edges of your shapes or lines. If you lines are feathery or “hairy” instead of nice and clean, fix that. Soften the hard edges of your paintings for a less harsh and more realistic look and sharpen them for drama and to draw your eye to something.)
(T)AKE YER TIME! (This is one I’m guilty of breaking a lot of the time. Don’t rush through your art. Take it slow and spend far more time on the construction of your image than you do with the execution. Like the old adage, measure twice, cut once. You don’t want to get 8 hours into a painting and realise that the building your macro kaiju is currently stomping on is out of perspective and now you need to repaint the entire thing.)
Hope those tips are helpful!
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Traditional Art concerning colored pencils!
side tengeant:
Oh my god, YES!
I wanna scream my lungs out into the world for all to hear!
There is so little actually taught in school and the teachers even teach you so much wrong information as well. And as you are a child, you just take it for granted.
Listen, if your sketches and doodles look not as planned or bad. There is so much you can do to get an instant betterment in drawing with pencils and colored equivalents.
First of all, and this is true for all mediums,
ART HAS NO RULES!
What I mean by that is that art has no taboos or no goes. If you wanna try something, go for it. If you think smudging your pencil sketch with a tissue for a foggy effect? Do it! Art is free and expressive and anyone who tells you that you are not allowed to do something in your art piece is just plainly wrong!
I had encountered countless no goes taught to me by uneducated art teachers about what not to do with my drawings and sketches as “It is unprofessional.” Or “You should rather learn it the RIGHT way.” And the moment I realized that there is no wrong way to use a medium has blown my mind. You wanna draw on lined paper? Great! I wanna see! You wanna smudge your sketch for fog and smoke effects? Amazing! It looks cool! Wanna mix pencil and water color? Amazing! Broaden your horizon. Just know there is only right ways to engage with art and everything you try is expanding your toolkit more and more.
Advice:
Your pencils are not shit. You are using the wrong paper.
Just like with dog breeds and with apples and with rocks. Paper has vastly different kinds with vastly different applications for art and day to day use.
If you, for example, struggle with getting rid of all those white spots on a page no matter how hard you push or how many times you go over them. Then that is not a sign that your pencils are bad or cheap. It is a sign that you might be using the wrong paper for the job with too much grainieness in the fibers.
Just go and try out various different papers and envelopes and sketchbooks. The difference the right paper makes is insane.
Here, for example. These two drawings were made (by me) using the exact same kinda pencils. Only difference was the paper I used. As you can see, the buizel (black character) has a ton of grain and white left compared to the mimikyu-furret fusion (orange character) and that even though I used the same method and pencils to color them both.
Use repetition instead of force!
Many people tend to use force and strength to push the color onto the page when encountering the griddy issue such as I had draeing the Mega buizel from the example above. Don’t use force. Instead hold the pencil far back and with light and consistent pressure apply one layer of color. Then with a different orientation repeat with the same level of pressure. Continue with alternating stroke orientations till you are satisfied with the opasity of the color. This way you can apply just as rich colors over a whole piece without having to sharpen your pencil as often. Cause if you apply pressure with a pencil, it will get used up super fast too. You can expand the lifespan of your pencils that way by 4 times if not much more while getting saturated vivid results.
You can mix and blend colored pencils.
By using the light pressure method mentioned above. You can also not just layer a single color for controled saturation and opacity. But you can also mix new colors altogether by alternating between 2 or more different pencils. This way you can create almost all colors with just 3 pencils (red, blue, yellow) though it might take some experimenting and practice. Which will come by just drawing.
And one tip for this one. The colors may vary if mixed dependent on which of the 2 pencils was used first.
A green made by a yellow and blue pencil will look different dependent on if the yellow or blue pencil was used first. Something that is helpfull is to have a swatch page off to the side of the paper of your choice so you can try out how combinations will look before trying it out.
An example of mine would be this piece in which I neither used orange nor purple. Only yellow, red, and blue pencils. (Outside of the 2 characters visible.) And yet I made the rocks appear orange and purple in some spots by layering the colored pencils with repeated light pressure on top of one another.
Mixing mediums is allowed! Everyone does it!
Mixing two or more mediums of art has never been throwned upon. Please! Please use various things to make a piece if you feel like it. No one will ever berade you for doing highlights with a gel pen. Or for touching up your shadows on your alcohol marker piece with pencils. Put whatever you think looks nice on that darn paper! There even is a whole market for mixed media art papers. And that is for a good reason. Experiment! Just DO IT!
Draeing lines is not a wrist singleplayer. It is a whole body sport.
Drawing lines is sometimes agonizing and getting it right may seem hard. Though to get smooth round and sharp lines on your paper will get so much easier when you stop moving your wrist and instead move your shoulder or elbow instead. (Dependent on the current aplication/line drawn.) Yes, it will take some getting used to. But try it out and draw like 10 maybe 20 lines using your whole arm while your wrist stays still. Try making circles, curves, straight, squiggly lines. Fill a whole page with lines without moving your wrist. It will help you getting less shaky lines down.
(Though I personally sometimes suck in accuracy but thats a me problem XD. Guess I need more practice myself.)
Know your pencils
Pencils are made in a variety of ways and therefor have vastly different properties. The ones I mainly use for example are made so you can push hard down with them without them getting used up too fast. Which is usefull for the final blend on an erea of my drawings. Though there are also water based pencils that can be diluted on the page itself to have a watercolor like effect. Other pencils may be wax or even oil based and behave different then others. Just try and find the info about your pencils on the packaging or online and research what their properties and behaviors are for a better understanding on what you can do with them. There is nothing like “The best pencil” as everything has its perks and disadvantages. My pemcils let me blend them under presure better while others may mix better while layering or apply smoother to the page for smoother effects.
After practicing drawing with wooden pencils it might be good to inform yourself about the kinda pencils you want to try and continue in the future using. Maybe even a mix of different brand smight suit you. Learning about colored pencils is a rabbit hole and oh boy it is deep. Though it is enough when you start just using any pencils in general before going this deep.
I may edit this later or reply with more tipps later. Also feel free to ask about stuff if you are curious and I will make sure to reply and answer any questions. And oh boy. I havent even started talking about water colors and fekt tip pens yet. There is so much we did wrong in school. It is agrovating and liberating learning about it. Thanks for reading this far.
Grits out!
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