The Prophet and The Liar

How I draw noses \o/

I shared this link a long time ago in my plurk and I’m going to share it now. Since I have so few followers I don’t care.

That blog has hundreds of How to Draw books and art related stuff from software to artbooks. You can find some RARE gems there and some great highly renowned books like Andrew Loomis and Richard Williams’s The Animator’s Survival Kit.

Edit: Fixed the link lol, if it’s still not working just copy/paste http://eddiesekiguchi.blogspot.pt/ on your browser.

(via the-art-post)

simonist:

Phil Straub Composition Tutorial (go to the original page for much more information, pictures, and different types of composition)

     The Golden Rule — “The golden rule can and usually is applied to a paintings canvas proportions. As you read through the following text you’ll notice that most of the imagery presented utilizes similar dimensions and almost all of them fall into the golden rectangle. Today you can find the Golden Rectangle almost everywhere: from credit cards to phone cards to book covers, all are shaped with its proportions.

The imagery below represents the division of space when the “golden rule” is applied to a blank canvas. Basically it is the division of a line in two sections, where the ratio between the smallest section and the largest section is identical to the ratio between the largest section and the entire length of the line. In other words A/B = B/(A+B). The ratio is about 1/1.618. Honestly, I’m still not exactly sure what that all means? but, I do know that I used this grid layout a-lot when I first started painting and found it helpful. I still do.”

     Rule of Thirds— “From the golden rule came the “rule of thirds” which is virtually the same concept but slightly altered to fit photographic proportions. I find it a bit easier to follow since it’s very simple in its origin.Here we have a look at the rule of thirds in action.

Notice that the main focal point sits right almost directly over one of the “golden means.” Additionally, other objects are placed near the other converging lines (the bird, for example) but, not directly on them, since that would create competition for the focal point.”

     Implied Forms (Circular) — “The Circle is made up of a continuous ‘Curve’ and it’s circular movement keeps the eye in the picture frame. There are many circles in nature and man made objects. You can use the circle in a very obvious way in your composition or simply suggest it.”

    Implied Forms (Radii) — “Is a connection of ‘Lines’ meeting in the Center and an expansion of ‘Lines’ leaving the Center. The Radii is usually found in Nature Subjects. The best example of the man made Radii is the spokes of a wheel.

The eye has two ways to go when it comes upon the Radii. It can either be drawn in to the picture area or it can be led out of the picture area. You must be careful how you used the Radii and try to have the eye led into the picture.”

    Cross composition — “A showing of ‘Opposing Force’ that will give the picture a feeling of Cohesion and Relationship. The horizontal bar of the Cross will act as a “stopper’ while the vertical pole can act as a leading line. The windows in a large skyscraper will form crosses and will keep your interest in the building.”

   L Composition — “This makes an attractive ‘frame’. It can be used to accentuate important subjects. Many times it is a ‘frame’ within a ‘frame’.

A tree with an overhanging branch at the ‘right’ side of the picture area will form a ‘Rectangle’ and help frame the Main Subject in the picture. By doing this you will make the Center of Interest stand out and be noticed clearly.”

(via artutorials)

fuckingarthowdoesitwork:

Sullivan’s fur tutorials, brush packs, and texture resources.

See the original devART post here: LINK

Download custom Photoshop brushes here: LINK

Sullivan’s Fur/Feathers/Scales wildlife texture brushes: LINK

The eyedropper blending tutorial mentioned in the Q&A: http://youtu.be/XMM3Z7lXPwA

Sullivan says:

The Brushes (Tutorial Part 2)

Hard Round 25 Fading
Take your normal hard brush, make it 25px large. Now go to the Brushes menu and click “Other Dynamics”, and set the Flow jitter to Pen Pressure in the drop down menu.

Hard Round 5 pixels
This is your basic, default hard brush when you load up Photoshop with the regular brushes it should be right at the top… no need to change it!

Airbrush Detail
Load up default Photoshop brushes and scroll down til you see the soft brushes—- pick one that is at least 60px large. Open the Brushes menu and click “Shape Dynamics” and set it to Pen Pressure, then click “Other Dynamics” and have the Opacity and Flow jitters set to Pen Pressure as well.

Tips For Custom Sullivan Fur Brushes

these are easiest to use when highlighting, try picking a color that is lighter than the area you are drawing on.

the brushes are pressure sensitive, so you’ll want to use these with a tablet. try drawing lightly for softer fur, and push harder for more tufty fur.

just scribbling one of these over your drawing will make it look dumb, trust me. try layering the different brushes, or going over with your own brushes to add in your own details for a more realistic look.

try playing around in the Brushes menu… color effects can look really neat with these, see what works for you :]

Rules

you may NOT attempt to resell or redistribute these brushes; if you want to share these brushes with others just link back to the original deviantART post.

please give credit when you use these! i’m not normally fussy about giving credit, but i worked hard on these so it would be appreciated.

(via artutorials)

the art post: Art Sites »

the-art-post:

Photo References

http://www.artsyposes.com

http://lovecastle.org/draw/

http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

http://www.referencereference.com/

http://characterdesigns.com/

http://www.biodigitalhuman.com

http://www.af.mil/photos/index.asp?galleryID=2

http://www.vectorsite.net/gfxpx.html

http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/index.html

http://www.gracefulnudes.com/main

Instructional

http://www.ctrlpaint.com/

http://www.artbyfeng.com/tutorials.htm

http://www.3dtotal.com/index_tutorial.php

http://www.drawspace.com/

http://www.theartdepartment.org/program-info/free-demos

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

http://www.youtube.com/sinixdesign

http://www.youtube.com/noahbradley/

Book Reviews

http://parkablogs.com/node/8

Helpful and Inspirational Threads

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81332

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=190982

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=174821

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=165931

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152626

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=128631

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=161825

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=136370

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=194479

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126999

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=224682

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=230251

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=138102

Other

http://deadoftheday.blogspot.com/2009/07/perspiration-anatomy.html

http://www.redbubble.com/people/blythart/writing/2707929-did-famous-artists-use-photographs

http://www.allpaintings.org/

http://blog.ted.com/2011/09/23/doodlers-unite-sunni-brown-on-ted-com/

http://conteanimated.com/

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/art-history-timeline.html

http://anatomytools.com/products/

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/

http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/

http://livlily.blogspot.com/

http://www.deadoftheday.blogspot.com/p/downloads.html

http://www.sketchtheatre.com/

http://theroundtablet.com/2011/06/27/photoshop-brushes-of-the-pros-for-free-skills-still-required/

http://www.steambotstudios.com

This will continue to be updated. Please note, there are NSFW links included.

Chapter 03: Animal Anatomy

Includes:

Canines
Felines
Horses
Birds

Drawing anthros isn’t easy. Not only should the artist be able to draw the human figure, he or she must also be proficient at drawing different animal species. If you have been practicing the material from the previous chapters, this should be much easier:

Here’s a comparison between a generic four-legged animal, and a human standing on his toes and fingertips. The bone structure is almost the same. The muscle groups are also very similar, so we will use the same color codes as in the chapter about human anatomy.

(All drawings in this chapter are referenced from [Gold], [Ell], life, and photographs)

Canines

Once you can draw the members of the canine family, you’ve got 70% of the fandom covered already. Here we will look at the family in general, and the characteristic differences between wolves, foxes, and a few domestic dogs.

Body

We’ll show the canine body in somewhat more detail than the other species. The idea is that all quadrupeds have the same body structure, and we’ll just have to highlight the differences for felines and equines.

Head

I’m going to base the head off a ball, just like the one you saw in the first chapter. To indicate the muzzle, I also hotglue a box shape to it. Well not really a box, more a clipped pyramid. A dog’s muzzle is wider near the back than at the front, so it’s a better fit.

This is a pretty generic dog head, good for huskies and such. For other breeds, you’ll have to make a couple of changes. The chihuahua will have a much smaller wedge for the muzzle, while a dachshund is best drawn with a big wedge shape that models almost the whole head.

Paws and Hind Legs

On the left we see the underside of a front paw. There are four cushiony pads at the toes (the digital pads), a larger one underneath the knuckles (the metacarpal pad), and a tiny one near the wrist (the carpal pad). There are four claws at the front, and a dewclaw at the end of the thumb. Note that the claws are not at the center of the toes, but on the inside. The two in the middle are very close together.

The illustration next to it shows the bones of the front leg. The dog is standing up, so the toes are bent at nearly 90 degrees. On the right, there’s a life drawing of the front leg of a sleeping dog; the toes are more relaxed and straightened out. Notice how the joints and muscles correspond to all kinds of bumps and curves, both in the contour and the shading. If you have the opportunity to study an actual dog, make good use of it! It is easier to see the structure of its legs in real life than on photos.

Remember the figure at the start of this chapter? Let’s zoom in on a dog’s paw and a human hand, so you can see the similarities.

A dog’s hind paws are almost the same as the front ones. The main difference is that there’s no dew claw, or carpal pad. The new challenge here, especially for the artists who like to draw their characters digitigrade, is the hock.

Here you can see the five paw pads, and a few more studies of hind legs. Again, the light and shadow areas are formed by the underlying anatomy. See if you can find the Achilles tendon, the ankle, and the outer metatarsal.

Felines

This family of agile hunters is arguably even more diverse than the canidae; from the purring little apex predator on your lap to the intimidating Siberian tiger, they come in a wide range of face markings, fur patterns, and accessories such as ear tufts or manes. We’ll concentrate on the domestic cat first, and then take a look at some of his bigger cousins.

Body

Head

Cats have a smaller, rounder muzzle than dogs.

Horses

Horses are very muscular animals with relatively thin fur, so their anatomy is more noticeable than in dogs and cats.

Head

The head can be drawn using a box with one side sliced off diagonally. The eye sockets stick out a bit, so I usually draw a kite on top of this box to place the eyes.

Hooves

The biggest difference between the skeletons we have seen so far and the horse skeleton is the hooves. What would be the third metacarpal in our hand (the bone from the wrist to the knuckle of the middle finger) is called the cannon bone in a horse. The second and fourth metacarpals (the splint bones) are still there, but they’re tiny. You can still spot them as small bumps near the wrist. The first and fifth metacarpals have disappeared. The “middle finger” starts at the fetlock, and the fingertip is encased in a hoof.

Birds

Wings

The bone structure in a bird’s wing is very similar to the arm and the hand of a human. If you are drawing wings, pay attention to where the shoulder, the elbow, and the wrist go.

This figure also shows how the large flight feathers connect to the bones. The elbow joint might not always be clearly visible. In that case there is some skin stretching from the wrist to the shoulder smoothing out the contours.

NOTE: I have found several contradicting sources for the next few paragraphs. Information could be incorrect.

The feathers are shown in the following figure. This is a picture showing the top of a wing.

The primary feathers are the ones connected to the “hand”, while the secondaries are connected to the “forearm”. Both sets of feathers also have a layer of coverts on top of them, followed by another layer of marginal coverts. On the inside of the wing, there are the scapular feathers, sometimes also called the tertiaries.

A wing as seen from the bottom will show the same structure, but with somewhat shorter coverts. A complete list of all bird species and the particular wing shapes and feather sizes is far beyond the scope of this tutorial. But if you’d like to model your wings after a particular kind of bird, all you have to do is take a look at some photos, and identify the different feather groups. Once you know the structure of a wing, it is much easier to draw all the varieties.

This side of the wing also has some feathers called the alula, which are connected to the “thumb”. These feathers are not visible from the bottom.

In the following examples of wings, the groups of feathers are colored in the same way as in figure above. The bone structure is indicated with a blue line.

Chapter 02: Human Anatomy and Figure Drawing [WARNING: Picture Heavy]

Table of Contents:

The Body’s Proportions
The Chest: Bones & Muscles
The Back: Bones & Muscles
The Arms: Bones & Muscles
The Shoulder
The Elbow
The Hand: Structure & Proportions, Simplifying & References
The Hips and Legs: Bones & Muscles
Male and Female Bodies: Musculature & Fat, Face, Rib cage & Shoulders, Breasts & Hips
Poses: Simplifying, Weight, Balance, Movement, Gesture Drawing
Exercises

Before we start, I’d like to point out that knowledge of human anatomy is not a replacement for studying the body from real life or photos. So keep cranking out those sketches! (And hoarding those Victoria’s Secret catalogs and similar magazines. Strictly for reference, of course.) But it will help you to recognize the features you are drawing, and it will certainly come in handy when you don’t have a perfect ref to work from.

We’ll start with the largest bones and muscle masses. It’s not enough to make you a surgeon (well… a successful one at least), but you’ll be able to identify most of the bumps and bits on the body, and understand how they work. Then we’re going to take a look at poses, and ways to abstract the body. And gesture drawing. Ah, so much to do.

I would also like to apologize in advance for using the Latin names of the bones and muscles. You don’t need to know their names to draw them, you can’t impress your friends with it, much less pick up a date, so what’s the use? If you are asking for critique, it is very likely others will use jargon when explaining what you could do better next time. It’s also useful to cross-reference this tutorial with other sources.

(All illustrations in this chapter are referenced from photos that were taken from large distances, x-ray images, and [Gold], [Gray], and [Barc])