I’ve gotten the question/request of how I draw wings lots and lots so I’ve decided to make a dedicated post!
Now…I’m no master, but I have found a way that I like to draw wings that’s efficient for me. There three main points:
References
Simplification
Texture Management
My favorite wing reference of all time is this post by Jenn on Twitter. I have both the images saved but I use the Wing Shapes one, below, alllllll the time. Like for real all the time!
I also keep pretty extensive collections of wing photo reference. When I’m having trouble, I’ll trace a few or do studies to get back into the swing of things. Here are links to my Pinterest boards:
Broadwing Reference (passive soaring and high-speed)
Longwing Reference (active soaring)
Shortwing Reference (elliptical and hovering)
When I sketch wings, I simplify Jenn’s diagram even further -
For me, the key to drawing wings is simplifying the wing down - from the structure to the feathers - the goal for me is to be able to draw them quickly and have the proper information conveyed. It needs to look like a wing in the base sketch. If it doesn’t, no amount of rendering and extra feathers will help. I like to break the wing into the three main moving parts. The orange is one part, then the purple contains two main chunks feathers that you can group together and move as their own parts.
On top of that, I like to think of wings like a sheet of paper. They can bend and fold in on themselves, with the orange meaty bits anchoring everything together.
I like to call wings “texture monsters”. Feathers are hard to manage and can easily make wings look over-busy and muddy. Just like before, I break the wing into chunks so I can spend less time drawing the wing and it’s feathers:
Then you can put it all together and push things further -
So yeah this is how I throw wings together! The wings I draw aren’t super technical or detailed, but I what matters for me is that they look and feel like believable wings at a glance -
~ Larn
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i love your art you should do a shading tutorial (but only if you want to ofc)
THANKS!!!! AHH i did make one at one point
i could update it bc theres like really vague points in there that i've learned a bit more about now, but here it is :)
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
1) gather fruit like grape or plum that has a visible yeast bloom on it
2) smash whole fruit with fist. Yes, without washing. You don’t want to wash off those wild yeasts. Yes you can leave the seeds/pit
3) stuff smashed fruit into a reasonably sterile container, with a cloth lid to stop spiders and flies from falling in. You can also sterilize a big pickle jar with boiling water and just lightly place the lid on top.
4) top up with distilled (Not Tap Water, which contains chlorine and stuff that kills yeast) water till the mash kinda floats a bit, and add a big dollop of honey, or other sugar source.
5) wait 12-30 hours, while looking for bubbles formation to show yeast is going crazy
6) mop up the sticky foam that bubbled up from your wild yeasts processing the FUCK outta those fruits. Turning fruit sugar into alcohol and CO2 gas
7) after three days, get tired of cleaning up sticky foam overflow residue every morning and night, and scoop out most of the solids
8) after 8 days of fermenting, see bubbles slow down, sediments start to settle, and move liquids to a carboy with a water-air lock.
9) continue to allow fermentation until bubbles stop forming.
10) if it smells awesome, drink and bottle that shit. If it ever starts to smell rancid; toss it.
Congrats, you’ve participated in a traditional brewing art that humans have been doing since 7,000 BC. Like, bronze-age human delights.
If anyone tries to tell you that winemaking is hard, ignore their opinion.
It’s hard to make specific flavors, specific alcohol percentages, and specific appearances. Yeasts present on fruit skins wanna make wine so bad they look stupid.
If you want your wine to be shelf stable and not keep it in the fridge all the time, you gotta measure it’s specific gravity and do a little math conversion. If it’s too low, toss some vodka in there to make a “fortified” wine. Extra alcohol = protection from going bad.
the problem with autism is sometimes you want to do something (brave) but you need someone to gently walk you through each step so you know what will happen. and people don’t like doing that
theres this thing i encounter a lot as a textile artist, where I'll be giving a gift/showing my latest project and people immediately decide that they will never make something like that. that maybe i figured it out but there's a limited # of people who can learn how to crochet and they just didn't make the cut. and it's kinda pissing me off. a lot of these trades are starting to fade away (death of older artists, industrialization, etc etc) and it upsets me that some people are willing to let their opportunity to make things they want to make go just because they don't know how yet. i taught myself embroidery from youtube and Pinterest. i taught myself how to sew and draft patterns and tailor. i taught myself how to follow crochet tutorials on youtube and eventually how to read the books. I'm not some blessed prophet of the gods sent with natural skills to create. (hell I'd even say im a beginner at most of the things i do, but we're getting there) and trust me there are PILES of scrap fabric and projects from when i didn't quite know what i was doing and just. fucking tried anyways. moral is. if you want to make something i swear to god you can figure it out. youtube is your best friend. books. google. people around you, people you know. just don't give up before you've even started
I want to write a book called “your character dies in the woods” that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a “miserable” 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.
Yoooooo!!!!
if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?
main @starboundsealrb blog for art/writing resources, advice, other important stuff, and the like
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