Clothes I Wish I Had.

Canine Ear Study/Tutorial by TIFFASHY

Is there any chance you could give some tips on how to get better at accuracy? I feel like no matter how much I practice, I can't get poeple to look right. Even if I trace, it doesn't look right (which is funny to me considering how often people accuse you of tracing--seriously have they ever tried it?). You make it look so easy, and I feel like it's the hardest part of drawing.

Okay three things first:

It is the hardest part of drawing.

Tracing will actually set you back unless you do it the right way.

You don’t have to be accurate to make good art.

I grabbed a random screencap to show you how I do it (keep in mind that I’ve made thousands of drawings at this point in my life, so a lot of this is stuff I don’t even stop to think about anymore, so I apologize if any of my advice sounds muddy or confusing):

The first thing I do is note the positive and negative spaces and distances between them (marked in pink and blue below):

I reversed the colors so you only see the spaces for what they are. Look at the black space in particular because that’s the barrier between the two major halves of the entire space.

I also note the angles of things:

And then I start to sketch.

First I break up the space and mark out the major axis of the figure (a good rule of thumb with figures is to draw where their spine would be, and perhaps where their shoulders are as well—you don’t have to do it this way of course but if you’re having trouble seeing an axis, it can be helpful):

Then I start to mark out the major shapes, using each previous set of marks to help me refine things. Some people use circles or scribbles or even whole chunks of light and dark. There are an infinite ways to block out a drawing, but I’ve found that angles and lines work best for me:

You’ll see above that I made a cross for his face the same way I made a cross for his body to marke the center line and where his eyes would be. If you want to practice these angles, something like a fashion magazine works great. Get some paper and just flip through each face and try to copy the angles you see.

Anyway, so then I slowly refine details using the lines and angles to help me see how things are shaped. I can build the shapes of fabric and muscle over the angles as if they were a wire skeleton:

And that’s basically it!

Now, to address tracing…

There are two ways you can use tracing to help you. The first is to pinpoint landmarks, like the corner of a shoulder or the eyes. You can do this by making a dot—and only make as many dots as you absolutely need. Too many, and tracing becomes a crutch, and you want to help yourself learn, not skip over learning. I don’t recommend tracing any lines.

You can also use tracing to repair what you’ve done.

Here’s my sketch overlaid onto the screencap:

It’s pretty good! I don’t have to fix it if I don’t want to, but if I want, I can use tracing to mark the places where things are a little off:

And then I can go back and adjust.

This trick is really useful for helping you see the mistakes you keep making so that you can work at correcting them. For example, I tend to make eyes too big and shoulders too wide. I don’t always need to fix that, but this method helps. 

The idea isn’t to make drawing easier but to make learning easier, you know? That’s why you want to be careful with tools like tracing (or even gridwork) because you’ll find that you’re not giving yourself enough of a chance to learn. That’s also why tracing can’t replace skill.

Anyway, like I said, you don’t have be accurate or mechanically perfect to make good art. These are just some tips to help you see in observational art and to be more confident. But remember that sometimes the best and most beautiful art is a mechanical mess.

Here’s Van Gogh’s room as proof:

Good luck! <3

how do you draw space?

Assuming you’re asking about night skies,

Couple Poses by Modelfactory

Nirvana into Lolita  by 菇倒王子

Lip tutorial for anon! 

Additional info: I find lips a pretty important defining feature when trying to draw people so that they are recognizable, so I’ve learned to really pay attention to their unique mouth shapes! However, since lips are usually quite small on the scale of a full drawing, I don’t use too much detail or contrast on them or they start to distract from other parts of the painting. This is usually the level of detail I stop at (thanks to the scaling trick! :D) since it implies plenty of detail from a distance.

I think I explained my thoughts pretty well, but if you do want more detail (ex for a close up rendering or hyper-realism) check out these other resources below!

fantasy lip tutorial by JoJoesArt

female lips  by  Cataclysm-X

three whole walkthroughs  by Packwood

I hope someone finds this useful! 

Anonymous asked you:

Hey, is it okay if you like do a tutorial on trees and shrubs? PS: I looooooove your art and tutorial they are just soooooo wonderful, inspiratonal, amazing.

aww thank you so much!! ;v; haha well I don’t know a lot of trees so here’s two I actually know lmao, oak tree and pine tree I will go study more tree names when I have the time ohgosh _(:3 7 hope it helps!

I show you my brightest smile to wish you an happy new year ! 

Thank you so much for your support and kind words. It’s mean a lot for me ! 

May 2017 be a sweet and creative year !