Thoughts
Some thoughts after this (yet another) monthly challenge on what makes it possible to make these so fast for me, some points might be helpful for less experienced artists.
1st of all it's obviously experience, I've been doing this for almost 15 years and I no longer have to make stops for "hmm how does an armpit works at this angle if an arm is raised this far up", I've done that so many times it's imprinted already, but even if I had to, I have an archive of references for almost any possible anatomy feature collected over the years.
Same for poses, all of these were pretty simple pinups, and there are also only so much poses that work/look good, and I've done all those many times as well. (Which also always makes me laugh when they go "artist x stole that pose from artist y", unless it was really blatantly traced, artist y didn't invent that pose either and referenced it from somewhere as well)
But even at this point I still often prepare some references inbefore, be it pics from pinterest or 3d models set up in roughtly the pose I want (not too precise bc that would take a lot of time I wanna save) and especially for hands.
Same for designs and outfits, spend some time on pinterest/google and prepare a refboard inbefore so you don't have to get distracted for that while drawing.
Another important thing is values. Back in the day I was spending a lot of time overdoing it and adding much more lights and shadows than I should, and that was a lose-lose, not only you make a pic worse, but also spend a lot of time on making it worse.
Another thing about values is value composition, you gotta plan that inbefore, depending on what colors and values does the focal point (character) has and the atmosphere you want. Basically you want the character to stand out and be readable against the surroundings, be it darker char on light bg, or lighter char on dark bg. You are doing it wrong if you turn your pic greyscale and see a grey character blend in with a grey bg. This little diagram shows it well and has changed my life entirely at some point.
Knowing how it all works saves a lot of time later if the pic is a mess and you don't know what to do to fix it.
Having references for values and colors is also great, like an entire board of rito splashes.
And last but not least for me is, fighting perfectionism. I always wanna zoom in and work on that little detail over there, polish it and realize you can't even see it when you zoom out. And that is a HUGE timesink. So this time I really focused on zooming in as little as possible, and I draw in 7k resolution.
Obviously if you see the original res and zoom to 100% you can see how messy it is, but resized for web it still looks good overall. And that was hard to accept, like "what if they zoom in and see how it really looks". But yeah, that's what also helped me do these one a day. Now I'm really exausted tho and gotta have a few days off
Comments (14)
I'm surprised, this actually really helps me a lot with 3D screenshots!! I spend a month on sculpting and texturing a character, then i set up a scene and it takes hours to get the lighting and environment right… just like you said about overdoing the values. 😑 Deliberately planning the composition will help so much. Thank you!!
It's the same thing for artists, photographers, people who put 3d scenes, whatever. Same rules for everyone, gotta learn that
Hah, not the first one to touch on the "how it looks as a thumbnail" part, something I always tell myself to check and never do... and then end up with somewhat half-decent result but only in its' original size... but one that ends up as total WTF the moment I click "submit" and see the thumbnail. The grayscale picture you've provided is something I've never even considered before... and it looks like a possible gamechanger for my art journey as well... "Another important thing is values. Back in the day I was spending a lot of time overdoing it and adding much more lights and shadows than I should, and that was a lose-lose, not only you make a pic worse, but also spend a lot of time on making it worse." This is precisely the conundrum I face at its' current phase. Thanks for sharing n insight.
I like this 😌 I don’t understand it cause I just woke up but I like this Your art makes my brain produce serotonin, that’s pretty cool 😎 As for the zooming in I do find myself on my 4k monitor zooming in 1:1 to see every pixel and admiring the piece as fully as I can… which is probably very niche, I find myself zooming in and out on everything lol
It is calming to see that even a huge veteran has their weaknesses. I have tried drawing many times and my maximalist mindset blocked me from continuing all the time. Having thoughts like: "If I can't even draw a simple hand, how do you plan to achieve a whole body?", and "It doesn't look like not even after 5 tries" really destroyed my motivation. Maybe some time in the future I will try it again.
All that asside its still a hell of an achievement. I might prefer more complicated works Ami would probably have spend longer on, but still, there were quite a few bangers and all of them looked good. And this with the break neck pace of one a day and sustaining that for a month no less. I will take a deep bow to that.
If someone zooms in to the 7k, all they will see is that you are human. What you call messy, can be interpreted as style. Other artists have a style that in intentionally "messy" but it's not messy, those are brish strokes and chaos that combine to create the finished art work. It's so lovely to hear your thoughts after a month of artworks ^-^
Well your "messy" or "disappointing" is better then I or others here willprobably ever be lol. I'm always blown away with how talented you and other artists truly are. The art of connecting individual lines and shapes to create a complete picture will always be a type of magic to me. Just remember perfection is the enemy of good, and the thief of joy. ❤️
Personally I think it's incredible that you manage to pump out such a well rendered piece a day, I tried Inktober this month as well and it's exhausting and I mine were much more sketchy. Also really appreciate these sort of thought process posts as a learning artist! You're a huge inspiration <3
Can confirm a lot of that (even if I struggle to apply it acuse of the perfectionism mentioned), but it is very good advice and the references added to boot is really useful to anyone who wants to get more into drawing.
To be quite honest for me personally this OCtober was rather disappointing. The skill in itself was there, no questions asked but the details you wrote about in this post was missing for me. Every other pin-up seemed to had the same breasts, poses where often uninspired or meh and the characteer designs... And i get it. Drawing on of these very day for a month, somewhere you need to cut corners or risk getting burned out I really enjoy your artworks, obviously otherwise i wouldn't pay money to see them. But i personally enjoy it way more to get less but with higher quality. Doesn't mean this project was bad, just not my taste or rather not what i expected. Still, hyped for what comes next. (And i hope it will be a Khiara)
I think there is some merit to this comment but I saw a LOT of variety especially in the first few days, sizes of breasts, poses, facing, are they sitting on horseback, are they standing up, lots of variety. But I guess sure there weren’t any hoomungo ungu bungas or anything but there were a lot on the smaller side, and think about that in context with the last 40 pieces, all of which (I’m exaggerating) were humongo unga boingo booba… 🤔 let the flat girlies shine 🥰
That’s awesome advice. I actually saved the greyscale picture for my own practice. You’re great at what you do, glad to keep supporting it!
Thank you for blessing us with all of this art, and for taking the time to reflect on it to help out others. You are truly an amazing individual.