black panther was released in theaters less than half a week ago (2/19) and i’ve already seen the main characters with white features and people making the characters too light and you absolute buffoons have let these posts blow up so im here’s a post on how to avoid bleaching black characters
skin color reference lip reference lip/nose/hair reference
if you want to take a skin color reference do not play by eye use this bitch right here
i wish this was obvious but if the source is an edited picture say like this
don’t use that source. it’s best to use a source where there is more natural light or you can look up the actor/actress and get a solid picture of them. also take note of what kind of facial features these characters have (nose, lips, etc) by looking at stills or posters of them. not all of these characters have slim noses or smaller lips.
i know this is going to be a new experience for people drawing black characters so if you make a mistake, learn from it especially if it’s from a black person. get the okay from black people before posting. you’ll get better with time and practice. this isn’t a “let people draw them the way they want” thing because this movie respects african and black cultures like how they put so much effort into the costumes and i really would not hurt to respect black people
feel free to post more sources
hii i saw some tutorials floating around on avoiding same face so i wanted to share how i do it! heres something quick :’D
How to draw feet by zephy.fr
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i present to you, TORSOs. heads an legs got lost in the mail sorry
doctors hate him. one simple trick for more lifelike expressions
Although I dont have anything to submit, (and the submit seems closed anyway.) Do you have any tips on how to draw suits? Ive used references, but I still dont feel like I have the hang of it.
This was from a while back but I’ve gathered some suit references to help! aaa.
Drawing suits is different than “regular” clothes, I guess, because there’s a specific way for them to look. Very sharp and angular! So when I block in creases, I tend to use triangular or boxy shapes instead of soft curves, to give it a crisper look!
I also don’t use TOO many creases because that can muddy up the simplified style I tend to work in. For more realistic styles, or detail-oriented styles, definitely look towards something like this:
SOURCE:
(hakubi8888 on Twitter has fantastic suit reference)
(Same person. This is their blog; only japanese but you can glean most of it from auto-translation)
An exercise you might consider doing is taking a pillow you’ve got and twisting or punching it a few times, then drawing the outcomes. The pillowcase has a sheen to it that looks like suit fabric. Although it might be a bit thinner than a suit fabric, you still get that cloth fold you can practice from!
-Mod Future (ko-fi)
Your designs always have such lovely details. May I ask, how do you find the time to do so much intricate detailing? I feel like it takes me forever to do stuff like that and it's a bit discouraging. I end up sticking with simpler designs despite loveing more detailed designs. I've tried using custome brushes but your details look so much more natural.
it’s 50% me finding lazier ways to make details and 50% me just liking detail work a lot! here’s stuff that might make things easier for you tho~
Fancy Easy Lace (clarification! this is a FireAlpaca thing; make your life Super Easier by adding a Border Layer Mode if you’re using Photoshop!):
Gold Details:
Roses:
Sheer Cloth:
Then mix and match and put them all together:
hi! i’m absolutely in love with ur OCs and ur art :0... how do you make ur characters so diverse? (currently struggling with same face syndrome lol)
TYSM <33
I think it has a lot to do with big shapes and the relationship between the characters features. So with my OCs for an example I made the shape of their heads very distinct. None of them have the same shape, and the same goes for their eyes, noses and mouths. If you run out of shapes you can just change the relationships, like have one character with a square face, big round eyes and a small mouth while another has the same square face but with flat eyes and a low nose.
This is used in siluettes and body shapes as well! One specific thing you can keep in mind is where a character’s weight is. Annix has a very square body with mass evenly distributed over her arms, chest and legs, while Aligra has all of her weight focused on her wide hips and big hands/feet. It helps to look at the body type of yourself and the people around you. I have long spindly arms and legs with most of my weight in my boxy hips!
Weight can also be used to vary the characters body language: Corvet has an exaggerated arch to her back while Kiropt pushes her pelvis out in a slouch. This movement in their spines completely defines how we read their personalities. Corvet looks high strung and snobby while Kiropt looks relaxed and careless.
When it comes to humans you get a lot of diversity for free if you make your characters different ages, etnicities, sizes etc. The most distinct differences between etnicities is the shape relationship I talked about earlier. If you make one of your characters white and one east-asian, the white character will naturally have thinner lips and a more pronounced browbone which already makes them different before you’ve even designed them.
Last thing I’m going to mention is perspective. Sometimes your characters faces look too similar because you always draw people from the same angle! Just making them look up, down or to the side a little can make a huge difference. Especially if you draw really stylized art since you can’t draw a nose viewed from the front with the same lineart as a nose viewed slightly from the left.
I know this explanation is a lil messy but I didn’t have time to do a proper tutorial. Thank you for asking though, and good luck with your art! :)
Can you give any tips on how to draw big bulky people like Hazel/Muriel/Gretchen?
I hope this can be helpful to you!
I don’t really think about how I draw characters with different body types at this point because I’ve practiced it so much but these are some rough notes on what I do.
The core of it is to just draw using thicker shapes. Don’t worry too much about exaggeration as it’ll help get you out of the mould of drawing smaller characters by default. The neck, the arms, the torso, the legs, just draw them thicker.
Study references of fat or muscular to see how the definition changes but in principle, it isn’t that much different to drawing any body type.
I draw Hazel and Gretchen to be quite bulky but because they’re teenagers when I draw them, they’re still quite soft and lack extreme definition or sharp lines, unlike when I draw Muriel who’s meant to be extreme and musclebound. Changing how soft you draw the character or how much detail you draw changes whether they look bulky from fat or muscle.
Could we possibly see an eye and hair tutorial? I'm struggling with liking my style because it's not up to my(too high) standards and would very much so enjoy some of your advice :>
not much of a tut but here’s my usual process
and some doodles, done in like 15 sec per pair
I haaate painting hair so i try not to take too much time on it
Any advice on necks? they are my nemesis ;;
Im not gonna go into detail w the muscles but if you wanna learn the specifics here are some good diagrams! 1,2 Hope that helps a little! Look up rl refs too!