A Funky Test For Character Design

My first anatomy tutorial! How I connect arms to the torso. Simplified the muscles for better comprehension

PS. Pectoral is misspelled as “pectorial” in the picture! Don’t make that mistake haha

wire tutorial for a friend

hmm this is a little weird to ask but how would you incorporate body horror or the uncanny valley into a monster design? all ive seen so far is r/nosleep too wide smile rake ripoffs n they kinda. suck

i think the simplest way to dip into uncanny valley irt monster design is just incorporating some humanlike features  on a clearly nonhuman body. having a humanoid face on a quadrupedal form tends to do that very easily, anything to evoke a sense of wrongness but not quite jarringly horrific.

its why pacu teeth tend to unsettle people

or like if youre making something more humanoid, for example making body parts Longer than they should be seems to work really well  

this is all subjective but i personally think the body parts that are best to modify for uncanny purposes are eyes, teeth, and hands because theyre the most recognizable, uniquely Human parts of our body. just putting human eyes or teeth or hands onto a nonhuman animal is enough to wig people out, and more delicate play with those features produces great results

uncanny valley horror works by givibg the impression of close approximation to what we know but being off in some way or another. thats part of why the really hackneyed “wooooo he was smiling UNNATURALLY WIDE SO SCARY” thing is popular on nosleep or why the  monster mimicking human voices or body but somehow Wrong (movements too jerky, voice has wrong cadence or sounds like an audio loop, etc) trope is so successful (and getting really old at this point even tho i like it)

body horror tends to work similarly but instead of “this looks like a human but something about it is really off and its creeping me out” its “THATS NOT HOW A BODY IS SUPPOSED TO WORK AHHHHH”. the easiest way (a little lazy but fun) is just giving things Extra parts or parts where they shouldnt be, like eyes teeth etc, or wildly distorting how body parts should be. body horror also requires recognizability, like you have to be able to see what was once familiar/human but you can be a lot more violent with it. 

like as an example john carpenters “the thing” is like the classic body horror movie. body horror doesnt have to be quite as gorey to be successful but i think the general language established in that film is really good, just twisting forms we recognize in ways that feel painful and wrong

Some head related art notes. I hope some of these are a bit helpful. Patreon / Gumroad

Love your artwork!! :) as a professional illustrator, would you tell me some advice on developing potrait? im always mess up when it comes to potrait drawing. i really dont know how artist like you can be so precise in developing value for face. Thank you very much :)

Hello  and Thank You :)

The first thing if You want to do portraits is to know anatomy. Start with learning what is under the skin and understand how it affects the face. When You got that covered You must know how face is structured. That will give You the knowledge how to light head. Head is a cube-like object. (yea! NOT sphere!) On face we have other little cube-like object (nose).  

A great exercise is to find photos of a face and draw structure lines over it.

Example:

You see clearly now? The structure of a nose, where cheeks are, forehead etc.

After doing this You will be able to create the face from a memory using these helping lines.

Like here. This is Michael Hampton exercise:

You see how everything fits thanks to the structure lines?

Drawing a face requires TONS of practice. Find thousand photo references and practice.

Understand the anatomy and face structure first. It’s basic.That would be the things I would recommend for everyone who start drawing faces :)

I hope it helps a little!

skin color ref because some of yall non-black poc and whites keep fucking up as if yall don’t know there’s other shades of brown when u racebend for woke points or something 

(non-black artists please reblog)

do you have any tips on drawings noses? particularly non-white noses?? all the tutorials are european noses and i just want to learn how to draw my own nose!!

oh i feel you. the nice thing about being a poc is that you can always study yourself in the mirror to learn how to draw yourself better! but anyways:

if you’re wondering which kinds of noses are frequent for which race, i like to use this guide. I can’t verify how accurate it is, but it’s pretty damn comprehensive for racial traits around the world. I also really like this guide for learning how to draw a variety of East Asian noses (it’s not all flat!). Here’s an equivalent guide that includes drawing African noses. And there’s always Google images for more specific requirements.

+ 3D models are really helpful when drawing noses: x x x

+ here are some general nose tutorials by better artists lol: x x

The uh ,,

The wing ?tutorial? Featuring many examples and little to no explanation

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!

pile of sketch garbage I’ve been posting on instagram !