Aether1984 - Un Ambiente De Revista

I struggle INSANELY with doing 3/4 view art. Do you have any tips? I've found a couple guides on pinterest but I'm still having a little trouble.

Hi Anon! So sorry to hear you’re struggling. 3/4th is my favorite comfort zone, but I don’t know how well I can walk you through it any better than the many tutorials out there. There are plenty that do tutorials much better than me and they all kind of follow the same format for 3/4th view, but I’ll try my best to break down my method as understandably as possible!

1: I always start with my eye and middle line guide in whatever direction I want them facing. The middle one is more important than the original eye line.

2: Next I’ll do my head circle to keep my skull guideline and connect it to the bottom of my middle guideline to make the jaw. You’ll want to be kind of careful about this part and not just draw a gigantic circle or one that’s too small. Try to keep it about the size you want your actual head.

Don’t worry too much about the eye line at this point as you’re mostly getting the general shape of your head at this point. You can always edit your eye line later and adjust it to where you need it to be.

If you’re doing a character that has defined cheek bones (Like Vaard who has CHEEK BONES) you can do a line from the side of the head to the side of the chin like I did here that always acts as a great guide to the general area if you’re going to define it.

Make sure this step is on its own layer separate from the rest of your lines.

3: Now using your line and circle guide, go ahead and fill out the far side in whatever shape your character’s face is (angular, round ect.). It’s easiest starting from the top of your brow bone. Keep in mind your center line as this is your direct center of the face.

Vaard’s got a pretty basic, generic face shape as a base. It’s very sharp and square so I did a lot of straight lines with little to no curves to them.

At this point, it’s best to have a reference of a face in the shape you’re going for if you struggle with this step. References are your friend when stepping into unknown territory and angles.

You can also add your hair line guide as well to make sure it’s not too high or too low.

See how the circle we started with now becomes the full skull and makes up the back? This is why we want to be careful about the placement earlier and not go way out of the anatomy you’re going for.

4: Ok now for the fun part. What I like to do, is draw little Star Trek badges under the highest point of the brow you’re going for and on the far side, connect it to the cheek. This becomes your brow/cheekbone on the far side, and your inner eye socket guide on the inside. Don’t worry if they’re too big, you can always erase them later but we’ll come back to these in a bit. You just want the top to be fairly even with each other.

5: So to help line up your eyes in ¾ths view, you can draw a line from each side of the chin or nose. The inner corner of the eyes will usually sit near or close to the same line as the nostril or chin edges. (unless you’re drawing a very narrow or very wide nose, then go with the chin guide lines instead).

My original eye line didn’t quite line up with were I wanted to actually put my eyes but it pretty much lined up with the bottom inside corners so I kept it where it was.

Using the outside ‘Star Trek Badge’ just carry that top line on down and bam, nose bridge perspective!

6: Now using those badge shapes still, you can go ahead and curve your eyebrows right on top of the lines and you have your brows! This really only works if you’re going for a neutral expression though with little to no brow movement or expression.

7: From this point, it’s just a matter of adding your details! You already have a fairly solid base and anything at this point is very easily tweaked or shifted.

8: At this point you can erase all of your guide lines (which should be on a separate layer from your actual face outlines.) and if you happen to have a character with fairly deep set eyes, you can use those badge guides again to shade the eye sockets. Just shade inside them and you have some decent shadow guides.

I hope this helped some!  Sorry if it looks like most other tutorials and guides out there, but I did my best.  Remember, references are your friend when doing angles you’re not familiar with, even if it’s taking a picture of your own face just to see where shadows fall or how the nose looks at that angle! (The other eye is also the worst. I am in no position to give tips on the other eye, sometimes I don’t even draw it lol).

Best wishes and wishing you the best of luck as you learn to draw in ¾ths! It’s one of the most fun angles to draw once you get the hang of it!

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Thanks for the submission! Hope this helps. :) 

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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!

I've always loved drawing people and especially portraits. Your art is so inspiring! Do you have any advice on drawing portraits with accurate proportion? What aspects are the most important in portraits, do you think? And what are good exercises? I'm sorry for bombarding you with so many questions! :3

Thank you! There’s one thing about drawing portraits that I don’t think I’ve ever touched on, and it’s the technique of constraining features.  Basically, it becomes easier and more intuitive to rotate the face in 3D space once your mind grasps exactly where the features are located and, furthermore, where they can’t be located.  

I use a weird double trapezoid shape that I’ve depicted below in red to keep track of facial feature placement every single time I draw a face.  It follows the top of the eyebrows, touches the corner of the eye, traces down to the corner of the lips, and finally ends at the bottom of the lips.  

The shape of the constraint will change depending on the person’s features, and it works for every angle of the head.  For me it really internalized where each part of the face was, as well as where it started and ended. It kinda helps moderate your drawings; i.e., you’ll stop drawing features that are wildly misplaced or off-sized.  I don’t literally draw this shape out every time I draw a face, but I see it in my mind’s eye 100% of the time.

If you’re still learning proportions, a good exercise is to grab pictures of people and trace this shape over them (either digitally or with a marker or something) to get an idea of what realistic constraints looks like.  Then go back to studying faces, and constantly check your drawing by tracing along the eyebrows and down to the bottom of the lips to make sure that things aren’t off (e.g., the constraint isn’t terribly asymmetric).  It takes a while to get used to, but it might help you get a good feel for portraiture.  

There’s one other unrelated thing I like to do with faces, and if you’ve seen a lot of my pics you’ve already picked up on it.  If you kinda add some shading to the area on the cheek just below the eye and down to the nose, I think it adds a decent amount of depth to a face.  Don’t go overboard of course but there’s another little tip that could be of use.

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A Tutorial Masterpost

I said that I’d show some tutorials I have saved up to someone, but decided that I’d just go ahead and post most of what I have stored away and create a sort of masterpost out of it. (I figure it’ll help me just as much since, as of now, they’re all pretty scattered between my Tumblr and bookmarks)

A lot of these are hosted on my personal Tumblr, but I don’t change my url so it’s pretty safe to bookmark them there (and not have to worry about the url changing) if you don’t wish to reblog them yourself for whatever reason.

Feline tutorials:

Basic domesticated cat tutorial

The domestic cat body

Improving upon (lion) anatomy

Realistic lion faces tips

Big cat paw tips

Canine vs. feline - paws and legs

Beginner feline tutorial

Guide to big cats

Feline comparison

Canine vs. feline - facial anatomy

Canine vs. feline - chest anatomy

Guide to little cats

Big cat eyes (could work for other eyes)

Canine tutorials:

Basic wolf anatomy

Skeleton notes on wolf legs

The wolf skeleton as a whole

The wolf skull and teeth

Wolf paw tips

Basic canine poses

Canine ears and chest

Drawing realistic wolves

Basic wolf tutorial

Wolf paw tutorial

Paw pad tips

Wolf skeleton and muscles

Wolf fur direction

Canine vs. feline - paws and legs

Canine vs. feline - facial anatomy

Canine vs. feline - chest anatomy

And this is just an excellent DA for wolf reference images

Avian tutorials:

Bird wing anatomy applied on humanoids

Bird wing tutorial (lots of underrated tips)

Varying bird wing structure

Basic owl anatomy

Bird wing vs. bat wing vs. pterodactyl wing vs. human arm

Bird wings and flight

Various bird wings

Human(oid) tutorials:

Hand tips and reference

Simplifying human anatomy

Feet and shoes tutorial

Bird wing anatomy applied on humanoids

A guide to movement: flexibility

A male shoulder study

Altalamatox face tutorial 

Male legs reference

The human hand

Male vs. female waist

Excellent expressions tut

Understanding anatomy part 1 (follow desc. links for more)

Painting skin

Simplifying hands

More simplified hands

Pose tutorial

Varying the female figure

Profile proportions

Expression tutorial

Virtual lighting studio

Breaking up the male torso

Male torso anatomy in use

Simplifying the human foot

Various facial and body shapes reference

Drawing the nose

Female anatomy patterns

Human mouths

Breaking down the human nose

How to draw the ear

More hand(y) tips

Neck and torso tut

Jawline and kissing tip

Yet another hands tutorial

Male torso in motion

The human head at various angles

Variation of colour throughout the skin

Excellent action and couple references

Advice on eyes

Feet reference drawings

Nose shapes

The human skull and face

Facial features

Portrait lighting cheat sheet

Animating dialogue (mouth movement)

A kissing tutorial

The fist

Various athletic builds

Various types of hair

Proportional height of different positions

Expressions photo references

The hand in motion

Skintone palettes

Semi-realistic eye tutorial

Male muscle reference

The human body in perspective

The human head at various angles

Painting a realistic eye

Arm shape and muscles

Animal feet on a human figure

Hand poses

The face in profile

Skin tutorial

Body type diversity

Drawing hair

Muscles in the neck and face

A beginner’s guide to knees

Another ladies tutorial

Breakdown of lips

Blocked out human faces

Practice figure drawing (animals as well)

A neat arm trick

Excellent ear anatomy tutorial

Fullbody proportions tutorial

Over the shoulder poses

Male torso photo reference

Detailed arm muscle drawings

Guide to human types

Dragon tutorials (and bat wings):

Anatomy of the Western dragon

Dragon wing tips

Dragon wing tutorial

Dragon anatomy

Dragon tutorial

Equine tutorials:

Basic horse (back) reference

The equine skeleton

Horse anatomy and pointers

A good, large collection of horse stock references

Skeleton of a horse and its rider

Horse hooves

Cervine tutorials:

Basic deer anatomy

Deer skeleton drawing

Deer skull reference

Deer musculature

Deer skeleton

Ursine tutorials:

Fantastic bear anatomy/poses references

Basic bear structure

Bear anatomy tutorial

Miscellaneous animal tutorials:

Sheep vs. goats

Background and objects tutorials:

Griffsnuff background tut part 1 (second in desc.)

Tree tutorial

Realistic gems tut

Water tutorial

General water tutorial

Drawing crystals

Drawing bows

Painting rocks

Clothing tutorials:

Fabric tutorial

Clothing folds part 1 (second in desc.)

Drawing hoods

Drawing jeans

Hat on human figure reference

Armor

More hat on figure references

Different shirt collars

Colour palette turtles

General painting, drawing, and style tips:

Altalamatox digital painting walkthrough

Simple fur tutorial

Realism painting tutorial (human subject)

Excellent colour tutorial

Painting a wolf (good fur painting visual)

Photoshop brushes tut

Basics of Photoshop tutorial

Another digital painting tutorial

Common digital painting mistakes

Colour and light

Soft cel-shading tutorial

Various types of hair

Colour tips and the mood it expresses

Composition tips

Lighting and colour tips

Shadows

Another composition tut

Simple colouring via overlay

From paper to digital

Painting gold

Hope these help!

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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

I put together notes on what i know about drawing feet. It’s not 100% accurate or anatomically correct, but i hope it can help others who have difficulty drawing feet o/

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Found some hands tutorial by me

Not in English but hope it will help???????

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Hello! Do you have any tips for drawing cows? I really struggle with stylizing them and I love how you draw them

sorry this took so long to reply to but i finally got around to cows again.

western cattle are very much an arrangement of rectangles. their topline is straight and angular contrasted by their flabby skin and wrinkles, then you see them from the front or back and they’re round?? the best way to learn to draw animals is life sketches, I go to our annual agriculture show to see cows. They’re also shaved for the show ring there so i get a clear image of them.

looking at skeletals and anatomy drawings is also helps a lot, i recommend Hermann Dittrich’s lithographs and Jack Hamm’s ‘how to draw animals’

when you can visualize the shapes you can start to play with them and stylize

cows and horses are not closely related and their skeletons are very different, especially their hindquarters. i’m not sure what other specific tips i have i hope these help