Your gateway to endless inspiration
Art Reference - Blog Posts
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Part 2: shape, style, and length with femme styles!
Okay I JUST realized I never posted these on here—- BUT BASICALLY, about a year and a half ago I started doing these experimental black hairstyle posts that were threads long on Twitter, to give artists a source of inspo for their black ocs whose hair they wanted to try something new with! There’s more to black hair than just the selected styles portrayed in media, and I thought it would be fun to show people how much texture, shape, fades, length, and style can be combined when drawing black hair—-cause it’s a kind of manipulation our hair can do irl! The OG posts were lost with the hacking of my original Twitter account (@/bagels_donuts) but I’ve since reuploaded the whole thread to my new Twitter (@/ItsDonutsFR)! I hope artists on tumblr find these useful, sorry it took me so long to post them here😭🙏🏾 I’ll upload them all in parts!
Part 1: Long masc hairstyles + playing with fades
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
back in the 00s a single dancing anime chibi gif would feed us for months on end
Useful
Bird Wing/Tail Database
If you ever need references for bird wings/tails I cannot recommend this collection enough! It has images of the dorsal/ventral sides of wings from a wide variety of species.
Cat color chart!
OPEN IN A NEW TAB TO ZOOM IN
This doesn’t contain eeeeevery single possible color mutation but it should cover the most common/interesting ones!
I’m not saying everything on this chart is 100% anatomically/genetically correct, but I tried to simplify it as much as I could!
Feel free to use this for your own designs!
DUUUDDEEE your art is insane!! I ADORE the scales you draw and render, and how you make so much of your illustrations look like real work staff from WoF would make! Do you have any tips for scales? Rendering? Drawing them :0?
thank you so much!! for scales, i'd recommend avoiding circle shapes and instead go for a more angular hexagonal shape! it reduces weird gaps in between the scales and makes the texture look a lot more tight-knit and interconnected
as for rendering, i think my best tip would be to start with shadows first. make a shadow layer, fill it in entirely with the base color for the shadows, and carve out the light source by erasing parts of the shadow layer. I've been trying out a new method of rendering which takes a lot less time but gives the same if not better results (using a color layer on multiply above a greyscale render layer with a color overlay to add color to the shadows! i'll go more in depth with this once i have a finished example piece to break down)
and i usually render scales by filling in each individual scale above the lineart to create an alpha mask and i use a clipping group using the mask
scale mask (normal layer mode, 100% opacity)
set to "color dodge" at 40% opacity, additional "shadow" layer (black color layer set to "erase" above the layers in the clipping group) used to create depth!
I don't usually click tumblr ads but that site has a lot of great drawing refs tbh
reblogging because as a comic artist i’m in constant need of such things 😳😳😳
A glorious fuck-ton of perspective angle references (per request).
[From various sources.]
your shading is AMAZING specially when its conveying organic forms..... do you have any tips for people who dont know wrf going on (with shading)
ok so HI. hi. my old tutorial pisses me off so i will make a new one
i made a guy whose sole purpose is to be shaded so dont worry he likes it. and his name. his name will be mr. Boob. mr boob does not have to be blue
theres probably way better explanations of how to do it but unfortunately trying to "emulate" shading does ask you to somewhat understand ur character in a 3d way. like what would the 2d shape be if you "sliced" it? mr boob is made of so many circles. his tail also does a kind of weird perspective foreshortening thing because its pointing at you. is this being conveyed
you obviuously dont have to draw a horrendous grid on your characters skin to do this . BUT it helps you put down (or at least envision) the lines of the form shading :
dont worry about cast shadows or the shading color because this is FORM SHADOW time only. think about what surfaces of the character are obviously facing away from the light source and put down the "separation line" of the shading based on that. thr most important thing is that youre trying to separate light from dark
im going to pick the first one for cast shadows bc it will be the most obvious to me
ok so. his ears and snout are blocking other surfaces of his body from the light, which means a shadow is cast!!!! bam. i saw someone describe cast shadows as what the light's pov "can't see." his entire body is putting down a cast shadow on the ground too
im impatient so i blended the form shadows now. its usually the easiest to just NOT blend cast shadows as a way of conveying that they are still cast shadows. but you can still blend them if you want to show "distance" between the obstruction and the surface its blocking. but its just a way of saying form and cast shadows should not be treated the same even if their softness coincides
im going to lump reflection and ambient light together because theyre like. similar. reflections dont just happen in mirrors
since the sky is blue, making the ambient lighting, i tinged mr. boobs existing shadow to be a bit blue. (*this is kind of important because it can help you decide a shading color, which should USUALLY be based on the environment) (unless your character is just in the transparent void then it doesnt matter)
since the ground is pink, i made pink light bounce off of him. pointed and labelled. i dont rlly know how to go more in depth than that
contact shadows are literally shadows formed from direct-touching contact. very little light can reach in there, even from how reflections disperse, which means youre free to use the darkest color available (black). in this case mr. boob is making contact with the floor. because he is sitting on the floor.
i touched him up a bit and wow!!!!!!!!!! look at mr. boob!!! he is so beautifully sculpted.
and one more thing
thats right. i made mr boob PINK. hes fucking ruined now. just kidding i would never say that to him
what im trying to convey here (its the easiest with really light colors) is a transitional color. this can also show subsurface scattering depending on how you use it which is fun to look at. the mistake i made on my last tutorial was "Just pick a warm saturated color!" which is really wrong in examples like Blue mr boob. because it would be weird to use a warm color to transition from blue to blue.
if you have a character that isn't bright enough then obviously the shadows wont be as visible. its BEST to bring more attention to highlights and reflections to reveal the form a bit. they play the biggest role with darker colors
thats all i can think of. fun things to look up:
structuralization + contour lines + foreshortening etc. 3d lingo
form shadows
cast shadows
ambient light
contact shadows
subsurface scattering
im also just speaking out of my ass otherwise. i didnt look up any of these terms until the end now im inferring and hoping i got them right
and remember every time you shade mr boob will be rooting for you
Louis Wain reference😼🫶 wanted to try to replicate his style
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Hey so artist to artist, share a secret, how do you achieve that effect? I'm obsessed with how raw it looks love to coloura love the impression and softness just *chefs kiss*
https://www.tumblr.com/corn-cardigan/760825147001339904/random-stuff-from-july-legarde-thing-i-probably?source=share
<- last art from this post
Thank you so much (´༎ຶོρ༎ຶོ`) !
The way I paint is honestly a hodgepodge of methods. I’m in no way a professional painter or visual development artist - I work like this because it’s a nice change of pace from my usual stuff. But here’s a look into my process!
I work in glazes, then I build up to full opacity when I render. This way, whatever subject I’m painting melds with the background color. I prefer my pieces having low contrast and details. I save the most contrast and details for focal points and areas in direct light.
I’m also mindful of what direction my brush strokes are in as a way to sorta replicate traditional painting. It tends to do some heavy lifting in terms of indicating form. ((I love low effort things with big payoffs yippee!!))
It’s really noticeable in my last painting but I add these borders when the subject’s colors contrast too much with the background. By adding that transition border, it makes the subject feel less like a sticker and more incorporated into the background.
When painting portraits, my focal point will usually be the face and eyes. So I prioritize all the rendering and information into that area. Everything else outside that zone is kinda a mess of colors, shapes, and brushstrokes - but it’s ok because it’s not the priority. (Also the above pics are WIPS so if I finished them, it would be a bit more refined…)
Somethings I did in 2022 that kinda exemplifies my points. Although if I did these again, maybe I’d bump down the contrast and make it more focused??
Again, painting is not my main thing!! I just do it for fun and it’s meditative and when you're a storyboard artist, you miss colors…
I always strongly recommend studying contemporary and classical painters who have a stronger, articulated grasp on this matter. I’m just noodling around most of the times.
Lengthy post but hope this helps!!! 💕
How to Draw Native People: a Tutorial/Reference Guide
As requested, here is a basic guide for how to draw Indigenous peoples (mostly focused on North America)! Also please note that this is not an exhaustive list of Native American phenotypes/features, and more like an intro on very common features that can be found in us, and even then, not altogether at once on a single person’s face. I highly encourage the use of references and care taken into research when drawing. I may do a part 2 that goes slightly more into depth, but for now, enjoy part one.
Resouces:
How to draw Native Skin tutorial (don’t draw us red!)
List of Native American Celebrities, which include their tribe(s) and home country, with 1,250 names, to use for your referencing pleasure
How to draw black people by Peachdeluxe, & Black hair in depth by misslaney for mixed black Natives
How to draw Asian People, a guide by Chuwenjie, for mixed Asian Natives AND because it includes a lovely tutorial on monolid eyes, a shared feature of Native people
get drawin!!
A compilation of stuff I know about drawing Asian faces and Asian culture! I feel like many “How-To-Draw” tutorials often default to European faces and are not really helpful when drawing people of other races. So I thought I’d put this together in case anyone is interested! Feel free to share this guide and shoot me questions if you have any! I’m by no means an expert, I just know a few things from drawing experience and from my own cultural background.
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
Art Help
I redid this list because broken links 💀
General Tips
Stretch your fingers and hands
Art is for fun
Never too late to start/improve
Tumblr radar! Submit your work!?
Using a tablet
Editing software: pictures & video
Moodboard resources
Comic pacing
Storyboarding techniques
Watercolor
Coloring
Color Theory (not children's hospital)
Resources: coloring things a different color
Gold
Dark Skin undertones
Dark Skin in pastel art
POC Blush tones
Eyes colors
Cohesive Color Palette
Lights and Colors
Human Anatomy
POSE REFERENCES
Eyes: pupil shape, direction
Wizard Battle poses
Romance poses
Shoulders
Tips for practicing anatomy
Proportional Limbs
Skeletons
Hair Directions
Afro, 4C hair
Cane use
Dingle dongles: male reproductive
Clothing
Long skirts
Traditional Chinese Hanfu (clothing reference)
Cultural clothes
CLOTHING REFERENCE
Medieval armor
Sewing information
Animals
Horse -> Dragon
Snouts: dogs, cats, wolves, fox
Foot, paw, hoof
More
Drawing references sources
Art tutorial Masterlist
Another art tutorial Masterlist
Inspiration: father recreates son's art
Inspiration: Lights
ART BOOKS
Plants/flowers: North America, Hawaii, Patagonia
Art Cheats
![Title card reading: [Storyboarding Basics. Brought to you by NU Animation Club, March 23 2023]. There is a chibi drawing of Feeb drawing on a CINTIQ](https://64.media.tumblr.com/1bb4994121212e48c92ee88de5cbe45d/8f6b9c73271b12ac-28/s500x750/efeaa63ce1f755c3643a35f0973a68f1f1057236.png)
a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!
‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!
Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕
STORYBOARD/ANIMATIC TIPS
ko-fi✏️
I made these for my friends, but I thought that might be helpful for yall as well! hehe! Now whenever someone asks for storyboard tips I can throw this at them!
Examples of storyboards I made for fun:
hot artists don't gatekeep
I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard
Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.
Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.
Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.
Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.
SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.
SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.
Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.
Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.
Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.
Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.
Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.
i know we joke about cis artists having the weirdest sense of anatomy, but also even when the anatomy is fine, no one seems to want to draw women doing normal things
i had to end off on sumn funny bc its true
Just saving this for later….
Compiled some basic information I know about drawing fat characters for beginners since I've been seeing more talk about absence of really basic traits in a lot of art lately.
Morpho Fat and Skin Folds on Archive.org (for free!)