Half-finished Thing

Irving Penn Gingko Leaves 1990 Dye-transfer print The Lane Collection

If you bought that new game I just have to say this:

Your teacher professor Eleazar Fig dies at the end of Hogwarts legacy. This happens in all possible endings and can't be changed. And Rookwood is the one who cursed Anne

hello I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The anonymity of tumblr means that I associate my idea/image of you with your icon and sometimes I look at people’s icons and I’m like ‘hmmm….what is that and why?’ 

so pls reblog this and comment in the tags the meaning behind your icon and why you chose it. this is a social experiment. do it for science pls.

Scribbles because I don't wanna work

when you finally get to blobfish territory:

⊂⁠(°╭⁠╮°)⁠⊃ ⊂⁠(°╭⁠╮°)⁠⊃

⊂⁠(°╭⁠╮°)⁠⊃.

⊂⁠(°╭⁠╮°)⁠⊃

⊂⁠(°╭⁠╮°)⁠⊃

we’reくコ:彡 entering squid territory

 くコ:彡                                                                       くコ:彡                              くコ:彡  くコ:彡                                                        くコ:彡                           くコ:彡 くコ:彡

Once in 7th grade I saw my math teacher pull up his school email with what I now consider a measly 10,000 unread emails in his inbox. Back then, I was a simple lad and thought him to be incredibly important so I made it my goal to surpass him in emails. I am proud to announce that my email now contains nearly 40,000 unread emails and continues to grow.

I will be judging the responses, silently.

Hello please reblog this if you’re okay with people sending you random asks to get to know you better

how do you consistently draw the same character without it looking weird or off every different time?? also how do i coordinate faces, i always make the eyes too far apart or too big or too small or make the mouth too close to the nose or chin edge. If you have any advice I'd really appreciate it since it looks like you have your art shit figured out 🙏

Oh man SO so much of it is just practice, and you're not alone! I honestly think everyone struggles with a sort of "generification" of their characters' features the more they draw them, even seasoned professionals. There's a tendency to just sort of average everything out into an unrecognizable mush over time, and it takes a lot of conscious effort to push back against that.

Here are a couple tips and tricks that I've found to be helpful over the years:

Make turnarounds and model sheets. There's a reason animation/game studios do this, and it is because we are all still bad at drawing a consistent face. Despite being gainfully employed. What are we, graphic novelists?? We wish. Anyway it's a great way to familiarize yourself with your character's face from multiple angles, and it gives you a single source of truth to return to anytime you need a refresher:

Gather real-life reference. Anytime I'm designing a character I'm pulling together a ton of reference of actual people who look, to some degree, like the character in my head. It's always a collection of analogues, never just a single person, but it can be a great cheat sheet for understanding how your character might move, emote, etc:

Make a 3D model. I know it seems daunting, but with the advent of programs like Blender and Nomad Sculpt it's becoming remarkably more accessible. Heck, even James Gurney was sculpting maquettes out of clay for Dinotopia back in the day! It doesn't have to be particularly detailed—just a sort of proportionate lump will do—but it's another great way to have dynamic reference that you can rotate and light accordingly:

Practice, practice, practice. Make expression sheets for your character! Either right there on the spot, just start drawin' expressions, or you can slowly collect drawings of your character that you like, as you draw them, and compile them all in one place for your own reference. Need to draw your character's head from a weird angle? Maybe you've already drawn it before and you can copy your own homework! Doesn't count as stealing when the call's coming from inside the house 😎

I'd love to pretend there's a magical point where you can just immediately rotate your character's head in your brain like some sort of photorealistic apple in a twitter meme, but a lot of the time it's reference, hard work, and whole lotta repetition. 😐👍🏼