artes and spells

[Spellmaster]

an actual art thread since the other one is for other things

I'm not much of an artist but I draw casually a lot and want to get better... unfortunately I'm too lazy to put in a ton of time so I'm just floundering around trying to improve little by little
comments and specific advice are always welcome!! I know I need to use refs more and work on shading and all that but if anyone has tips for certain things I am all ears

throughout college I doodled on my papers a lot and then compiled what I drew, so here's several years' worth of messing around:

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freshman year:



there's more but some are even uglier so I'll leave it at that, I just wanted some old ones so I might be able to see some progress...

junior year feat. the wrong scan settings:


junior year DRAGONS


"""studying"""


senior year:

I still have a bunch of scans that I haven't put together yet, I need to get on that :x

lately I've been sketching a lot but not finishing much, except the cats I've been posting on other threads... at one point I did a lot of screenshot redraws (where the goal is to reproduce the original, not restyle it) as practice, and I kind of want to get back into that but I can never find the time. I think what I really need is expression practice because on so many of my sketches the face looks so bad it ruins the rest and I just end up scrapping the whole thing orz

also I cannot get pen pressure to work on this computer for the life of me, and I don't want to drag out my old computer just to draw, so I'm stuck sketching in pencil and then scanning to do everything else in photoshop. it's a lengthy process so I get less done, but I'm actually kind of liking the results?? I never got the hang of digital lining anyway tbh
here's some wip experiments that I forgot to resize:

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look it's my favorite blonde half-naked goddess


look it's my other favorite blonde half-naked goddess

will add more when there is more to add~

[Scar]

Wow, I wish my doodles were this good... *o*
Really great job!

[Spellmaster]

thanks!!
to be fair I probably touched up a lot of them before I scanned them, especially the later ones with characters in dumb complicated outfits that needed refs... but I started them on school papers so I'm counting them ;3

[Scar]

Haha there's nothing wrong with touching 'em up a bit :3

[Spellmaster]

updoot:

been doing some more redraws as practice... plenty of mistakes but I quite like some of them?? if only I could draw like this without the references orz

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one of my favorites was one I had to remove because it was based on someone else's fanart and I don't want to be copying their stuff, but the rest is official art so it's fair game

the one thing I do not get is profiles?? why is it so hard to make profiles look good. avoid side views at all costs

also here's some cringey halloween fanart, for posterity

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someday I'll be able to draw real fanart... someday

[Pine]

YOU'RE GETTING SO GOOD!!! i think it's awesome you're doing the redraws because they're getting so much better. i'm proud of u. i like the halloween arts.

also i still like the dragons you should draw more dragons.

[Spellmaster]

ty!! and yes this is true, I should draw more dragons
lately I always want to draw but the things I really want to do are still way beyond my level so I don't know what to draw and just quit... but I could always draw dragons, there is no wrong way to draw a dragon

here's some new doodles of old OCs I had nearly forgotten about, but am reviving for A Thing

[Darkforestwarrior]

your kitties are so adorable, I would snuggle them but I don't think they would appreciate that

[Spellmaster]

amberpaw might :3

I'm almost done with another sheet of redraws but I'm stalled trying to force myself to practice more than three characters... in the meantime I'm proud of myself for actually managing to do something arty every day this year so far \o/ I mean some days it's hardly more than an ugly two-minute doodle or cleaning some lines on a sketch but it's still holding a pencil so I count it

only 347 days to go......

[Spellmaster]

I have continued to draw something every day!! but I'd be prouder of myself if I was doing it during my hours of free time instead of my sleeping time

new sheet of redraws:

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some don't quite look like the originals but I think they're okay on their own, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... also I feel like the characters I like most end up looking the best?? am I trying harder on my faves or do I just like their faces more

gonna try to finish more cats now

[Spellmaster]

I think I've missed several days of drawing now... but some days I color for hours so it evens out right?? right

several more thing:

plain ol' doodles, feat. LoafCat and no working knowledge of legs

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variations on a sketch, just messing around with coloring and stuff
this is what happens when you attempt shading with no references or practice... kind of want to try recoloring it but I have a really hard time finding good shading refs >:?

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and some more ocs I finally finished. I wanted to fix their stupid chins but I also wanted to hurry up and scan them... so stupid chins it is
bottom row is the med cats, they accidentally ended up basically the same colors,,, upper left is a thunderclan apprentice from an old rp who is currently blank because his name and appearance need to be changed from his rp days, any suggestions?? he is Large and Not At All In Charge

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[Spellmaster]

next sheet of redraws:

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i started this sooooo long ago and just now finished it

tag urself i'm >B(

more cat/oc business:

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some of the unlabeled ones were kind of meant to be specific characters but most are just doodles (also icestar's name got cut off??). I have no idea what duskflight should look like from that angle ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

wip?

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idk what I'm going to do with this but I wanted to sketch it and then just didn't stop

the sketch was fun but now that I'm looking at how much work fixing/finishing it is going to be I'm kind of @_@
but I do want to make it look better...

[Darkforestwarrior]

Your animes are so great tbh. I don't even know where they are from but they look nice

Also I'm going to be stealing all your kitties now thanks bye 

[Vegas]

I love the experimentation with all the different faces, that re-draw expression sheet is really cute! Also, it's interesting to see the personality development with your OC's various expressions! Nicely done!
And the sketch looks fantastic! You should go for adding color to it, but only if you feel like it~

[Spellmaster]

thank you!! I am quite fond of most of The Animes myself tbh
I'd like to color the wip, but I've actually never seen the clothes in color, so the ones I slapped on it as a guide are just a wild guess... I might try it anyway though, when the lines are a little cleaner. at the rate I work there might be official colors by then lol......

speaking of that character, I finally fixed an embarrassing error in one of the pics in the first post >.> but editing it made me want to see how it would look without lines, and I ended up liking the lineless version a lot too. just need to add in a few details and learn how to actually draw guns maybe

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I think it's a weird-looking gun to begin with tho