To Celebrate A Follower Milestone On Ig And Also So I Don’t Have To Keep A Million References Open

do you have any advice on how to draw armor?? please im dying

yeas <3 so right off the bat i think its important to state but my like. basis from drawing armor is almost completely off of my history of drawing soulsborne characters...... i have a disease, but anywyas yea. i highly recommend it for explorations of interesting yet accurate armor design :-) my favorite designs are from 2 and demons, and i steal a lot of inspiration from their concept art. i simply think it should be ok to take how you draw/view armor or something like that from something else. armor is goofy just draw whatever looks cool.

how i draw armor is basically separating it into sections to focus on .. 

heres a lionel fr ref. layering is really important i think. i usually just kinda mix up what exactly i have fr each bit but uhhh that works.

from there its just shoving random metal, a cape, and some other doohickeys on top. i recommend looking at either preexisting armor or video game/tv show/what have you armor designs you like and just taking bits from it to make your own :-) 

for gauntlets and the like i usually just simplify it to the point of pointing out where the knuckles are. theyre pretty simple to just shove shit on top of to mkae fancier but theyre super basic. sabbatons too you can get away with just showing where the foot will bend cus they got sooo many segments. think worms. worm shoes. 

other than that. if u dont wanna draw a bit just shove a cape on top. i promise no one will notice. people will think its cool. capes always improve a design. i draw every single character with armor with a cape so i dont have to draw it sometimes. or so i just have to draw hints of it. its fine cheating is epic. 

uhhh thats kinda all my off the top of my head tips i hope any of them help feel free to ask more specific shit im not good at teaching shit like this :pensive: 

i’m gonna drop an art tip here

i think an important thing to learn, especially if you start out with drawing anime, is that faces don’t necessarily have to narrow from top to bottom

i like to think of wide top, wide middle, wide bottom, and rectangle-like as the 4 main face shapes

what you should keep in mind about them:

you’re only halfway done: the jawlines, the width-length ratio, the amount of fat in the cheeks, the intensity or subtlety of the face’s curves are all important components you still have to decide on after choosing the shape itself

none of these shapes are exclusively feminine or masculine, don’t hesitate drawing them on any gender

most people in real life have some variation of the wide middle type

if you are trying to draw real people, getting the shape of their face down is the first step

i’ve seen tutorials say the shape of the face can tell a lot of the character’s personality - you don’t necessarily have to live by that rule. as long as you aren’t unrealistically drastic about their proportions, their face shape determines their inner qualities as much as it would in real life (not at all)

hii i saw some tutorials floating around on avoiding same face so i wanted to share how i do it! heres something quick :’D

Eh, just a lil’ something. 

“ Where we’re going we don’t need proper proportions “

I wanna do more of these… >:U

A lot of people ask me for tutorials. I guess this counts. I don’t really know how to tackle a full tutorial just yet. Styles range so much that I feel it’s more just tips or suggestions

disclaimer: I am east asian. if anyone who is not white sees anything wrong with my phrasing, inaccuracies, or insensitivity, or something I missed, please feel free to add on. I'm just one person with one perspective; none of what I say should be taken as The Singular way to draw an Asian character. if you havent done so already, please take the effort to expand your view of Asian culture outside this one tutorial.

if a white person reblogs this and adds something stupid I'm going to bite and kick you like a wild animal

If you don't mind me asking, how do you draw faces and heads in general?

HELLO YES IM SO SORRY I TOOK FOREVER. I’VE SORTA COVERED A LITTLE BIT OF THIS, SO I’LL LINK MY OTHER “TUTORIALS” AT THE END. HERE WE GO

SIDE PROFILE FACE AND HEAD:

FRONT PROFILE FACE AND HEAD:

MINI-TIPS:

Okay so I hope that helped!!! Obviously these vary based on the design, race, and age of your character, but it’s all rooted in the same basic,,, tHiNg.

Here’s the nose and eye tutorial (just skip the hands 😬):

https://rustic-space-fiddle.tumblr.com/post/181858381880/how-do-you-draw-hands-and-eyes-im-having-so

https://rustic-space-fiddle.tumblr.com/post/181887675515/how-do-you-make-noses-i-think-they-look-really

I'm a little confused. If it's racist to depict characters with noticeable epicanthal folds, then doesn't that imply that the epicanthal fold is considered an ugly feature by the person making the criticism? Seeing as it's a normal feature that many asians have...I can understand not wanting it to be exaggerated into a racist caricature, but leaving it out entirely? That doesn't rub you as being a little "Look, I left the East Asian features out so they'd be pretty!"? Which is racist in itself?

i’m assuming you’re referring to my we bare bears example. first of all, drop the ‘gasp you’re actually being racist against yourself??’ tone. i’m fine with dialogue but i have asian perspective and experience. be respectful.

no one said it’s racist to draw epicanthal folds. if your art is more realistic and detail-focused, it makes sense to include different kinds of eye folds. but in a cartoon, non-epicanthal folds aren’t translated. it’s not like you see little lines above a white person’s eyes. they’re just the typical round style. so it makes sense that the element of eye folds are left out entirely when it comes to all depicted races.

i used we bare bears as a good example because it’s the rare time asian characters’ eyes actually fit in with the style. they don’t need to squint, or be abnormally small, because no one else’s eyes do that. i don’t care that chloe has big eyes, because she’s a kid and everyone else, regardless of race, is similar. it matters more to me that her heritage is shown and celebrated rather than her having token asian traits.

sometimes cartoons can give asian eyes a lil difference and that’s fine too! candy from gravity falls has wider eyes, but they’re still round and cartoony. it’s a noticeable aberration from the style but it’s a small and harmless detail.

total drama, while not the uh, best example for a lot of things, has a great angular style. a lot of characters (gwen, izzy, duncan) have smaller eyes while not being asian. so it makes sense that heather, a polynesian character, has a bit of a half-circle shape to her eyes. it shows a diversity of eye shapes and sizes without focusing on racial stereotypes. 

but ‘everyone has big eyes except the squinty asians’ happens. a lot. take trixie from the fairly odd parents. everyone’s eyes are round and big. hers are half circles, like 40% the average size. if her eyes are ‘accurately’ shaped, why does everyone else get identical cartoonish circles?

disclaimer: i grew up idolizing any representation i found, and i liked trixie a lot. and for children, it’s not the end of the world if exclusively asian characters are given small eyes. but it’s clear that she was designed by non-asian people, and there is always room for improvement.

onto more realistic art! when it comes to stereotypically limiting asian design vs. respectfully showing asian diversity, _ket2 put it best.

in conclusion, if you’re going to draw asian characters, don’t make them all have the same ridiculously small eyes compared to everyone else. asian people, especially artists, have been saying this forever.unlearn limiting racial preconceptions. learn from references and how diverse people look in real life. 

Figuring out some tiefling stuff so here I share. Make some tieflings they’re great.