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kyyo

How to Cheat like an Artist.

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Hello~ My first official thread after spamming the newbie thread, haha.;; Anyways, I don't even think I'm qualified to teach or anything, but I'll just drop some helpful things here. So this thread will be geared towards giving you guys extra tools and know-how to draw differently and better. (*´ω`*)

I say cheat, because it is like cheating. Let's begin!

CHEATS

Cheat #1: Yesstyle.com/ Doublju.com

About:

These two sites are shopping sites for clothing brands; they are far from mainstream and geared towards Asian consumers. But I'm going to only talk about Yesstyle, because that is the site I use the most. It is a fashion site for men and women, so choose your pick.

Yesstyle.com is particularly good because it is a collection of Asian Fashion brands. The clothes can range from casual to 'so-fashionable-that-it-looks-like-only-kpop-idols-would-wear-that.' This is a very good clothing reference, if you don't know what to stick your characters in. See below for an example of some of the many clothing choices, they offer you.

1-3.png

In Yesstyle, you have fashion brands from Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea etc. Their models are hot (sometimes I spend my days drooling over them, rather than draw;;; ), and if you click on an item, they will show you many pictures of that model posing twenty or so different ways. This is a good pose reference, if you're ever stuck on what to draw.

2-2.png

For the digital artists who color digitally, via Photoshop or any other paint program: Yesstyle is a very photogenic site. If you see a preview of an item being worn by a model posing in a street or somewhere colorful, you know that their photoshoot will be very,very colorful. These are professional clothes brand, and they know how to match their colors very well, so their color palette will undoubtedly look very nice. This is a great place to take off some colors and background themes

3-2.png

Doublju is also a fashion site, but I dislike it because instead of real life models, they stick clothes on mannequins. Yesstyle does use mannequins at times, but there are plenty of models posing in beautifully and color-agreeing backgrounds.

Cheat #2: For the digital artists or anyone who loves color: Colourlovers.com/ Kuler.adobe.com

About:

In addition to Yesstyle's backgrounds/scenery colors, these two sites are where you can get color palettes. If you are a digital artist, these will become your best friend when you don't know what colors to put onto a picture. Just remember to credit the maker of the palette, and you're good to go.

Colourlovers is a lot more diverse than kuler, for the fact that they offer patterns and shapes. Just browse around to get a gist of what Colourlovers has to offer you. C:

Cheat #3: weheartit.com; another place to browse for fashion, food, and concepts.

Although a lot of artists and photographers dislike this website mainly because it takes images from their website and posts it up, it doesn't stop a fellow artist from browsing and feel inspired by all these pictures. You could combine concept and ideas, take colors from a different picture, to help you compose your own works! :D

They browse by tags but you will find a lot of high quality pictures there. The things I find myself attracted to the most are vintage colored photographs, so whenever I want a drawing to have vintage colors, I borrow them from here.

TUTORIALS

Tutorial #1: How to clean and keep your sketch after scanning it in, using SAI and Photoshop

how_to_keep_a_sketch_by_kyunyo-d4bqals.png

Tutorial #2: For the digital artists: a method of coloring using Paint Tool SAI.

method_of_coloring_by_kyunyo-d4r2wuo.png

Tutorial #3: Voice tutorial on Livestream; How to color in SAI.

- reviews how to use the magic wand

- reviews expand 1 px

- explains flat coloring; soft coloring; hard coloring

Click at 21 min to go to the actual start of the voice tutorial. And there were current LS watchers, so I respond to them a bit. :'D;;; Sorry, excuse my poor voice. OTL.

WORDS OF ADVICE

You don't have to listen if you don't want to. \(@ ̄∇ ̄@)/

Advice #1: Stop copying Gosho or any well-known mangaka out there.

I know, I know, this is a Detective Conan fanbase, and we all love Gosho to bits. I love him and I love his style so very much. But if you ever want to improve, you've got to stop copying him and go copy other artists. You've got to stop copying screenshots and whatever; get influenced by other artists. This is a failproof way of improving your style and ultimately your art: if you copy other people's style until you develop your own distinct one.

Many new artists are under the false impression that they've gotta work at it themselves to get a style. You can't just get a new style, you have to develop one. And developing one is like creating a collage. You've got to go to different artists and learn their style, and go to another one, learn something new to modify what you already know. Piece by piece, you'll come to terms with your own style and you'll be happy. I wasted 6 years trying to find my own style, and once I understood that you really need to copy, I improved in the remaining 2 years.

Find idols on deviantart and become influenced by their art. Go to pixiv and get some pixiv artist idols. It'll help, trust me.

Oh yes to an artistic eye, fanart in your own style is always the best. Just copying Gosho's style doesn't make the art any more special, it's just a direct copy cat of the style he owns. ( ̄▼ ̄|||)

Advice #2: Draw everyday and don't give up.

Be it a scribble or a full blown picture, draw every single day. Kick yourself to do it, even if you don't want to. There's no such thing as an artist block. Artist block is when you feel like crap about drawing and tell yourself, "My mood isn't good today, I can't draw anything," and you actually listen to yourself.

Everyone is subjected to this attitude every once in a while. In actuality, every day I struggle with the problem of being unable to draw, because I see other great artists out there who draw better. And it's okay to feel that way. The problem comes when you stop drawing and believe that your art ain't worth it.

If you persevere and draw, you will become better. Everyone is an artist and can be an artist. The huge challenge is how to stay as one. And I tell you to draw everyday, do something new everyday. Experiment every day. Find something that inspires you every day. And you'll see improvement.

But really, you'll still feel like crap. Just get over that feeling, kick yourself to draw, just do it. You'll get somewhere-- very slowly, but surely. (*´ω`*)

Advice #3: When to get a tablet.

So tablet. Tablet sounds very alluring, very special. It's what all those great artists out there use to draw digitally. It costs a lot of money, heck I had to fork up my own $200 bucks to get my Bamboo tablet. But when should you get it?

My advice for a beginner artist is to keep to paper until you are absolutely sure that you can make the tablet worth it. (Tablets are quite pricey, usually from 170’s-200 USD, if you’re looking for the cheap ones.) From personal experience, I got my first tablet (3x5 inches) when I was twelve and unfortunately it was money wasted because I became frustrated of the tiny space it allowed me. I didn’t use it as often as I used a sketchbook. The only thing I used the tablet for was to color the drawings I scanned in, but you could always color with a mouse and basic knowledge of photoshop. Even then I wasn’t able to fully master drawing on the computer.

My advice would be to sketch and practice on paper first and then if you’re feeling a bit more ambitious and confident that you're going to go somewhere with your artistic hobby, get that tablet.

I'll update this later if anyone has questions, haha.;;; Again, I'm no pro, but I've meandered in the art area for quite some time so I know. ( ̄▼ ̄|||)

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Wow, Kyyo-san, this is really good! It's extremely informative, but not at all hard to follow-- and your advice is spectacular! Now...if only I could draw... xD

However, I wish I could give you more than one rep--this is awesome! I love how in detail you go--right down to the color palette.

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Wow, Kyyo-san, this is really good! It's extremely informative, but not at all hard to follow-- and your advice is spectacular! Now...if only I could draw... xD

However, I wish I could give you more than one rep--this is awesome! I love how in detail you go--right down to the color palette.

Ah, thank you very much! \(@ ̄∇ ̄@)/ I'm glad that whatever I wrote was not confusing, haha. <3 Thank you very much for the positive feedback! *3*b

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Awesome tutorials \o/ I'll have to remember to check out those sites you mentioned for the clothing refs and also the color pallet.

And I love your style <3333

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Kyunyo! :D I wasn't aware you were on DCW... (but seems like you just joined, so I guess that's reasonable. XD) I watch you on dA, BTW. :3 That clothing website looks great... Better than my made-up outfits any day. :x

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Awesome tutorials \o/ I'll have to remember to check out those sites you mentioned for the clothing refs and also the color pallet.And I love your style <3333

Glad you enjoyed them! 8'D And yes, you should totally check that website out. However, in my case, I rarely use that site for women's clothing since I buy a lot of second-hand Japanese fashion magazines, haha;; But yeh. C:

Kyunyo! :D I wasn't aware you were on DCW... (but seems like you just joined, so I guess that's reasonable. XD) I watch you on dA, BTW. :3 That clothing website looks great... Better than my made-up outfits any day. :x

XD Haha, I didn't intend to join but I guess enough people mentioned it to me in the first place so I decided to. C:

This is like, awesome. I've always wondered how the sketches get all cleaned up.thanksthanksthanksthanksthanksthanksthanks! :D

Haha, of course it is only one way that I do it. there are other ways simpler than that (you could always just use levels and that's fine.) Glad I could help! <3

This is very nice and interesting to read... ^_^Thanks... ^_^

Woowww...this is amazing!! <3 Thanks for posting! It'll help me quite a bit~!! b^.^d

Dang, Senpai! You're a genius for compressing all of this together!

Thank you everyone for the kind comments! <33

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Yesstyle.com is particularly good because it is a collection of Asian Fashion brands. The clothes can range from casual to 'so-fashionable-that-it-looks-like-only-kpop-idols-would-wear-that.'

Woowww...this is amazing!! <3 Thanks for posting! It'll help me quite a bit~!! b^.^d

Koko-chan, this could help with MB's wardrobe, eh?

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UPDATE! I did a voice-tutorial on how to color in SAI. C:

Click at 21 min to go to the actual start of the voice tutorial. And there were current LS watchers, so I respond to them a bit. :'D;;; Sorry, excuse my poor explanations, aha.;;;

Tutorial #3: Voice tutorial on Livestream; How to color in SAI.

- reviews how to use the magic wand

- reviews expand 1 px

- explains flat coloring; soft coloring; hard coloring

Will probably do another voice-tutorial on other things later on.

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UPDATE! I did a voice-tutorial on how to color in SAI. C:

Click at 21 min to go to the actual start of the voice tutorial. And there were current LS watchers, so I respond to them a bit. :'D;;; Sorry, excuse my poor explanations, aha.;;;

Tutorial #3: Voice tutorial on Livestream; How to color in SAI.

- reviews how to use the magic wand

- reviews expand 1 px

- explains flat coloring; soft coloring; hard coloring

Will probably do another voice-tutorial on other things later on.

Could you throw me a line when you do? I'd like to see how you draw.

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Could you throw me a line when you do? I'd like to see how you draw.

Of course! I usually announce them on my tumblr, so the best place to kept up to date about my LS's are there. C': In fact I may do one soon tonight, so keep watch! <33

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rolleyes.gifrolleyes.gifrolleyes.gifrolleyes.gifrolleyes.gif

Don't roll your eyes at me while smiling~! :P

You DO worry about their clothes~

Of course! I usually announce them on my tumblr, so the best place to kept up to date about my LS's are there. C': In fact I may do one soon tonight, so keep watch! <33

Uhh...could I get a link to your tumblr?

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^ Yup, of course~ (Though it is linked in my signature, but I guess people can overlook the tiny text haha.;;)

It is: http://kyunyo.tumblr.com/

C': Please be warned that I may post some BL drawings, etc there, but the more extreme ones, I do put them underneath a Read more option, haha.;; n3n;;;;;;;

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*Update!

Cheat #3: weheartit.com; another place to browse for fashion, food, and concepts.

Although a lot of artists and photographers dislike this website mainly because it takes images from their website and posts it up, it doesn't stop a fellow artist from browsing and feel inspired by all these pictures. You could combine concept and ideas, take colors from a different picture, to help you compose your own works! :D

They browse by tags but you will find a lot of high quality pictures there. The things I find myself attracted to the most are vintage colored photographs, so whenever I want a drawing to have vintage colors, I borrow them from here.

Well that's all I have for now, just posting basic art inspiration areas~ :'D I'l come back later when I find anywhere else useful~

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I just want to point out that using reference material is NOT "cheating." Anyone worth their salt has used a model or reference material.

THAT SAID, I want to also say that redrawing someone's photograph actually becomes a copyright violation. The best way to keep from running into this problem is by taking your own photos to use as reference material.

The best way to get awesome poses for practice is to take a movie and pause it randomly. Using Kung Fu movies are a fantastic way to learn gesture drawing, but make sure you only work for maybe 30 seconds! You don't want to work too much on one little practice.

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Awesome tutorial by an awesome artist \o/ +1

Every time I saw some new piece of you on dA I thought: "Ohhh! Great colors! Ohhh! And those cloths!" And then I felt like I don't have any fashion sense at all x:

I also never found a good site for cloth references :o So this is really great \o/

I also should kick my own butt more often to finally draw more myself oTL

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