Ursulav spilled the beans~!

[Munerift]

...and she did a wonderful, funny tutorial on her art style, as seen here:

http://www.deviantart.com/view/33116403/


I know I'll certainly be trying this!

[Xepher]

Impressive. Ursula Vernon is one of my (if not "the") favorite artist. Though I'm not an artist myself, I still find it fascinating to see how people like her do what they do. Always leaves me in awe. I just wish someone would do a tutorial for "how to take what's in your head, and have it look at all the same on paper." That's what I need. :-)

[dragyn]

"Take a pencil, pen, marker, or blob of random colored gloop, close your eyes, and apply to a sheet of paper.  

If this fails, try something else"

[SilentFyre]

Xepher I want one of those tutorials too.

I have people asking me occasionally how I do stuff. I just shrug and say I don't know. Generally its prettymuch just me going with something, randomly refining areas and fixing it up over and over again until it feels right. Most of my images go through at least 4 different styles before Im happy.

Then they want to know how I draw stuff. I tell them, draw as long as I have, and you start to get the feel of things. Even still, Im not that great myself. I dont think art is something that can be taught really. You can share tips, but copying anothers style exactly is near impossible (and shouldnt be done in my opinion.) Art is something you see and slowly refine into your own style over a period of time. Sure you can learn proportions, but thats not everything.

[Xepher]

I agree, art takes lots of practice, but my problem is the fundamental one... I can perfectly visualize what I want something to look like, give me a 3d modeling program, and I can model it exactly, but when it comes to drawing it, I can't. I can't flatten the 3d shapes in my head onto a piece of paper. If I try and draw a person, I can barely get the face to even resemble human. The only reason I don't end up with both ears showing in a side profile is that I KNOW you can't see both from one side. But beyond that very obvious sort of "mistake" I can't correct anything. I just don't have a sense of how a "flat" picture looks, because in my head, I have the entire idea of the object there at the same time. I know people have two ears, and so they both want to be on the paper. I know both eyebrows are symetrical in reality, so I can't figure out how to draw them differently like I should for perspective.

[LeSage]

Lol, man I hate having dial-up. Gonna be awhile before the tut completely loads and I get to see it. *pouts* But hey, drawing stuff isn't that complicated, and I do agree that it does take certian amount of trial and error not to mention years of disciplined work. (Oh man, how corny does that sound? Like some martial arts guru...lol) Yet even so, just think of doing it like you do in your 3D modeler, except with pen and paper. Everything starts with a basic foundation, like a skeleton for character modeling or a stick figure in drawing, and then you just build on from there. But the most important thing to remember is that you don't have to "flatten" your 3D ideas onto paper, rather transform your paper version to the one in your mind. That's where shadow and lighting come into play, gives 2D images depth and a false 3D-ness, though definately not like your 3D modeler would. The only problem is that it does get a bit time consuming, yet with techonology and whatnot, it's a whole lot faster than it was. Sketch, ink, scan, photoshop and your good to go. Yet, some can skip the scan stuff since you can use a tablet to sketch on the computer. Oh, man, I'm rambling again. Sorries. Hope I made some sense, lol.

Hehe, finally saw the tut. Though I'm not much of a painter, I do find the tut very useful and not to mention easy to follow. Ursulav did a great job making it.

[Cassiopeia]

Ok I'm really late on this post. Er... I know I only draw Japanese manga style, and I'm not as expierenced as some of you, but the way I get my images in my head on a piece of paper is that I change my idea. Art should come naturally, and if it's not perfect, well then try to make that imperfectness into something eles. Maybe that tank top shirt your trying to design looks better as a tube top? You shouldn't try to just stick to that exact image all the time, that's really difficult in my opinion. But some people are able to do that, and I say bravo to you. Plus, I know everyone thinks it's copyrigt, but if you trace others pictures and don't post them as your own with out giving credit, you get way better as an artist because you learn how to form and draw the shapes that you want. Just my suggestions, hope they may help a little for those who are trying to learn how to do art more to their liking. ^_^;;;

[LeSage]

I don't see anything wrong with that, in fact that's how I started learning about drawing. I basically traced everything I could then I took off the training wheels and started eyeballing stuff. And so on and so forth. ^_^