The other day I came across this awesome program by accident
(I don’t even remember what I was actually searching for, but on the several
times I’ve looked for a program like this I’ve had no luck). It’s cool enough that I wanted to share it.
It’s called DesignDoll (website here) and it’s a program that lets you shape and pose a human figure pretty much however you want.
There’s a trial version with no expiration date that can be
downloaded for free, as well as the “pro license” version priced at $79.
I’ve only had the free version for two days so far, so I’m not an expert and I
haven’t figured out all of the features yet, but I’ve got the basics down. The
website’s tutorials are actually pretty helpful for the basics, as well.
Here’s the page for download, which has a list of the
features available in both versions.
There are three features the free version doesn’t have:
Can’t save OBJ files for export
Can’t download models and poses from Doll
Atelier (a sharing site for users; note that the site is in Japanese, though)
It can’t load saved files
The third one means that if you make a pose, save it, and
close the program, you can’t load that
pose/modified model later. You have to start with the default model. I
found that out when I tried to load a file from the day before (this is why
reading is important…). Whether saving your modifications (and downloading models and poses) is worth $80 is up to you.
But, the default
model is pretty nice and honestly if all you’re looking for is a basic pose reference
it should work fairly well as it is. Here’s what it looks like:
There’s a pose tag
that lets you drag each joint into place and rotate body parts. The torso and
waist can be twisted separately, and it seems like everything pretty much
follows the range of movement it would have on an actual human.
Even the entire shoulder area is actually movable along with the joint! See, like how the scapular area of the back raises with the arm:
The morphing tag
is one of the coolest features, in my opinion. It lets you pick and choose from
a library of pre-set forms for the head, chest, arms, legs, etc. It has some more realistic body shapes in addition to more anime-like ones. Don’t like the
options there? Mix a few to get what you want! Each option has a slider that
lets you blend as much or as little as you want into the design.
So you, too, can create beautiful things like kawaii
Muscle-chan!!
The scale tag
lets you mess with the proportions and connection points of different joints. This
feature combined with the morphing feature not only allows more body shape
variations, but it also means that you can do things like make a more digitigrade
model if you want. (The feet only have an ankle joint, but for regular human poses that’s all that you really need, so whatever.)
Or you can make a weird chubby alien-like thing with giant
hands and balloon tiddies if that’s more your thing.
The ability to pose
hands to the extent it allows is far more than I could have hoped for from
a free program. Seriously, you can change the position of each finger joint individually, as well as how spread out the fingers are from each other. Each crease on the diagram below is a point of movement, and the circles are for spread between fingers.
And to make it a bit more convenient, there’s a library of pre-set hand poses you can pick from as well, and then change the pose from that if you like.
In both versions, you can also import OBJ files from other places for the model to hold, like if you wanted to have them hold a sword or something.
Basically, this program is awesome and free and you should
totally check it out if you want a good program for creating pose references.
I just wanted to add a little more to this. If you have trouble figuring out how light sources work in your drawings this also allows you to choose where to have a light source.
That shaded ball on the left is your light source. You can see how moving the point changed the shadow cast.
Oh and all those other nifty looking things in that bottom bar there, yeah it’s what you think. You can change the model color to one of these presets or even customize your own palette.
Plus for all you lovely people who want something a little more simplified to use as a pose reference
You can turn your model into the classic wire frame.
Why reblog this? Because for more visual creators, this will be like the lumberjack discovering chainsaws. “Reblog to save lives” as the saying goes.
I jotted down for a friend of mine some tips and notes on how I approach drawing hair, and things I keep in mind while doing so, and thought I’d share. There are loads of other ways to do it, and the learning never stops, so I hope this helps!
*STANDARD DISCLAIMER* I’m not handing down life lessons or trying to assert that there’s a ‘correct way’ to draw. I’m just trying to make perspective more approachable for thems that want to tackle it.
Okay. Let’s do this.
1. Understand what perspective is and what it’s for. Stay away from rulers while you get comfortable.
Everyone struggles with perspective because 1. it’s not well or widely taught and 2. artists tend to see linear perspective as a set of rules rather than a set of tools.
Linear perspective is a TOOL we use to create and depict SPACE. That’s it. That’s all it is. Your goal is not to draw in ‘accurate linear perspective.’ Stay away from the ruler and precision for as long as you can. Your goal is to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface. Perspective is just a tool to help you construct and correct that space.
2. Know in your bones that you can ONLY learn to draw in perspective through physical practice. There is no other way.
Grab some paper and draw with me. If you match me drawing for drawing you will be more fluent in linear perspective and spatial drawing by the end of this post. Unfortunately if you don’t, you won’t be.
3. Sketch around in rough perspective. NO RULERS.
So let’s make some simple space. let’s start with a two dimensional surface…
K. We have a flat, 2D surface. Let’s create some depth by putting a vanishing point in the middle, and having parallel lines converge towards it. Make a gridded plane inside that space.
Good. Let’s make that space meaningful by adding a dude and a road or something. (Again, parallel ‘depth lines’ will converge into the vanishing point along the horizon)
And now we have the rough illusion of some space. I didn’t use any rulers, and it’s not perfectly accurate, but we got our depth from that vanishing point right in the middle of the page. And since we have a little dude in there, we’ve got human scale, which allows us to gauge the size of the space we’ve created. Gives it meaning.
You need people or cars or some recognizable, human-scale THING in there as a frame of reference or your space won’t mean much to your viewer. Watch. We can make that same basic space a whole lot bigger like this:
Same vanishing point in the same place, completely different scale, and a totally different feeling of space. Cool, right?
3. Sketch around in rough perspective MORE. STAY LOOSE.
See what sort of spaces and feelings you can create with vanishing points and gridded planes on a post-it or something. Super small, super rough. Feel it out. Pick a vanishing point or lay out a grid in perspective, and MAKE SOME SPACE. Do it. Draw, I don’t know, a lady and her dog in a desert. I’ll do it, too.
Good job. LOOK AT YOU creating the illusion of space! This is how you’ll thumbnail and plan anything you want to draw in space. All of my drawings start this way. I think about how I want the viewer to feel and then play around with space and composition until I find something that works.
Once you have a sketch you like, and space that you feel, THEN you can take out the ruler and make it more accurate and convincing.
4. Draw environments from life.
I cannot stress this enough. Draw the world around you, try to draw the shapes and angles as you see them, and you will ‘get’ how and why perspective is used. Use something permanent so that you’ll move fast and commit. I usually use black prismacolor pencil.
You’ll learn or reinforce something with every drawing. I learned a lot about multiple vanishing points from this drawing:
Learned from the receding, winding space I tired to draw here:
Layered, interior spaces:
You get the idea.
Life drawing will also help you develop your own shorthand and language for depicting textures, materials, details, natural and architectural features, etc. Do it. Do it all the time. Go to pretty or interesting places just to draw them.
Take a second and just draw a quick sketch of whatever room you’re in.
5. Perspective in formal Illustration: apply what you’ve learned.
1. I always start with research. For this particular location I looked at Angkor Wat.
2. Once I had enough reference, I did a bunch of little thumbnail sketches with a very loose sense of space and picked the one I liked best.
3. Scanned the thumbnail and drew a little more clearly over it. Worked out the rough space before using formal perspective.
4. Reinforced the space with formal perspective. I dropped in pre-made vanishing points over my drawing. If I were drawing in real media here’s where I’d get out the ruler to sketch in some accurate space.
5. Drew the damn thing. Because I do my research, draw from life, and am comfortable drawing in perspective, I can wing it. I just sort of ‘build’ the ruins freehand in the space I’ve established, keeping it more or less accurate, experimenting and playing with details along the way. I erase a lot, too, both in PS and when drawing in pencil. Keeps it fun for me.
And that’s what I know about composition and perspective. If you want more formal instruction on perspective and it’s uses, you can use John Buscema’s How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. Or If you want to get really intense about it, Andrew Loomis can help you.
I get what is being meant here, but these bother me so fucking much.
What I am actually saying when I say “I can’t draw” is I cannot draw at a level that satisfies me and I cannot create the image that I have in my head. This causes me frustration and anguish.
Saying that makes me so freaking upset because it through trying to be encouraging, it dismisses the difficulties I am having with my work.
It’s not just this message, it’s all messages like this. Just so frustrating.
You know the best way in my opinion to help artists who feel they can’t draw? Post work where you fucked up, post older work that wasn’t as good and show us that we can get there from where we are now.
Also, note the revulsion you feel when you look at work that you fucked up and remember that the people who say “I can’t draw” feel that ALL THE TIME. Imagine how you’d feel if someone looked at a piece of art where you outright fucked up the hand and are going ‘nope, need to erase it’. That’s how we feel.
Rant over lol.
I don’t think you get what is meant here.
I’ve been drawing for 30 years, and I’ve been in your place, and I’m still in your place every day. And I’ve met MANY MANY people in your place. People in agony because they can’t create what they want, because no one ever told them it was okay to fail, because they were never allowed to learn and pressured from day one to produce perfection.
I’m there. We’re all there. The dude who wrote this tweet is there.
The frustration is real. I know. Every artist knows. Artists commit suicide over exactly what you’re talking about. That’s how unreasonable the expectation is. And how misunderstood the learning process has become.
But that’s the point. It’s not a joke, but it’s fucking wrong. It shouldn’t be that way.
This tweet isn’t a dismissal. It’s not “you’re a silly fool for being frustrated.”
It’s “We’re all fools for allowing things to be as they are.”
Because every artist knows what it feels like. We all feel this frustration. It doesn’t matter how good other people think you are. Holy shit even Michelangelo thought his own drawings were so bad he tossed thousands of them into a bonfire! We all feel this way—we all hate what we make, often for no other reason than because we made it.
But there’s no level of talent you can reach where you suddenly all of your insecurities are gone. There’s no point beyond which you stop being yourself.
Look at what you’re doing. Look at that line you just drew. It’s right in front of you, and it’s no one else’s and it never will be, and that’s what you measure yourself against. That’s the artist.
So recently I came across a fellow artist who was struggling to find a free art program, and considering dropping the large amount of money for a Photoshop license. I know not everyone can afford such an expensive program, so I’ve compiled a list of programs with no cost to download and use.
Keep in mind all computers are different, so not all will work for everyone. Also, I’ve only ever used Windows, so for the most part, I’m not sure if everything will work for Mac. if in doubt check the website linked.
If you know more free programs, please add onto this!
OpenToonz has made many improvements since it’s initial release! (Windows & Mac)
Medibang Paint is a comic drawing software forked from FireAlpaca mentioned earlier in this post, and is available for mobile devices as well! (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)
reblogging so i remember to download SAI for Mac later
Smile It Won't Suck Forever 