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Art tips for the new year!
3 years ago
With the new year starting I will as always, be pushing myself to improve my art in both quality and quantity. With this drive, I thought I would share some tips and lessons I've learned over the years. Some through a painfully slow process... I strongly encourage you to add your own in the comments!
So here they are in no particular order;
The eraser is an art tool, not for mistakes. Ctrl+Z is for mistakes. The eraser is amazing at shaving down and reshaping lines.
Save... save frequently, save alternate versions, save copies at important steps. This saves you so much pain and lets you experiment without loosing anything if you don't like it.
When in doubt, add some color to your inks. When struggling to figure my inks out I will often add a quick flats layer under them to give them weight. This helps so much figuring things out.
Digital art is stupid easy to edit. Don't kill yourself picking out colors or working on sizes or anything. Step back, look at it, if it's not what you want edit it. We have the option of looking at the whole picture and changing things later.
Layers are your closest friend... and secret enemy. Separating things into layers helps so much, but too many layers just makes it confusing to work on.
Keep your layers organized, groups are good.
Work on a new layer, flatten it down when you are happy with it. This lets you go crazy without worrying about messing up what you have already done.
Share your work good or bad. I'm terrible at this one.... it feels good to share and people can't give you input if they can't see it... I have so many half finished sketches and art pieces that have never seen the light of day.
Use references. That's plural. Don't pic a single image to reference, have a few to look at, it will keep your from just copying what you see. Reference good, copy bad.
Comment on other peoples work. Again... I'm terrible at this. Input is amazing, we all want it, but nobody does it. Try to give good comments. What do you like or not like about something? Good and bad input are both valuable as long as they are constructive.
Your comfort zone is a trap. Avoid it at all costs. Push to try new and different things. Sticking to what you are familiar with can make your art grow very stale.
These are mostly here for me to reference myself but I do hope these help someone else too. I'm looking forward to a fresh year for art and creative projects!
So here they are in no particular order;
The eraser is an art tool, not for mistakes. Ctrl+Z is for mistakes. The eraser is amazing at shaving down and reshaping lines.
Save... save frequently, save alternate versions, save copies at important steps. This saves you so much pain and lets you experiment without loosing anything if you don't like it.
When in doubt, add some color to your inks. When struggling to figure my inks out I will often add a quick flats layer under them to give them weight. This helps so much figuring things out.
Digital art is stupid easy to edit. Don't kill yourself picking out colors or working on sizes or anything. Step back, look at it, if it's not what you want edit it. We have the option of looking at the whole picture and changing things later.
Layers are your closest friend... and secret enemy. Separating things into layers helps so much, but too many layers just makes it confusing to work on.
Keep your layers organized, groups are good.
Work on a new layer, flatten it down when you are happy with it. This lets you go crazy without worrying about messing up what you have already done.
Share your work good or bad. I'm terrible at this one.... it feels good to share and people can't give you input if they can't see it... I have so many half finished sketches and art pieces that have never seen the light of day.
Use references. That's plural. Don't pic a single image to reference, have a few to look at, it will keep your from just copying what you see. Reference good, copy bad.
Comment on other peoples work. Again... I'm terrible at this. Input is amazing, we all want it, but nobody does it. Try to give good comments. What do you like or not like about something? Good and bad input are both valuable as long as they are constructive.
Your comfort zone is a trap. Avoid it at all costs. Push to try new and different things. Sticking to what you are familiar with can make your art grow very stale.
These are mostly here for me to reference myself but I do hope these help someone else too. I'm looking forward to a fresh year for art and creative projects!
I would really like to see your half finished sketches sometime. I love sketches and W.I.P art a lot! (I’m not the person to give feedback though, sadly. So I would be unable to help with that.)