Questions From the Crowd
Hey my lovelies!!
I'M SO EXCITED OMG WE GOT QUESTIONS!!! You don't know how excited I am guys i'm so happy I nearly cried (actually I did cry but we don't have to get into the details). Everyone please keep sending questions! Thank you to the people who have sent me questions! LOVE YOU GUYS ~♡
Question one: “Hi Suki! I really love your cartoon-y style! Speaking of style, how do you find your own style? I’d appreciate all the help I can get! Thanks!”
Ok this is my favorite question and it made me reflect so much. If you were to see my sketchbooks from the past (or any scrap of paper with doodles), you could see a major difference in my style. The definition of “art style” for me means the style you're most comfortable with and one you feel illustrates the thoughts inside your head. For me, I didn't have many friends in elementary school, so I would watch cartoons all the time and draw. I watched every cartoon I could, but I learned the most from other people rather than copying something that was on my tv screen. (Yes, I went through an anime phase, but we don't talk about that dark time.) My favorite people to learn from were Craig McCracken, Lauren Faust, John Callahan, and most importantly John Lasseter. I found myself hooked on what they were creating and what their personal stories were. Now, I'm going through an experimental phase--I’m open-minded about new styles I can try and I'm not afraid to do anything new. I want to go to college for animation and illustration (traditional frame animation is my prefered choice). In the future, I want to either work for Pixar or Cartoon Network doing storyboards or character concepts. A suggestion is to draw at least 1-2 pages in a sketchbook every day. Even if it's just doodles, this will work out your art joints and help you improve. Also take criticism to help you improve--only the constructive criticism though. If I showed you my sketchbook now, you could see improvement, trust!
Question two: “What are your tips for making hands because I can't draw someone waving without it looking like a bunch of sticks :)”
OH MAN THIS QUESTION! I know exactly how you feel, holy snickers! I went through a stuff-characters-hands-in-pockets-so-I-don't-have-to-draw-hands-phase for this very reason! It took me 13 years to actually be able to draw a hand and I still struggle to this day. To be honest, hands are so awkward, they're really hard to draw too. My advice would be to look at your own hand and don't be afraid to just use pages and pages and pages in your sketchbook for just hand practice. Trust me, I did it once when I was going through my experimental phase (still going through the phase, but it’s mostly the character dev. phase now). Using simple drawings of stick hands can be useful. Just use the sticks as a base and draw around the sticks to make a hand.
Question Three: “Hi Suki! I really love art but I’m not very good at drawing on my own. Is it okay to use reference pictures as long as you're not taking credit?”
Of course it’s ok! I’m going through my experimental phase and I look at pictures of people all the time, especially ballerinas because they're awesome to get practice out of. If you ARE secretly taking credit for that picture then shammmeeee! *finger point of shame* but you said you weren't so I take back that finger shame :) Also, you're not bad at art, you are still growing! Keep drawing!
Question 4: “How do you draw someone leaping over something? Not jumping, but like legs spread horizontally over something leaping?”
A hard one! I did draw one of my characters in a split, but if you're talking about a frontal view, then I haven't actually tried that before--I really should! My advice is to draw the upper half of the body first and when you get to the legs draw lines of where you want the legs to go and then draw the legs around the line (that's how I draw my legs tbh). Keep trying over and over again, and if you don't get it the first time just keep on rollin!! Also don't be afraid to use reference pictures--we all need a little reference in our lives! Use real people--just look up person jumping in google images and use one of those stock images avaliable for a reference because you don't wanna be accused of “STEAALLINNNNGG!!!1111”.
Thanks for the questions everyone! Keep them coming!
~♡Suki♡~
P.S. I finally made my own deviant art! If you wanna check out more of my art go ahead and go to: inkingmind.deviantart.com !!
P.P.S P.S: ♡ REMEMBER: email me your questions atartadvicesuki@gmail.com or http://sacslitmag.wixsite.com/fitb/comments-idea-submissions
Character shown: Seffer