Leo's Tips and Art Resources

Leo's Big List Of Art Resources and Art Tips
yes, a new list

Hello, my fellow spritans.
As I know, not many of you draw, but I know some of you are drawing/painting or want to do it soon. This is the topic that is going to list almost everything art-related. I'm a weird person that spends most of the time on the web trying to find useful resources. I'm going to share all of the stuff I have carefully discovered in the deep parts of the webz. Nothing too hard to find, but eh whatever. I like to help you lazy people out there.

With that being said, enjoy.


RED means the link is broken.
BLUE means that it's online.

Blogs and other sites

Spoiler:

John K. Stuff - want to know more about cartoons? Want to learn how to draw cartoons the way they're supposed to be? Well, this blog is everything you need (not everything, but a big chunk of stuff is available here). Take his personal opinions with a grain of salt, though.
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com
Or John K.'s tutorial blog.
http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.com

Drawing Tutorials Online Blog
http://www.drawing-tutorials-online-blog.com/

Escape From Illustration Island
http://escapefromillustrationisland.com/

Bob Camp's blog - Full of useful stuff aswell. In the link, one of his posts about drawing.
http://bobcampcartoonist.blogspot.com/2007/10/blog-post.html

Learning to see - This link leads to a post talking about Loomis's method to draw a head, but there's other stuff in the blog as well.
http://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/head-construction

Stanislav Prokopenko's blog - Tutorials, man. TUTORIALS.
http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/category/tutorials

Tom Richmond's MAD Blog - A cartoonist for the mad magazine, has tutorials on caricatures
http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/category/tutorials/

Comicrazys - Not only they have tons of comic scans, but they also have the Famous Artists Cartoon Course. A must-have if you're into cartoons.
http://comicrazys.com/category/famous-artists-cartoon-course/

Pete Emslie - Besides being an inspiration with his cartoony and appealing work, there's some notes he has on his blog.
http://cartooncave.blogspot.com/search/label/tutorial

Rad how to - Rad Sechrist's notes about drawing. His stuff is a bit too Disney-oriented (well, at least his cartoon stuff) so take it with a grain of salt if you're not into Disney that much.
http://radhowto.blogspot.com

Comic Tools - Tutorials and Interviews. For me, the most useful posts were the ones about anatomy. Check these in the sidebar.
http://comictool.blogspot.com

Michael Hampton's site - Full of images concerning his methods on drawing the human figure
http://figuredrawing.info/index.php

Austin Kleon - In the link, a post about some stuff that he learned out of art school
http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me

Drawn - Blog focused on Illustration, animation, cartooning and comic art.
http://blog.drawn.ca
And the archives with older content
http://drawn.ca/archive

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels - Blog that has tons of notes, tutorials and other useful stuff about storyboards, animation, film making and drawing.
http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/

Bob Flynn - Here, besides seeing his drawings (great stuff btw), there's a few notes and other stuff. And he draws his stuff in....FLASH! *GASP*
http://bobjinx.blogspot.com

Design Lessons - A blog I found a while ago that has some stuff on design and anatomy.
http://designlesson.blogspot.com

Analytical Figure Drawing - blog with notes about figure drawing
http://analyticalfiguresp08.blogspot.com/

Paintovers by Greg Pro - Some paintovers he did for the critique section at ConceptArt.org
http://www.gregpro-artist.com/?page_id=6

scrabble down the hallways yelling yahtzee - Art tumblr. Isn't a collection though, and in the link there's some stuff concerning the basics of gesture drawing.
http://hospitalvespers.tumblr.com/post/8712840616/gesture-drawing-basics

Threads and other texts

Spoiler:

Mentler's Book of Bones thread on Conceptart.org - I learned so much just by looking at his drawings, let alone the text
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26748

What is exactly a gesture drawing?
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=52023

Wetcanvas tutorials - there's many more if you look around
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=cfc9ae048172ff5f85f489daaaeb0fd0&f=439

Hundreds of free E-books
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=131116

Ron Lemen's Tutorials on Conceptart.org
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14119
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17837
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=84105

Using photo reference correctly
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=123346

Yoitisi Island - The basics
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=146

Journey of an Absolute Rookie - You can see from start to finish the progress of a dude that wasn't drawing too well at the start but got so much better. Big inspiration to all of us.
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870

Dpaint's Drawing from Life Survival Guide
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=178075

A Few Thoughts On Art And Creation
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1159848

A concise guide on how to get better at art
http://rhineville.deviantart.com/journal/A-concise-guide-on-how-to-get-better-at-art-214181861

How to draw v1.3
http://spoonbard.deviantart.com/art/How-To-Draw-v1-3-40590655

Tutorials

Spoiler:

Bittersweetdisease's tutorials and other useful stuff
http://bittersweetdisease.deviantart.com/gallery/4251501

Sherm Cohen's notes he wrote for the storyboard artists working in Spongebob
http://shermcohen.deviantart.com/gallery/23661671

Arty Factory
http://www.artyfactory.com/index.html

Old (but good) tutorials made by Ron Lemen
http://www.anticz.com/learn.htm

itchy animation tutorials
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials.html

Creative Spotlite tutorials
http://www.creativespotlite.com

The Dimensions of Colour - Color theory
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/index.php

Cedarseed Tutorials - The drawings are pretty average IMO, but there's useful info in them
http://cedarseed.com/fire/tutorials.html

Alexds1's tutorials
http://alexds1.deviantart.com/gallery/1604172

TL;DR - It's aimed at furry art (eeeeeeeeeeeew D: ), but good nonetheless.
http://hippie.nu/~unicorn/tut/xhtml

Larry's Toon Institute - Basic cartoon stuff.
http://tooninstitute.awn.com/lesson_anim.html

Freshdesigner.com tutorials
http://www.freshdesigner.com/category/tutorials

Khulsey.com Illustration Tutorials - Mostly about technical illustration
http://www.khulsey.com/illustration-tutorials.html

PSG Art Tutorial - A quick tutorial covering quite some stuff
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

Toerning's dA gallery - A few tutorials are scattered around this gallery.
http://toerning.deviantart.com/gallery

Portrait-Artist.org - Tutorials about portrait drawing
http://www.portrait-artist.org

Thumb war - It's a site where Paul posts his art 'n such, but there's this page where he tells you about the importance of thumbnails and other art basics.
http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm

Collections, lists, libraries, whatever you want to call those

Spoiler:

Reference Library on dA
http://reference-library.deviantart.com

Art Resource Collection on Tumblr
http://artresourcecollection.tumblr.com

Fuck Yeah Art Tips on Tumblr
http://fyeaharttips.tumblr.com

Resources, References and Tutorials on Tumblr
http://art-resources.tumblr.com

Artistic Anatomy on Tumblr - anatomy stuff, may be NSFW so caution
http://learninganatomy.tumblr.com

Walkthrough-Rookie on dA
http://walkthrough-rookie.deviantart.com/gallery/

Plates (mostly anatomical plates), and references

Spoiler:

Artist anatomy.com
http://artistanatomy.com/index.html

Reference! Reference!
http://www.referencereference.com

3D.sk - NSFW, references.
http://www.3d.sk

Photos of sculptures
http://philippefaraut.com/figure.html

[color=blue]101 - 101 photos of men (and women) at different ages from 1 to 101.
http://www.onehundredone.dk

Videos

Spoiler:

Sycra
https://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

ctrl+Paint - Digital Painting stuff.
http://www.ctrlpaint.com

iDRAWGiRLS - Tons upon tons of tutorials made by Xia Taptara. Try to grasp the principles that are present on his tutorials, they aren't just showing him drawing.
http://idrawgirls.com

10 min. Drawing Techniques - Series of tutorials made by Mark Chong. Can't believe I didn't find this earlier.
http://tenminutedrawing.blogspot.com
Or his Youtube channel
www.youtube.com/moatddtutorials

Sheldon's Art Academy
https://www.youtube.com/user/sheldonsartacademy

Sinix
https://www.youtube.com/user/sinixdesign

Skip to the love
https://www.youtube.com/user/skiptothelove

Vilppu Store YT channel
https://www.youtube.com/user/vilppustore

Feng Zhu's tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL

How to digital paint
http://www.howtodigitalpaint.com/

ipaintgirls
http://ipaintgirls.com

Tools

Spoiler:

Posemaniacs - The anatomy sucks, so use it with caution. It's best to learn anatomy first then using this. That way you can tell if something is bulls--t or not.
www.posemaniacs.com

Pixelovely's Gesture Drawing tool - NSFW, gesture drawing tool.
http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php

Color Scheme Designer
http://colorschemedesigner.com

CrashDummyNL's Flash toys - With his two perspective toys being the most useful
http://crashdummynl.deviantart.com/gallery/28219631

Gesture drawing tool - similar to Pixelovely. NSFW (but who cares ;D )
http://lovecastle.org/draw/

Seventh Sanctum - Tons of generators for everything
http://www.seventhsanctum.com

Art Communities

Spoiler:

Conceptart.org - The most serious art community out there. If you want to seriously improve in your art, this is the perfect place that will help you to do this.
http://conceptart.org

DeviantArt - While it's the biggest art community, it won't help you so much. Seriously. It's filled with anime, even on places that there shouldn't have that. So yeah.
http://www.deviantart.com

SheezyArt - DeviantArt 2.
http://www.sheezyart.com

Shiflett Brothers - Community focused on sculpting
http://www.shiflettbrothers.com

CG Hub
http://cghub.com

Pixiv (don't bother with this if you dislike ANIMU ALL OVER THE SCREEN)
http://www.pixiv.net

We Cook Art
http://wecookart.com/forum/portal.php

Animation Forum
http://www.animationforum.net/forum

AniPages
http://www.pelleas.net/forum/index.php

11 Second Club - Monthly animation contests
http://www.11secondclub.com

----

Suggest resources if you can.
However, if you're going to suggest books, for example. Don't give download links. Just try to find a link where one can buy it. Why? That way we won't get involved with illegal stuff. So yeah.

I'm going to add software and book recommendations when I feel like it.

Check regularly, I might add new stuff.

This is something I made last night, spent about three hours and forty minutes on it.

Please, tell me what to improve on. I'm pretty confident with this drawing, so I don't really think you'll have to say much. I spent hours working on the anatomy, so don't even bother with that.

you have got to be kidding me.........THE BG IS WHITE? WHAT THE HELL!

Patt try harder really

His ability is to blend in with the background. Right now he's in Heaven, that's why everything is white. That's why he is outlined in black.

OH! very beatiful my dear......member

tal you're a dumbass.

obviously he was joking.

a picture this fantastic must have taken him five hours.

Or 9 seconds.

I won't say anything because you know it's incredible. Great job.

man please....something that godly can only be drawn in 0.00010 seconds

If only I had questions to ask you.

Oh yes that would be amazing.

It can be other stuff related to drawing as well, such as an anatomy problem or even whatever problem you're having.
But not many people here actually draw so yeh

Me and you draw. I think thats about it actually. Well, there was that tmav guy, and the other one... the one that drew the spoon that looked like a bullet. But besides that, were about it. OH and that supermario guy (don't remember the name)

@SXR123 wrote:tal you're a dumbass.

obviously he was joking.

a picture this fantastic must have taken him five hours.

you seriously thought i was serious?

anyway i'll be glad to learn how to draw stuff.....i just suck at drawings in flash....drawing on a paper it's easier

@Knux wrote:Me and you draw. I think thats about it actually. Well, there was that tmav guy, and the other one... the one that drew the spoon that looked like a bullet. But besides that, were about it. OH and that supermario guy (don't remember the name)

Oh yeah Tmav, that dude is cool.
The other one was Morugo, we didn't get to know if he was male or female.
There's also RoundPinkKirby (here he was AuronTheHedgehog), that dude is amazing as well.
Let's not forget D3, but he never draws so eh.

There's actually some people who draw, but we're pretty much the only ones remaining.

EDIT : Well since no one draws anything or ask me something, I'll just post a tip.

Tip #1 : Solid Drawing

Do you know what's Solid Drawing? No?
And flat drawings? Nope?

Well, the more intelligent guys are gonna obviously see that Solid Drawing means that the drawing is three-dimensional. That it looks like an solid object (or mass).
Solid Drawing is one of the most fundamental aspects of drawing and it seems to have completely gone out of fashion. Because most of the times I see flat drawings. And these do not seem to follow the complex theories and concepts of the real flat art done by the guys who did some great comic books and a few of the guys at UPA.


This is great, solid drawing.

This isn't.
Now don't get me wrong, there are some people who can pull off some great flat art, but since it's more complicated than it seems, let's just stick to good and solid cartoony art.


You probably got it.
But how do I do it?, you're probably asking me.

It all starts with construction.

This is an image from the Preston Blair book. Not the Cartoon Animation one, that's a mess.
I mean the real deal.
this


You can get your scans here.
Part one
Part two
It's on Archive because for some reason I cannot see the pages correctly.

This book has all the info you need. And this blog has EVERYTHING you could ever need.

If you have any problems with this, please ask.
I might have other good tips later but now I'm kinda tired.

So I took an attempt at this Solid Art thing. This work of art took me about 2 hours, spent a lot of time working on the circles, to make them perfection.

damn patt, that's a master piece. best damn drawing I've ever seen.

The pink shirt symbolizes the love in which he is missing from his life. The woman he loved hadn't loved him back due to his abnormally large chin.

That's a shirt? Looks like a onesie or whatever babies wear

Then it's that.

Couldn't have done any better myself patt. YOU ARE A MASTER.

Woah Patt you're amazing me again. You sure got the principles right dude.

Anyone else doing what I said or it's just the great Patt?

I haven't started drawn animation yet, but I'll be getting there soon.

Get better in drawing as well.

You should always draw if you want to go and make hand drawn animation.

yeah I know, I'm gonna learn to draw soon, as soon as I'm finished with the movie and some other sprite projects.

So here's another one that I made like two years ago. It took me like 3 seconds, didn't really try too much on it.

I call it, MAGIC JESTERMAN.

This is pretty bad compared to your other masterpieces you posted up there.

You win points for the effort but it's bad.