One Of Commissioned OCs, But I Just Fell In Love.Due To Many Symbolic Connotations With Ravens, Drew

so quite a lot of people expressed interest in a guide to lion dance! and since the lunar new year is coming up in a couple weeks, which means everyone’s exposure to lions is probably going to increase, i figured i’d go ahead and make it! right click + open in new tab to fullview, etc etc, i hope it’s helpful, although if you only take one thing away from this powerpoint, it’s this: lions are not dragons

disclaimer: i learned fut san style at an american university, and the senior members of the troupe were almost all from hong kong and taiwan, so most of my knowledge is drawn from what they taught me. lion dance varies widely depending on the style and the country of origin, and many schools do things differently! this is just an attempt to establish a baseline and give you a really basic intro to one of my favorite art forms. :)

Bird Symbolism

So I was looking out my window and saw two birds and the idea of making a list of symbolism associated with types of birds came to mind. My mom always taught me if you see an animal -especially if they are doing something out of the ordinary- you should take it as an omen. So here’s a list of some basic birds, some of the associations are personal but I hope you like it!

Blue Jay-the truth will be revealed, high energy, playfulness, clarity and communication.

Cardinal-hope, joy, good health, some associate them with angels or deceased love ones, passion and warmth.

Crow-often associated with magic and witches, transformation, power, intelligence and mystery. 

Duck-friendships, new friends, happiness, good fortune and protect against negative energies “water off a ducks back” :)

Dove-peace, harmony, joy, love, might be telling you to break away from a toxic situation, think positive, often associated with Aphrodite or Jesus or Angels

Eagle-power, leadership, freedom, adventure, breaking free.

Hawk- common as spirit guides, courage, protection, and awareness. 

Hummingbird- I adore hummingbirds and often associate them with faeries. Creativity, joy, love and beauty. Can be a sign that you are moving too fast in life and need to take a break.

Magpie-Magpies represent duality because seeing them can be really good or really bad, I know it’s confusing :/ Seeing a magpie can be a good luck omen and new oppurtunities will appear. They also represent illusion and trickery, maybe someone is being a two-faced friend to you. 

Owl- wisdom, associated with the goddess Athena, intuition, spiritual exploration, change, observation and intelligence.

Raven- associated with the nordic god Odin, mystery, magic, fae magic, knowledge, mischieve, and can be seen as a death omen (but can also mean change) 

Robin- luck, prosperity, good things will happen, joy and your hard work will soon be rewarded. 

Sparrow- associated with Aphrodite, new love and relationships, fertility, team work, time of productivity and stop procrastinating.

Stork-long life, prosperity, fertility, new life, wisdom, take time to relax, motherhood and luck.

Swan- also associated with Aphrodite and Apollo, gracefulness, beauty, music, poetry, creativity, loyalty, and long lasting relationships.

Vulture-death, cleaning up other people’s messes, renewal, patient, use your resources and be perceptive.

Woodpecker- hard work, take advantage of new oppurtunities, attention, progress and determination.

Tip! If you are repeatedly seeing a certain animal or have a strong liking to an animal it could be a way a spirit guide is trying to get your attention (or that animal is just really common in your area lol )

Free to use textures, credit optional.

I would like to make a new bunch of tutorials… I wish I could carry out my intention. Incidentally, It’s going to be “How to draw poses by using gesture drawing method ”, 

Not the same Anon, but hyacinths please

Hi friend, thank you so much for your interest! I’m going to go over how I draw these flowers, but I realized midway that I’m actually very terrible at drawing these in particular, haha. There’s a reason I’ve lowkey avoided doing them so far, and I think it enabled me to highlight a bit more, the way I choose my arts.

It’s quite hard to teach just “how to draw a specific flower” mostly because I myself don’t know - the most important thing I can emphasize is using references! 

I personally dislike drawing these flowers in my art, and I couldn’t figure out why until I started this tutorial.

One thing I tend to notice when I look at reference pictures is how flowers move as a ‘whole’ and their relative ‘flexibility’. I pay attention to that because the way I do art, I choose the flower in part based on appearance and how natural they will look in a specific composition. 

I tend to like flowers that sprout outwards and have a kind of ‘loose’ appearance. The red lines here show the ‘direction’ I want the flowers to go in.

This is where these flowers pose a bit of a problem. Because arranged in clumps, they are very stiff. It’s not a bad thing if that’s what you’re looking for, but it’s not what I wanted, exactly, for this image. 

They just stick straight up, because they have very stiff leaves and a tight packed pattern. (They sometimes tilt though, mine always did). At this point, I could decide the form isn’t right, and this isn’t the flower I want. But there’s also another thing I could do, which is altering it’s appearance when I draw it, slightly.

Left is a simplified version of the shape, while the middle is a more detailed image. The furthest to the right is a close-up of a single flower. Depending on what you want to portray, you can choose to alter what you want your flowers to look like. 

As you can see, when drawn closer up, the flower has a lot more flexibility!

So with this, I ended up drawing the batch of flowers a lot larger than how it would be normally, while still retaining the recognizable flower and leaf shape. 

So what I’m trying to convey is that sometimes you have to study references, but then know you can pick and choose what aspects to highlight in your art. That’s I think, how you can get your flowers to look extra ‘dynamic’ in your work - by accentuating their specific shapes to work to your advantage! And also playing with their colors and such! But hyacinths come in so many colors that any would work!

I hope this is helpful to you, anon! 

animation run cycle notes for my upcoming 2D animation video course package

An glorious fuck-ton of kimono/yukata (for females) references.

Yes, the last one is in Japanese… hopefully you’re fluent. And, for the longer images, you gotta reverse-image search ‘em to see the text.

[From various sources]

here comes small shading…tutorial? set of advises?? name it whatever you want. hope someone of y’all will find it at least a bit helpful! 

special thanks to @cozy-capybara for literally inspiring me to make this thing

It only takes a couple of lines to go from one eye style to the other so I'm always stuck between them cause I love both so much

 Oh…Steve…

Metal tutorial

Fire tutorial