How to Draw Action

Action poses are AWESOME. Everyone loves a good superhero comic. But drawing those action poses? That's hard. But action isn't just high-kicks, karate-chops and super punches. Every action- Standing, holding a pencil, or walking- has it's own rhythm.

Drawing a character in motion can be challenging. Here I've broken motion into two basic concepts: the Line of Motion, and Peak Force. These two concepts combined will infuse rhythm into even the most basic standing pose.

 'UGH,' you say, "I've already SEEN that." I have two answers: 1) Then do you do it? and 2) Great! That's awesome. Keep reading and you might find something else to add to your artist skill-retinue.

It's REALLY important to make bends and curves in motion, but they all need to come from the same point, the Peak Force.

The Peak Force is where the convex is at it's highest. That's where all the motion is coming, because that's where all the force is being exerted.

Line of Motion Vs no Line of Motion.

And now, you might think the one on the right is exaggerated, but it's NOT. You can only more clearly see there's no rhythm because it's a stick figure. I SAW someone draw a person "Falling" the other day, but really they were stiff as a board laying diagonally on solid air. THAT's how important lines of motion is. 

You don't have todraw a line of motion with each character you draw, but you should be aware of it. This will make your characters really stand out as living, breathing, action-ing people we can relate to and love. 

Here is a skeleton-to-character example.Back to Peak Force, in the third drawing, you can see that everything that can- Hair, jacket, headphone cord- is pulling AWAY from the Peak Force, "lagging behind".
Line of Motion is motion in the body. Peak Force is motion of 'everything else'.
Your two new super secret art weapons!!
Have you ever had trouble getting your characters to move? What has helped you figure out the rhythm for your poses?

Fan Art for Artists!

Here are some OCs/Avatars of some of the artists I admire! :D

This is an OC of a friend of mine on Nanowrimo. She creates some very beautiful pieces! My favorite aspects of her art are the way she draws noses and her backgrounds.

Check her our on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calamiteaa/

I redrew my friend Blank's AVatar. He's got a knack for drawing characters I like to draw! :`D

His Twitter: https://twitter.com/xBLANK_

This last one is Teo, an OC of my friend Purr, who I also met on Nanowrimo. She always has intriguing story lines and unique characters to fill her stories!

Her Deviantart: https://www.deviantart.com/the-missing-lynx/

Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo and the Two Strings is a clay-animation film created by Laika Studios, an outlier in the film industry. I've always admired the dedication and the originality of their works, but my absolute favorite of their productions is Kubo.

"The film revolves around Kubo, a young boy who wields a magical shamisen (a Japanese guitar) and whose left eye was stolen during infancy. Accompanied by an anthropomorphic snow monkey and beetle, he must subdue his mother's corrupted Sisters and his power-hungry grandfather Raiden (The Moon King), who is responsible for stealing his left eye."

-From the Wiki

Today I colored a chibi Kubo, ready to face down his wicked grandfather! I love the colors and composition of Kubo's costume design.

I added several tips for coloring and drawing on Clip Studio Paint, or any digital art program, in fact, throughout the video! I hope you enjoy. :)

Painting a Digital Background

More pictures than words in this post! I've been implementing backgrounds!! SHOCKER :O

It's really changed how I perceive my art. Instead of my characters populating the void, they now inhabit the local ice-cream shop, the kids' park, and the calling office in town.

Rural backgrounds, or, more accurately- LEAVES- are difficult for me. So I've been focusing on nature in my backgrounds.

For this piece I was very careful to separate my layers, and each layer of bush was first made with a huge blob, and then I'd add on 'leaf' definition (the circly spirals), and then the lights and darks and even More detail on another layer.

I had a vision for this forest path, but I also had google images. At the end of this post, I'll include the image that helped me place my path and trees.

Again, I started with messy, big blobs. and I just added blobs on top of that. Each new level of detail got a new layer, and the trees had a set of three layers all to themselves.

You can see how I used heavy detail and dark colors in the front, or "Foreground", and all of the trees in the back are considerably lighter to help with the illusion of depth.

The leaves added extra interest! I tried to put light greens right next to the dark ones so that all the green wouldn't just blend together.

The warm look of this last picture was created by a topmost layer filled in with a bright orange with the opacity lowered until it looked how I wanted: Sunlight filtering through the trees.

As promised, here's the google image! It doesn't look anything like the finished result, but it really helped me with the placement of the trees and the shadows on the path. USE REFERENCES !!!

Chibi Expressions

The single most important story to tell is the emotions of your characters. I love drawing comics in my chibi style, and I love exploring the wide variety of human expression. I made this reference of some unusual but great facial expressions for chibis.

My character Beckah from Not So Generic is one dramatic 17 year old. She's hilarious and goofy but also proud and generous. She's all kinds of Crazy and my readers lover her.

Here are my favorites of her silly and dramatic facial expressions!