ART PROMPTS
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Made this page for myself when I get artblock. It consists of the fundamentals and practices I find important. Feel free to use it for yourself if you'd like.
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figure/anatomy
Human figures, muscles, movement, full body. Reference. For figures, try to draw as quickly as possible and in as few lines as you can to portray the form without oversimplifying it.
shapes/free hand circles
3D shapes, 2D shapes, perfect circle and straight lines, free hand. No line tools, rulers, or any other tools. Learn to use just you hand to perform perfect mathematical feats.
B&W value/shading
Black and white values. No color of anykind. Focus entirely on values in order to master lighting and shading. This is an often overlooked step for begginer artists, and lots of tutorials completely miss this step in artistic development.
limited color palette
Limitations breed creativity. This excerise is less important and more fun. More of a challenge or test than excerise, but just as important.
background/landscape
Stop putting your subjects in white voids and start putting them in proper backgrounds. Use reference. The B&W Value/Shading excerise greatly compliments this one. Remember, you want to seperate forms by value even with line art. Imagine for a second you don't have line art, then begin blocking out the shapes of you enviroment.
complex lighting
This should only be done after first understanding the B&W Value/Shading excerice. But once you get here, COLOR TIME. Now it's all about picking interesting and contrasting colors, while also studying how different surfaces reflect light differently. Use reference.
object/weapon
Objects and weapons are common in illustration especially for finished, published works, but many beginners completely skip them over. DO NOT. For one, objects are super fun to design, you just don't understand them yet. A tip: imagine every lifeless object you draw is possessed by spirit with it's own personality and reasons for possessing that object. Always have in mind the owner of the objects you design and draw as well, to add pazazz and life to "lifeless" forms (I believe in animism). Use refernce. Practice Shapes/Free Hand Circles before doing this excerise.
animal/monster
Study the anatomy of various animals. A good pack to start with is: dogs (domestic, move on to relatives and ancestors after), cats (domestic, move on to relatives and ancestors after), rabbits, salmon (a good basic fish), horses (very hard, but worth the effort), frogs, and lizards (geckos are a great starting point, they tend to be rounder and less complex anatomically). After understanding some basic animals, you can move on to monsters, where you get to decide the anatomy! Fun, right?
freeform/doodle
Hey! You got lucky and get to doodle whatever you want!
perspective
Take all you've learned from previous excerises, and put them into perspective! Reference and study foreshortening.
expressions
One of my favorite excerises. Draw only the head of any character with at lest five different expressions. Just the head, so you learn to use face to portray as much emotion as possible before venturing into body language.
line of action/animation
Practice the line of action. Free hand a various lines, with different curves and flows, then draw a figure around that line. As for animation, my advice is this book. If you can't afford it, here's a copy from our favorite internet library, archive.org! I have the expanded edition. Have fun :)
human organs
As a horror fan and artist, human organs are important for my work. I like organs. Reference. Science diagrams are great refernce, especially if you're squeamish (I'm not). Carefule with real life refernce, taking from actual medical journals is your best bet without venturing into shady territory.