How to Draw a Fucking Circle
Fine art processes ane; drawing the rest of the fucking owl
Hello lovely internet ppl. This fourth dimension final year I was running my Insecta Deck Kickstarter, and made a serial of backer posts on my art processes. This was one of the about pop, and now my backers and Patreon patrons accept had plenty of fourth dimension to look at it, I figure its time to share. I promise you enjoy it too….
[CONTENT Warning: PROFANITY, OBVIOUSLY]
There's more to drawing the residue of the fucking owl
SO. There's this meme, right…
How to draw an owl; i. Draw some circles. 2. Describe the balance of the fucking owl.
I both dear and vehemently hate this meme. I cannot tell you how much it makes me giggle and yet grind my teeth at the aforementioned time. And since it regularly pops upwards again, I might as well brand the virtually of information technology
The internets favourite unhelpful art meme
I love this meme because to be honest, drawing isn't magical or all about innate talent. A lot about learning to describe is more to do with learning to discover. That, and putting in endless hours of repeatedly honing your skills until you can, in fact, just draw the rest of the fucking owl. In that location's no secret, merely hours and hours of practice - the length of which will vary for all of the states - and at any point in time we're either capable of drawing the rest of the fucking owl convincingly, or we're non.
I hate it with the burn down of a thousand stars that are significantly hotter than our lord's day, because it encapsulates EVERYFUCKINGTHING that is smug and unhelpful almost art advice on the internet. OF Form you gotta draw the residual of the bastardtittyshittyfucking owl, merely do y'all know what? No one e'er got helped on their mode to BEING ABLE to recognisably draw the rest of the fucking owl by this kind of communication. You'd be an absolute arsebarnacle to give out such advice and leave it at that.
Because there are some other things between the circles and the rest of the fucking owl, my friends…
Those things tin be hard to define though. Which is possibly why the meme exists. Here is my honest breakdown of what comes between the circles and the finished creature for me. But please besides bear in listen I've been using pencil mediums intensively for years. I've put a lot of coins in the practice fountain, and for what it's worth; I'm still never 100% happy with the quality of my fucking owls… But I think I tin can draw satisfactorily plenty to commit things to a impress project like a deck of cards
Some color pencil work on the two of Spades planthoppers - shading their waxy tails
My drawing board. Yeah, I live by the laws of blue tack and 120 oil-based paint pencils. (That, and java)
How to draw the rest of the fucking insect...
There are iv stages to the nitty gritty cartoon (for me at least); sketching, marking out, shading, and fine detailing. Beneath are some WIP images from the deck artwork that cover these stages. Yous tin hopefully see that most of my drawings start out looking like they've been made in crayon by a hangry toddler, just they exercise turn out alright in the end
1 - Sketching
I accept no innate sketching skill, it'south simply scratchy-cartoon, swearing, refining, repeat until your insect looks less crayoned. But you better believe some of my insects did non start out with the right number of legs, see exhibits A-D below...
The 9H sketch was especially crayon-y initially
The sketches for the Hearts court cards
I don't know why I'm so indecisive nearly legs. I just am
Clubs courts. Then many legs. Then. Many.
I work from reference where possible - so I estimate step zero is research; deciding what you lot desire to draw and studying reference images if yous can get em. But anyway, I use a ruler to endeavour and get the proportions of an insect right. If I'm striving to exist super-authentic, I'll use the filigree method and a reference image, but nosotros're making up new insect species here, so we're adept with only vaguely accurate proportions.
For cards with a lot of insects on them (eg the 9s and 10s); I refine my sketch until I'm happy, go over it in ink, and and then I browse it, duplicate the digital insect, and adapt x insects digitally on a card template. This is and then I know I'll exit the right amount of room for each critter, and not overlap the pips. I'll oft leave multiple legs on the sketch too, and so I tin can draw different insects with different leg positions. Then I print my layout, and utilize a lightbox to transfer the digitised sketch on a paper template. For lower numbers I sketch directly onto a paper template and so I can see the pips. For court cards, jokers, and aces (cards with only one big-arse insect on), I sketch on blank newspaper and refine the i drawing until ready to be marked out.
Images from sketching, outlining and mark out the 10 of Hearts - 1 of the more complex designs, for which I digitised my initial sketch to make a layout, and lightboxed a crude outline onto my paper template. Click to enlarge
2 - Marker out
Marking out consists of going over my graphite pencil sketch (or lightboxed outlines where necessary) to refine them to a final layout. I do that start in graphite again to satisfy myself everything is in the right identify, and and so in lite colour pencil. In that location is a lot of tweaking at this stage, because yous don't necessarily get a sense for what the concrete drawing will expect like until you accept all your insects on the menu template in front of you. And then I erase all the graphite pencil and go over my light colour pencil outline in heavier colours. Above you tin come across some stage of this marking upward for 10H
At this signal I am basically committed, and I'yard internally screaming for pretty much the whole rest of the drawing procedure in case I fuck it upwards. (Hey, I said this was an honest breakdown.) The internal screaming gets louder the more hours of drawing elapse. So that'southward... [checks notes] 'fun'.
Each phase of marking up the drawing for 10H, from pencil transfered using the lightbox, to heavy colour outline & internal screaming. (I made this image and so I could exercise a WIP series for my Patreon patrons, I wouldn't usually accept ane insect at each stage)
3 - Shading
There's no going back now, and then I begin the loooooooong work of shading the drawing to fill up in and gradually build up layers of colour from light to dark (or vice versa, depends on the critter) as yous can see in the images & videos below. Sometimes I outline black insects in pen to keep my outline well-baked, which also makes shading a mite easier. For larger number cards I also generally tested out my colours on a tiny exam piece starting time, and you tin can meet one of those beingness fabricated in the 10H video.
This is where that practise stuff really becomes important, cos if you rush shading; you volition regret it. There's not an easy fashion to depict this... So I suppose I have to grudgingly acknowledge to drawing the rest of the fucking owl at this bespeak. Here'south a couple of videos to illustrate - the 9D video has artists commentary in the closed captions that explain what I'm doing a petty. The other video is some shading on the Ace of Diamonds, speeded upwards A LOT to testify how finicky I am with my layers. I unashamedly love some expert careful shading.
Images of shading and detailing the Opal Deck tuck box cockroach
Timelapse for drawing the Insecta Deck 10H, featuring an imaginary deck-dwelling relative of the Mexican honey wasp. With cheers to Alex Wild for photo reference of the real life species to measure out from. Music is past Soft and Furious.
Images from the shading and detailing of 10H
9D timelapse with artists commentary in the closed captions (click the CC button to bring upwards captions). Music is by Lee Rosevere
The 9D card template shown in the video above is the only i I printed in greyness. My fancy printer I use for heavyweight drawing paper templates was outta ink, but I wanted to get on with drawing, so I coloured over the pips in red later! I use a digital template for the actual pips, and then this doesn't touch on the deck press
Some conscientious shading at >g% bodily speed. Music is by Kai Engel
4 - Fine detailing
Alright, say we've survived the shading. *Now* we accept the opportunity to Actually fuck things up if we go wrong! [Internal screaming intensifies...] Rushing would accept been a bad idea earlier, just it would exist a truly awful idea at present. So I brand certain my pencils stay perilously abrupt - if I have one piece of advice (for both shading and detailing actually), it's to never miss an opportunity to sharpen a pencil. I go slowly and advisedly (and scream internally) with the pointiest pencils around.
Thassit.
Seriously though. Putting all the veins in the wings of blatts and bees, calculation all the hairs to beetle legs... That stuff is nerve-wracking I'grand telling you lot. But very satisfying if yous get it right!
Fine details on the carabid beetle for the Opal Deck card dorsum
Simply shy of xxx hours of drawing, in 2 and a one-half minutes! All of drawing the Insecta Ace of Spades, including the tiny test drawing. Music is by Soft & Furious
Whew.
I don't know what else to say really. That's basically how Insect Deck happened. This procedure, 61 times.
Each of these designs took so many hours to describe. On the one manus there is a lot more to it than cartoon the residue of the fucking owl, but on the other... It'due south hard to define exactly what I'm doing some of the time because I've been drawing so long, it's all muscle memory. Every bit of summer 2015 I haven't been able to experience all my fingers (tl;dr - my spine is an asshat.) Simply information technology hasn't affected my drawing. Even when I tin can't feel near of my hand I can nonetheless draw. I say that to illustrate that musculus memory is wild! There's no substitute for practice to gain that.
To finish up; the closest thing I've got to bodily art communication can be found here, and someone else's communication that I've always valued is here. I've written a tonne so I'm going to drop this art-&-words-flop and become find some more fucking owls to draw
Pls take care of yourselves and each other every bit much as you tin can lovely people
Immy xx
Drawing board cam view of the Ace of Spades shading and detailing. Music is past Kai Engel
Source: https://www.immysmith.net/blog/2020/2/1/art-process-drawing-the-rest-of-the-fucking-owl
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