/a/ - Animu & Mango

Zun is my inspiration.

>3 hours of Free Time on Saturday

>Most of his time is either Manuscript, or working on storyboard.

>>670216

Rate my progress

Lazy mouse photocopy from Cream Lemon artbook

Decided to try coloring a drawing, my hand is very unsteady with a mouse, so the lines are very poor, I probably can't fix that without splurching on a tablet. Mostly looking for feedback on the coloring and lightening.

Grandpa guts journey continues

>>670321

>drawing with a mouse

>ever

Anon pls.

Tablets are a worth-it investment. TRUST ME ON THIS.

Even a small Wacom $100 dollar tablet'll do fucking wonders.

Thinking about the underlying sketch under that lineart and colour, I honestly suggest that you learn about your basic fundamentals first.

Start reading through and practicing shit from this place. I know it's for "WESTERN CARTOONS" but you need a basic understanding of 3D forms to make your drawings not look like shit.

http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.ca/

After that, go through >>>/loomis/ 's MEGA archive for learning how to draw.

These drawing concepts don't just apply to western cartoons or "muh realism". These fundamentals can be used for ANY STYLE.

>>670270

I motivate myself to practice by... Hm. I dunno, actually. I forgot. Nowadays it seems more like a habit. A daily ritual, you could say. I just pick up my sketchbook and draw shit that I like.

Honestly, don't think negative feedback is a personal attack on you. Keep it separate. It's a comment on your art.

If people are willing to tell you WHERE you're bad at something, that's a good thing. You know why? Cause you know where the to work on next. It'll give you some direction on what to practice on that'll make you improve your work.

JUST LIKE, MAKE DRAW.

>>670386

This is the original sketch, I accidentally tore it when erasing something, so I never got to fix it up properly. Took a picture of a frame close to the one I based the drawing on as well. Also included something I just drew, it isn't based on anything.

Oh well, I draw this for /gamergator/ thread last week?

I need feedback for this art.

rip me apart /a/rt

i know this is just a sketch and the proportions are still weird but please bear with it anons and give me your thoughts.

it's also been hard for me to draw anime-ish faces

and fuck plugsuits, that stuff is aesthetic but hard as fuck to draw

>>670688

Just like dont draw animu faces if you can avoid it.

>>670688

Here's what I'm talking about, the upper body is way big.

>>670672

Wanna attempt an evening/dusk scene? They're pretty fun to paint.

>>670688

What >>670745 did is an honest solution. You can also try to widen the hips to being roughly the same width as the shoulders, and longer legs usually benefit the female figure. At your stage, you can just adjust and move things around until you like what you see.

Drew this. Ideally I would redo the ass and lengthen the legs, though it's hard seeing as I'm out of space. However I'm out of time, and I won't be home for a good couple of days, so I probably won't get around to doing anything further with it.

>>670689

thanks for the compliment

>>670692

thanks for the tip about the torso, these are the kind of things that are difficult to see by myself

>>670693

noted.

> I'm saying this because it looks like you added them after finishing the sketch

you're completely right, i did that because in all the reference photos i had of asuka in this plugsuit, those muscle lines were showing

>>670737

i've been having trouble with that, i'll try my best on it

>>670745

that certainly looks better

>>670766

i think so too

>>670834

You need more Loomis in your life, my friend.

http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

Knowledge is potential power.

>>670873

let me add something that nobody but fucking Toriyama of all people ever explains

>>670875

Wew I just realized I forgot to export the non-brainfart version.

Seeing these threads makes me depressed.

>>670983

>Seeing others try makes you depressed

Stop being subhuman.

>>671012

>Seeing others try makes you depressed

More like:

>Seeing others try makes you hate yourself because your metal state makes you unable of doing it and you drown in self-loathing due to your inferiority complex

>Stop being subhuman

Not possible.

I'm blogposting, sage.

>>671018

That's unfortunate. Eat more vegetables and exercise daily. I hope you recover.

JUST LIKE, MAKE DRAW.

>>671914

loomis

>>671976

Alright, I'll start with some moonknives and then see how it goes from there.

>>671972

That's the plan.

>>671966

>>671982

For what it's worth, Higashiyama Show has been caught tracing in his non-H works, and it's not just a meme like Rustle. It's unproven if he's ever done it in his H works, but it couldn't hurt to use him as reference.

People also say Salad traces but I don't think that's ever been proven - he just draws realistic bodies.

Naoshi Onizuka might also be good to look at.

>>672001

>>671982

I recommend RA colorworks

>>671982

I find the key points to be the narrow shoulders, a small torso, and a rounder face. If you can get the head and shoulders right, it should be smooth sailing from there, and the rest of the proportions are likely to set themselves accordingly. As long you're not too accustomed to drawing realistic proportions and stylizing doesn't bother you too much, the overall figure should come out fine. When going for a full body, try to add emphasis to the waist and hips, else you may end up with the tubular loli.

>>672170

those tiny feet are kawaii as fuck

>>673636

>I got caught acting like a nigger from /v/ so I won't be helpful to a place I ostensibly care about.

Yeah okay. I'll do it for you then. Now stop being a nigger.

>>673636

>I'll hold a place hostage for altruistic reasons only I (an intellectual) can understand

You didn't care about /a/, you cared about getting your dick sucked, and now you're taking it out on the board.

Just go.

>>674655

I sketched. I try to do it at least 2 hours a day. So far I've been doing it daily for three weeks. Feel more confident about my faces, not to say I'll leave it like that and stangate.

I've still to feel confident about torsos and arms. I feel the breasts are too low. Hope to eventually get a better understanding and feel of proportions.

Here are some sketches I did a few weeks back. My computer was down so I decided to do something I haven't done in years which was draw (aside from the occasional doodle). Never really attempted to properly draw anime until recently but it's quite enjoyable. I just need to work on proportions and get better at drawing hands and feet.

>>673656

Those eye tutorials are all shit aside from the last one because they neglect to emphazise the importance of construction.

The third one is outright misleading because it conflates basics of drawing eyes and squish-n-streching.

>>673660

Same goes for this one.

The panneling structure one is wrong on so many fucking levels I literally cant even.

The motion flow one is okay.

The bit about line density and contrast is okay but the leaning part is misleading as it conflates dynamic action poses and composition issues.

Out of the 8 tutorials you posted 3 are useless and another 3 outright MISLEADING to the point where if someone took them to heart they would fucking CRIPPLE themselves artistically.

This is why people tell you to read your fucking Loomis, most people doing these shitty tutorials dont fucking know what theyre talking about in the first place.

>tfw video games and other garbage continuously tearing you away from drawing and writing anime that you idolize.

Might start drawing again.

I drew these two.

Practice while you can young ones. Enjoy making something with fresh young limbs.

>>676079

> Hold your paper against the wall and try drawing simple shapes. This will interfere with your hand trying to "write" and force you to use your whole arm.

Nice, but once you get shaky hands or arms all this advice is shit. You have to learn how to build things out of scribble scrabble and erasing, making sweeping curves a 1/4 inch at a time. A French curve and other templates are wondrous. Computers with endlessly editable vector art primitives are amazing.

Drawing, like any physical work, is a young person's game, but art is eternal. You don't need hands or arms to make art, you need vision and a medium. And an undo history a mile long is a godsend if the canvas allows for it.

Just saiyan. Don't procrastinate until you're unable to enjoy being able to draw manually. What you do learn of art you can apply with a keyboard. The wired is eternal.

>>670672

Sorry, I dont really have time to do that kind of thing anymore. I was kind of hoping people here would start doing it naturally. I won't be here regularly, but i'll do some themes now and then maybe it will automate.

THEMES

Easy mode: DANCE

Hard mode: EXTREME ANGLES

In case you had forgotten, lunatic mode sticks rigidly to 'smug lain yuri ' .

>Getting stuck drawing and redrawing one body part for several hours

>>677036

I suggest that you take some time to look through >>>/loomis/ 's MEGA folder on anatomy.

Drawabox would help, too.

The sooner you get a grasp on fundamentals, the faster you'll be able to git gud to draw in the style you want.

There's a big problem when it comes to copying other artists if you don't know the fundamentals. You don't know what the fuck you're copying or the methods of which they achieved that drawing. You're not looking at their structure, how they stylize their drawings or whatever the fuck.

Drawing tips.

If you have anime figures. It doesn't matter what it is. From figma to nendroids. Draw them. Look at your figures and draw them.

Study the 3D shape of your figure.

The point of this type of study is to get you to think three-dimensionally.

Everything you draw is a 3D object. As an artist, the skill is creating the illusion of three dimensions in a two-dimensional medium

The sooner you think in 3D and brush up on your fundamentals, the better.

http://johnkcurriculum.blogspot.ca/

I drew a few 4koma on a neet.. Everybody's always on about porportions and loomis in every single drawing thread. I don't know if people like to hear my advice but I think when trying to draw manga just look at your favourite mangaka for faces. Porportions don't need to be too fixated on looking like real life since it's 2d. The only thing is that drawing hands and feet should look close to their real counterpart.

>>680709

Gave me a nice chuckle, especially 2nd's last panel.

Anyway I think the reason most people hand out advice on proportions is because they're fairly easy to fuck up when you're starting and having a bad understanding of proportions can produce devastating results.

>>680709

Personally, I don't agree with that due to personal experience. Copying faces from mangakas without knowing the fundamental principles behind their artstyle just leads to symbol drawing if you're a newbie. Again. This is because you don't know what the fuck you're copying. You don't understand the work behind it.

I tell people to go brush up on their fundamentals a lot because it's

IMPORTANT

and the less people pussy-foot around and make excuses, the better artists they'll be. I feel like people avoid fundamentals and learning really hard shit because they think they don't need it or they're impatient as fuck.

If you study your fundamentals, learn your principles and make the effort

I guarantee you will be visibly better in six months. Not only that, you will be able to draw in any style and possibly even develop your own.

http://johnkstuff.blogspot.ca/2006/05/animation-school-lesson-1-construction.html

I am going to die alone without any kind of talent in anything and my waifu will never become real.

Did you do your draws today, /a/?

>>681987

If I draw the things I want to draw, I will continue being shit.

If I read Loomis and draw what Loomis tells me to draw, I begin to see art as a chore and give up.

The solution is not to draw anything.

>>682001

If you continue to draw the things you want to draw, you will progress slowly.

If you read Loomis and draw what Loomis tells you to draw, you will begin to see art as a chore but progress slightly faster. There's better intros to art, honestly.

The solution is to establish habits, and focus not on the quality of your work but how much you learned from it. You will not produce anything worth looking at for a long time. Go ahead and throw away your art if it makes you feel better.

There is no silver bullet to motivation. You have to conquer yourself. But you will progress if you work at it deliberately. If you want it, you will get it. Simple as that. There's no shame in focusing on something else but there is shame in wasting your life doing nothing, so pick something and stick with it.

>>682001

Every artist must create shit for a certain amount of time. It is a crucial learning phase. It isn't too long however. Soon you won't be making shit, but shit with little gold nuggets embedded inside. That is when you see your potential for the first time, and it'll do wonders to your motivation.

>>682001

>>682077

>>682110

>>682142

I just don't know what to do with Loomis. There's a fuckton of books and I have no guidance on any of them. I just wanna draw what I want but one person keeps pestering me to read Loomis and I'll somehow magically get better.

>>682001

>if I read loomis and draw what loomis tells me to draw, I begin to see art as a chore.

Look, anon.

You don't necessarily NEED to draw what loomis tells you to draw. But you need to understand the principles behind the shit he teaches. Perspective, form and gesture are the main things.

Reading through art books and learning the fundamentals will help you draw what you want to draw BETTER.

>>682163

Just like, take the lessons you learn from those books and apply them to your artstyle of choice. The books are going to teach you the TOOLS and METHODS you need to draw better. It's up to YOU on how to apply them to your own work.

Take pic related. as an example.

My head drawing looks terrible but eh. It gets the point across.

While you're learning the basics, look through your favorite mangaka/anime illustrators again but this time look DEEPER. Don't just superficially copy their lines. That's surface-level tenth grader shit. No. Study the forms of their drawings. The underlying structure and so-on. Once you can spot the forms and broken down the structure of their drawing, replicate them.

>>682188

Got you covered, anon.

http://www.filedropper.com/showdownload.php/lewdrefs

It's mostly doxy's stuff and I haven't been there in a long while so you might wanna check there.

>>682163

I haven't bothered with loomis, really. I'd rather do gesture training (https://www.quickposes.com/en I use this one), hit reference books and photos when I get stuck on a certain body part (right now I'm stuck on the sides and back) and just draw lots of cute girls or things that interest me, which is mostly cute girls and strong reliable onii-chans to protect them.

>>682283

>While you're learning the basics, look through your favorite mangaka/anime illustrators again but this time look DEEPER. Don't just superficially copy their lines. That's surface-level tenth grader shit. No. Study the forms of their drawings. The underlying structure and so-on.

So, what you're saying is learn to visualize the 3D that the 2D is based on... What if I reject the 3D and instead focus on 2D waifu anatomy as it exists naturally in the 2D world?

Clearly 2D mouths and faces do not work the way you "muh loomis" 3DPD emulators think.

>>682476

That's up to you, anon.

I'm merely trying to point to the way of improvement. If you don't want to take it, then don't.

It's clear that you don't want the advice so there's no point in dispensing it.

If you think "muh loomis" fags are wrong, then feel free to prove them wrong. Six months, anon. Let's see how far you can go.

>>682486

Are you really nitpicking my grammar to insult my character? Kinda seems a bit petty, don'tcha think?

Were nerves pinched at one point? Are you a bit salty? No need to be.

>>682489

Again, to reiterate my point. Pics related is commercial grade, decades in the making, pay for it AND you have to bring a girlfriend to see the premiere, anime.

Note in the second image. The nose shifts and face shape changes ever so slightly to indicate the turn of the head, while eyes are motionless.

The face is tilted as if on an imaginary cardboard backing, not a 3DPD round head.

3DPDfags are killing anime. The art styles closest to rote 3D simulation + cell shading are considered highest caliber, especially by loomisfags.

What happens when the art style tries to mimic 3D so close that viewers can't really tell the difference between it and a damn CGI rendering farm? Well, I'm sure you know by now. Your drawing skill becomes worthless.

And it's not just "bending the rules" of 3D. In cell based animation there are cell based rules to movement. That is a constraint that Loomfags never mention -- that the canvas itself directs the artistic medium.

My point is that if you want more 2D, you shouldn't be focusing on emulating 3D. Once you understand fore shortening and shading of primitves, you're done with 3D shit. Next you should be looking at >>682476 and telling me that THIS IS NOT LOOMIS! But instead of talking about how to "improve" it, you could analyze it and realize that even though disproportionate this giant headed alien child is indeed better than Loomitarian drivel.

You should be trying to discover the rules of anime art styles. They did not just come from the artist deciding that they would draw a certain way. The constraints of the 2D world apply to 2D art. Pretending 2D is just a projection of 3D is cancer and you should rethink your world view.

>>682326

Speaking of reference books, let's see some recommendations. Here's what I amassed so far.

>>682503

>What you just posted to strengthen your "point" are badly drawn flat symbol drawings which is what I'm trying to steer people away from.

I just knew you were going to say some stupid shit like that. I intentionally picked QUALITY images because they reveal the underlying process at work. Tell me why those images are bad -- how did they end up that way is what I'm getting at. If you say, "it's just shit tier art" then you're a moron and don't know shit about 2D. These mistakes are common as fuck in oldschool 2D art for a reason. Why is that? Do you know how a cell animated figure is assembled? Do you understand how cells are reused rather than regenerated every pose? Isn't that why the eyes are stationary? Because the face beneath it is animated and the eyes were not?

This is also a reason why eyes appear atop hair -- not just to make the eyes more visible, but because you'd have to make more hair layers, and it made little difference if the eyes were atop the hair where more action is happening, so you have to change the cells more.

Go watch an actual anime and tell me that shit moves like 3D objects do. Look at shit that's hand done like shit Trigger is doing. Problem with 3DPD emulators is that they can't tell the difference between art made to exist in the 2D world, and a drawing that emulates 3D on paper.

Furthermore, 3D worship is why so much hand drawn backgrounds are stationary or overly flat nowadays. A hand painted 2D background has to play fast and loose with perspective because the camera will pan across the scene and if you have one vanishing point a mile to the left of the camera soon you're going to be drawing victims of black-holes, they'll be so stretched. Isomorphic or arbitrary projections are often used in 2D. The background will either constantly tilt the same direction with no fore shortening so that it can be continued, or the artist will have to work multiple focal points into the scene. The easiest way to make scrolling background is to pretend the focal point is behind each object as you draw it.

This summer / winter image has two vanishing points. The left one is under the boughs of the tree. The right vanishing point (look at the bridge) is off in the mountains.

Then we have a single vanishing point on the rails, but then fade into an isometric view.

Next we have three vanishing points, each one is clearly visible zoomed out, but when zoomed in the viewer doesn't notice because of the way the blends are done between each on. The left most is most extreme because you can get away with the most extreme vanishing point only on the edges. It wouldn't look right to have that vanishing point in the center of the image as you scroll across it.

Again. The medium affects the 2D art style. Go look at some background cells from any 2D animated work, not just anime.

Nowadays the push to emulate 3D closely leaves most anime with good perspective in a shot as a still shot, or panning only slightly. No more long form pans unless the background has been flattened. The move away from beautifully hand painted backgrounds to 3D CGI shit wasn't balked at by the audience because over time they had become accustomed to the 3D look of having clear vanishing points in every scene. 3DPD emulators who "improved" their art to be more 3D-like didn't even notice the shift! Their only gripe is that "eeew it's 3D rendered not hand drawn", even though these same "emulate 3DPD" school of art is what made the transition happen.

>>682520

Here's the 3 vanishing point image. And a really exaggerated multiple vanishing point image -- normally this effect would be stretched out lengthwise more and thus not noticed by the viewer who sees the picture through a sliding frame.

>>682533

Ah, good. Some real meat.

Now I'm going to ask you, since you know for a fact, to show me the proof of this fact. Because we all know facts are based on evidence.

So, now show me the compare and contrast between the 2D artists who studied Loomis and those that did not.

Another things: Every time you bitch about "symbol drawing", you're being a retard. That is how anime eyes and mouths and what not are assembled onto the forms beneath them.

Much of Manga looks the way it does because it co-evolved with Anime. If a character is going to be adapted to the screen then it has to follow some 2D art rules. 2D animators were constricted by the 2D medium, and this heavily influenced how the art style evolved. These animators also drew Manga, and carried the style over into static print -- where they have far more freedom in backgrounds, I might add, because they don't have to animate it.

What I'm saying is that the anime style is a style that's made to be animated -- not by a fucking computer, or a billion in-betweening monkeys doing redrawing every cell in full 3D rasterized glory -- emulating a fucking computer program.

Good 2D art is is made to look good as 2D animated art, even though it's not 3D. This means the further eye suddenly vanishes when the character turns their head too far. This means the mouth and eye of a side view faces the screen rather than in front of the drawn character.

You are truly an idiot, and should just stop giving advice, if this is what you really want every frame of Nichijou to look like.

Being able to draw consistent piece work eyes and mouths beyond just the single frame is essential skill to a 2D artist. Note that anime and manga have far more glamorous eyes than anything else. Do you think you practice eyes by drawing an entire scene?

In truth, those who draw in piece form have an easier time making the transition to 2D cells because they see the eye separate from the head, they're trying to make a form underneath that will accommodate the action of the scene and required faces. Imagine if you just think in cinematographic and Loomism terms and try to compose a scene. It will look like shit if you didn't consider how you were going to get the face to be clearly visible.

You learn to avoid arbitrary angles, and prioritize the primary emotive feature of the scene, rather than the technically correct proportions.

I say again. You say that "Historically" (meaning a real series of actual events), Loomism breeds better 2D artists that are "better at animating". So give me a list of the best animators and what school they studied under -- doesn't count if they progressed as a mangaka with poorly drawn figures, and worked their way up doing inbetweening -- repeatedly redrawing frames to get from one pose to the other without having composed the frames themselves... You know, like most animators have to before they work at a studio like Trigger.

I'm interested in this historical list of yours you've been keeping. It should take you no time to copy / paste it.

Also note that nowadays so much anime and manga is eaten up with the "let's emulate 3DPD" bullshit that they go to physical locations, take pictures and even trace real photos into the works -- rather than inventing their own fantasy locations. Point being, that "real 3D look" is the shit that we consider crap. Fuck 3DPD. You're disgusting.

>>682538

Okay, see, this all falls apart when I bring up the fact that in order to be able to animate like someone in KyoAni, you have to be able to do all the stuff that guy is talking about.

You really think Nichijou looks a billion times better than Musashi Gundoh because of all of this bullshit jargon you're spewing?

You think Imaishi or John K look better than Jim Davis because they just know how to "draw in piece form"?

No, it's because unlike you, they weren't little bitches.

They sat down, shut up, and just fucking practiced how to draw good until they could.

>>682540

> that is not how you win an argument.

> trying to win arguments.

I'm not winning shit. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of 3DPD faggots who are shitting up the place with loomfaggotry. Check out the thread, these fools have been autistically screeching non stop about Loomis and "proper forms" and other bullshit, but they know fuck-all about animation or 2D.

Keep drawing and promoting shit that can be emulated by a damned computer if you want Anime to look like 3D shit.

>>682543

Wrong. Never did I say that composition or shading or basic fore shortening was not important. However, you are a product of your environment. Garbage In, Garbage Out. Loomis is garbage when it comes to 2D.

Re-read what I wrote and stop being so damned lizard brained engaging "fight or flight" and attacking tone or dismissing shit just because I was harsh and invaded your precious intellectual territory. I'm saying that Loomishit doesn't consider how 2D works. And the loomis fags are running around shaming people for doing "symbol drawing", even though that's how tons of animators make it into the animation industry. If they weren't talking out their ass then I'd have never entered the fray.

The only advice you should give to an aspiring artist is to practice, and study how 2D works. If animation isn't the goal, then take that shit to /co/ I guess. We all have taste. We know when a drawing is good. If you draw something and it's shit, then redraw it until it's good.

You think these designs came from in depth study of human anatomy?

Additionally, now we have loomistards saying that 3DPD schooling makes better animators. Now I say, pics or it did not happen.

Of all places /a/ should understand anime style.

What I'm trying to understand is what are the subtle differences in anatomy for anime faces that makes it look animeish compared to realistic drawings or portraits. Like there seems to be things that aren't nearly anatomically correct with facial features and sometimes they stretch to keep a sort of consistent anime style.

Live2D studies this for example and shows how a realistic face should bend if it was real but also how it should look if you wanted anime.

>>682554

In that example the 3d model is an attempt to make on object appear as a flattened stylized object. This is ass backwards because it's now a 3d object attempting to appear at all angles like a 2d object which in the first place was trying to represent 3d objects.

>>682559

Most manga artists are really bad at drawing too.

Here are some pictures of works by various artists. They are all 'anime'. I think they all look nice but one is not like the other. Can you tell which one spent less time studying realistic anatomy and good perspective?

>>682548

>Loomis is garbage when it comes to 2D.

I disagree. He has a few books on basic 2D drawing, try out Fun With A Pencil, he tries to dumb it down for contrarian retards like yourself, my meme man.

>You think these designs came from in depth study of human anatomy?

Yes, actually. Aside from the 4th pic, which is very stylized, the proportions of the faces, bodies and the facial features in the first pic all come from an understanding of anatomy, so as to make a character not only look good, but to feel natural in its environment.

>Additionally, now we have loomistards saying that 3DPD schooling makes better animators. Now I say, pics or it did not happen.

Richard Williams, check out his book The Animator's Survival Kit. He's an excellent animator, not just of wacky Looney Tunes esque gag stuff, but also more realistic art, for example, look at his work on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"

The fact that you end your post with

>muh style

says you know little to nothing about the medium you consume. Go watch Ping Pong The Animation and tell me that it wouldn't have needed a strong grounding in anatomy to make the ping pong scenes really pop.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to eat some ass now.

>>682554

> what are the subtle differences in anatomy for anime faces that makes it look animeish compared to realistic drawings

Now we're getting somewhere.

see:

>>682496

Study QUALITY because that shit reveals how anime faces are made, eg:

> Note in the second image. The nose shifts and face shape changes ever so slightly to indicate the turn of the head, while eyes are motionless.

> The face is tilted as if on an imaginary cardboard backing, not a 3DPD round head.

Those anime faces in your post are rendered as if on a flat piece of cardboard. The eyes have an in-built slant to them implying curvature in their shape, while 100% flat and facing the camera.

Live2D uses a sprite based system. Have you ever played games like Doom1? They have 8 different sprites, and pop between directions. Unlike Doom, Live2D doesn't pop between the views. Live 2D uses some cell shading on a 3D model to provide the base for the 2D sprites.

Live2D has a faces drawn like you would a 2D anime model, they make a full 180 degree sweep of the facial features, drawing a face for each few degrees. The 2D model will jut its cheek or jaw out when it turns its head from straight on to side ways, even thought that results in weird facial geometry. When it's done good it doesn't seem too off, when it's done bad -- or you take the eye / mouth / nose sprites too far from their "natural" position then you get the QUALITY faces.

To keep the face from popping between poses, animators and Live2D will slide and eye or mouth along between two different positions as a head turns without changing it.

The way Live2D does this is it has invisible anchor points on the 3D face. Each point is really a "normal". This means a point and a direction. So, the nose will not just be a nose point, it will be a nose + a little line sticking out of the face. When the anchor point comes into view the position of the point, its angle, and distance from the camera are used to calculate the placement and which "symbol drawn" facial feature to use. They also draw less features when distant -- no nose, no mouth if closed, etc.

The dot product between the rotated facial piece surface normal (it's little line vector), and the look vector of the 3D camera is computed. This gives a number -1 to +1. If the number is < 0 then the piece is not visible at all, it's facing away from the camera. If the dot product is > 0 up to 1, then it is facing the camera. 1 = facing straight on. Another dot product can be taken with a look vector that's facing 90 degrees right. This will yield a positive or negative, positive == the feature is facing to the left, negative == feature faces right.

Now we know for each feature the position in 3D and how much forward facing and whether its on the left or right side of the face. This allows you to scale the facial feature down to the size required. Live2D actually uses multiple steps of scale, hand drawn. So, from 100% to 75% they might have one hand drawn eye / mouth / etc. shape. From 75% to 50% a smaller shape that's drawn at the size you need it to be if it were at the 75% distance, etc.

1/2

>>682570

2/2

These facial features are then drawn on their anchor positions in layers facing the camera, like the cells of an animation. Some face features will have multiple layers, such as a blank spot to make sure there's no shadow directly around on the eye, etc. The drawing order is done such that it looks like anime.

For example, the eyebrow will have 2 cells, a color cell and and outline cell. The eyebrow is rendered below the hair, the eyebrow outline is rendered above the hair. This way the eyebrow on the face will have eyebrow color, but when the hair moves in front of the eyebrow, the hair color shines through and you see only the eyebrow outline.

The smoothness of Live2D is achieved by those anchor points moving smoothly around in the scene at 60fps+. However the mouth / eyes / etc rendered atop those screen positions are animated at much less than 60fps. meaning they will change shape / cells at anime speed of 12 to 24 FPS, but their position will update smoothly regardless. Imagine the sliding that in-betweenness do sometimes rather than redrawing a piece for each position.

To understand how Live2D renders "anime style" you start with drawing in multiple layers such that they COULD be animated. In a computer this is easy, because there are drawing programs with layers. On paper use velum and a light table -- a glass table with a lamp under it will work.

Transparencies are kind of expensive, so you can just scan / snapshot drawings and put them in the computer into photoshop / GIMP / (or a real program for animation).

You'll keep the eye a separate layer. Keep the eye lid a separate layer such that multiple eyelids can close the eye. Keep the eyebrow in separate layers as I discussed.

Then you work on just animating the underlying form beneath the 2D objects.

You can even borrow other people's eyes and mouths and etc. features, like animators frequently have to do with a style set for the character, trying to fit them into the composition you've created.

This is the proper way to practice 2D art...

Faces in anime don't really have all that much variation even over the past few decades, there are small variations, but the general process is the same. The body proportions are usually whack but look good -- too thin neck, giant fucking hands. Just look at that Hidamari Sketch shot's hands. Legs either spindly or curvy, shorter or long or VERY long. The body is where much style comes into play.

For special scenes where there is an incredibly emotive / unique face you draw new cells for them. These are a treat to the viewer, apart from the traditional lower budget face part sprites. The 3DPD rendered anime can't really even compete on unique facial expressions vs the hand drawn anime crowd.

A good character design will allow for transition between such special faces and poses and standard faces without being too jarring. Unlike, Knights of Sidonia, where everyone might look cute at first glance, but when you see them move and emote it's clear they're robotic impostors.

>>682554

To further explain my point.

The 3D pic on the left is drawn exactly how you would draw Loomis style. Using the 3D head with contour lines, and drawing the facial features onto that 3D object.

The pic on the Left is actually drawn like this pic related. In multiple layers, desigend to be animated. Note that there are several layers just for the hair, and much of those layers gets covered up. This is so each individual piece can be animated separately. In a light breeze you might just animate a few cells changing.

To turn Izuna's face slightly You wouldn't re-render the whole 2D model, you would draw a new base face matte, and slide the eyes / eyebrows / mouth over a bit, use a new nose primarily to indicate the turning head.

Typically a Look with the yes will precede a turn of the head, and this allows the animator to imply motion of the head even though no motion has taken place of the underlying cells. When the eye movement has reached a certain point, then you swap to the "turned" face matte, and use the "turned" eye for the eye that's moving away from the viewer. The other eye is typically fine. The smaller hair features will typically also be animated but the bigger ones behind the character don't yet animate. That comes a few frames later.

Contrary to popular belief the "lower quality" animation is what makes the animation feel "anime". You DON'T hand draw a unique face / head / pose on every cell. Even in very high quality animation they will reuse the sprites. So, once you have the head turning and hair falling over the shoulder, etc. animation made, these angled eyes and side faces will be used in subsequent scenes -- throughout the show.

This is something that most drafags here seem to be ignoring. Once you get a character drawn piece wise, you can construct new poses as variations of other poses and re-use much of your prior work in successive work.

If not digitally, then by tracing prior work -- like an animator would do anyway to ensure one pose blends into another pose.

Being able to refine by TRACING your own work improves 2D efficiency and makes your art style more anime-feeling. Rather than throwing away the art and starting over, trace it and fix it with a new vellum or on a new layer. Then compare and contrast. Repeat the process and soon you'll be animating something -- progress at the least.

TL;DR: Want to make art look more manga? Learn to decompose your 2D art into individual re-usable pieces, like an anime would have... Then reuse that prior work as much as possible, like artists in the industry actually do. Not every scene, but as much as you can get away with.

If your art is unique every frame it will feel more 3DPD, have boiling lines and feel rotoscoped to hell for way more than its worth.

>>682581

>You DON'T hand draw a unique face / head / pose on every cell.

You're literally describing how to make your animations and drawings look like shit. Those are the techniques pioneered by japanese animators to save themselves time. Anime is cheap. So cheap we cut the word animation short to describe it. A joke you dense motherfucker

No one here is looking to become the next Bum Tickley but with lashy anime eyes. Get out of here with that shit and back to whatever godawful how2drawmanga forum you came from.

Pic related. The pinnacle of what your method will deliver.

Look at 4th pic (Hiamari) here >>682548 and this post pic related.

Notice that almost all of the faces are using the "forwards" facing basic face shape. The hair, eyes, and mouth atop this neutral face shape make the character's head seem turned. If you cover up the eyes and hair with your finger you can see the jaw lines are all facing forward.

Loomisfags would be drawing the head uncharacteristically -- not like anime.

In anime you're trying to use the simplest base face shapes to convey the scenes. This pushes your art style towards minimalism and much more use of the eyes rather than the shape of the head to convey direction.

In fact, most of the eyes that are further from the viewer SHOULD seem "sunken in" to the head a bit, because the characteristic head design is used as much as possible to evoke the style of the anime, at the expense of less "correct" art.

Note that when a head turns enough sideways it takes on a different face shape cell, that uses the sideways facing eye and technically wrong "side mouth" turned more towards the camera than it should be.

Haruhi's signature shape face is wide with eyes set far apart. This sets the character apart from the other characters and is a bit uncanny -- but the face model really doesn't deviate very far at all from the anime norms. They found a way to be slightly different, and that difference -- whether "good" or "correct" or not, draws attention. It makes the character stand out.

You can come up with just 3 shapes of your head style (plus 2 flips for looking the other way), and use the placement of eyes, ears, hair, nose, mouth, etc. to indicate the rotation of your character's head -- AND THEN KEEP THOSE EXACT STYLES. The reason you don't switch up the base head shape every frame is so that you'll be sure that the other features you use will fit -- and look like the same character.

It's OK -- encouraged even -- to create a template of the head rotations, eye, body, etc. base shapes as a reference, and trace the basic body parts to assemble a new pose in less time.

>But anon, that sounds like cheating!

YES! And that is how Anime is made without having to become a Pixashit 3D crapfest.

Note that I used these highly stylistic faces to illustrate my point. Other faces may be less stylistic, but they will have some other feature then that is unique and signature to your work.

> loomers pretending 2D heads are 3D shapes.

Sheeeit, we're not blind are we? We actually WATCH anime, right?

>>682575

I don't like 3D Disney, I merely know what it comes from and what it's trying to do. It's people who used to make 2D animations trying to make 3D look as good as possible, because according to box office sales, a mediocre 3D movie will sell better than a good 2D movie. Just look at Bolt, The Princess and The Frog, and Tangled. All released at the same time of the year, in a 3 year span, and guess which one is the one who earned the least? You don't think it be like it is, but it do.

>>682579

Yes, I have animated before. Shittily, but I bet more than you can claim. And hey, it's nice that you know about the math behind those 2D emulations, but it doesn't have anything to do with 2D or 3D animation, unless we're going to start talking about the mocapping in Monster House and Metal Gear Solid.

>Those giant hands

I was referring to the post I was replying to, the Richard Williams gif was showing that a man who has a good understanding of UGH 3DPD ANATOMY can still make good stylized work as well.

Here are my old animations. Where are yours?

>>682554

Now that we know how 2D faces are put together, with a basic underlying 2D shape, and features on top, let's revisit these QUALITY images from sailor moon.

Compare pics related.

It should be clear, even to loomistards, that such QUALITY mistakes: >>682496

are not made because the artists couldn't get eyes and heads drawn properly.

There is absolutely NO amount of studying ANY art book which would have prevented those QUALITY mistakes. Get it? It wasn't a mistake due to ignorant artists. It was due to budget, relying on automated interpolation between frames of the pre-made templates, mostly for the eyes.

It's not like if you looked at those images on your screen you couldn't have tweaked the eye placement and sizes a bit and produced a proper image. Understand?

In this gif we see that Sailor Moon only uses 2 head shapes. The forward facing, and the one tilted slightly (and its mirror, but that's just a horizontal flip, not a new shape).

The difference between good looking anime and QUALITY fuckups is not how well you understand muh basic art principals. It's about taking the time to tweak your frame until it looks good before moving on to the next panel / frame.

Let's look at this neck from Persona. Do you really think that any amount of studying any art school in the universe would have prevented this? It's not like there was an animator sitting there thinking, over this frame going.... "YES! That's perfect!" and all their other drawings also have Giraffe necks.

No, clearly if someone had the time to look at that frame -- anyone, even a bum you grabbed off the street -- they would say, damn, that's a long neck, and if asked how to fix it they would drag that whole head down onto the neck to fix it.

So, look back at some of the art in this thread that's being critiqued. If it had been drawn piece by piece it could be tweaked not scrapped. What I'm saying is that there is a faster / easier / more authentic path to drawing anime style art and it has fuck all to do with being good at human anatomy, more to do with sticking to consistent character style -- and drawing in a way that CAN be animated easily.

Practice drawing like an animator and your work will look like anime.

We've all seen the concept art for anime characters. Hell, sometimes it's not pretty. But the point is that animators really do use templates of easy to draw shapes and reusable individual parts to make anime, and this it what gives it that particular aesthetic -- even when it's a better drawn anime and doesn't have any QUALITY moments, it still conforms to the 2D world of layered cells of individual bits.

>>682570

>>682571

>>682581

>>682594

>>682604

>>682604

Okay, no.

> Do you really think that any amount of studying any art school in the universe would have prevented this?

Yes.

You look at the storyboards of someone like Imaishi, and you can clearly see a solid understanding of the fundamentals behind each thing he draws.

You look at the doodles of Araki, and he clearly knows his shit.

Hell, even motherfucking ONE knows his shit enough to make things look good no matter what he's drawing.

Again and again, you're just saying fucking nonsense about how to take shortcuts, and then trying to justify it by saying you can basically just cheat your way into drawing good.

On some level that's correct, but anyone who's spent even an hour practicing the fundamentals will know when a drawing is just relying on the things you're talking about.

A good artist can in fact draw something better than that Chie, in however much time they had. Hell, Imaishi probably spends less time per storyboard panel, than that guy had, but he still makes better material.

>>682496

You're pretty much wrong

Drew these yesterday.

I'm having a little trouble with the shoulders and torso. I feel the shoulders are too wide/mannish at times and the torso feels disproportionate to the body regarding the head. I end up drawing it too wide or too thin.