Draw a Circle Draw the Rest of the Fucking Owl
Art processes 1; cartoon the balance of the fucking owl
Hello lovely cyberspace ppl. This time last year I was running my Insecta Deck Kickstarter, and fabricated a series of backer posts on my art processes. This was one of the nearly pop, and now my backers and Patreon patrons have had plenty of time to look at it, I effigy its time to share. I promise you bask it too….
[CONTENT Warning: PROFANITY, Evidently]
There's more to drawing the residuum of the fucking owl
Then. There's this meme, right…
How to describe an owl; 1. Draw some circles. 2. Draw the balance of the fucking owl.
I both dearest and vehemently hate this meme. I cannot tell you how much information technology makes me giggle and even so grind my teeth at the same time. And since it regularly pops upwards again, I might besides make the most of information technology
The internets favourite unhelpful art meme
I love this meme because to exist honest, drawing isn't magical or all about innate talent. A lot virtually learning to draw is more than to do with learning to observe. That, and putting in countless hours of repeatedly honing your skills until yous can, in fact, but draw the rest of the fucking owl. There's no secret, just hours and hours of practice - the length of which will vary for all of us - and at any betoken in fourth dimension we're either capable of drawing the balance of the fucking owl convincingly, or we're non.
I hate information technology with the fire of a thousand stars that are significantly hotter than our sun, because information technology encapsulates EVERYFUCKINGTHING that is smug and unhelpful virtually art advice on the internet. OF COURSE you gotta draw the residue of the bastardtittyshittyfucking owl, simply exercise yous know what? No one ever got helped on their mode to BEING ABLE to recognisably describe the rest of the fucking owl past this kind of advice. You lot'd exist an accented arsebarnacle to requite out such advice and go out information technology at that.
Considering there are some other things between the circles and the rest of the fucking owl, my friends…
Those things can be hard to define though. Which is perchance why the meme exists. Here is my honest breakdown of what comes between the circles and the finished creature for me. Merely please likewise bear in mind I've been using pencil mediums intensively for years. I've put a lot of coins in the practice fountain, and for what information technology's worth; I'm still never 100% happy with the quality of my fucking owls… Merely I recall I tin draw satisfactorily plenty to commit things to a impress project like a deck of cards
Some colour pencil work on the ii of Spades planthoppers - shading their waxy tails
My drawing board. Yes, I live by the laws of blue tack and 120 oil-based pigment pencils. (That, and coffee)
How to draw the rest of the fucking insect...
At that place are 4 stages to the nitty gritty drawing (for me at least); sketching, marking out, shading, and fine detailing. Beneath are some WIP images from the deck artwork that cover these stages. You lot tin hopefully run across that most of my drawings start out looking like they've been made in crayon past a hangry toddler, just they do turn out alright in the end
1 - Sketching
I take no innate sketching skill, it'due south simply scratchy-drawing, swearing, refining, repeat until your insect looks less crayoned. But you better believe some of my insects did not start out with the right number of legs, meet exhibits A-D beneath...
The 9H sketch was particularly crayon-y initially
The sketches for the Hearts court cards
I don't know why I'm and so indecisive about legs. I just am
Clubs courts. So many legs. And then. Many.
I work from reference where possible - and so I guess step zero is research; deciding what you want to describe and studying reference images if you tin go em. But anyhow, I use a ruler to attempt and get the proportions of an insect correct. If I'k striving to be super-accurate, I'll use the filigree method and a reference image, but we're making upward new insect species here, so we're proficient with just 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 then I scan it, duplicate the digital insect, and adjust 10 insects digitally on a card template. This is then I know I'll leave the right amount of room for each critter, and non overlap the pips. I'll often leave multiple legs on the sketch likewise, so I can draw different insects with different leg positions. Then I impress my layout, and use a lightbox to transfer the digitised sketch on a paper template. For lower numbers I sketch straight onto a paper template so I can meet the pips. For court cards, jokers, and aces (cards with just 1 big-arse insect on), I sketch on blank paper and refine the one cartoon until set to be marked out.
Images from sketching, outlining and marker out the 10 of Hearts - one of the more complex designs, for which I digitised my initial sketch to brand 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 last layout. I exercise that beginning in graphite once again to satisfy myself everything is in the correct identify, and then in calorie-free colour pencil. There is a lot of tweaking at this stage, because you don't necessarily get a sense for what the physical drawing will look similar until you accept all your insects on the card template in forepart of you. Then I erase all the graphite pencil and become over my light color pencil outline in heavier colours. Above y'all can run into some phase of this marking up for 10H
At this point I am basically committed, and I'm internally screaming for pretty much the whole residuum of the cartoon process in case I fuck it up. (Hey, I said this was an honest breakdown.) The internal screaming gets louder the more hours of drawing expire. And so that's... [checks notes] 'fun'.
Each phase of marking upward the drawing for 10H, from pencil transfered using the lightbox, to heavy colour outline & internal screaming. (I made this image so I could practice a WIP series for my Patreon patrons, I wouldn't commonly accept one insect at each stage)
3 - Shading
There's no going back at present, so I begin the loooooooong work of shading the drawing to make full in and gradually build upwards layers of colour from light to dark (or vice versa, depends on the critter) as you can meet in the images & videos below. Sometimes I outline black insects in pen to keep my outline crisp, which also makes shading a mite easier. For larger number cards I besides generally tested out my colours on a tiny test piece first, and you can run across one of those being made in the 10H video.
This is where that do stuff really becomes of import, cos if you lot rush shading; you will regret it. At that place's not an easy mode to draw this... And then I suppose I take to grudgingly acknowledge to drawing the rest of the fucking owl at this betoken. Here'southward a couple of videos to illustrate - the 9D video has artists commentary in the closed captions that explain what I'm doing a little. The other video is some shading on the Ace of Diamonds, speeded up A LOT to show how choosy I am with my layers. I unashamedly dearest some skilful 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 dearest wasp. With thanks to Alex Wild for photo reference of the real life species to measure from. Music is by Soft and Furious.
Images from the shading and detailing of 10H
9D timelapse with artists commentary in the airtight captions (click the CC button to bring up captions). Music is by Lee Rosevere
The 9D card template shown in the video higher up is the but i I printed in grey. My fancy printer I use for heavyweight drawing newspaper templates was outta ink, but I wanted to get on with drawing, so I coloured over the pips in cerise subsequently! I apply a digital template for the actual pips, and so this doesn't affect the deck printing
Some careful shading at >1000% actual speed. Music is by Kai Engel
4 - Fine detailing
Alright, say nosotros've survived the shading. *Now* nosotros take the opportunity to REALLY fuck things up if we go wrong! [Internal screaming intensifies...] Rushing would take been a bad idea before, but it would be a truly awful thought now. And so I make sure my pencils stay perilously sharp - if I accept ane piece of advice (for both shading and detailing actually), information technology'south to never miss an opportunity to sharpen a pencil. I go slowly and carefully (and scream internally) with the pointiest pencils effectually.
Thassit.
Seriously though. Putting all the veins in the wings of blatts and bees, adding all the hairs to beetle legs... That stuff is nerve-wracking I'1000 telling you. Just very satisfying if you get it right!
Fine details on the carabid beetle for the Opal Deck card back
Just shy of 30 hours of cartoon, in ii and a half minutes! All of cartoon the Insecta Ace of Spades, including the tiny test drawing. Music is by Soft & Furious
Whew.
I don't know what else to say actually. That'southward basically how Insect Deck happened. This process, 61 times.
Each of these designs took so many hours to draw. On the i paw in that location is a lot more to information technology than drawing the rest of the fucking owl, just on the other... Information technology's hard to define exactly what I'thousand doing some of the fourth dimension because I've been drawing so long, information technology's all muscle memory. As of summer 2015 I haven't been able to feel all my fingers (tl;dr - my spine is an asshat.) But it hasn't affected my drawing. Even when I tin can't feel almost of my manus I can still draw. I say that to illustrate that muscle memory is wild! There's no substitute for practice to proceeds that.
To end up; the closest thing I've got to actual art advice tin can exist plant here, and someone else's communication that I've always valued is here. I've written a tonne so I'one thousand going to driblet this fine art-&-words-bomb and get notice some more than fucking owls to draw
Pls take care of yourselves and each other as much as you can lovely people
Immy twenty
Drawing board cam view of the Ace of Spades shading and detailing. Music is by Kai Engel
Source: https://www.immysmith.net/blog/2020/2/1/art-process-drawing-the-rest-of-the-fucking-owl
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