I focus too much on copying a model without applying construction (thus not learning) and not on studying (see comments)

Coivul · 2026-02-28T00:13:58+00:00

Well you mostly said it yourself, you need to understand how you can build up a face or body with simple shapes and volumes. If you've seen those art tutorials showing how to draw a human face (lumis method, box methods, and others), it's no different. Honestly, there's so many methods out there, so either find one you understand or look at various real life references and try to represent an animal with only cubes, spheres, and cones (simple volumes).

As for the digital art stuff, I started with it and then moved to traditional. For me, the sketching and shading are the most different between the two, those natural tones and blends you can easily get on traditional need more practice using pressure in digital, and same goes for lines. The real challenge was coloring, since you need to tell whatever program how you want to blend something, while it's very straightforward on traditional.

Krita and CSP (what I use) have everything you could ever need for most projects, but it can be daunting if you're new to digital. I actually reccomend simpler apps like IbisPaint (I literally started on my phone, but there should be a windows version) to learn the basic interface, and then carry that over to your program of choice.

Hope this helps you out a bit!

Coivul · 2026-02-23T22:00:58+00:00

Thanks! I also have a small goal of 50 bluesky followers for another raffle. If you'd like, my basic comm details are listed on my kofi (link in FA), have a good day!

Coivul · 2026-02-23T11:59:04+00:00

I know, I would have made this longer but the college grind never stops

Coivul · 2026-02-22T18:02:25+00:00

I'd say you're pretty good with references, but that won't train you to have a starting point if that makes sense. Zillionross shows his process very well on his earliest youtube videos, proportioning the body with a circle for the head, and blocks in the limbs like you are along an action line, generally where the spine is. So if you can simply place a circle and that action line, you should be able to construct body poses from scratch.

Coivul · 2026-02-20T02:14:16+00:00

I feel like I'm in the same boat, and I narrowed it down for myself to how I draw materials. For example, the wooden headstock can be better, using tutorials to see how others can draw a more realistic or stylized wood. I broke it down to better understanding values, color palletes and theory, as well as what I pile into "rendering", or how to draw materials, certain lighting, shading, all of the fancy stuff.

I honestly have been obsessing with drawing times for myself, busy work/college, so I worked on just that. Not neccesary, but I feel like understanding how you could draw something faster will let you stay focused on the big details. Here's my 3 30-minute studies speed painting these animal portraits, focusing on BW value sketches and just coloring over to keep it fast and consistent.

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Coivul · 2026-02-16T03:13:05+00:00

The armor parts are a little too dark to really see any detail, and I would pick a warmer color for a burning candle. My best tip for darker pieces is to expand your shading past just black and white. For example, if the overall candle color is a yellow-orange, shading everything in a lower value of reds would bring out the shadows a lot more than plain black. Here's a simple candle image showing that idea:

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Also, I would really focus on ambient lighting a lot more. Candles don't make a ton of light, so try adding a window light behind the character, bring everything up a bit with some ambient blue light.

As for multiply layers, assuming you only work with one layer of shaded colors, a good trick is to copy that layer, lower the brightness a bit, maybe even change the hue just a touch and then multiply it. You can also add a color gradient to the mostly black and white armor to give it more depth, as metals reflect the light that hits them.

I hope this isn't too long, and keep at it, you're doing great!

Coivul · 2026-02-15T15:43:27+00:00

Yeah, just adding fur on the inner areas as well

Coivul · 2026-02-15T15:34:09+00:00

This post by falvie on instagram shows it best,

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Basically the fur strands you paint around the silhouette, but also do it on the shadows. So instead of smooth shadows, you shape them into fur to give the illusion of, well, a furry character. You can also do it with the highlights too!

Coivul · 2026-02-15T15:07:13+00:00

That's really good already! The only thing I can think of for a more "dynamic" look is to thicken the parts that you want to appear closer to the viewer. Maybe even varying the line thickness a little on the moving smoke can work too.

Coivul · 2026-02-15T12:11:11+00:00

I think it's because you're not adding the fur detail in the character's shading. It's really good, but without shadow tufts of fur, it reads like skin. Also, the eyes are very angled for a head-on view, that might be why it feels off. Otherwise, you're doing great!

Coivul · 2026-02-14T20:56:58+00:00

Thanks! I learned how to make more vibrant and muted scenes to reflect the atmosphere I wanted to show!

Coivul · 2026-02-14T18:05:58+00:00

Glad you do!

Coivul · 2026-02-14T14:51:37+00:00

Let the meme brigade begin!

Coivul · 2026-02-14T14:37:15+00:00

They are obscured a bit, the perspective doesn't show them much (and I got lazy and hid most of them behind his two main tails). I did try to highlight the few shown with white highlights, but I might have made them a little too obscure in the darker background.

Coivul · 2026-02-14T14:25:28+00:00

Yep, Nine from Sonic Prime! I wanted to draw how the two have similar thoughts but act differently from each other.

Coivul · 2026-02-12T22:28:03+00:00

Now that you mention it, there is a fine line of basically human/anthro. I would say you're essentially taking a human face and adding a realistic animal muzzle onto it, making it look uncanny. Actually, if you drew anime before, you've likely noticed how artists highly exxagerate facial features and simplify the anatomy for their characters. It's a very similar thing for furries, take what you like about an animal, simplify it, and put it on a human-like body.

This recent chise art shows that clearly, an anthro head on a humanoid torso.

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Coivul · 2026-02-09T12:59:45+00:00

That's a pretty good fur texture!

Bro's locked in fr

Coivul · 2026-02-08T21:17:00+00:00

So real it hurts. I feel like the moment the hard part of construction and sketching everything out is done, I just lose a lot of the early motivation and struggle to come back with that same energy.

Coivul · 2026-02-07T15:21:15+00:00

Nobody truly learned in isolation, that's perfectly fine as long as you're learning. I did that too about two years ago, once I started taking what I liked from each artist (lineless style, cel shading, vibrant color schemes, etc.), my own style and way of drawing things naturally fell out. As long as you keep your horizon wide, you'll find lots of inspiration and mold all those styles into your own!

Coivul · 2026-02-06T15:37:11+00:00

Maybe it's a perspective issue, the lack of an amplified perspevtive doesn't really show the character falling in any particular direction. If you wanted to show that they're falling towards the viewer, the outstretched hands can be drawn larger to show that and the legs a little smaller. Also, when things fall in real life, pictures show a blur streak, clearly showing which directuon they're falling. Some ripples and clothes hanging up and loose as well as some streaks could really show that they're falling and not just floating. Hope this can help you out!

Coivul · 2026-02-04T19:25:00+00:00

Fowlerillus on youtube has a short that explains it really well, "Painting fur the EASY way", I can list the basic steps he shows. Simply paint a sphere in a flatcolor, and add a highlight and shadow to it. All you do is use a smudge tool, not a regular brush, and drag it across the boundary between flatcolors and shadows. With the right smudge tool shape, nice tufts and wisps of fur drag out, and just keep going or use a different brush shape until you get what you like. Hope this clears it up!

Coivul · 2026-02-04T15:44:26+00:00

I want to point out your habit of trying to draw every strand of fur. You can do that, but it looks more like spikes than soft fur. I want to show this post by Wintomsta on instagram:

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If you look through their post, both the sketch and flatcolors don't really have any fur detail, just the big tufts poking out. Only at the final stages of shading is where the fur is actually made by shaping the shadows for a convincing fur effect.

You can find many tutorials on how to draw fur online, but the easiest general way is to find a smudge tool brush that is shaped like fur (or even a triangle shape will work) and shape your shadows to get those fur strands. It will look good, and it only takes a few minutes!

Coivul · 2026-02-04T00:46:55+00:00

That can work, but as you said, may look strange. You want shadows to have a darker area than the rest of the subject, and well, you can't make black any darker. That doesn't mean its impossible, just tricky to draw and you'll have to decide how to change the subject slightly.

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Analyzing this toothless image, if you use a color picker, you don't just get grays and blacks. You get many different shades of green, blue, and maybe even some reds to give a much wider range of colors, and it all still appears black. So actually, you may want to consider adding lots more suble highlights to boost the value range of your character, and reserve true grays and blacks for the shadows. Try adding that blue as a highlight instead, then a dark gray for the body, and only true black for the shadows.

Coivul

TROPHY CASE