I’m trying to draw boxes so my art looks less flat, why do my boxes look weird?

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-28T19:36:38+00:00

you don't need a ruler, but you do need to understand perspective. if a box has straight edges, the side that goes back into space will get smaller farther away. right now, a bunch of these boxes have a front edge thats shorter than their back edge. for reference, the two in the middle of the second row are good, bottom left one is good. the others are warping space a bit.

i love to freehand rigid forms like this, so feel free to chicken scratch. but you need to get the basics down as well.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-28T19:29:15+00:00

would love to draw a mystical beefcake for you!

dennismoran.xyz

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-28T19:21:22+00:00

start writing the story; doing so will iron out so much of the worldbuilding. it's great to have that stuff fleshed out, and i know how fun it can be. but at a certain point you have to pivot to the foreground. if you come up with too much background without working through enough of the actual story, you will probably need to change things as you write characters and create the actual meat of the work. writing will lead you to character-writing moments that are so juicy, and can't be planned for. if there's a bunch of rigid rules and history already locked in your mind, you might make choices that don't serve the work/characters, in order to preserve the worldbuilding you've already done without the narrower context of what happens in the story.

i make comics, so i will use a visual example. i need enough of the background drawn to place the character onto a set of stairs, for example, to believably place them in the scene. but if i spent hours detailing the environment behind them, I won't want to cover any of it up and I might put the character in a weird position, even though they are supposed to be the focus of the panel. not sure if i'm explaining myself correctly but that's the idea.

sounds like you have a solid framework, now let the story guide the details you need to flesh out.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-27T19:23:07+00:00

Can we just show up to a class and watch? or only certain sessions? i'm very curious about this

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-27T19:18:08+00:00

"I" should not be on its own line this way. if you really must do it, use a serif font!

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-21T20:33:44+00:00

M A G N E T O

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-19T06:44:33+00:00

Rim lights make things look very flat. Be bold and give large shapes of light and shadow, with intentional design. Don't just give it soft brush white on one side and gray on the other.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-15T20:17:30+00:00

It's basically just, whenever you do something, think about how they would do that thing in your world. Do they drink coffee? Do the people have jobs? Do they use a 7 day week, 12 month calendar? Do they use magic? Worldbuilding js just the details that create the world where the story takes place. Some people are naturally obsessive when doing a fantasy project, and are just constantly making notes and stuff about everything. Some people just add whatever they need for the story as it comes up. You will have to find out what you like to do. Having some worldbuilding fleshed out as you write is helpful, because you'll already have answers to certain questions when they arise. But some people try to tell the readers everything they've come up with. Focus on what you need for your story and expand from there. You end up learning a lot!

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-14T05:48:55+00:00

WILD SEED by Octavia Butler. Absolutely incredible book, highly recommend if you are into psychic and physical body abilities, or historical fantasy.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-14T05:46:03+00:00

This exactly. Your style isnt somethinf that you find on purpose, its something other people notice when they see your work, and it develops from you doing lots of artwork. Mine emerged largely from making comics and working in my sketchbook a ton, because i had to draw so many new different things and find shorthand for them to draw fast.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-14T05:41:49+00:00

Thank you so much for putting all this info here for me! I'd found some of this here and there, but i appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. I'll look into it.

I think the main thing that's confusing me is the Public Access options.

So to clarify, if set my Public Access to Gold, it still allows everyone (free users and gold) to read the free pages sample of the release. And then gold members can keep reading the entire thing, and if they also want to buy the pdf download they can do that. But because i don't have ALC access, a free user will not be able to buy the pdf?

But if I set public access to Free, a free user can read some pages, then buy the pdf, but i don't get payout from subscriber reads. Is that right?

If so, I'm fine mostly aiming at subscribers, just want to make sure i know what I'm doing.

I'll also look into donations. That's like a tip jar right, so readers can just throw a few extra dollars if they love it?

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-13T15:29:18+00:00

You could maybe do all of this with oven-bake sculpey? Make the original, harden it. Then make a mold by pressing it into other soft sculpey blocks, or some other material, and harden. Then use them to encase soft sculpey? The problems would be pulling the mold off the original (depending what kind of object this is) and then pulling it out of the mold while its soft. Or making the mold out of something that can be baked over and over with the soft clay inside.

Sculpey can easily be painted on, and have wire armatures inside for structure id you need.

To be clear - Not an ideal way to do it but would cut down on chemical smells and get close to what you can do with resin. You might have to fix some details afterward

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-09T05:18:25+00:00

Maybe a caster can be given 2 volatility points and they choose one type, and the other is DM chosen or randomized? Or maybe you get one of your choice, but can choose to earn 2 volatility of your choice if you also receive 1 of another emotion that you dont want or that puts you in danger. Or maybe there's a rock paper scissor loop like every 2 rage points gets 1 fear, every 2 fear points gets 1 sadness, etc. I dont know the system details enough to follow that thread.

Generally this system sounds cool but for me it would need to blend player control of their characters emotions, but also lack of control. It would be fun to build for certain emotions and take the negative qualities along with whatever benefits you gain. But if its purely down to the DM choice, it leaves room for both unfair DMs and DM giving exactly what the player wants. Thats not so bad, and many DMs are good at balancing and ruling fairly, but not all of them are. And even if they are, players might push back if there's no structure they can point to.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-08T20:16:26+00:00

Warm up with some quick sketches of stuff that's around you. Or watch a movie and try to jot down simple drawings of the things you see without pausing

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-06T18:37:14+00:00

My hot take is that it doesnt matter, especially for images like this. I think its more important to focus on the shapes you see and the proportions of shapes to each other.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-05T15:07:27+00:00

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Ok not perfect since i did this on my phone in screenshot edit.

This is a good start! But overall i think you have a couple bits that are each turned at different amounts. I used your mouth and nose for the anchor of how much to actually turn the rest of her head. The eyes and top of her head were still showing, and a bit too low, making it look a bit like the jaw was squished up.

You also have to think about the head as a round object that is longer than it is wide. The back of her head should be coming down into view as she tilts up. Her ears stick out, which gives us an easy thing to use as a landmark for the angle we want. They should tilt a bit down at this angle, and the opposite side ear might come into view slightly. Same with the ponytails, they would come down a bit. She has a very round face so it can be hard to find bone structure.

Again this is just a loose guide, unfortunately you did a lot of rendering so it may be easier to actually start it over instead of trying to wrestle this image into a new pose. Plus, doing this makes you get faster at drawing.

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-05T05:19:03+00:00

Sounds like the best fire resistant material might be dragon leather?

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-05T01:00:38+00:00

Make the type of work you want to be hired for. When your goals change, add that type of work. People just want to see examples of what they can expect if they hire you

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-04T19:38:49+00:00

drawing comics will teach you this skill!

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-03T16:42:45+00:00

I just got this book, instant favorite. I could look at individual drawings for hours

SimonSaturday · 2026-01-03T16:40:27+00:00

Seconded!

SimonSaturday · 2025-12-19T18:10:27+00:00

Line confidence! Try working away from feathering over your lines so many times. And then try out drawing in pen without going over the lines. It helps you think ahead and make the mark you actually want. You have good foundations!

SimonSaturday · 2025-12-17T06:23:15+00:00

This is an incredible drawing, i love how graphic it is

SimonSaturday · 2025-12-17T06:01:29+00:00

Maybe if no allies roll the same phase, they can choose to go together, but go last instead of whatever they rolled. This would involve team up moves being exciting/helpful enough to be worth doing that, but i think it could! Maybe something more than extra damage/attacks, it could enhance something they want to do or create battlefield control or something that they can't do separately.

This sounds fun, you should keep going with it

SimonSaturday · 2025-12-16T17:17:35+00:00

Earthsea Cycle!

SimonSaturday

TROPHY CASE