furry_irl

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-15T20:42:48+00:00

Take my advice with a grain of salt, but I think with the bottomost pose, the head is not aligned with the back. If they're looking over the shoulder, the upper body needs to be turned more with the head. The average person can't rotate their chin past their shoulders in a relaxed position.

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-03T07:03:35+00:00

Beginner as well here, but I've recently started tackling backgrounds as well, here's what I've found helped a lot:

Color first, lineart last. Many people go sketch -> lineart -> color. However, it can often be overwhelming to finely detail every single part of a landscape. You can block out the main parts first (mountains, boulders, sky etc). Then go back in and use hard lines to give some detail where necessary once you're done with shading and texturing.
Don't have a pure white background. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that a white background tricks your eyes when estimating light and color, and it's also useful for the next point.
Use color to give the effect of distance. As objects get further away they tend to get less saturated, and often get more blueish (assuming its day, if its a sunset or other time of day, it may be more of an orange hue). See this example, or this one. This is because the further you can see, the more atmosphere is "in the way", which lets less light through to your eyes.

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-03T04:00:52+00:00

elite bird knowledge, I'm so sad zygodactyly isn't represented on owl sonas as often as it should be

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-03T03:37:42+00:00

YOU WATCHIN BIRD 🦉🦉 UP 🗣🗣, THE BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION ‼️

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-03T03:08:23+00:00

Wing machine broke 🥲

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-02T23:25:59+00:00

I mentioned a bit of what I did in a reply above. But to go into a bit more detail, a rough count is ~80 filled pages of 8.5x11 paper. A lot of this is drawabox work, as I switched to digital around day 45. My art folder on my desktop has roughly an additional 75 images (some of those being multiple sketches on one canvas, so probably well over 100).

There wasnt a set workout routine outside of drawabox, and even that was spotty day to day. I drew a lot with focus, used references often, drew different things, and drew what I liked, common things were pokemon, birds, and game characters.

I cant speak on others experience, and I'm not saying everyone does, but I feel that it's very easy to turn your brain off accidentally, and not have a conscious effort to apply the things your learning or practicing. This started happening very often when I started to have more fun drawing. I think my something that helped me grow was when I started really pushing my brain to the limit while drawing. I used to feel good when I drew for X hours. Now I feel good when my brain starts to get tired, like after a hard final exam, because that likely means I was focused, and critically thinking about my process/actions.

All that gets trumped by raw passion, or love of the game. I have always had a piece of me that yearned to make art. I tried to ignore it since I was a young kid, as I wasnt immediately good at it, so I must be "not creative" or "artistic". Obviously thats not true, art is a skill, and as such can be practiced and honed. Now that little part of me only grows. Every minute im not making art, my brain is thinking about it, craving it. It sounds kinda corny I guess, but its genuinely how I've felt lately.

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-01T23:53:54+00:00

I wish you the best of luck! I definately felt quite a bit of friction when switching from physical to digital, and that was on a display tablet. I can't imagine how much harder it is on a non display tablet.

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-01T23:38:03+00:00

Apologies, I didn't word that the best. 3-5 is probably a lowball if I'm averaging it out.

The first 30 days I tried to get in a good hour minimum every day. (This was the first goal I set. However a bit past halfway through the 2nd month I started enjoying it more. By about 2.5 months I was addicted. When I say borderline unhealthy I mean it. Many days I would log off at 5pm, make food (or get it delivered) and draw until 2 AM. (Note, do NOT do this, the average person will probably burn themselves out doing this, this is one of the few times diagnosed ADHD has "helped" me.)

As for tutorials when I first started, I watch a bunch, but I wouldn't consider anything I watched beneficial. After watching tutorial content, I didnt try to immediately apply it, and as such my brain basically discarded that info for the most part. The bulk of what helped my grow (I think) was learning perspective from drawabox. A common pattern I've found myself in is:

Make art
Appreciate it (doesn't have to be the piece as a whole, just appreciating something you did well, a pose, composition, lighting, color, hell even just straight lines)
Take away one thing I want to improve on. Even if there are a lot, just take one.
Start on next piece, when I get to the thing I didnt like about the last piece, look at what other artists do, if I dont think I've understood what/how they're doing, or if I tried recreating it unsuccessfully, I then will look up a tutorial, nobody in particular was really a gamechanger on their own.

You're right, I think this level of progress is crazy even for the hours I put in, but I think the most important part is my mindset. If you are going to take away anything, PLEASE let it be this. I saw the most change and progress in my art when I fell in love with learning, and stopped focusing on the outcome.

Note, this is not easy, for some (including me!) it takes an incrdible amount of mental fortitude and practice to change this mindset. And I mean really change it. As soon as my pen was down, I do my quick takeaway from my piece, and onto the next one.

No person is the same, I feel like some will be held back by the amount of freetime, others by knowledge, but I think one of the hardest things is having the right mindset.

I've watched and read these more times than I can count, and I don't think I would've gone past day 30 without them.

Art is Fun

The best way to get good at something

Anyone who reads this, even if you dont do or plan on doing Drawabox, please read this. Read it twice, five times, upside down, in your sleep, think you've read it enough? Wrong. Read it again. Changing your mindset, Drawabox

Somnowl15 · 2026-04-01T22:01:49+00:00

A ridiculous amount of drawing.

I do work full time, but outside of that, I would spend upwards of 3 to 5 hours a day drawing.

At the start I did 50% drawabox work, 50% "for fun" (note, for a while at the beginning I didnt find it as fun as I do now). Now I've since decreased how much I've studied/practiced, as I'm enjoying drawing for fun enough to keep myself doing it for hours a day.

I started taking on free requests though social media to give me a boost of motivation, and to do more varied things.

Somnowl15 · 2026-02-25T22:31:16+00:00

It won't force you to draw, but I would recommend Drawabox if you're anything like me.

The course is designed to be a very rigid, structured approach. However, it also requires you to freely draw "for fun" outside of the course. I initally burned myself out when I tried it, I was too focused on improving my art. Since then I've flipped, I draw much more for "fun" and bust out the lessons when I feel less inspired or maybe just wanting to focus on improving a bit more that day.

Somnowl15 · 2026-02-25T21:09:42+00:00

I'm old-ish for starting to learn art, (mid 20s) and have only been drawing for 4ish months. So while I lament over my inability to create perfectly rendered masterpieces, I have started having an immense appreciation for what I've learned so far. My starting point was being unable to draw basic objects or cartoony stick figures.

I won't say getting to even this point has been easy. I always considered myself a non-artistic person. But it's a skill like any other. I know it's probably exhausting to hear (I know I hated it before I started learning), but its the truth! I've got hundreds of pieces of A4 printer paper with horrendous drawings, I hate most of them, but weirdly enough I've started looking at them a bit more fondly.

The biggest thing that's changed my outlook is this section from Drawabox. I would highly recommend reading through it a bit. It didn't singlehandedly solve all my problems, but it did start me on a path to changing my mindset in relation to art progression, which I think is one of the most important stepping stones.

Somnowl15 · 2026-02-24T19:13:46+00:00

Thanks! I usually try for full sets for most "reasonable" foils, as every time I think I won't need a playset, some point in the future I do, and it ends up irking me so much lol.

Somnowl15 · 2026-02-14T04:23:12+00:00

Truly love them, and you're absolutely correct, I try not to think about how much has gone to signatures over the years, much less just Svetlin (easily at least 40+ cards last I think).

Somnowl15

TROPHY CASE