Keep Practicing

I'm going to be honest, I am absolutely horrible at drawing in a realistic style. You guys have seen the pictures I've posted on here, and I'm pretty sure you'll agree they are in no way realistic. But I've been working on it, and the other day I managed to pull off a picture that was some sort of combination of anime(my preferred style) and realistic...ish...

What I'm trying to say is, keep working on the things you are hard at. Then, before you know it you'll be a master! Or at least halfway there ;)

I've already written quite a few posts on inspiration, so I think I'm going to cut this one short. But before I go I just want to say to everyone out there who started something and then gave up because they weren't good enough; go back to what you started. You don't have to instantly be amazing at something, take the time to learn a skill the hard way. The results will be much sweeter if you worked hard at it than instead of just half-way doing everything.

Getting used to new tools

As you get more experience drawing, you'll probably start using more and more tools. And eventually, you are going to decide to use a tool you know nothing about. So here are a two tips for using an unfamiliar tool.

Read the Manual/Take the Tutorial

Just about everything has some sort of users guide. Find it, and either read it if its text, or take the tutorial, if it's a computer app. A lot of times the guide will be able to help you out with a lot of questions you might have about the item or app. 

Experiment

Take some time to mess around with your new tool. Practice with it, and learn the best way to use it, before you apply it to any of your projects. Learn how you handle it best, and once you're comfortable with it, then you can start using it for real. 

I hope these were somewhat helpful. I'm currently taking on NaNoWriMo so my posts will be a little late this month. I probably won't get done this year, but hey at least I've got it started right?

Are you taking on NaNo? And what types of tips do you have for people who use new and unfamiliar tools?

Doing Art with Kids

Little kids can be fun. I should know, I've got seven younger siblings.
Anyways, when it's time for arts and crafts, younger people almost always want in on the fun. Here are a couple of ways to have fun, and make sure everyone gets in on it.

Don't Make it Complicated
This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make when trying to do an activity with younger people. If you make it too complicated, they get lost and spiral away from what they are supposed to be doing. Instead of throwing it all at them at once, give them step-by-step instruction. Be sure to only give out the next step when they are done with the first!

You can also simplify just about anything. If what you want to do is too hard, see if you can make it easier!

Keep it Fun!
Another important thing, and perhaps just as important as the above. If something isn't fun, chances are younger people are gonna lose interest. And if they lose interest, well...you're probably going to end up with glue and glitter everywhere.

Some ways to keep it fun, might be to listen to music while you work. Or maybe talk to them, keep their interest on the project at hand.

Stay Calm

If something goes wrong, or someone doesn't follow an instruction exactly right, that's fine! Don't get mad at them for failing at something they just might not be able to do. Instead, tell them they're doing fine, and move on.

I hoped this helped, and be sure to comment on any tips you've heard of!

Unown Secret Code

So I've been looking over legendary Pokemon lately, just for fun because they are super cool. And I came across something I guess I already knew, but never thought about.

The Unown.
And no, I didn't spell it wrong, in fact I didn't even know that was how it was spelled until I found them, I had first heard of them from one of the Pokemon Movies, and had just heard 'unknown' not 'unown'

The Unown are a type of Pokemon, with one for every letter of the alphabet, as well as an exclamation point, and a question mark.

If you haven't caught on by what I just said, combined with the title of this post, then let me just blurt it out. Unown, can be used as a secret code!
Here's a picture of them, which came from bulbapedia.bulbagarden.

                               

Now do you see why they make the perfect code? I've actually been working on drawing them out on paper, I don't have a picture, but I made a quick little note in paint:

(In case you can't tell, it says Hi!)

But if you want to get started whipping out codes without spending forever drawing them, here are some links to help you out until you become a Master of the Unown!
Pokemon Unown Text Maker - A scratch project by vwn754h
Unown.Font  - Here, you may download a font that will let you type in unown in programs like Microsoft Word
Unown Alphabet - Use this simple site to code up a message in no time!

Dot-to-Dots

I love dot-to-dots. They are just so fun, challenging, and well...fun!

Now I'm not talking about those little 10 dot ones that every kid starts out doing. My favorites are the 300+ ones that have those little special dots that make you stop, and spend an hour looking for the next dot that could be anywhere on the page.

That's right, the ones that take about 20 minutes minimum to finish. Those are my kind of dot-to-dots. Now, by this point some of you are probably thinking that I'm crazy for loving extreme dot-to-dots, but here's a few reasons why I love them.

Thinking Skills:
I first really got into dot-to-dots while doing logic classes as part of my school classes. I loved doing them, because for me they were really easy, especially compared to the word problems, aggravating riddles and other such features the logic class offered. Dot-to-dots help improve thinking, eye-hand coordination [that part of dot-to-dots I admittedly need to work on, since I keep skipping numbers every so often] and for younger people, it's a good way to work on numbers.

Art Improvement:
Alright, so of all the things I might have said, this is probably the one you weren't expecting. How in the world do dot-to-dots, improve art skills?

Well, the answer is actually really simple. As you are sitting there, connecting dots, you occasionally stop to see if you can figure out what the heck the picture is supposed to be. Once you figure it out, your movements start to become more sure, since you can start to piece together what part of the picture you are doing, and thus, you are improving your art skills by making smoother, less erratic lines, small, fine details when those dots are bunched together real annoyingly, and recognition of what you're drawing, because let's face it. We've all done at least one or two pictures where we've started off just letting our hand do all the work.

Fun
Alright, don't say you didn't see this coming, because did I not say in the opening sentence that I find dot-to-dot's fun? And really, they are. No matter your age, dot-to-dots are a fun way to spend your time, so go on and hunt some down and get dotting!

What's the longest dot-to-dot you've ever done? I think for me it was a maned three-toed sloth with 1000 dots!

Winter Art

With winter drawing closer, a lot of your guy's art is probably beginning to either be snow themed in excitement for the upcoming season, or clinging to bright and summer themed, in a sort of denial of the snow that will most likely be falling sooner rather than later.

Whatever the case, let's be real here. A lot of you are probably starting to see more winter themed decorations around, and if you aren't well...just wait until Halloween is over. Ever notice that the day after Halloween Christmas decorations seem to just pop up out of nowhere? It's just like they don't care that there's an entire month between Halloween and Christmas, the stores just want to start making cash from Christmas shoppers.

But back to decorations. When you're an artist, you tend to take in details, store them, and incorporate them into your pictures later down the road. So as you're seeing snow-themed decorations, chances are your pictures are going to become snow related.

So why not do it intentionally? Start with using different shades of blue and white. Maybe sprinkle in some pale indigo, a little hint of green for evergreen trees if you want, and of course a pencil. Those are going to be your main colors most likely, perhaps with sprinkles of other colors for animals, people, rainbows, or maybe for magic if it's a fantasy setting.

When doing your picture, mainly your background, try to give it a smooth, crystalline look. Add in small, fine details such as snowflakes, animal tracks, even a good shading can transform a picture!

And remember to have fun drawing! When you've got a completed winter picture, or maybe you have one you drew some time ago, feel free to pull it out of the shadows, and show it off in the comments!

Drivers Ed

Well, guess who started Drivers Ed two Mondays ago?

When the date of my first class was approaching, I was told by my friend who was friends who have gone through it, and practically all my family, that it's an insanely boring class, those of you reading this who have gone through it, are probably nodding right this second.

But, I'm currently taking it right now. Every Monday and Friday...and, well...you guys, it's honestly not that bad.

Every class, I bring in all the papers I've been given in previous classes, my notebook, a pen, and most obviously my purse with my phone and drivers permit in it.

I sit in class from 3:30 to 5:45, taking notes, watching videos, and during break I play a game on my phone. It's really not that bad.

Drivers Ed often gets a bad rap, but if it makes better drivers, if it helps keep us all safer on the roads, then isn't a little discomfort worth it?

Scratch Coding: A Simple Dress-Up

Using Scratch can be fairly complicated at first, which is why I've decided to start a sort of post series, for members of the site. This is the first of the series, though the post detailing the Dragonet Maker does fall into it, and technically, before it. We'll call it a prequel.

Anyways, as you can tell from the title, this first post in the Scratch Coding series, will be how to make a simple Dress-Up.  I'll be using a game I made some time ago for a reference. If you would like to play the game, you can find it here

Alright, the first thing you're going to want to do after opening up the platform you'll be using, either the online or offline version, is to create a base sprite. This will be your dress-up person,  so go as fancy as you want. Just make sure there is no hair, you want your players to be able to add hats and wigs as they please, or even leave them bald. You want to be able to give your players lots of options!

Once you have the sprite made, drag it to where you want it and into the code area add the When Green Flag Clicked, and under it attach a go to X: Y: piece, putting in the coordinates of where you have the sprite.

Once you have that done, copy the sprite. Go into the costumes tab, and  draw your first outfit over the base sprite. Once you have it completed, erase any parts of the base sprite left over. Repeat this step until you have all the costumes you want, and then do it again for hair, shoes, and accessories.

Once you have all the costumes you want, drag them all into the places you want them in, and edit the code that should be there. Then click the little blue circle with a white i in it, and click on the box by 'Can drag in player'

Congratulations! You're done.
If you want to add a background and special effects, that's up to you.

What kind of dress-ups have you made in Scratch? Care to share a link? I'll do my best to comment on them should you link them

How to Deal with Artist's Block

Have you ever heard of Writer's Block?

If you have, then you probably have a good idea about what this post is about. If not, let me take a moment to explain.

Writer's Block is when an author is simply stuck in a rut about moving on with their book.

So looking at the title which says Artist's Block, you can probably guess what it is. Artist's Block is when you are an artist and are just completely stuck in a rut about what to draw.

From experience, I can tell you that Artist's Block is a pain. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've sat for hours on end, staring at paper with my pencil in hand.

But when you get Artist's Block, I've actually found several ways to push past it.

1) Take out all your old pictures...

...and laugh about how horrible you used to be, before proving you've gotten better.

Alright, that kind of sums it up, but really, that's one of the things that's knocked me out of Artist's Block before.

Go through all your old pictures you've saved, find one you were so proud of when you drew it, laugh about how horrible it really is, get paper, and draw it again, but much better.

2) Just let your brain wander

This one is the one I turn to most often. I simply sit with a piece of paper in front of me and a pencil in hand, and I just let my hand draw whatever it wanted. Last time I did this, I ended up with various pictures of characters from a show I like to watch!

And finally,

3) Take a break

Sometimes, Artist's Block comes from trying to hard. So, just stop trying. Simply take a break, a day or two or three to clear your head. Then go back to your paper, and I think you'll find yourself having a bit of better luck than you had been having before.


Do you have any other tricks for dealing with Artist's Block? Could you share them with me?

A Week at Camp

I promised to write this post, I'm sorry it took so long though, I've been a bit busy.

While I was at Family Camp with my friend, from July 23d - July 28th, I had so much fun!

We went up on Sunday afternoon, and it's a three hour drive from where we started, so by the time we got there, there was barely time to unpack before it was time to eat.

After dinner, me and my friend started work on the puzzles I had brought.

On Monday, we mostly worked on puzzles, though we did do a bit of exploration as well.

Tuesday we climbed up a mountain, that though it isn't changing, feels like it grows larger every time you climb it. Supposedly there's wifi at the top, but I never got a connection. Ah well.

When we got back from that, me, my friend, and a kid we met there, took a ten minute break for lunch, got changed, and ran out to the lake.

Needless to say, the next day my muscles were sore!

On Wednesday we drove out to a ghost town, combined with a non-ghost town. I got a lot of cool pictures, but I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet, so unfortunately I can't show them off.
When we got back, we once again went swimming!

On Thursday, we went Fossil Digging in one of the semi-nearby towns. Me and my friend mostly found mineral stains, but we did get a few leaves.

When we got back, once again we went swimming, and during this swim, we saw some sort of military plane, when the pilot saw us, they looped back and did a barrel roll! Well, supposedly. I'm nearsighted, and water + glasses doesn't usually turn out well, so I wasn't able to see it.

And Thursday night we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores!

Sadly, on Friday we had to pack up, clean camp, and leave.

But it was a great week.

Have you gone camping before? What did you do?

Paper Towers

A while ago, I think maybe two years perhaps? The church I go to did a Construction themed vacation bible school.

I was able to assist as a helper for the crafts, and one of the projects we did, my sister recently re-created, so I thought I would share it with you.

This project...is Paper Towers! And before you ask, no; I did not misspell paper towels.

Paper Towers are towers, drawn and scrap-booked out of giant pieces of paper.

What you do is you take a piece of paper, about three to four times long as it is wide. Then gather some colored paper, and lots of crayons, as well as some scissors, glue, and a pencil.

Start by deciding the theme of your tower. Is it a tower in outer space? Maybe a tower in the desert, or even underground!

Once you have your themed decided, take a pencil, and outline the basics of your tower. Include multiple floors, with windows, doors at the bottom, and anything else you might want! Then take the paper, and cut it into the shapes you need. Then glue them on, and use your crayons for detail work.

And finally, or perhaps first, depending on your preference, use a black crayon/marker to write the name of your tower at the top.

What sort of tower did you make? Back when I did it, I made a Lego Ninjago themed tower, with one floor for each elemental master. I don't have any pictures, and sadly the tower got accidentally ripped up quite some time ago, but I'd love to see pictures of yours!

 After you make it on paper, try to re-create it out of toys, Legos, or even cardboard boxes.

Coding Games in Scratch Book Review

I'm sorry about the lack of posts, but I must admit it's been a rather crazy time.

For Independence Day weekend, me and my family went on a trip, and when we got back, well...me and my father, plus possibly two, though I'm pretty sure it's only one, of my siblings are the only ones not sick.

But anyways, while I've been gone, I've gotten a book from the library, that I'd like to share a review of with you.

The book is called Coding Games in Scratch, and it was written by Jon Woodcock in 2016, so it's a fairly recent book, and as a result, everything in book is up-to-date, concerning the images and options in Scratch, and so far I've found it very helpful, as it explained the New Block section, which I had never before been able to figure out.

The book has many step-by-step instructions for games, ranging from quite simple, to surprisingly complicated coding.

A lot of these games, you play, and don't really think about what code went into the making of the game, until you open up the project and peek inside, but even then, you don't think about the effort, and time the game took to make, until you actually try doing it yourself.

But while the book does have rather detailed explanations for what you need to do, there are some places where you need to stop, stare at the words for a second, look over the images nearby, and figure out what sprite the code is going into, or where in the code the addition needs to go.

But all-in-all I found the book quite useful, and decided to post all of the games I've made so far using it; my favorite so far is Dog's Dinner, but I am working on a racing game now that looks quite promising.

If you have a Scratch account, I suggest you get this book, whether you buy it, or find it at your library; it is quite the guidebook for Scratchers of all experience levels.

How Reading can Inspire Drawing

Alright, so if you’re starting to notice a common theme on my blog, you might notice its inspiration. Well, that's probably because that's the thing I know most about art at this time, and because I think everybody could always use some.

But this post is a little different than my previous inspirational posts. Instead of telling you to look at your surroundings, I want you to find the nearest book, and just start reading.

When you get to a part that inspires you, stop reading, put in a bookmark, grab some paper and a pencil, or a pen if that's what you prefer, and just start drawing whatever you just read. Not only is it a good way to practice drawing characters in action, it can also help with your backgrounds, which is something I must admit I need to work on.

I'll try to edit this post at some point, with a picture from a book, but at the moment I don't really have any saved on my computer, I'll have to work on that!

I know this is a rather short post, but that's because I think I've run out of inspirational things to say.

 So one last thing, if you do draw something based on a book, and I do hope you do, as it is great practice, could you maybe take a picture and post it in the comments below?

I'd love to see your guys' art, and feel free to put in your email in the subscribe thing, if you want some more. I'm currently posting on Saturdays, usually weekly, but sometimes I miss a week, but I usually try to catch up ASAP, or sometimes I post early, because I really just want to get the post out.

See you guys next week!

More Insparation Ideas

Alright, so you remember this post? If not, I suggest you go and read it. It talks about taking inspiration from places that you might not expect. In this post, I'll be talking about more places to gain inspiration for your images, and hopefully by the time I'm done, you'll be taking in inspiration from everything you look at!

Alright, so first off, take a look around you. Are you sitting in your room? Pay close attention to the designs on your blankets, and study any toys that might be lying around, could you take some of those designs and put them into your drawings? Are you sitting at a desk? Well, are there any paintings around? Or some books with elaborately drawn covers are sitting nearby. Or maybe you are outside, or perhaps in the car. Look at your surroundings; are there any funky looking trees? Or maybe a cloud shaped like a mermaid princess!

Another good place to look for inspiration, is by watching a movie, but instead of watching the main character, the person the screen is focusing on, focus your gaze at the background stuff, and see what inspires you from there!

Take in all the little details, and pause the movie at random scenes to see what's going on.

Or if you like Legos, try designing a build, and then making it, or perhaps do it the other way around, do the build, and then make a drawing based on your build!

I sure hope these tips have helped you.

Do you have any tips to share? I'd love to hear them!

Drawing Crossovers

Crossovers are an amazing thing. Especially when they happen in-canon, such as in the episode of Transformers Robots in Disguise, when Rescue Bot Blurr makes an appearance!

But sometimes, we can come up with crossovers that, well, let's face it. They just aren't going to happen. So, it's up to us the fans to write, or draw them.

Alright, so what two fandoms have you dreamt of having the characters meet? For this post, I'll be using several examples, the first of which being a book-meets-movie art. 

So for those of you who have seen the movie How to Train Your Dragon, you know Toothless as a rather large black scaled dragon cutie, who most definitely HAS teeth. But if you've read the books, then you'll know the original Toothless was small enough to ride around on Hiccup's shoulder, was a pale sickly green color, and had no teeth. 

Those are some rather drastic differences don't you think? So can you imagine what it would be like for the movie Toothless to meet the book Toothless? Well....a while back I drew it. I was just beginning to draw Dragons then, and book Toothless had very few image references, so there might be a few alterations that I never noticed when drawing.

{I was also a little lazy with them and only drew as much as necessary to define each character XD}
I wonder what it would look like now if I re-drew it now hmm....I'll have to do that sometime soon and show you all.

Anyways, look at those major differences in character! It's like two whole different characters are meeting, which, they technically are. There are three things they share. 1; their name is Toothless, 2; they are dragons, and 3; their owner is Hiccup.

So can't you just imagine how awesome their meeting would be?


For my second example, I'll be using two very different fandoms, and a picture I'm sure is growing quite familiar on this blog.

 I'm pretty sure this is my third time using this picture now, but hey, it's been a great example for all the posts it's been in. It's one of my best pictures so far, but hopefully that will change sometime soon as I'm working on my design, but for the time being, this is also my best crossover art, so just bear with me here.

Anyways, this picture is a crossover between Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, and Young Justice, though it might not look like it. The winged person is Robin, who in a fan-fiction I'm writing, gains a Miraculous and becomes a hero called Oiseau.

{Oiseau is the French word for bird, and is basically pronounced Wazoo}.

So ya, drawing crossovers is really fun!


I want you to draw a crossover. Is it book-meets-movie? Or the meeting of two fandoms?

You can decide, but I want you to challenge yourself to draw it, and when it's ready, post it in the comments, and let me see your awesome ideas!