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!

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!

Step-by-Step - Make a Custom Pin for your blog!

Remember this post here? I said I was using PicMonkey to make Pins for one of my mom's blogs. Well, before you get all excited, no this is not me saying you can order these from me. This is a step-by-step post. A post that will show you how to make these pins for your own blog!

So Step One; Make sure you have a PicMonkey account, the site requires an account for usage, and Step Two; make sure you have Flash enabled on whatever Internet browser you are going to be using.
Step Three, pic a color pallet. My mom uses a bright green, and a bright pink.

10 Simple Ways to Extend Reading Time

Ain't that pretty?

You can use whatever colors you want, but remember to stick to them, and if you change them, to change all your previous ones, that way people recognize them later on, and say  "Hey, I know that blog!" and click on the links, thus getting your posts read quickly, and by more people, because the people that clicked on the pintrest pins are likely to re-pin, and then their followers will read it and well, you get the idea.

PicMonkey offers a ton of editing options, so I'm going to have to stop the step by step here, as I can't tell you how to customize. Will you use hearts? Stars, maybe a checkerboard patter?
It's all up to you!

What design did you choose for your pins?

How to Create a Style

When you look at images other people have drawn, you can sometimes recognize a picture by their style.
Look at this image.

Can you tell me who it is? I sure hope you can. In case you can't, this is younger Simba, from the movie Lion King. Note the style of the art. Study it really closely, and then look at this picture of younger Kovu, from the second movie

See the similarities? If not, take a real close look at the ears, eyebrows, jaws, and eyes.
Now do you see them?
Even if you couldn't, you could recognize these as Disney characters from the movie Lion King. Unless of course you've never seen any of the movies, in which case I suggest you go do right away, as it is an amazing movie.

The artists for Lion King developed a style, a pattern for their characters. That's what the topic of this post is today.
When you draw, do you do something specific to mark it as your drawing?? And I don't mean signing it. I mean drawing hands a certain way, or maybe doing the face in a certain design. If you are having trouble coming up with your own way of drawing, draw up a quick picture in the same design as the original, then look at the places you feel could use some improvement. Maybe you didn't draw the eyes just so, or maybe the hands, paws, talons, or wings turned out horribly. Draw the picture again, but leave out the parts where you messed up. Unless of course the entire image was ruined by some accident, in which case simply just re-draw it completely before doing this step.

Now, in the parts you left out, take a new piece of paper, and experiment drawing them in different ways until you come up with a way you like. When you are positive you can draw the way repetitively, draw it onto your image.  Repeat this step, until your picture is once again complete. And hey...what do you know? You've created a style for those parts!

I once had issues drawing feet, they were just super hard for me! Then I started drawing them a more cartoon-like way, shorter and more round, and suddenly they looked....right.

So keep experimenting with your images, until they feel right to you.

In what ways have you improved your art?
Do you have a specific style you can show off?
I'd love to see it!