What body types do you have the easiest time drawing? Hardest?

Leyelle 2024-09-13 15:54:05 UTC #63

right? when I try to draw dogs they look all freaky, but fish, lobsters, Nicobar pigeons, they're just fine

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 15:56:03 UTC #64

Same I totally get you. Sometimes I make it work for me though like making the animal an actual cryptid or horror element because they unintentionally look like that vibe already

Leyelle 2024-09-13 16:00:12 UTC #65

ahh, if i was looking to make a monster it would be fine, well, technically i was a drawing a chihuahua with antlers, so kind of a monster, but I still wanted it to be cute lol

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 16:01:47 UTC #66

Oh no, guys, new cryptid just dropped Deer Chihuahua!! Lowkey I kinda wanna see how it turned out tho will you share it?? I’m so curious, I wouldn’t have thought of drawing that lol

Leyelle 2024-09-13 16:06:35 UTC #67

like, i can try but it's honestly so awful, lemme at least drop some of my good animal art first so i can retain what little cred i have lol. I do lots of quirky animal combo art just cuz I'm a little off, so here are what the good ones look like:

also sometimes the colors are weird xd

now off to find my cursed chihuahua

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 16:08:49 UTC #68

Oh I love the little crab guy, also that squirrel is actually good!! 100% Squirrel no unknown entity detected lol

Leyelle 2024-09-13 16:11:19 UTC #69

yeah, weirdly squirrels and like, red pandas are the only mammals i've done successfully

cursed chihuahua, it was also done in purple for like a glowy aurora theme. I'm not normal. maybe someday I'll be able to execute this well. I'll probably be practicing drawing more animals and fantasy creatures for the second season of Sketchy Business so we'll see

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 16:17:10 UTC #70

Honestly it’s not that bad, if I were to draw a chihuahua I don’t think I could get it looking dog enough. His antlers are sort of giving like sea coral too so it’s much more cute than creepy he even has the 🥺 face, meanwhile I have horses in canon but cannot draw said horses:

Also I should have really looked at a ref because looking now the horses neck is really short

Leyelle 2024-09-13 16:43:52 UTC #71

@beebutterbee wait, if you drew that without reference that's actually really good. yk, except that horses eyes aren't both on the same side. this isn't peppa pig lol

Zhengo 2024-09-13 16:48:52 UTC #72

I would say probably this androgynous body type lol. I usually start off with an androgynous shape and then make adjustments on their actual body type and features I want to accentuate. But for some characters they just have this shape as a default so then I don't need to make adjustments lol

The downside is that I realize the above method doesn't work as well as I'd like for characters that are supposed to be noticeably fat or plump. At most I can make them look chubby with this method but I realize I need to actually start with a plump shape from the beginning which I'm working on practicing

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 16:51:36 UTC #73

lol I’ll draw my peppa pig horse if I want to! It actually does have another eye on the other side, it’s three eyed

Leyelle 2024-09-13 16:57:43 UTC #74

I was joking lol. Peppa Pig is high-key freaky when you see one of the toys though. FOUR EYES.

But hey, I have lots of weird creatures in the worlds of my fantasy stories. I mean, I have a two-headed peacock and that was for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I just have a low scare tolerance, though weirdly quite a bit of my fiction would probably fall under psychological thriller, and one magazine rejected one of my stories and called it horror when it definitely wasn't supposed to be.

I'm assuming the horse has three eyes because Locket does?

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 17:41:48 UTC #75

Oh that’s kinda cool actually, I love designs that look they come from dream it’s very much my vibe I love surreal art. I like kinda scary stuff, I loved horror stories as a kid, but some things do still scare me but I love like “the unknown” element of horror. And that’s crazy I wouldn’t have expected a horror story for you! I guess you call that having range you could always find a horror magazine to submit that story to!

And yes the horse does sort of eyes for the same reason Locket does, the multiple eyes is usually from “demonic” energy exposure, but it’s not actually demonic per say it’s just very chaotic magical energy that people label evil Sorry sorry dropping the butter bee lore here lol

Leyelle 2024-09-13 17:45:14 UTC #76

no problem, you're allowed to talk about your story lol.

I wouldn't expect it either! it wasn't supposed to be horror, and it might be the only time a magazine's rejection letter has offended me, because they kind of wrote their rejection note like it was something about the story that needed to be 'fixed' before it would be useable, which would lose the whole point of the satire

Aye, that's a bit similar to me. I like kind of unusual whimsical things that make people have to double take, like a squirrely with leaves in their tail lol.

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 17:49:09 UTC #77

I mean it’s not too bad of a sign if they responded back with anything, many rejections in the writing field are just no response! So it seems they did like it but wanted to mold it into something that fit in line with their magazine more. Don’t let yourself down too much, they did take time to give feedback and that’s very valuable from a publisher/editor BUT if it changes the whole meaning I really would recommend just finding a better fit for the particular story. There’s magazines and journals out there for just about everything so just do a little internet sleuthing and I’m sure you can find one

Caffeine_Crafts 2024-09-13 17:50:43 UTC #78

I've always found drawing fem body types easier, ever since I was a kid. So of course I made a cast of mostly male characters lol

Leyelle 2024-09-13 17:54:13 UTC #79

Aye, I've recieved 100s of rejections at this point, so they usually don't bother me at all. I just also think there is a fine line when critiquing art at which you lose the integrity of the story, just like when you draw a character, you want to retain the integrity of the original design even if you're trying to help someone adjust proportions, or positions and such.

I'm certainly not down about it, so thanks. I just realize that the sort of social/political points I illustrated with that story is too graphic for some people, which is understandable. I've submitted it to a lot of different places, since writing is my only job rn (tt) I'm looking for new places to submit literally monthly. I just think my spec fic tends to have a darker edge than my other genres...

nvm, i take that back actually. My fiction can just be a little dark/graphic in general. I think I subscribe to a writing theory that imagery sometimes HAS to horrify or the point won't get across, even if horror isn't the genre. I guess my stories are either heavy, or at least have pretty heavy elements, or they're comedy, and there's not much in between.

But I do agree. Responses are pretty rare. I used to always get form letter responses. I've reached the point in my writing career where I've had a number of custom responses to my works, even when they were rejected, I guess my writing is standing out for better or for worse.

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 18:08:42 UTC #80

Ah good good, I was just saying as someone who was very sensitive to rejections earlier in my career as a young person. I’m glad you got a more leveled head on your shoulders already, I feel like a big part of being a writer is those 100s of rejections lol but then we get our breakthroughs still :)! I think my fiction can get pretty dark too, but I just think it’s important to talk about those harder topics.

Although you literally can’t tell with butter bee right now because it’s just silly hours. Definitely my webcomic is just a de-stress outlet for fun, and while my other stories still have kind of a goofy element I think they are a lot more dark. I think stories that talk about darker topics can be really helpful for readers though, because often they can relate to it and it can help them out of those dark places/situations. Or that’s what I do, writing as a tool for healing

beebutterbee 2024-09-13 18:12:22 UTC #81

Oh I’ve done that before actually having a mostly male cast helped me draw more masculine bodies better in the long run, but I’m still very much learning. I bet you’ll get more confident at drawing guys the more you stick with it too

Leyelle 2024-09-13 18:20:22 UTC #82

Don't worry, I understand, and I really appreciate it. I was really sensitive too in the beginning. It's been four years so I've gotten a thicker skin somewhat since I started. I hope you've been able to get better at realizing rejection isn't a reflection of your self? How long have you been writing for now?

I agree. I think it's much worse not to talk about them and then people never get a chance to understand other people's feelings and what they go through or to realize that they aren't alone in what they suffer and that people understand them.

The first story I ever published was about living through a tropical storm my family experienced, and it's hard to express how much it meant to me to realize that the world actually cared about the story of my messy little corner of the world almost everybody has ignored.

I get that. My writing is often a combination, not all dark, just like life isn't always all sad all the time. And I like to write funny/silly things to make people smile because even in the ugly times, I want to spread a message of light and love and make the world a more beautiful place by creating things that will make people happy, whether it's because they are funny or because they are beautiful.

Same. It used to be more poems and essays for healing and my stories were unrelated, but when I was able to start writing my experiences in bits and pieces into my stories, it both made the characters and their emotions real and was sort of therapeutic. if my characters can find love and healing, maybe I can too. And when I feel strong enough to write about the things I've experienced and put them in stories then I know I've come very far from where I used to be. I used to be afraid to even admit to what I've suffered, now I can bravely admit that scenes like "Lurid" in Damsel in the Red Dress are inspired by my own real life. Actually, I don't think a single one of my leads have absolutely none of the hard parts of their life inspired by me at least slightly. The very first chapter of DITRD was inspired by my own experience.

I hope writing is able to help all of us find healing and wholeness