Basics

The Basics of Art and Design #

When you’re first learning art, every art class will beat some core ideas into your head:

  • Lines - The ‘structure’ bits of the works, when you start making art, you’ll often start with the Line Art

  • Shape - Structures that form out of lines, might appear 3D. These might be mathy, like squares, or organic, like an eye

  • Form - Primarily applicable to 3D (or art interpreted as 3D) - Think of this as the shape you’d see if you could move around the object in real life

  • Color - Color’s consist of hue (red, blue, etc.), saturation (how ‘strong’ the color is), and value (how bright/dark the color is)

  • Space - The relationship between objects, including the empty space between them (Negative space)

  • Texture - Is it smooth? Reflective? Rough? Does it look painted or flatly colored?

  • Value - How dark or light is each region

These are your fundamental building blocks of art, and you should get to know them. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel and teach these to you myself, I’m going to recommend you check out this Art Fundamentals playlist from Swatches on YouTube.

Hue, Saturation #

[TODO]

This is a black and white image. Only the lines are colored. (Reddit)

https://lab.sciencemuseum.org.uk/colour-shape-using-computer-vision-to-explore-the-science-museum-c4b4f1cbd72c

Value & Lighting #


Perspective #

https://twitter.com/miyuliart/status/1337423295814176768 (NSFWish I guess?)

Rule of Thirds #

Art guides I like: #

Furgonomic tutorials by Sketch, used with permission.


Archive.org backup of the above tweet

Things like digitigrade shoes, tail holes in clothing, tail bags, etc. help make characters feel like they’re part of an actual world.

Cat Girl Headphones (Twitter, @foone) (Archive.org)

Art Guides #

Detailed guide to different types of bird wings and their functional parts (Reddit)

Skin Tone Cloud (Reddit)

Archive.org backups of images in tweett

[TODO] Scale, Typography, Contrast, Balance, Emphasis

Palettes #

https://meodai.github.io/poline/

https://doodad.dev/dither-me-this/


If you would like to support my development of OpGuides, please consider supporting me on GitHub Sponsors or dropping me some spare change on Venmo @vegadeftwing - every little bit helps ❤️