Drawing and Painting Tutorials

Basics
Shading can be a bit tricky at first but its not as difficult as it seems. The picture to the right shows a light bulb and several geometrical shapes; circle, triangle, cylinder, and a square. 

You'll notice that one side of the shape is light and the other is darkened. All you need to know or keep in mind is just that. What the light doesn't hit, it is darkened. In this example, all you have to do is picture the light source and the object which is being hit by the light --  which part will the light hit? How far will the light go? 

You also have to ask yourself where is the light source coming from? If the light is far above, the shorter the shadow is (try checking out your shadow at noon - 12:00PM) whereas the lower the light, the longer the shadow will become. According to the light source, make your shadow fit accordingly.

Good thing to remember also: what is the shape of the object I'm giving a shadow?Each of the shapes in the picture each have their own unique cast. The triangle has a pointy shadow, the circle has a circular shadow, the cylinder has a rectangular shadow, and the cube has a "L"-like shadow. At a different angle, though, the cube will cast a different shadow shape. For instance, if the light was head-on to one of the flat sides, it will cast a square to rectangular shadow depending on the light source's height.

With that in mind, you also need to remember: what is the shape of the object the shadow is falling on top of? The current example only has a flat surface on which the shadows fall but in most cases, shadows of - say a character - will fall on rocks or on water, which will look different compared to each other. 

One of the cornerstones of fashion school is learning how to sketch fashion figures. However, as fashion school students learn, there’s a big difference between proper body proportions in art and in fashion.

In art, the body’s proportions are measured in heads. The average figure is about 7-7 1/2 heads, including the actual head, tall.

However, in fashion, the body proportions are elongatedin order to better represent the models, who are above average in height. Because of this, the figures become 8-10 heads tall. Though the basic proportions of the fashion figure are about the same — give or take 1/4-1/2 of a head — every illustrator adds their own style to the formula.

Tutorial: Easy Figure drawing scaling trick! 

The approach from the torso study tutorial is sometimes called a “construction” approach. It’s a methodical way to observe and de-construct the figure. Besides construction, there are other considerations when laying in the figure. For example, gesture and rhythms are what animate our figure drawing and give it life. For this tutorial, I will use a a combination of construction and rhythms. It all depends on what the pose is giving me. Some poses the structure is prominent (or can be made prominent), in some poses the gesture (and thus the rhythms) are very interesting. Bottom line, good observation leads to good judgment and good judgment leads to good marks and so on. So always observe, observe, observe. Speaking of observation…

This is going to be a cool lesson because it will show you in detail, "how to draw arms, step by step”. I have to say, drawing arms can be a bit complica ...

FIDM's Fashion Club offers a free fashion sketch tutorial to learn how to draw the nine-head fashion figure. 

Gather your supplies. You’ll need a pencil, eraser, ruler, and sketchpad.

Sit down at your desk with the open sketchpad in front of you. Now you are ready to let your imagination take over and fill the white space with your fashion sketches! 

The natural figure is typically rendered as an 8-Headed Figure. The 9-Headed Fashion Figure is longer than the natural figure.

Throughout these sketching lessons, we will refer to your figure as a croquis. Croquis is the French word for sketch and refers to a figure outline used as a basis to sketch designs on. Get to know this word!

Step by step tutorial on how to draw a business jacket in fashion sketches and illustrations.

Drawing a jacket may seem like a difficult task, but once you learn the basics it will be one of your favorite garments to draw and design. A good-looking jacket will add sophistication to a dress, suit or why not even jeans. “Dress for success” and enjoy the steps in the new tutorial!

Marta Dahlig explains everything you need to know about creating realistic complexions for your portraits.

Painting skin is one of the hardest tasks faced by every photorealistic painter, due 
to the number of factors that make up a final effect – colour choices, blending techniques, special brush usage and custom texturing are all equally important to achieve a truly realistic effect. It’s also crucial to remember that different types of skin require a different approach and therefore a different combination of  these elements. A delicate porcelain skin tone will require a similar technique to the transparent skin typical for babies, but will drastically differ to darker skin rendition methods.