How do you make fan art?

[AngelsNight 164]

I was just wondering how to make some fun fanart 

[PacificGreen 1,163]

What I do is sketch in a notebook (make sure you have a reference online or something), scan the sketch, then draw over it in a program like Krita or Inkscape (depending on whether I want a vector or painting).

 

For drawing techniques and tips, I either look online or read books from the library about digital art.

[Moony the Cat 3,702]

I usually draw a Picture of a Pony on Paper with a normal Pencil, then draw over the right Lines with a Marker or something similar and erase all the Pencil Lines.

 

Then i scan the Picture with a Scanner to get it on my Computer. Then i open the program Adobe Illustrator and use the " trace " option ? No idea how its called in english, but the program redraws all your lines and then you can transform the drawing, so that you can use the bucket tool, to color the image very quickly.

 

After i colored everything, i save the file as a Pdf File and open it with Adobe Photoshop.

Then i add stuff like Shading, Lightning, Details and changing the colors a little and play a little with the Filter options.

 

After all that is finished, i save the image as a Jpg File and im done. 

 

Tip :

 

When you let the program Illustrator redraw your Image, choose the option " Comic Strip ", then it will get all the smaller lines as well, because with other redraw options, the program doesnt get all the lines or make them to small sometimes, so that they lose connection.

 

Tip 2 :

 

Before you even do anything with your drawing, you can also open it first in Photoshop, to color over all the eraser stuff that was left on the paper, so that you dont have little dots everywhere while redrawing and coloring. Than save it to a Jpg and then open it in Illustrator to redraw and color and then Photoshop at the end again.

 

Well, thats how i draw images. 

[JonasDarkmane 19,788]

@

Hey there  

 

I moved your topic from the Sugarcube Corner over to Creative Resources - Visual Art, as it is the correct place to ask for artistic help  

[Meson Bolt 2,648]

Um, well... I primarily use MS Paint. Really good software, I know. If you have MS Paint, you can draw ponies that are pretty near show-accurate.

 

First what you do is find a pony base. It doesn't matter whether or not it's MS Paint compatible or not, because you'll be tracing it. Usually you'll want to use the curve tool. You trace the pony in different pieces. I like to do the eyes first, the wings and/or horn second, and the body last. Then when you're done tracing, you can use those pieces to reconstruct the MS Paint compatible base. And it should be pretty easy to go from here. This is my first drawing using a traced base:

 

 

Of course, you're not gonna just stick to bases. After a few months of drawing ponies like this, it's time to take off the "training wheels" and try drawing freehand. It can be intimidating, and it's really hard to get used to, but if you've spent enough time tracing ponies' bodies, you'll eventually get the hang of drawing them yourself. Here's my latest piece of the same pony, freehand:

 

 

Now, I have a Linux software that allows me to trace this into vector art, which is what I use for my finalized drawings, but I hear that it's easy to do in Inkscape if you have that. And if you don't, well... MS Paint drawings aren't half bad either.

 

Mind you, I only use MS Paint because I've been using it to draw stuff ever since I had a computer. Ohh boy, those were the days, back in good old '03, with a little 5-year-old doodling on his Windows 95... good times. But if you don't have Paint, or if you don't like it, you don't have to use it. It's not for everyone, I just find it easy to use.

 

So yeah, hope I helped you out somehow... if you have any questions, feel free to ask! I don't bite.

 

...Often XD

Edited January 6, 2016 by Meson Bolt