Tutorial List

One of the most important things to any artist is the surface they are drawing on. Because when the surface changes, the technique, media, quality, and overall look of the piece change with it. So here is a handy guide to help you decide which paper is right for your next project.

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Weight - This is how much a ream (500 sheets cut into 1m squares) of the paper weighs. The higher the weight, the more abuse and higher quality the paper tends to be. Most computer paper weighs in at about 20-30lbs. While water color or wet media paper tends towards 200+lbs. The heavier the paper the more of a media it can hold, as long as it has the right amount of tooth. Also heavy paper is thicker.

Tooth - This is the texture of the paper. The more tooth a piece has the more texture it has, and therefore it can generally hold certain medias better than others. There is no numerical measurement for tooth and you really just have to feel the paper and look at it to see what kind it has. Light weight paper tends to have little tooth and be smooth, while heavier paper has more and is rougher. Be careful though, because some of the cheaper papers have a grid like tooth to them (if you look close you will see a grid like patterning to the areas where the tooth is). High quality paper will have an even tooth all around.

Archival - This is more important than it may sound. Its how long your paper will last. Non-archival acidic paper will yellow rapidly and deteriorate and eventually just disintegrate unless kept in very very special conditions. Nowadays most paper is archival and acid free, but some or better than others. If you treat your paper well your art will outlive you and your great great great great.... grand kids. If you don't, even if it is archival it will start to yellow and disintegrate in as little as 10 years. Avoid sunlight and moisture.

Roll, Pad, And Sheet - Most mid range art papers come in a pad (a book like thing containing a bunch of papers). The higher quality stuff is sold by the individual sheet. Occasionally you can find paper in large rolls. The rolls are the best bargain and are great for large projects, but only buy one if you are going to use lots of that one kind of paper. Rolls can be made of really cheap craft paper, or super high quality print making paper. Water color or really heavy paper tends to be too stiff to roll up so its generally sold by the sheet.

Dry Vs. Wet Media - Dry media generally refers to pencil, graphite, charcoal, pastel, chalk, ect. Dry things. But it includes some markers and pens. Wet media normally means paint, watercolor, ink washes, nib or quill pens (pens where you have to dip the tip in ink).

Cold Vs. Hot Press - This refers to the end process of when the paper is being made. Its not important to know how its made, all you need to know is Hot press is smooth, Cold press is rough (lots of tooth)

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Newsprint - This is good sketching paper because its cheap, low quality, and has a decent tooth that can hold a fair amount of most dry medias. Comes in white and off white colors generally. It tends to be non archival even though it may be acid free. The weight is generally between 50-100 lbs.

Computer Paper - Smooth, not really suitable for medias of drawing but is alright for pen, some markers, and pencil.

Craft Paper - Really cheap, very low weight, sometimes has a tooth, tends to be brown, non-archival, not suitable for any media, but is great for cover sheets and drop cloth.

Drawing Paper - Mid range quality, good tooth, 70-110lbs, comes in many colors, good for most dry media.

Sketching Paper - A Little higher quality than Newsprint and tends to be white, 50-90lbs, better tooth than newsprint, more archival as well. Good for dry media.

Charcoal Paper - A bit higher quality than drawing paper, similar tooth, comes in various colors, good for dry media.

Bristol Board - Generally smooth, but very high weight, 100+lbs, good for pencil, pen, and some wet medias. Not good for things that create lots of dust, because the low tooth doesn't let that stuff stick very well.

Illustration Board - Can be either smooth or toothed. Very stiff. Think of it as a piece of drawing paper stuck on top of a piece of cardboard. Excellent for dry media and pens.

Wet Media Paper - Heavier than charcoal and drawing paper, 120+ lbs, great for pretty much any media, but the tooth is a little to much to be used with pencil or weak charcoal.

Water Color Paper - Stiff, very high tooth and weight, 200+ lbs for the good stuff, good for wet media, to much tooth for most dry media, durable.

Print Making Paper - Excellent for all medias, heavy 200+ lbs. good texture and tooth, very durable. Great all purpose stuff that can be bought on a roll or by the sheet.

Transparent Paper - Not just tracing paper, tracing paper tends to be very low weight, have no tooth, and is flimsy. There is also Mylar, Acetone, and Duralar which are heavy papers that either either completely transparent (like saran wrap) or slightly opaque like tracing paper. They tend to be smooth, and offer a nice creative alternative to drawing on plain white or colored paper.

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Strathmore - Good mid range stuff, great for a starting artist who is sick of drawing on computer paper. Relatively cheap.

Arches, Rives, Stonehenge - Really high quality paper, especially the printmaking and water color. If you haven't ever drawn on any of these before, go out and buy a sheet and experiment with different medias on it. Particularly the Rives BFK line. A bit expensive though.

Canson - Good mid range stuff, cheaper than any of the above ones, and a bit higher quality than Strathmore stuff.

Dahler Rowny - Similar to Canson

ONE LAST THING
If you buy a good sheet of paper, don't be afraid of it just because its expensive. If you are worried about ruining it cut off a strip and experiment a bit. Nothing will cripple a drawing more than being afraid of your paper, learn what your paper does and doesn't do well and push it to its limit. Experiment with all kinds of medias on all kinds of paper and you will learn what you can and cant do with each, then you can have that knowledge next time you get an idea of what paper will work best for it.

Tutorials List

So people don't spam the art forum with favors:

Art Request Thread: you can post a variety of art requests here, however, you must have a decent compensation for the artist's hard work. Want a nice image? Might cost as little as $5
Newgrounds Sig Makers: Same as the Userpage Designers but with sigs.
Profile Pic Makers: Profile pics only.
Userpage Designers: here you can ask for a user image, a banner and an icon. Post premade images and give a good description of what you want.

Tutorial List

Introduction:
Before diving into the drawing, let's take a look at the bone structure of the foot. There are a lot of features that need to be added to make a convincing foot, including the different curves, the ankle and the fingers. Now unlike the hand, you can't really practice drawing feet that well using your own, because you can't draw them in any angle you want. The best thing to do would be to take some live model classes, but the cheaper alternative is just googleing images online and just sketching them.

Tutorial List

Video tutorial for now:

I started recording without really planning out how I would draw everything, so it's not the best tutorial.

Tutorial List

There's a bunch out there in the art forum, people sometimes even lose their own threads, so I'll help organize this crap. Post your own if I missed it (which is most likely the case since there are a ton of these, and I'm not always sure if a thread is your official one). If you don't want your thread on here for any reason, PM me.

AlexanderTheInsane
Angryglacier
AwesomeSaurus
big-jonny-13
BlackmarketKraig
Captain-Ben
ChillyCheese
Dexter3000
DooDooMeaT
Dookiemaister
e-m-b-r-i-o
falz3333
Fatchaos
FullFistMaria
Hellknight1000
jagondudo
J-qb
JohanL
king7272777
LaserKarl
Lemmiwinks91
Lundsfryd
mynamewontfitin
ngmastah
ornery
Penboy
PlutoCow
PrinceFlea
RadioactiveRabies
raveninskyprime
Rhunyc
ScorpianX0
ShadowNazi169
Spaghetti14
SpencerMann
threadwood
TheSnakeSkull
TehSlapHappy
tmkunt
UnderARock
Vortex00
Vousielle
W0oJ0o
x-factor11
Zyphonee

Anyone can be on this list, just post a link to your thread and I'll add it on.

Tutorial List

Introduction:
Charcoal is very helpful when you need to quickly darken areas or when you're working on a large drawing.

Types of Charcoal: The most common are vine and compressed
Vine: useful when you're beginning a drawing and want to sketch out your layout. This material is soft and will only leave a slight gradation if you rub it, and nearly come off the paper if you erase it.
Compressed: handy for making medium gray to completely dark areas for your drawing. If you put this stuff down on paper, you better feel comfortable with it being there because you won't be able to undo it unless you only made a slight mark. This type of charcoal is usually seen as a small stick, about a finger in length. Compressed charcoal also comes in pencils, which is useful in making thin dark lines and working in detail.

Using Charcoal:
(coming soon)

Tutorial List
Tablets are very handy tools that you can connect to your computer and draw straight on the screen.
There are a variety of versions that come in different sizes. Wacom is the brand most people choose when purchasing tablets. I will briefly talk about what kinds of tablets exist and which you might be interested in. Because I haven't owned them all, some will not be described very in debt, but hopefully the gaps will be patched soon.

Bamboo

Cintiq

Intous4
This is what I'm currently using. The reason I got it was because my old tablet (intous3) became useless after the USB cable broke. It cost nearly $100 to fix, so I went ahead and purchased a brand new version, which includes a detachable cable and can be easily replaced. The buttons on the side still don't have much of a purpose for me, like the previous version and the touch ring is pretty annoying sometimes. I thought it would be useful for zooming in and out, but it's crap. Maybe I need to tweak the properties a little, but I'm still not going to use that panel very much. Another thing that sucks is the pen nibs deteriorate too much. Unlike intous3, which I never had to change, I have to change the nib every month. There are a bunch of other nibs that look like they can last for a while, but they either feel weird when I'm using them, or they leave little marks on the panel and I'm scared of them scratching up my tablet. The mouse is good, although the wheel has the same "bumpy" scroll when using it with no way of getting rid of that gear unless you want to risk damaging the mouse. Other than that, this is a great product and I would recommend this to anyone who wants to come into the world of tablets.

Tutorial List
Hands can be one of the most difficult things to draw if they're not the main focus. For some, it's the hardest part of the human body to draw period. When drawing a human, the hands could potentially ruin your work if you haven't done it right. The biggest problem is there are five digits that you have to get proportional and you have a small area to work with. This tutorial, however, focuses more on teaching how to draw a flat hand without any poses or zoomed out views.

Look at this image. There are a ton of bones as you can see, but our focus is mainly on the digits. Each finger has 3 primary bones that make it up. Draw a light square of the bones labeled 4 and an oval of bones that makes up the wrist. At the top of the square, divide it equally into four parts and draw circles representing the knuckles. Estimate where you think the middle finger reaches and draw three ovals that reach the knuckles.

Pretty difficult teaching how to draw the rest, so my best advice is to just study this drawing and practice with your own hand.

Tutorial List
One of the most important things to know about drawing human figures is understanding what's inside the body. The skeleton shows us why certain parts of the body look that way, for instance, the cheek bones make the face curve, like the ankle bones makes make the flesh protrude out.

Tutorials List
Human Proportions, hmm...what can I teach you about that? There's very little that can be learned from reading about it, you just have to keep doing it until you understand. The most basic thing I can tell you is the average man is about 7-8 heads tall, and a woman is slightly shorter. Both have relatively similar proportions, but they have distinct features that separates them. That's another tutorial though.

Posemaniacs is a very helpful learning tool for getting better at proportions and poses at the same time. Before you dig right into that site, take a look at this picture. Here I show basically where the relative placements of joints and various other things.

I've been practicing anatomy for a few years now, and I still can't draw a perfect human figure. It's just something that has to be practiced for a while to master, and even then you won't get everything right.