Digging thru really old drawing tutorials

This week I have been super busy moving content from around the blog.  When I first started an art blog at blogspot in 2007, I did not know it would last this long honestly.  I thought it was just going to be for fun and post a bunch of art.  But what I wanted the most is to make a comics online or graphic novel about Kung Fu with a girl and giant panda.  Well, that idea seems a little too late.  If you look at the archive in 2007, you will see ton of Panda drawing then.  Actually the idea of giant panda came to me in 2004, I post a bunch of sketch at sijun forum and ca.
Anyway, since it is really slowly become a tutorials central for many artists.  There are a bunch of older but still valuable got lost in the process.  As I look thru the archive, I was disappointed that blogspot feature did not have anyway that I could easily categorize them.  So now I am selecting some good old content and move them to new location which will be solely just for tutorials.  It will be easier for visitors to look for specific topic and searchable via web search.  I will still be blogging here with just about everything include art and tutorials.  But I will reserve a new location for just good content and it will be a lot less cluster.
Below are some tutorials I found that you might be interested in looking at.  Well, since most of you are here to look for them.

How to draw monster art concept


How to draw basic robot


How to draw woman upper body

How to draw woman hip

How to draw Ogre


Soul reaper creature art tutorial


FREE download, Photoshop custom brushes!

Art contest winner at ArtistsArena.org

Art contest winner at ArtistsArena.org. This is the art contest round 9 Renaissance Batman. There are a lot of good work this time around, it is getting better and better. Some of you artists have came a long way since we first start a community many months back. I just want to say great work guys! You can go see all the contest entries here: Art contest 9 Renaissance Batman

The winner in this contest is Slawomir Wolicki. This is the second time he won title, congratz again. Here is the winning image of his final Renaissance Batman

Art work by Slawomir Wolicki

The new contest is still going at ArtistsArena.org topic Horror of the Red Riding hood
DEADLINE: 12:00 AM PACIFIC STANDARD TIME , Wednesday Oct 26th, 2011.
1) Winner: We will all vote using Poll system. Whoever get the most votes on the poll will be the ultimate champion.
2) Winning piece will be shown in the “Hall of Arena’s Champions” gallery on top of the community.

We are still continuing to make idrawgirls.com a great sources of tutorials for all artists.  You can take a peak of what is coming over here http://idrawgirls.com/tutorials/


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Avenger trailer finally

As far as in this trailer there are Nick Fury, Tony Stark, Captain America, Thor and Hawkeye I was not sure. But I also see Black Widow in there too. I've never really read Avenger comics but this trailer looks really cool. And I love all the Ironman movies The original Avenger has different assemble. Ant-man really? who thought that was a good idea for superhero. The group began with the random teaming of Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp and Hulk, who joined forces to thwart the Asgardian menace Loki in response to a call for help from Hulk's teen sidekick, Rick Jones. Pym suggested the heroes remain together as a team, and his partner Wasp suggested they call themselves "something colorful and dramatic, like...the Avengers." The name stuck, and a legend was born. Iron Man provided the group with financing and high-tech equipment in his dual identity as rich industrialist Tony Stark, donating his Manhattan residence to serve as their headquarters, Avengers Mansion. Watch Avenger trailer. Enjoy the trailer!

Re arrange some old tutorials.

I've been busy digging through some of the oldest content on this blog and try to re organize them so that they will be easier to find.  As I look through the old post I saw some of the useful tutorials that I should make them easier to find.  And some of other old posts that's irrelevant I just leave it there.  A few of the how to that I made way back pleasantly surprise me with the quality of the work and I was like when did I do that.  And some are not so much.
In this post I will post some of the older tutorials that I spend a lot of time this week modified them and make them look a bit more friendly to viewer.  Some of them have video tutorials along with the post and some are just step by step images.  I did not realize as I look through that I have over three hundreds videos and a lot of the old ones are not playable because of REVVER video player are on and off.  It is very inconsistent annoying so I then have to look around in my back up drive to get those video and re record some of them again.
Also I spend a lot of time working on the back end of the website and try to put these tutorials together to make them more user friendly and easier to find or search.
Below are some of the useful tutorial I found this week.  And I hope you guys will find them useful and enjoy the tutorial both step by step and videos.



Minion Dragon
For step by step tutorial go to How to draw minion dragon


Dragon head
For video tutorial and step by step image go to How to draw dragon head


Dragon body tutorial go to How to dragon for video tutorial and step by step images.
This one is a very basic drawing instruction.


Here is a basic ninja drawing tutorial I did way back in 2007
You can go to how to draw ninja for a full step by step tutorial.


For this crazy monster creature you can look at the process at Soul reaper concept art tutorial

FREE download, Photoshop custom brushes!

More to come, hope you will enjoy these tutorials.  Have a great weekend.

How to paint dragon head

How to paint dragon head.  This is just a quick video demo tutorial of painting dragon head.  I've been trying to re arrange blog and website content and trying to find time to paint and only have a couple hours to do so today.  The first one got canned because it was so bad.  This one is ok, but it could have been better. I have not painted any creature concept in a long time and I felt really rusty and slow.  Here is a quick one for today, still in process. I will try to finish it up early tomorrow. Off to bed now.



Step by step how to paint dragon head.


Quick dragon head painting, to be continue.

FREE download, Photoshop custom brushes!

Photoshop tutorial using color layer mode

Photoshop painting tutorial color mode.  This tutorial is about how to use color mode in Photoshop properly.  Color mode is one of the really useful feature in Photoshop if use correctly.  I probably use overlay and multiply the most to find value for any painting in the beginning of my painting process.  Overlay can also be really useful in finding color I want.  But for the most part, to finish the painting, I just use general or normal layer to paint.  These layer modes can be very helpful to your art process especially if you just want to change something in the painting either in the process or the already finished painting.
Now we are going to talk about color mode and some useful tips and technique I find helpful.  Whenever you want to apply color mode, first thing to consider is what is the color of the image that you want to apply to.  It is easier to change the original base into gray scale first before apply color mode on top of it.
Second, when you apply your color in color layer on top of the gray scale.  The color will be visible most in the middle value range.  It will neither apply over white and too light of a shade nor black and too dark. These two tips should now make you understand layer mode a lot more.


Below is a video tutorial on how to use color mode in Photoshop


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Below is step by step images to go along with the video tutorials
In step one, it is an already finished painting of mine, but let say I want an alternate version of her in a blue skin.  The easiest way to do this is to use color layer mode to start off with instead of painting the whole skin color over.  You can use overlay mode, but it won't get you the exact color you want like in color mode.
Step two, it is necessary to change the original skin color to gray scale if you want to get the exact color that you want.  Because the under color will mix with the color on top when you paint over on color mode layer.


Step three, I paint blue skin as her alternate version. But it is not done yet because you will also have to make the blue be part of the image.  As of now, it looks too blue compare to the rest of the color.  We have to harmonize the color and value.  Step four the easiest way is make a new normal layer on top then pick the  color of shadow in the background and use mid opacity and apply shadow to the blue shadow range.  You can also do the same thing with highlight but pick the sky color then make it lighter.  This will help apply the base color onto the blue to balance the color in your art work.


As you can see below color will not show on white or too light of a value.  It won't show on black or too dark of value either.



More digital painting video tutorials 
- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial 
- Paint simple background with character
- Dragon Age 2 digital painting video.

Easy basic drawing video tutorials of superheros that you might be interested in

- How to draw Superman

- How to draw Batman

- How to draw Ryu from Street Fighter. with body
- How to draw Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
- How to draw hair.
- How to draw eyes.




Don't forget buttons below, sharing is caring.  Spread the words to your friends.

Painting spy woman step by step

Basic digital painting spy woman.  Painting spy woman step by step character design sketch.  This is a quick paint over from one of my unfinished work from the earlier post in 2007.  Like I mention a couple months back that I will try to dig up some of my old unfinished work that has potential then brush them up and make them prettier.  And I did one on my previous post on how to paint feather.
When I first start this art blog and it becomes how to draw and paint tutorials blog.  I had a lot of unfinished sketches and painting back then even now.  But I think now I tend to do a better job of working faster to make it look presentable without having to spend much time on each peace.
The original piece of this spy lady was rough, very mute and flat.  But I like the pose of the character so I decided to to a revision of it yesterday.  I am trying to make this one more like a quickly  painted comics pinup rather than an illustration.

Spy lady

In panel 1, you will see that I was working out the value and try to set up the light source (You can see the original one in the bottom.).  Then after I established enough lighting through apply darker paint, I pick bolder color choice then paint over her skin tone and hair in step two.  At first I was thinking red head, but then I change my mind because of the color on the background is too similar.  So I have to pick a different color.  In step 3, I painted more light onto the figure and more detail on her face with little touch of blue lipstick.  I though it would stand out since the whole image has a really warm hue to it.  Step 4, I move her arm lower because it is a bit more settle and spy like.  I also lighten up her skin tone a bit more and painted red gloves onto both of her arms.  On the final image, I just did a quick hot spot highlight and paint some darker value onto certain area.




Older 2007 sketch you can see the old post how to draw spy woman character



Here is a final sketch of a spy lady (for now anyway)

FREE download, Photoshop custom brushes!

More FREE tutorials:
- How to draw and paint Stormtrooper
- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial 
- Paint simple background with character
- Dragon Age 2 digital painting video.

easy basic drawing video tutorials of superheros that you might be interested in

- How to draw Superman

- How to draw Batman

- How to draw Ryu from Street Fighter. with body
- How to draw Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
- How to draw hair.
- How to draw eyes.

Game of Thrones season 2 Teaser Trailer, Clash of Kings

Game of Thrones season 2 teaser trailer, Clash of Kings.  Game of Thrones, the best show on TV of 2011 is back tin April 2012.  I am really excited about this season.  It is going to be bloody amazing.  In the first season (and the first book), George Martin set in motion to continue in the second and it grows ever more deadly as it unfolds. Viewers know that not everyone will get out of this alive. His willingness to kill off key characters allows Martin to create shocks for the readers. This is very heart breaking for a lot of people but also give the story a painful twist in a very exciting manners.  I was very excited to see an official Game of Thrones season 2 teaser trailer.



In the second book, The characters started to move apart in A Clash of Kings even more so than they had in A Game of Thrones. Catelyn is travelling between her son’s camp at her family’s home of Riverrun to the Frey’s stronghold and Renly’s moving court of followers. Jon has gone ranging with his brothers from the Wall in an effort to find out what became of his uncle Benjen. Sansa is being held as a prisoner at Joffrey’s court and going through her own personal hell at the hands of her psychopathic betrothed. Arya has left Kings Landing and is travelling across a war torn countryside trying to make her way back home.
There will also be so many new characters in Clash of Kings (Game of thrones season 2 or should we called it Song of Ice and Fire season 2?)
And luckily, one of my favorite actress, Natalie Dormer, will be in Season 2! Dormer, who played Anne Boleyn in Tudor Showtime drama has been added as a series regular for the epic series.

 Natalie Dormer will will play Margaery Tyrell, a beautiful and shrewd woman from House Tyrell. She is set to marry King Robert’s brother Renly Baratheon, in part to support his bid to take the Throne from King Joffrey.  I love the show Tudor season 1 to 3, then I stopped watching it.  Well, it just wasn't as exciting in season 4.
Below is Natalie Dormer talking about Tudors and its history.


Also one of the key character Asha Greyjoy will be played by Gemma Whelan.
Anyway, enjoy the post, I cannot wait for season.


New art tutorials are coming soon, but in the mean time

FREE art tutorials:
- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- How to draw Stromtrooper Starwars
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial 
- Paint simple background with character
- How to paint feathers
- Dragon Age 2 digital painting video.

A young monk character design

A young monk character design for my little pet project.  That is all I am going to say for now.

Something different from my usual take on character but I still like the style.
Well, now I decided to change the design of the face because of the comment below.
I totally forgot about that animation.


New face design, I decide to make him slightly older.

How to draw Manga, the Basic:
-Drawing Anime Face: Girl: Tutorial #1 (Step by Step)-Drawing Anime Girl Face: Frontal
-Drawing Anime Girl Face: 3/4 Front
-Drawing Girl Face: Side View

-How to draw Manga Hair 4 different ways
-How to draw fist hand 5 different ways

-How to draw Manga, girls sitting pose.

More Manga character tutorials

- How to draw Manga, Ichigo from Bleach

- How to draw Luffy from One Piece

- How to draw Guts Berserk

- How to draw Anime girl Asuka from Evangelion

- Manga tutorial draw Akuma Street Fighters

- How to draw Manga, Cammy Street fighters

How to draw Stormtrooper Starwars

How to draw and paint Stormtrooper from Starwars.  This is a simple drawing and digital painting tutorial of a famous Stormtrooper from Starwars.  In this tutorial I am after the original design of the character and helmet in 1977 Starwars film.  I love the retro look of the design.  I might do a quick painting tutorial of other recent design of Stormtrooper also since many of them are very cool looking.  Here I will show you step by step from the rough sketch to almost finish painting or what I called speed painting study.  I also include a video in the tutorial so you can watch how I start from drawing to a finished quick painting.  This one takes me about a little over half an hour to paint with no reference, except the helm design.  It's just a really quick one before I have to go and do the back end of the website again.  ;-)
The Imperial Stormtroopers AKA Stormtroopers are fictional soldiers from George Lucas' Star Wars universe. Stormtroopers are the soldiers of the imperial army under the leadership of the evil Sith Lord and Emperor Palpatine and his commanders, most notably Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin.

Stormtrooper speed painting or quick color sketch

Watch how to draw and paint Stormtrooper video instruction


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So first I just draw a very loose shape of what looks like a Stormtrooper.  When you draw, don't be intimidate by all the overwhelming detail otherwise you won't start.  The secret is to look at the subject then simplify it.  You have to be able to see them in simple geometry shapes, then you will find out how easy it is to draw everything.  When you look at the helmet go for the big prominent shape first like what you see on the first step below.  After that, I will fill mid tone value into the shape, still very loose.  Also I will look for what jumps out, in this case the color black that contrast and really identify the shapes.  In step three, I add some color after the monochrome set up from the first two steps.



Then from here on, I just try to get the rendering and make the painting looks more three dimensional.  You have to also define edges and play with cool and warm.  In step six, I decide to change the color scheme to make it more red rather than sepia.  When I have more red hue in the scene, it is a lot easier to paint under lighting.  Done!



Here is the final speed painting of Stormtrooper.

This one I painted it really quick.  This tutorial is rather simple way to paint.  If you want to see more tutorials that have more detail, there are more digital painting tutorial recommended below.


More FREE tutorials:
- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial 
- Paint simple background with character
- How to paint feathers
- Dragon Age 2 digital painting video.

Painting Necromancer face step by step

Painting Necromancer face step by step.  I am very short on time this past week because I've been working on the back end of the website.  But this is a quick tutorial on how to create a necromancer face from the existing portrait template that you already paint.  It is a lot faster in character design process if you first paint a main face template.  Because you can use that as a starting point when you want to create face variation for any character design for game or any entertainment media.
As you might have already seen previous tutorial, paint different ethnicity woman portraits and character design different ethnicity male hero tutorial.  I just use the front view of an existing portrait painting as a template to paint over and create a necromancer face.  I remember one of my favorite part of being a character design artist on Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 is to make a Necromancer face design, tattoo patterns and scar design on faces.

Here is a basic Necromancer face

This tutorial I will show you just that, it is very quick and you can make up to ten or more face in a day using this process.  Suppose I am painting a first Necromancer face and I am using a face template to paint over.
I start out with making her eye solid red, thick black eye liner around her eye, then thinner eyebrows as you see on the second panel.  The third one I am looking for lighter sickly pale skin to make her look creepier than what we start of with from panel one.  I also dyed her hair jet black to give it higher contrast.  *It is not necessary that Necro has to have black hair, they can have any color*  Also I straighten her hair more to make it thick, heavy but silky straight and smooth.  Fourth panel, I found the skin tone I want, now she look ghostly and very creepy.  Also I make her lipstick color darker toward maroon or black.
The female portrait template I use came from how to design different character faces



On the final image, I give her glowing eyes to contrast her bloody dark red eyeballs.  So here is a quick painting tip for making Necromancer face.


Here is a basic final Necromancer face


**You are probably wondering what is up with all the branding on the images because I never did that before.  Well, a lot of time when I do Google search for relevant terms for my blog and website, I see a lot of my painting and images from idrawgirls.com  But none of them lead to my actual website and some of them even lead people to fake Manga or Melware website.  So apologize that I have to dumb down these images and make them look stupid.  There are bad, disrespectful and selfish people out there and they are not stupid.  
I am always fine with people using my articles, tutorials, images and videos on their websites or Magazine feed.  Most of them are cool and do not tamper with the sources and aklways link back.  But only some bad apples, who are dishonest, deceitful and looking for short term benefit, make this whole internet a bad and ugly world for everyone.  Karma is a bitch though so one of these days, they will get what they deserve.


FREE download, 30 minutes of Video tutorials.

More FREE tutorials:
- Paint simple background with character
- How to paint feathers
- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial 
- Dragon Age 2 digital painting video.

Metal Gear Solid Rising Zan-Datsu

An interesting interview with the producer of the Metal Gear Solid Rising.   The series' former tagline, "Tactical Espionage Action," has been replaced by "Lightning Bolt Action" to fit the protagonist, Raiden. And I think Raiden means lightening or bolt. From the interview the creative producer, Shigenobu Matsuyama, explains that gameplay will focus on more action this time rather than Tactical Espionage Action. There are two key elements: a lot of swordfighting, and fast pace stealth. He also mentioned another important element in the gameplay that involves zan-datsu (斬奪) or basically "cut and take". That sounds to me like a super blood thirsty ninja game sort of, it would be a lot of fun.  Anyway, I have been waiting for this game for a long while now.  Can't wait to get my hands on it.  

Here is a video interview Metal Gear Solid Rising.


Below are some digital painting tutorials
- Metal Gear solid Raiden digital painting
- How to paint wrinkle and fold on cloth

- Master Chief Halo digital painting tutorial
- Blood Elf digital painting tutorial
- Conan the barbarian digital painting
- Diablo 3 Demon Hunter Digital painting tutorial
- How to paint metal
- How to paint gold

Street Fighter X Tekken 2011 Tokyo Game Show

Wow so many awesome trailers from Tokyo Game show this year.  I really love this Street Fighter X Tekken Trailer.  It looks so awesome and hilarious.  Street Fighter X Tekken AKA Street Fighter Cross Tekken, the first time ever crossover fighting game being developed by Capcom.  The game will feature characters from both the Street Fighter franchise and Namco's Tekken series. The game is set to release on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation Vita sometime in March 2012. 


Street Fighter X Tekken Trailer


And this one is older from Comics con 2011


Below are basic how to draw Street fighter characters video tutorial with pencil 

- How to draw Ryu from Street Fighter. with body
- How to draw man face for comics Ryu.

- How to draw Akuma

- How to Chun Li

- How to draw Cammy

- How to draw Morrigan, Dark Stalkers

- How to draw Lara Croft Tomb Raider.
- How to draw Superman

- How to draw Batman