Online tutorials

So I'm just looking through deviantart, and lo and behold, I see a tutorial for glowy things. Now, I have some pretty mixed feelings about tutorials in general- people who learn exclusively from those tend to make nothing but pale imitations- but I got curious. Turns out this artist, calls themselves Ryky, deas some really cool art and some very simple tutorials for various body parts. Here's one for an ear, which I chose because it's an unusual thing to find more than because it's the most impressive one this artist had around.

Now about tutorials. The issue I find with them is that a lot of the time they teach you one way to do things that's not really very useful because on top of not working well with your own style is already taken by someone else. But really, it's a matter of how to use them- yes, you can follow them step by step, but that never works. It's best to just use them as extra side stuff- file them in the back of your brain and think of fifteen different ones when they become relevant.

Here's one of my all-time faves (on the right). Lackadaisy expressions won a DD a long while back and I can see why. It's not just informational, it'a actually a lot of fun to read and also applies to every style of face-drawing, not just the artist's (as evidenced by the fact that most of the characters she uses as reference are furries).


And then of course there's this thing. The shiny one with explosions. (It's called Impact Imminent, after the final image she produced.) That one's by Sak, who you'll probably learn lots about if you hang around here, since she's kind of one of my heroes. But it is in fact relevant! And totally awesome. (cookies if you get that reference)

Sak doesn't really go into specific tools and the like, of course, which makes it a kind of hard-to-follow tutorial, but it does get the basic point across. (for something that takes you through a more detailed study see im-promptu's tutorial on the matter here.) And it's funny. I like funny.

Mostly the thing to remember with tutorials is not to overuse a single one. Just look through thousands of them and then try drawing. Following step-by-step instructions will lead to predictable results, but won't actually teach you how to draw.  And remember to thank all the lovely people who post these things! They're taking time out of their days to help you with your art. Least you could do is take the two seconds to type something back.

Oh- except for craft tutorials like this one. Those you should just follow.