Ask me anything!

I'm not sure I understood your first question. You mean an image with more than 1 character? If so, that really depends on the scene. There are a few of those images but there's a reason why there's not many of them: They take almost twice as much time to be completed lol. Time is still a factor on how many arts can be done at the end of the month. Since there's a limited amount of time I can work on each image, in order for one image to demand more time, this extra time has to come out from the other images in that month. So there's a few pros and cons on making an image with more characters. And it's not always a good thing. As for the 2nd question, this happens with pretty much every artist I know. Like any activity you do in life, after hundreds or thousands of repetitions, your body will naturally stablish a "efficient way of doing it" and will tend to repeat some patterns. Most artists, even really famous artists with decades of experience, if you isolate the face from the rest of the drawing, you'll see that they are actually quite similar to each other. What changes is the rest of the package (hair, clothing, attitude etc). So yeah, even if you activelly try to draw it different, your body tells you otherwise lol. It's something not really easy to control. Personally, I don't think it's a big deal because I think it's part of what makes a style of an artist recognizable. What I focus on developing more is trying out new expressions and looks, so there's more variety.

Lee

Planning to do work with more than one central character? I mean not two portraits in one, but something more actively interacting with the background. And another question. Why do your characters, except for a few, have subtly similar faces?

Nimonys

Yeah, at the end of the day, there's really no other way. Sitting down and practicing is the best way to do. And It's not a problem at all, I really enjoy seeing what other people think about.

Lee

Thanks a lot, Krys. I enjoyed reading your responses a lot. I'm one of those who dreams about having such talent. Maybe I should really start training...your advises will come very useful. Maybe not right now but I plan to get all those lesson series you have on Gumroad. Also, just as Hunter said above, I really appreciate that you communicate with us this much! Thanks a lot!

Arch

It's not a problem at all. I think one of the best things about this, is being able to see how many people have such different experiences. It's great to be able to reach so many people, even for a tiny bit. It's important to have balance and not let self critic becomes something negative. It has to be a driving force to make you want to get better, not not something that you get frustrated if you don't get better fast enough. Also, play with your strengths. You'll not master every part of art at once. Hell, I still strugle with a lot of things. For example, you'll find artists that are great at sketching and lineart, but not so good at rendering. Some will be great at doing scenarios and compositions, but not so much at drawing people. You really don't have to know everything at once. See what you are good at, and focus on that. But at the same time, see how you can work your way around the things you are not quite there yet. For example I had a lot of problem with gesture drawing and sketching. I fixed that with a LOT of references. But I always had an easy time adding texture and detail to drawings, once the lineart was done. I take something like 2-3h just to get a sketch done. But after that, shading and texturing is a walk on the park for me. I always had a tought time painting directly in colors, so I paint in greyscale and color afterwards. It simply works best for me. It's definitely not a package deal where you'll be good at everything. It's like most team sports, some players are better at the defense, some offense, some setting up the plays and so forth. Take your time, learn things and see what works best for you.

Lee

Awesome, thank you so much for your reply! I think I struggle the most with being impatient, to the point where it puts me off drawing at all. Like I KNOW getting good takes time and effort, just like you said with artgerm, and even with yourself really, I just wish I was a little better than where I am now... so I overdo it. Not to say that you weren’t good when you started this Patreon (you were great even then) it’s just you can SEE your skill go month by month from great to just... amazing. I also get so critical of my work that I lose the will to continue; typing this out I know how silly it sounds but in the moment I just get SO frustrated. Besides looking at other works for reference, do you have any suggestions on how to master the basics? I’ve thought about taking classes at my local art museum, but that gets pretty expensive & idk that they’d be teaching me what I want to learn... although I’ve read you should learn to draw in multiple styles to really master it. One thing I will say is I’m not at ALL worried about a fan base. Maybe some day, but I have a LONNG way to go before ill be confident enough to post my work online. Thank you again, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to all of us like this! Tbh no artist I’ve ever followed has been as communicative as you, it’s really refreshing!

Sure! A few things that helped me out and I see a lot of people doing wrong (in my opinion btw). - Be your first critic. I see a lot of people getting defensive when you criticize their work. The thing that helped me the most, was that when I finished a drawing, I'd leave it as wallpaper or something I could check often, to see what I did wrong. I think a good mindset is: This is the best I did with my current skill, but what can I do to improve? And work on that for your next drawings. Also, use a LOT of references lol - Be patient. I see a lot of people trying to skip steps, like trying super complex compositions that even seasoned artists might strugle with, when they don't even know the basics of anatomy. Don't try to make 2 characters fighting if you don't know how to make proper anatomy, how cloths behave in motion, how muscles deform etc etc. I'm not saying "don't try harder things", but be realistic, It's a recipe for frutration to try to create something way above what your current skills allow. - There's no such thing as "this is my style". Seriously. This is probably the worst excuse someone can give when they receive valid criticism. Sadly, I see it happens extremelly often. Sure there are many styles out there, sure some of them have different anatomy rules, but there are limits. When you set to create art, the "style" you draw will always have a set of rules to guide the image. You cannot follow when it's convenient and on parts that you clearly made a mistake you hide under "oh but it's my style". You need to be humble and self-critic to realize you made a mistake and try better next time. - Don't worry about visibility. Again I see this happen quite often. I understand nowadays with how social media works there's a certain degree of pressure that people want others to "like their work". But at the end of the day, you draw because it's an activity YOU enjoy. Sure it's great when other people enjoy it as well, but that comes with time. A lot of time. It will take many months, years even for you to actually build a "fan base". Check absolutely any artist. Take Artgerm for example, which is quite famous nowadays. You get his art from 2004 when he started posting on Deviantart, you'll see that many arts had like 10 comments in the initial 3-6 months of being posted. Now, 15 years later, he has hundreds of thousands of people following his work. Focus more on getting better and less on "how many people notice your work". That comes with time. If you do a good job, people will notice you, guaranteed.

Lee

Do you have any advice for those of us who want to start character drawing?

1. Yes, I'm always gaming on my free time. Currently I'm playing FFVIX (took a break from wow after Mythic Jaina), Age of empires 2: DE, finishing Astral Chain and waiting for hollow knight 2 this year. Next year I'm looking foward to FF7, Cyberpunk 2077, Last of Us 2. 2. Movies, whatever gets my attention in the movies. I love going to the movies. The last one I watched was Joker. I'm looking foward to Jumanji 2 and Frozen 2 atm. 3. Don't watch, sorry 4. Ass and legs 5. too personal lol 6. I did think about it, to make one of Iris, kinda telling the process of creating her etc, but it's something for the future. 7. Yes. I'm thinking about a new one, but it's possible it will be more of a "support character". The focus would still be on Iris. 8. Probably Wonder Woman because of Gal Gadot lol 9, from the top of my head: - Artgerm - Wei Wang - Bayard Wu - Irakli Nadar - Guweiz 10 - Video: Geforce 2070 OC cpu: i5 9600k 3.7ghz ram 16gb The rest I honestly don't remember but it's good parts. I switch my pc once every 4-5years, so I make sure to buy good quality parts so they can last til the next replace. I changed it ~1y ago. 11. I'm a 100% fine with criticism, but over time you develop a thick skin if you wanna survive on this field. There's a lot of people that mix opinions with criticism. There's a gigantic difference between "I didn't like that" and "this is incorrect". And many times people mix them. Every now and then I hear people say "oh but the breast/ass should not look like that" when I have 10 references that clearly say otherwise. Bodies have a lot of shapes, consistency and so forth. There's a lot of room for different body types and often people consider incorrect something that they simply haven't seen. But overall yes, I love seeing what people think about my drawings. Even if it's negative, I'll always give a "hmm, does this makes sense?" to see if it's something I can improve. If people are just being toxic or hatefull I simply ignore. 12. This is really tricky. Unfortunately art value is related to your exposure and not your ability and currently it's a very saturated market. The way internet and most social media works, the more exposure you have, the more "on top" you'll be. On sites like DA, you'll always see the same artists popping on top in the "popular" section. Simply because they have hundreds of thousands of followers, so anything they post will be viewed by thousands which naturally make the art "popular", and by consequence, it gets more exposure, and more followers. Basically the best shot nowadays is to make fanart. - companies actually like it. It's a good way to see if your style of drawing their characters is something they want. - People search for known characters, what's trending atm etc. So focus on whatever is "hot" or at least constantly searched for. Nobody will search for your images specifically, and the odds of them stumbling on it are close to zero in the sea of thousands of images being uploaded. So the best bet is to draw things people are looking for. - have patience. It will take time. Took me years to build a "fan base". The odds of it happening within weeks/months are probably similar to the odds of you finding oil in your backyard. Every famous artists, even the REALLY famous have like 3-5 years of their drawings being known by only a handfull of people.

Lee

Got a bit of random questions: 1. Do you game right now? What do you play and any recommendations? Did you like Death Stranding? 2. Any film series that you watch, any recommendations? 3. Anime? 4. Ass or tits... or legs? 5. Got any fetishes you are willing to share? 6. Some artists make an artbook with their work at a certain point, are you going to make one any time soon? I'd buy it! 7. Any plans to introduce more OCs like Iris? 8. Who's your favorite super heroine? 9. Which are the top 5 artists you'd recommend if someone was to ask you what to check out? 10. What's your current PC setup? 11. Are you fine with criticism, as long as it's constructive? I know some artists don't like it, even if it's well argumented. 12. How do you think a unknown aspiring artist could get more exposure/attention to their work? Tough question, but asking for a friend. Have you noticed if anything help a lot more than other ways?

Linarian

pizza toppings here in Brazil are very different from US pizzas. So I'd go with portuguese toppings or something we have here that should exist in the rest of the world: catupiry lol

Lee

What's your favourite pizza topping?

not anymore. Patreon kinda combined my "work hours" with my "hobby hour". I really love the time I spend drawing as work, so there's really no point in drawing anything outside of patreon. Seems a bit redundant to me. Besides, people here are supporting my work, so if I happen to draw something extra in a month, I don't see why I wouldn't simply included it here as well, since the process will be the same. But as much as I like to draw, creative process is something very demanding, so I use my free time to clear up my mind and prevent burnout.

Lee

Do you do any non-patreon work anymore? Could you share it with us?

CDH

Since they usually involve a lot of nudity, here's one from Breath of the Wild that doesn't have tits lol https://sta.sh/012tfbyrdyov And no, I don't do any specific studies. The references are basically ... references, for all sorts of thing. Hairstyles, sometimes it's a mix of several hair styles, or simply a picture that has a few strands of hair that might make a nice detail, things like that. Or for the background, colors, clothing, everything. Since I have a more realistic style, if I'm drawing a shirt, it's great to have a few examples of shirts to see how the folds behave, intensity of shadows, texture and whatnot. It doesn't really have to be similar to what I'm drawing, but enough to point me in the right direction. As you can see in the zelda references, there's a lot of enviroments from the game, color pallete, shirts, horses, wild hairstyles, compositions, skin tones and whatnot.

Lee

What kind of references do you use for a picture (can we see some examples?) and do you do studies of those references before applying that to the art pieces you're working on?

kvilledrew

From games it would definitely be Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. I just love her attitude, voice acting and general character development. Comics it would be Black Cat from Spiderman. I really like her more agressive/wild cat attitude. It would be hard to name only 1 artwork, so I'll name 3: Liadrin, Black Cat and Jasmine. Liadrin because to this day I love the composition, dress, camera angle and colors. I often see things I could have done better in my drawings, but this one I wouldn't change a single hair. Black Cat because I think I did a terrific job with her hair and body curves. Jasmine because I think it's one of the best faces I ever drew. Her eyes are just so mesmerizing.

Lee

The original idea of Iris was to play with that fantasy of "hot girl next door". Hence why many of her drawings are actually day to day situations. She's not based on a specif person, but more of a lot of different characteristics "glued together". - The body is simply a body type that I think it's attractive. I didn't want to make her the default "big boobs, hourglass body type", so I made her waist/thighs/ass larger and boobs smaller. I wanted to have a hot but still "normal person" body, and not something you only see in models and magazines. I think that's important for people to relate to her and actually see her as a person. Which is why she has all those unique details like moles, freckles, and usual body imperfections you see in people (stretch marks for example). - Her face is a very big mix. She has a facial structure of a few women I saw on tumblr/instagram. Most of the images were impossible to track back to who the person actually was. The mole on her nose is courtesy of my girlfriend, who has a single mole on the tip of her nose which I find really cute. The eyebrows and eyes shape were actually based on Elizabeth Turner (the model). I didn't want to base her entirely on a specific model to not have those "oh she looks like x!" every time I post images of her. But surprisingly enough, a few months ago I found the image of a girl who has a face surprisingly similar to hers. It's Mia Alves if you wanna google it.

Lee

I won't say No, but it's not in the plans on the near future. There's a few issues with that. - it can get the gallery on my inprnt shot really messy to browse. There would be a lot of duplicate images (considering the image + nsfw version). - For people with mature content off, basically half the gallery would be "blurred". - You can't upload a different preview than the original file. I imagine this is to prevent people from uploading something that doesn't match the final quality of the product. So basically there would be a free nsfw gallery of my images lol. And since I'm not planning on moving to a different print shot site (it was quite hard to choose one already, due to fees and cuts, quality of product etc and how each site works), it's unlike in the near future. Maybe some images that happen to have a nude public version I might include there.

Lee

Do you think you'll add NSFW prints to your shop at some point? I'd love to see some!

Merritt Lord IV

I have a question, where did you find your inspiration for Iris? Do her features resemble someone in real life or is she straight from your own imagination?

Tucker Mapes

Definitely Fantasy. I love the "natural" and organic feel of fantasy, the texture of clothing, leather and metal. I also really like the magical and more ... "fantasy" aspect of it lol.

Lee

I'm a patron of Calm for several years now. I actually learned a lot from his drawings in terms of composition, use of colors and expressions. I absolutely love the expressions of his drawings. I also currently support Jasmin Darnell because I loved the "classic look" of her drawings.

Lee

Well, I see that many questions I had on mind have already been asked above. But here's a couple: 1. Who are two of your favorite female characters? (1 from video games, 1 from comics) 2. Which one of your artworks are you fond of the most?

Arch

Being 100% honest, singing lol It must be really amazing to be able to sing

Lee

not anymore. I read a LOT when I was younger. I read a lot of Batman (the original series where Bane appeared, broke his spine and nightwing took his place for a time, until he went bananas) Read a lot of spider-man, but then the Clone Saga happened lol. Also read Spawn 1 through 300. I still have those original comics. Also Death of Superman, and several other mini-series

Lee

When it comes to artwork do you have a particular genre that you enjoy drawing the most, or that you enjoy seeing other artists draw? In terms of fantasy, Sci Fi, Real World, that kind of stuff.

NyxFontana

What's your favorite Patreon that you follow? And what's another Patreon you'd recommend for your own followers?

Alex Clerm

late to the Q&A party, but what's one other art or skill you'd like to be at least equally proficient in (music, writing, programming, etc)?

celebrator

Do you read comics? What is/are your favorite(s)?

x

Vanessa VanCleef =o

Lee

With practice. There's really no other way. I always use references in my drawings, and with time you just become familiar with how muscles work and what you need to do to make them look nice (and still feminine). There's an infinite amount of models out there with beautifull bodies in many different shapes. To put in perspective, my reference folder has something like 19k images lol.

Lee

I won't say I don't care, but I don't loose my sleep either. It's part of the internet: people will share stuff for free. Games, movies, music, art ... anything. I think the best way to handle it is to talk to people and well ... hope for the best. In most cases it helps. Obviously it won't end it, but there's actually many people that are on my patreon now that messaged me that they found my work on image boards, reddit and whatnot and decided to support it. At the end of the day, if you treat people with respect, they are more likely to be respectfull towards you and what you do. Many might even join your cause. If you treat people like "internet criminals" they will always be your enemy and then they might intentionally share it out of spite. So I rather handle it with reason than try to fist fight it.

Lee

It's hard to pin point how I "learned". It's a process that spam over decades. I always had an easier time than most to build images in my head. So drawing was always a natural hobbie because it just made sense for me to translate those images in paper. I didn't take specific drawing school, I graduate in graphic/digital design. Which has drawing, but not exactly painting. More like technical drawing, creating logos, promotional images, layouts and whatnot. I worked with that for years and had drawing as a "hobby" on the side. When the graphic career took a detour (the agency that I worked, closed) I had some money saved and decided to try art. But I never took any classes or specific art courses. Was basically trial and error, watching tutorials online and practicing a LOT.

Lee

I use references for all my drawings. I basically make a quick "stickman" sketch of the idea I have in mind and start looking for references over the course of a week or so prior to start the drawing. Whenever I'm drawing, I'm also getting references for the next drawings on my spare time lol If the scene is too complex, I build a mockup of the scene in those posing softwares (which are basically digital versions of those wooden drawing dolls), position a few blocks to use as reference for the perspective and objects and then create the lineart. But I always have a file with dozens of references (hair, cloth, anatomy, scenario .. etc) on my 2nd screen when I'm drawing.

Lee

I wasn't. I draw since I was a kid but mostly "for fun" so it was always a hobby. About 15 years ago or so, when I was starting my university, I had to pick up and draw again and found out I actually descent at it. So I started to get in touch with digital art, got myself a crappy genius tablet (those 50$ ones) and simply started to practice more often. I graduated at Graphic Design and worked on the creative/art part of publicity and events agencies for some 5-7 years. When the place that I worked closed ~5 years ago, I had a bit of money saved to get me through a few months, and decided to try living of my art. For the first year it was terrible, I took a lot of time to make drawings, and I didn't have any network, so I was basically getting any comission/freelance job I could, regardless of how underpaid or crappy it was. Took me a good 2 years to actually be able to pay my bills fully with art. In those 2years I was basically bleeding out my savings to be able to pay the bills and "hoping for the best" lol So yeah, it wasn't planned but it also wasn't exactly an opportunity. Was just something that I decided to try and had to do my best to make it work lol. I also have to thank my girlfriend for being supportive in all the process =D

Lee

Is there still any Warcraft character that u haven't drawn but u want to?

Header

Both. Fanart is fun because it allows me to explore aspects of the character that people usually don't draw, like a bath scene, something "off camera" just chilling out, or a romantic scene etc. It's great to get an existing character and make it more "believable". Iris on the other hand is amazing because of the freedom I have. I get to paint a lot of fun/cute/silly scenes and expressions that wouldn't exactly make sense on a fanart. I believe that each drawing has an amazing aspect to it, so it's hard to pick a favourite =o

Lee

It's difficult for me to consider characters that I'm not familiar with. Usually the drawing choices are: - Polll chosen by the patrons - some character that might not have won a poll but it's constantly "on topic" - A character that is hyped atm (new game, trailer, or something that's drawing a lot of attention). - Something I had a great idea to do, I try to fit in between the others. Since I never played ME, it's hard that any of the characters will pop on my head. So it would have to be through polls. I can include some in the future polls to see how they go.

Lee

Still deciding between Ariel or Rapunzel.

Lee

Where did you learn anatomy? Yours is really good and you do an excellent job of showing musculature on women without taking away from their femininity.

Vladimir Duran

How do you deal with the fact that there are a (I assume) large number of people who believe they are entitled to your work without supporting it (such as, being a patron). Not necessarily those without the means to do so, but those who think they shouldn't have to. And on the same note, what about people who support you who publicly post your hard work without your consent? It tends to really irritate me to see stuff like that. :(

Ziggurat

How did you learn how to draw? Did you study art in a school, on your own ... ? Did you always know you wanted to do this and practiced since your childhood or did you start later on in life?

French Mafia

Do you use reference often for your art? If so, do you find poses that are exactly what you are looking for, or look for similar poses then modify them to what you want to make?

We're you always planning to be an artist full time or did you just take advantage of an opportunity?

Chris Harris

Do you enjoy doing fanart or drawing Iris more?

Yoyozou

Ever considered illustrating one of the Mass Effect girls?

Jacob L

Which Disney princesses are you going to draw next?