Loish

UPDATE // October is over!

My favorite month of the year has passed me by! Here's a little overview of how it went for me: 

TRAVEL AND JET LAG

I went to LA for Lightbox earlier this month, and it truly knocked me out of my routine! I had a great time connecting with some of you and doing panels and talks, it was so awesome to meet face to face after so many years! However, the jet lag was brutal this time! Now that I’m back, I’m trying to get back into my old routine, which is a ch...

Q&A // October

Today was my first Q&A session for flame members! It was so lovely to do and such a great way to end the month, thanks everyone who joined in! Unfortunately I found out too late that discord limits streams to 25 viewers, so next time I'll be streaming through another platform (probably YouTube) so that this limit doesn't apply. 

For the next session, feel free to drop any questions you might have into the #ask-loish channel on discord, or post it below - I'll go through them an...

RESOURCE // expressions challenge

To complete this month's challenge, I wanted to create a little resource for all of you flame patrons! In this video, I run you through my process for creating my expression sketches and which challenges I ran into while making them. I also discuss some common mistakes that I often see when folks are drawing expressions. I also included some tips and advice! I hope you find it helpful ~

Also, I’m doing a Q&A session later today (about 7 hours from posting this) just for flame patr...

PROCESS VIDEO // expressions

Hello flame tier members! This is the process video for my expression sketches that I posted yesterday:

It has been sped up to 3 times the original speed. In real time, it took me about 3 hours to draw these. I'll also be posting up a video in a minute where I talk about my process and give some tips and advice for drawing expressions, so keep an eye out for that! Hope you enjoy this process v...

CHALLENGE // expressions

It’s almost the end of October, which means it’s time for me to participate in the monthly challenge for flame tier members! This month was on drawing expressions, which I think is always a valuable exercise to improve at stylization, construction, and exaggeration when drawing faces.

I loved seeing what all the flame members created for this challenge in the discord server! So much beautiful and inspiring artwork ❤ If you created artwork for this challenge but haven’t shared it...

EARLY ACCESS // orange studies

I need to get back into the flow of drawing after visiting lightbox earlier this month! I’ve been feeling drawn towards warmer color palettes and chunkier shapes. For these studies, I started with a bright orange base color and layered more muted tones on top of that. I always love the effect that gives, as if the warmer color is shining through the character! It’s a technique I also love to use when I’m painting with acrylics. It’s a lot of fun to do if you haven’t tried it yet! 2022-10-26 14:40:00 +0000 UTC View Post

PROCESS VIDEO // night - super fast

Here’s a faster version of the process video I just posted! It took me about an hour and a half to make the original sketch, but this one is condensed into 10 minutes. Hope you enjoy!

PROCESS VIDEO // night

I recorded the process of drawing last month's sketch with my phone, so I figured I’d share it here! I wanted to balance screen recordings with videos like this so you can also see how I move my hands and really interact with the tablet. I have my keyboard hooked onto the top left part of my tablet which is how I access the shortcuts! This video is sped up to 150%, so it’s a little bit faster than my real-time process.

One helpful tip I discovered for drawing the lights: I painted w...

EARLY ACCESS // owls

I’m fascinated by barn owls. There’s one living near our house and it recently flew out right in front of me as I was biking home! Being allowed to see it up close felt so special. I feel like barn owls have these almost human-like faces sometimes. My boyfriend said they look like headless birds when you see them from a distance and that’s kind of true too! I had to do some studies of these magical creatures. Have you ever seen an owl in real life?

WIP // fall paintings

I sat down to create some painting ideas and this is what came out! I always feel more drawn to earthy tones and cozy themes around the fall. Which one should I finish first?

PROCESS VIDEO // self portrait

It’s my birthday, so here’s a video of my face! 😂 It’s the full process for the self portrait that I drew last month. It’s sped up to twice the original speed, and it took me about 2 hours to paint this one.

Some things to keep in mind while watching this video:

• This is a typical example of a process where I ‘sculpt’ with color. This is because I’m drawing myself from...
  2022-10-11 09:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post

UPDATE // lightbox expo

Hey patrons! Are any of you going to be at Lightbox Expo next week? I'd love to meet you and say hi! Here's my schedule for the event, in case you'd like to get a book signed or attend a talk, panel, or Q&A session. Let me know if you'll be there ❤

TUTORIAL // balancing consistency & variety in faces - subtitled

As promised, the version of this month's tutorial with the subtitles baked in to the video. Please do check out the description of the other tutorial post for additional info about the tutorial! Enjoy!

TUTORIAL // balancing consistency & variety in faces

It’s time for this month’s tutorial! It’s about drawing faces, and more specifically, how to create different types of faces while maintaining the same style. This is something I grapple with a lot, particularly when working on client projects where the characters all have to have the same style! Hopefully this tutorial will give you some helpful tips to address this challenge.

Here is the artwork I created during this tutorial demo:

2022-10-06 09:32:51 +0000 UTC View Post

EARLY ACCESS // FKA Twigs

Some studies of one of my favorite singers, FKA Twigs! I’ve been watching a lot of her music videos lately and I love her aesthetic and unique style. So I had to make some fan art sketches!

I streamed the process of these in the discord group. I really recommend joining it and participating in sharing your art there if you haven't already! It’s a really good vibe and I’ve been enjoying it a lot ❤

MONTHLY CHALLENGE // drawing expressions

Hello flame patrons! I hope you're ok with me sending out so many posts in one go :') There's just so much to announce and share! 

It's time for me to post the first monthly challenge! It's going to be on drawing expressions. You can find all of the information about this challenge, including PDFs with the challenge text and image folders, here: ...

CHALLENGE // Flame DTIYS

Hello lovely flame members! I'm so happy to have you on board, it's so exciting to have you here in this new tier! Just for you, I've launched a Flame Patron DTIYS challenge 🔥

Feel free to draw this image in your own style and share it online with the hashtag #LoishPatreonDTIYS! You can also share it in a thread in the discord server, just head over to the #DTIYS-challenges channel and post it here! I'd love to see what you create ❤

UPDATE // Vimeo links for Flame Patrons

Hey Flame Patrons! Because many of you are still reporting issues with the video playback, I wanted to make a list of external links with which you can watch the videos that you have access to. If you watch them through these links, you can turn on subtitles by clicking the CC button in the player, and hopefully bypass any video playback issues that you may be experiencing here on Patreon!

You can access the videos listed below with a password, which I’ll be changing each month. You c...

UPDDATE // the new tier and discord are live!

Hello lovely Patrons! I’m so excited to inform you that the new tier is now live! If you were signed up to the basic tier, you are now a Spark ($5) patron. You can choose to upgrade to the Flame ($10) tier if you want to! Next to that, you can now join the Discord server!

This post will run you through the details of how to upgrade your tier and join the discord server, so keep scrolling if you want to know more!

2022-10-02 07:32:39 +0000 UTC View Post

UPDATE // last post before the launch of the new tier!

September was honestly a blur for me, it just flew by! I was so busy working on the new discord community and getting everything ready for the new tier. I have to be honest and say that I am so nervous for the launch! I'm glad I already officially announced the launch date, because otherwise I would be tempted to just keep pushing the date further away and procrastinate forever. But now everything is ready and it's really going to happen :') aahhhhhh!!! 

Here's a little overview of...

PROCESS VIDEO // smoke

Here’s the process for my smoke painting from last April! I drew this one way faster than I normally do: the entire process took about 2 and a half hours. I sped it up to twice the original speed so that the video isn’t too long!

I kind of painted this one as a companion piece to another smoke painting I m...

UPDATE // reminder to download videos!

Hey lovely patrons! Just a friendly reminder: there is only one week left to download the videos that I sent out through DM to the patrons who were signed up during the month that the videos were created! So if you haven't done so already, head over to your inbox to see if you received any DMs with video links, and be sure to download that content if you want a local copy of the tutorial videos before the tier change is implemented on October 2nd. The download links will rema...

EARLY ACCESS // ice bubbles

I have finally finished the last of the painting WIPs I had lying around since early this year! This one was so soothing to paint. I loved capturing the blobby and soft shapes of the bubbles trapped under the ice. This one is inspired by photos of methane bubbles in frozen lakes, it’s really cool to see so I definitely recommend looking it up if you haven't seen that before!

TUTORIAL // simple exercises - subtitled

As promised, the version of this month's tutorial with the subtitles baked in to the video. Please do check out the description of the other tutorial post for additional info about the tutorial! Enjoy!

TUTORIAL // simple exercises to do when you are short on energy, time, or inspiration

It’s time for this month’s tutorial! This one is about simple exercises to do when you are short on energy, time, or inspiration. I feel like all artists run into situations like this from time to time. Those of us who can allocate a lot of time to drawing might somtimes feel burnt out or drained, and those of us who have less time for drawing struggle to make choices on what to spend their precious time on. So for this tutorial, I demonstrate six exercises you can do in those situations....

EARLY ACCESS // self portrait

I’ve been going through so many changes lately - physical, mental, work-wise, in my family and personal life. I’m someone who is very scared of changes and the idea of the unknown can be frightening, so it’s a bit of an anxiety-inducing time, but a lot of these changes are also good and exciting. Many things will be different in a few months or a year from now, but I don’t know exactly how that will look!

So I figured it was time for a self portrait, just to capture myself at th...

EARLY ACCESS // teeth studies

After doing the tooth and mouth studies from last month, I wanted to try doing some character sketches (using reference) where I applied more details around the teeth and mouth while still keeping a stylized quality to the sketches. I usually just draw one unified tooth with a chip here or there but for these I really wanted to convey a little more realism. It was fun! I think it elevates the sketches ...

EARLY ACCESS // more zoo sketches

Last month I posted some sketches that I made at the zoo, which I then finalized digitally later on! I decided to do some more - here are some meerkats and gibbons. I especially loved doing the gibbons, they are so unique in their proportions, almost spider-like!

EARLY ACCESS // teeth

Some tooth and mouth studies! This is something I think about a lot when drawing characters: how much detail to add to the teeth and mouth without getting an uncanny effect? Drawing the gaps between each tooth tends to create a really weird effect, but I also really like stylized art that shows more detail in the teeth to create believability. 

So here are some studies where I tired to find ways to show the detail of the teeth but also simplify them to some extent so they don’t l...

UPDATE // fall is almost here!

The summer is almost over! I'm relieved because it was honestly way too warm for me this year. I'm looking forward to the beginnings of autumn! 

Here's a little review of how this month has gone for me:

PINK & BLUE

This month’s art has been super candy colored! Almost everything is pink or blue. These are colors I’ve loved a lot ever since I first learned how to draw in a stylized way, and they always return to my art in cycles. No matter how mu...