*always adding more
General Writing Tips, Guides and Advice
8 Words You Should Avoid When WritingAs always, Orwell’s final rule applies: “Break any of these rules before saying anything barbarous.” There are instances where each of these words fills a valuable role. However, especially among inexperienced writers, these words are frequently molested and almost always gum up the works.
1. “Suddenly”
“Sudden” means quickly and without warning, but using the word “suddenly” both slows down the action and warns your reader. Do you know what’s more effective for creating the sense of the sudden? Just saying what happens.
I pay attention to every motion, every movement, my eyes locked on them.Suddenly,The gun goes off.When using “suddenly,” you communicate through the narrator that the action seemed sudden. By jumping directly into the action, you allow the reader to experience that suddenness first hand. “Suddenly” also suffers from being nondescript, failing to communicate the nature of the action itself; providing no sensory experience or concrete fact to hold on to. Just … suddenly.
Feel free to employ “suddenly” in situations where the suddenness is not apparent in the action itself. For example, in “Suddenly, I don’t hate you anymore,” the “suddenly” substantially changes the way we think about the shift in emotional calibration.
2. “Then”
Here are some of the most common openings I see, as they’re almost always a rejection:
- Waking Up: Avoid the first moments of the day, especially if your character is being snapped out of a dream.
- School Showcase: A character introducing the requisite best friend and the school bully
- Family…
I said that I’d show some tutorials I have saved up to someone, but decided that I’d just go ahead and post most of what I have stored away and create a sort of masterpost out of it. (I figure it’ll help me just as much since, as of now, they’re all pretty scattered between my Tumblr and bookmarks)
A lot of these are hosted on my personal Tumblr, but I don’t change my url so it’s pretty safe to bookmark them there (and not have to worry about the url changing) if you don’t wish to reblog them yourself for whatever reason.
Feline tutorials:
- Basic domesticated cat tutorial
- The domestic cat body
- Improving upon (lion) anatomy
- Realistic lion faces tips
- Big cat paw tips
- Canine vs. feline - paws and legs
- Beginner feline tutorial
- Guide to big cats
- Feline comparison
- Canine vs. feline - facial anatomy
- Canine vs. feline - chest anatomy
- Guide to little cats
- Big cat eyes (could work for other eyes)
Canine tutorials:
- Basic wolf anatomy
- Skeleton notes on wolf legs
- The wolf skeleton as a whole
- The wolf skull and teeth
- Wolf paw tips
- Basic canine poses
- Canine ears and chest
- Drawing realistic wolves
- Basic wolf tutorial
- Wolf paw tutorial
- Paw pad tips
- Wolf skeleton and muscles
- Wolf fur direction
- Canine vs. feline - paws and legs
- Canine vs. feline - facial anatomy
- Canine vs. feline - chest anatomy
- And this is just an excellent DA for wolf reference images
Avian tutorials:
- Bird wing anatomy applied on humanoids
- Bird wing tutorial (lots of underrated tips)
- Varying bird wing structure
- Basic owl anatomy
- Bird wing vs. bat wing vs. pterodactyl wing vs. human arm
- Bird wings and flight
- Various bird wings
Human(oid) tutorials:
- Hand tips and reference
- Simplifying human anatomy
- Feet and shoes tutorial
- Bird wing anatomy applied on humanoids
- A guide to movement: flexibility
- A male shoulder study
- Altalamatox face tutorial
- Male legs reference
- The human hand
- Male vs. female waist
- Excellent expressions tut
- Understanding anatomy part 1 (follow desc. links for more)
- Painting skin
- Simplifying hands
- More simplified hands
- Pose tutorial
- Varying the female figure
- Profile proportions
- Expression tutorial
- Virtual lighting studio
- Breaking up the male torso
- Male torso anatomy in use
- Simplifying the human foot
- Various facial and body shapes reference
- Drawing the nose
- Female anatomy patterns
- Human mouths
- Breaking down the human nose
- How to draw the ear
- More hand(y) tips
- Neck and torso tut
- Jawline and kissing tip
- Yet another hands tutorial
- Male torso in motion
- The human head at various angles
- Variation of colour throughout the skin
- Excellent action and couple references
- Advice on eyes
- Feet reference drawings
- Nose shapes
- The human skull and face
- Facial features
- Portrait lighting cheat sheet
- Animating dialogue (mouth movement)
- A kissing tutorial
- The fist
- Various athletic builds
- Various types of hair
- Proportional height of different positions
- Expressions photo references
- The hand in motion
- Skintone palettes
- Semi-realistic eye tutorial
- Male muscle reference
- The human body in perspective
- The human head at various angles
- Painting a realistic eye
- Arm shape and muscles
- Animal feet on a human figure
- Hand poses
- The face in profile
- Skin tutorial
- Body type diversity
- Drawing hair
- Muscles in the neck and face
- A beginner’s guide to knees
- Another ladies tutorial
Dragon tutorials (and bat wings):
Equine tutorials:
- Basic horse (back) reference
- The equine skeleton
- Horse anatomy and pointers
- A good, large collection of horse stock references
- Skeleton of a horse and its rider
Cervine tutorials:
Ursine tutorials:
Background and objects tutorials:
- Griffsnuff background tut part 1 (second in desc.)
- Tree tutorial
- Realistic gems tut
- Water tutorial
- General water tutorial
- Drawing crystals
- Drawing bows
Clothing tutorials:
- Fabric tutorial
- Clothing folds part 1 (second in desc.)
- Drawing hoods
- Drawing jeans
- Hat on human figure reference
- Armor
- More hat on figure references
General painting, drawing, and style tips:
- Altalamatox digital painting walkthrough
- Simple fur tutorial
- Realism painting tutorial (human subject)
- Excellent colour tutorial
- Painting a wolf (good fur painting visual)
- Photoshop brushes tut
- Basics of Photoshop tutorial
- Another digital painting tutorial
- Common digital painting mistakes
- Colour and light
- Soft cel-shading tutorial
- Various types of hair
- Colour tips and the mood it expresses
- Composition tips
- Lighting and colour tips
- Shadows
- Another composition tut
Hope these help!
Pixel tutorial! I really hope this is useful - I had to learn shading by myself and it was kind of troublesome Q7Q HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE!
Regarding the first image, the way I draw the hip area and legs in general is pretty exaggerated, I remove a lot of muscle and curve the bones. The left of each set is more correct if you’re aiming to be more realistic.
The second image is just how I personally stretch legs into different body types. The third is one of my most generic poses and some feet. I approach the bottoms of the feet the same way I do hands and I make toes by just overlapping the little circles. The fourth image features some attempts at different positions I don’t show as much, an area I still have to work on myself.
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I’ve still yet to recover from my recent lethargy, so this was all I could think to do… but I hope this is of at least some use! Sorry! :(
This is really good to look at, thank you for posting it!
Gosh I need to practice my legs/feet so much. ;;
I always had an issue with hippy girls. this helps!
