fourteen step
s to scene domination
an ansi tutorial
hen
hennifer
introduction
welcome to 14 steps to scene
domination, my attempt to make the
most comprehensive tutorial ever.
alias:hennifer
realname: jeffery
yes, im a guy
to start off, here are some vital
age:18
stats about me: area
code:519
art scene career: 96/01-97/07
yak member
96/02-96/06
septic leader
96/07-96/07
dark ansi co-ordlots of people
know me, from boards,
96/12- ... lazarus leader
irc, or real-life meetings. for more
info about me, check TURKEY01.ZIP, my
recent ansi compilation, or any packs
from the groups mentioned above.
hopefully we can agree that i know
what im talking about when it comes
to ansis.
unlike many other tutorials, this one
has a very general focus. the first 5
chapters can be applied to any kind of
visual art, and are all basic concepts
that, when understood, lead to a
better finished product. if youve
taken some art courses in high school,
or university, youll find many of
these concepts familiar. if youre
interested solely in the ansi-
specific chapters, begin reading at
chapter 6.
HEN
all ansis used with perm
ission they are copyright c the original artist.
contents
PART1.ANS dealing with non-ansi-specific t
opics.
line 025 -- introductio
n about hennifer and this tutorial
line 070 -- contents
this list.
line 098 01 inspiration
sources of inspiration.
line 145 02 proportions
human and non-human proportions.
line 291 03 perspective
perspective, including 1- and 2-
point.
line 379 04 lighting
using light and shadows realistical
ly.
line 416 05 composition
using positive and negative space
PART2.ANS dealing with ansi-specific
topics.
line 000 -- co
ntents this list.
line 000 06 pl
anning sketching ansis be
forehand.
line 000 07 sh
aping i elemental shaping
tips.
line 000 08 colourin
g i elemental colouring tips.
line 000 09 sh
ading i elemental shadin
g tips.
line 000 10 sh
aping ii advanced shaping
tips.
line 000 11 co
louring ii advanced colouring
tips.
line 000 12 sh
ading ii advanced shading
tips.
line 000 13 or
iginality developing personal
style.
line 000 14 ep
ilogue last words.
line 000 -- cr
edits ansis contributed.
inspiration
01
it may seem kind of stupid for me to talk about inspira
tion. after all, if you
didnt have inspiration you wouldnt want to draw in th
e first place, right?
wrong. every day i see people complaining t
hat they dont have any ideas. yet,these are the ver
y same people who limit themselves.
in the scene, we traditionally divide people up by term
s of inspiration, with
original artists, and comic-rippers
. this doesnt leave room, though, for theto
ns of other places inspiration can come from. How abo
ut photos, signs, logos,sketches, artistic masterpiec
es, architecture, anything? if you think nobody
uses those, remember dieznyiks wonderful parody of the
microsoft logo. think
of the resemblance to architecture you find
in a lot of older ansis. i dont
dont believe anyone can deny that an ansi version of t
he mona lisa would be
damn cool.
this is DIE-SOFT.ANS, the microsoft parody
by dieznyik i mentioned above:
Satansoft 9
5 by Dieznyik... best
viewed in VGA mode... June 30th,
1996...
proportions
02
this is where we get into art-school basics.
for the beginning artist, or a
logo artist turning to pics, this can be a real problem
. when you first start
trying to draw actual things ie. car, person, you oft
en end up with the
feeling that you know what you want to draw, you just c
ant do it. when making
a logo, the artist is fairly free to shape i
t however he wants. pics are a
different story. i think this is why most people stick
to logos, which is a
shame.
first of all, lets look at the human body. there are m
any very easy ways to
learn proportions. for example:
head 3.0 blocks l
ong.
neck
1.5 blocks long. the hea
d
shoulder about 3.0 heads wide.
chest 5.0 blocks long.
1 head + neck
uppe
r arm as long as the c
hest.
torso
about 3.0 blocks long. 1 h
ead
low
er arm as long as
the torso.
hand wel
l deal with that later.
upper leg 6.0 blocks lon
g. 2 heads
lower leg 4.5 blocks long.
1 head + neck
foot who cares.
hea
d 3.0 blocks long.
n
eck 1.5 blocks long. the hea
d
shoulder not quite 3.0 he
ads wide.
chest 5.0 blocks long. 1
head + neck
upper arm as long as the chest
torso 4
.0 blocks long.
lower arm as long
as the torso.
hand well deal
with those later.
upper leg 6.0 blocks long.
2 heads
lower leg 4.0 blocks long.
foot who cares.
at first youll have to make a diagram of this, and ref
er to it when youre
drawing. eventually it will be second nature
to you.
this method allows you to start from the head, and draw
the rest of the body
in relation to that. it works for any scale
, as long as youre careful. also,
once youre more familiar with human proportions, you c
an fux0r with them a
bit.
also, each segment of the body is isolated. if you can
understand how these
segments move in relation to each other, you can draw
any pose. remember that
each movement affects the muscles and bones
around it. for example:
fig.1-1 fig.1-2
fig.2-1 fig.2-2
x wrong right
x wrong right
when a person leans backward, they
the arm doesnt rotate by itself
bend at the waist. in the fig.1-1
it moves the shoulder, neck and
diagram, the person would fall over
muscles along the side of the
body.
backwards.
obviously, there are many different poses that you can
use, and it takes a long
time to learn each one. a trick that i ofte
n use is to model for myself.
especially for things like hands and feet, its really h
elpful. when the pose
involves my entire body, i use a mirror, and sketch the
results. if youre
lucky enough to have someone else to model f
or you, even better.
another area with proportion short-cuts is t
he hand. if youre one of the many
people who cant quite get it should read the following
1. draw a long,
2. add an
arc 3. divide the
thin oval.
just above
lower half
the half-
into two
way point
segments as
of the
shown below
oval.
and cut off
the bottom
of the oval
4. use the
5. divide the
right side
rest into
of the
the four
top of
fingers,
the oval
using only
to make
vertical
a thumb.
lines.
the correct
finger
length will
be defined
by the oval.
if youre in search of other shortcuts and help with hu
man proportions, check
your local art store or library for drawing books. for
human anatomy, the
classic reference book is Grays Anatomy. i
t should be available just about
everywhere.
as far as non-human proportions, such as try
ing to draw a toaster, there arent
any shortcuts. the best thing to do is to find a photo
graph, or an actual
object, and measure sketch that. if youre really de
sperate, try getting one
of those how to draw books. also,
the next chapter, perspective
should help you out.
perspective
03
perspective is another topic dealt with in most art
training, and its a very
important part of drawing realistically. pe
rspective is about the only thing
that can change the proportions of something. for exam
ple:
if a skyscraper is when you look up at from
looking at it from above, shaped l
ike this: below, it looks like this:
it would look like this:
normal view worms eye view
birds eye view
another everyday instance of perspective is the famous
head-crushing effect.
this is simply a difference in the distance of 2 object
s when youre looking at
them. this sometimes pops up when youre dr
awing, for example, if you have
someone holding their hands out towards the screen. by
expanding the hands
right amount, you can add a lot of depth to
your drawing. for example:
here, the hands are actually big
ger than the
head. by
foreshortening the arms, though,
you can make it look like he is reaching
outward.
finally, the most complicated part of perspe
ctive drawing occurs when you are
trying to draw a shape from an angle. in order to do t
his realistically, you
need to establish a horizon line, and a
vanishing point or two. for example:
one point perspective: two point perspective
1. make a horizon line and choose a
1. make a horizon line and choose a
vanishing point. 2 vanishing point
2. draw a box. 2. draw the edge of a b
ox.
3. extend the lines from the corners
3. extend the lines from the top and
of your box to the vanishing bott
om of the edge, to each point.
point.
4. cut off the lines wherever you 4.
cut off the lines wherever you
wish, to finish your cube. wish, t
o finish your cube.
obviously this is a very simple example. the block
iness of ansi makes it hard to give a sma
llscale example of perspective. this techniqu
e is most useful
when youre sketching and planning an ansi dealt with
more in chapter 6,
planning.
lighting
04
though it is often overlooked, the light source is a ve
ry important part of a
picture. ansis without a light source are often flat a
nd lifeless. when you
figure out just where the light is shining from, howeve
r, you can use shadows
and shining to the greatest advantage.
the simplest wa
y of practising this idea is by using a
sphere. without a l
ight source, this is just a flat
circle. once you add
light, though, it really stands
out.
x light source
a more complicated and useful example of lighting is
with the face:
composition
05
composition is a bit harder to define than t
he above topics. it includes a lot
of things, and some of them depend totally on the artis
ts taste. many
different types of composition work, from the
very simple idea of a bowl of
fruit, or a face, to something as complicated as a
wheres waldo book.
there are some factors that should figure into any comp
osition, though. the
most important one that i can think of is the use of
positive/negative space.
in many tutorials, youll see always use a backgro
und. this has to do with
negative space. its generally bad form to have the fol
lowing:
to s
imply have someone standing in the middle of nothing,
not
doing anything at all is not very interesting. you
w
ont see a famous artist releasing somethi
ng like that.
as far as composition, even something as simple
as making
him hold a flower wo
uld help things out a lot. its
simple, and yet we still see tons of
ansis like that one.
another way to fix this is through use of negat
ive and
positive space.
positive space is the
place where there is something
tangible, like a horse, person, toaster or a pattern.
background or foreground, it doesnt matter as long a
something is there.
positive space
negative space negative space
, on the other hand, is nothing.
its an
area where theres either blackness, or a blank co
lour.
the following are 3 simple ways to turn that negative s
pace to your advantage:
1. use fading, and 2.
this method is a 3. another way
to turn
the suggestion of dim favourite of mi
ne negative space to your
light to make part of right now, and
of many advantage is by making
the foreground into renaissance pai
nters. an abstract background.
negative space. this it do
esnt translate in this rough example,
makes the whole thing well into such
a small i added a lighted door-
much more interesting. scale, but you
can use way and a bare light
background lines
to bulb for some interest.
draw the viewers eye
to a central point.
for both composition and the use of positive/negative s
pace, one of the best
artists ive seen is ewheat. his collag
es of crazy things demonstrate exac
tly
what you should take into account when thinking about c
omposition.
heres an excerpt from 3T-HELP.ANS:
happy
end of section
1 PART1.ANS dealing with
non-ansi-specific topics.
refer to: PART-2.ANS
dealing with ansi-specific topics.
hennifer