14: part two by hennifer
14: part two by hennifer
fourteen step
s to scene domination
an ansi tutorial
hen
hennifer
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 025 -- co
ntents this list.
line 053 06 pl
anning sketching ansis be
forehand.
line 132 07 sh
aping i basic shaping tip
line 237 08 colourin
g i basic colouring tips.
line 317 09 sh
ading i basic shading ti
ps.
line 347 10 sh
aping ii advanced shaping
tips.
line 381 11 co
louring ii advanced colouring
tips.
line 426 12 sh
ading ii advanced shading
tips.
line 446 13 or
iginality developing personal
style.
line 464 14 ep
ilogue last words.
line 566 -- cr
edits ansis contributed.
planning
06
if youve stuck with me this far, you might be getting
intimidated by the
thought of even starting an ansi. never fear, after a
couple of repetitions,
all of these things become second nature. t
he only time i would recommend
going to a tutorial like this is if youre stuck for id
eas, or having problems. even if an ansi is almost do
ne, if its lacking that certain something, there
might be a fundamental flaw.
when youre working from a comic book or a photo, its
a good idea to sketch in
rough pencil borders around what you want to d
raw. this way, you can get a feelfor the s
ize of the different things in the picture, and the
scale youll have
to use.
the best, and easiest way to create an origi
nal composition is to sketch out your i
deas beforehand. this way, youll at least know if yo
u can draw them.
with the smaller scale of a sketch, its much easie
r to get the right proportions, and
its easier to make small changes.
even if you have trouble converting you sketch to ansi
format, its a good placeto begin. some of my ansis
have turned out completely different from the first
idea.
the following ansi, HEN-DARK.ANS, was suppo
sed to be some kind of viking:
instead it turned out as a kind of gargoyle, but its
all good.
so, yeah. i encourage sketching things out.
shaping i
07
this is the first step of actually drawing t
he ansi. the first thing you shoulddo is draw the pi
cture all in one colour. most people use 07
, some use 15, and
i imagine others would work, but use one colour
. this way, you can focus on
making everything the right shape, and worry about shad
ing and colour later.
if your ansi has very little black space, it
might be easier to fill the screen
in with grey, and then take away the parts you want to
be black.
when youre working on an outline, be very careful
not to use a black space only wide when dra
wing. for example:
hopefully its pretty obvious that
using thicker lines looks better.
if you think that there isnt
enough room for thick lines in your
ansi, dont resort to seperation
ill mention other techniqu
es you
can use.
x wrong right
when youre drawing the outlines, dont use a lot of
f1-f3 characters.
again, concentrate on shaping, not shading o
r colouring. if you cant get a
part quite right, leave it and come back later. you mi
ght be able to use colourto fix it up.
one problem area that many people have is with circ
les and arcs. even diagonal
lines can be hard sometimes. the best way to get aroun
d this, is to use a
methodical approach. for example:
note: for the next diagrams, is 1 block, horizontal
ly and vertically.
1 2 3
at first, the outline goes over
1 block
for each block it goes up. then it
then it goes over 2 blocks for each
one
it goes up. then three.
1
on the vertical side, the sam
e happens
until you get to the 3 section. here
2
because its vertical,
you can use and
f7 a
nd f8, for a smoother arc.
* 3
if youre confused, just try it. its a
lot easier to
do than to explain.
i used the above idea to draw the earth in US-DI
S1.ANS with warpus:
for diagonal lines, a similar idea applies.
as you can see from the lines to the right,
you can get a full range of diagonal lines
just by using a regular interval.
move a block right for every 4
blocks up.
move 1 block right for every 2 bl
ocks up.
move 1 block up for every 3 right
colouring i
08
the next step is to add colour to your outli
ne. at first you should simply add
blocks of colour, to get an idea of what colou
r each part should be. later on,
you can shade and get more exact with your colourin
g. there are two ways to
add colour:
1. colour everything with darker colours
01-07 and add highlights.
2. colour everything with bright colours
08-15 and add shadows.
however you want to do this is completely up
to you. personally, i like to
fill in everything with darker colours, except for face
s for which i use 12.
in many cases, you have to decide on a colour schem
e at this point. my advice
is to use at least 3 colours in any ansi. a
nd dont always use the same ones.
ive seen huge logo-collys where everything is 03
and 11. also, dont let
reality limit you.
in HEN-THIN.ANS, i used 6 colours on the fa
ce alone, and none of them were pink
or brown:
like i did above, to add a really bright shine, try put
ting a small square of 11,
14 or 15 where you want t
he shine.
after you have colours roughly filled in, you can try t
o make the lines between
colours more smooth. for example:
colour filled roughly in. colour r
efined, more clean.
the easiest way to colour something is to leave the
edges of a shape darker,
and make the center more bright. if you wan
t a sharp line, though, try
extending bright colour right to the edge of a shape.
experimentation is the
key.
another good way to use colour is in place of black lin
es. for example, if you
are drawing a face, and wanted to add a bit of defi
nition around the mouth, you might add some ch
eek lines:
here is the plain face. this is the fac
e with using grey lines like this
black lines. these can lessens
the impact, and
sometimes really age a makes the picture sta
nd
face, or make it look out more.
with some more cluttered.
colouring and shaping, thi
s could look really good.
shading i
09
tempus thales
cheeze
there are a zillion different ways to s
hade
halaster
your ansis. it
s hard to give a step-by-step
analysis of how to shade, so take a look at
napalm a few different shading st
yles, to the left.
dieyznik
eerie
one place that you should definitely use sha
ding is
at the edges between colours. if there are places
where you have a curve that isnt quite right, or the
colour is too weak or strong, try blurring t
he lines
a bit with shading.
another very us
eful shading tool is the fade, shown to th
e
left. this is
a clean, simple way to give a bit of depth
to
a font or pic.
shaping ii
10
for more advanced artists, there are several
other techniques to use. one thingi stumbled across
not too long ago was that by making circles bloc
kier, you can
actually make them look more round. for exa
mple:
traditional circle chunky circle
i dont know about you, but the chunky
circle looks better to me. this works
best with small circles, where there
isnt room to make a detailed curve.
another useful technique for small ansis is the idea of
blending shapes together
. i use this all the time, and i find it real
ly it easier to get exact
shapes. for examples:
i blended together a lot of the
different parts of this ansi, and you
can still tell its a hand. theres
a certain amount of finesse involved
in this, but with shading and
colouring, it is easy to see.
colouring ii
11
once youre more comfortable with ansi as a medium, it
s time to experiment.
dont always use normal colour schemes. p
airing dark and light versions of
a colour all the time just dont cut it. for example,
instead of always using
04 and 12, 05 and 1
3, or 03 and 11, try u
sing 01 and 03, or 05 a
nd 09.
another small detail that can make all the difference i
s 07 vs.07. the
difference in text is obvious. with ansi ch
aracters, it is less so:
still, the small difference at the edge
of each
07 07
character can be used to your advantage. halas
ter
and others have used it to create the following sh
apes:
and the faded line:
a good example of this idea is in US-LAZ2.ANS
, by myself and halaster:
l
a
z
a
r
u
hennifer
halaste
r
shading ii
12
an advanced shading tip is to use the f2 character
of a bright colour
alone on its dark counterpart. for example:
01 ! 02
! 03 !
04 ! 05
! 06
! 07 !
09 10 11
12 13 14
15
notice that 06/14 is the
only combo
that doesnt work. why, you ask?
because 06 is just plain ugly.
once again, this makes a small difference, but it can b
reak up a monotonous
colour scheme and give you a few more options
when colouring something.
originality
13
throughout the examples that youve seen, there are
thousands of tiny details
that make up a personal style. for example, i use no f
9, characters in my
ansis. some other artists use lots of f9s,
and it looks good. other artists
use even more characters, not normally part
of the ansi-art set.
every great artist, whatever medium they work in, has a
personal style.
the only way to develop a style of your own is to p
ractise. there are no real
shortcuts, because rushing an ansi wont help in the en
d. ive been drawing foralmost two years
now, and my style is constantly evolving still.
in the beginning, youll have to look to others for ins
piration, or even help.
thats what i made this tutorial for. but, if someone
tells you to draw just
like him, hes doing you no favour.
epilogue
14
hopefully this tutorial has shown you that a lot of
thought can go into an ansi,and the reward fo
r putting a lot of thought into something is getting
a great
end-product.
whether youre interested in toon, original, comic an
sis, or something else
entirely, dont forget what could be in your future:
pop?,
nt
h
lear fallout
fl
flame
Neosporin
+o: Pedantik
n Neophtye
sfa2 champi
on
TRACK-22.EKK S5-AOS1.ANS
FL-SIGHT.ANS
wator/echo lord jazz
/fuel flame/ri
le
and heres something you wont find in many tutorials:
a really good artist will break every single rule i c
an come up with, at least
once.
credits
14
hennifer wrote, directed and prod
uced
dieznyik allowed use of an ansi
ewheat allowed use of an a
nsi
flame allowed use of
an ansi
oned allowed use of an ans
i
wator allowed use of an an
si
also, thanks to:
tetanus for allowing the use o
f an ansi, which i couldnt
find
final note: more of my ansis were used in this
tutorial than any others. this
isnt because im an egomaniac, its because it wa
s easiest to use
my own, as i didnt have to get permission from an
yone.
end of section
2 PART2.ANS dealing with
ansi-specific topics.
hennifer