More from @Hamm_Tips

Tips from Jesse Hamm

@Hamm_Tips

Mar 25, 2021

It's tempting to soften the edge of every shadow with hatching. Stark edges force us to commit to shadow shapes which might be wrong, and we don't want to risk being wrong; we want to waffle.

However, undue hatching looks noisy and lacks clarity. Choose carefully when to hatch.

When should you soften the edge of a shadow? When not doing so would mislead the reader about the shape of the portrayed object.

Had I not hatched Tinkerbell's ribcage, it would likely have appeared too flat; the tortion would not be evident.

Had I not hatched the fog beyond Nightwing, it would not have read clearly as fog; the building beyond him might look like a floating object, its distance unclear.

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Tips from Jesse Hamm

@Hamm_Tips

Sep 18, 2020

When drawing repeating objects that overlap, don't draw one and then two halves of the other; this encourages unevenness.(1)
Draw all the foreground objects, or all that lean one way, then draw all the remaining objects on a second layer.(2)
Erase the overlap, merge layers.(3)

Related tip: when drawing repeated objects of similar shape, size, or angle, draw them all at once, rather than alternating with other local objects. This gets your hand in a rhythm that can bang out a lot of objects quickly. Alternating with other objects will slow you up.

So: if there are several small stones, a few flowers, more stones, more flowers...don't draw stones then flowers then stones. Draw all the stones first, leaving space for the flowers, then go back and draw all the flowers. The rhythm of each will increase your speed and accuracy.

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Tips from Jesse Hamm

@Hamm_Tips

Jun 19, 2020

There's a type of person who is smart and gifted, and learns from early childhood to aim for the stars, because "nothing is impossible."

When life's constraints prove otherwise, this person is crushed. Unable to bend and accept flaws, they break.

Comics attract this person.

I see so much heartbreak among young people who were taught they can achieve EVERYTHING, if only they work hard enough. When their dreams don't come true, they reach the inescapable conclusion: they didn't work hard enough. Their elders overestimated them. They must be failures.

As children, they enjoyed creating. No longer. Now creation is a drudgery and they enjoy *having created*, if at all. Nothing they do meets their high expectations. The happiness of their early efforts is a dangling carrot that their arms will never reach again.

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Tips from Jesse Hamm

@Hamm_Tips

Jan 4, 2019

It's 2019!
Draw your signature legibly and attractively, along with the year, about the size of a playing card, and save it in your harddrive. Then you can resize it and drop it into any art you do in the coming year. Faster than signing every piece. Guaranteed legibility!

A TIFF of your signature can be moved around a piece of art until it looks right. You can squeeze or stretch it, or even change the color to suit the picture's color scheme (inverting it to white-on-black is also handy, for art with a lot of black).

Include the date so people can see that your recent work is better than your old work. Including the date also demonstrates to potential clients that you're productive. "Oh, she did all these this year!" Makes recent pieces look fresh, current.

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