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NightfallGloam
Beginner animator and illustrator with big dreams. Also a Brony since 2014 and cartoon enjoyer since forever.

Samuel @NightfallGloam

Age 25, Male

Animator/Illustrator

Self Teaching Art/Animation

Australia

Joined on 12/4/18

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NightfallGloam's News

Posted by NightfallGloam - 15 hours ago


Seriously. I gotta draw again. I do have plenty of ideas for things I want to draw, but just been a bit occupied with installing Linux, and doing more of the Draw A Box course.


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Posted by NightfallGloam - February 5th, 2024


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Posted by NightfallGloam - December 17th, 2023


Hello, everyone!

Its been a while since I last posted an update on my human anatomy studies. Sickness, procrastination, Christmas, fixing my sleep schedule and a bunch of other things have pretty much prevented me from spending more time studying basic anatomy. Fortunately, in the time that I was away, I did manage to get the torso and face done!


This effectively means that I'm finished with doing basic anatomy and MIGHT start drawing. Though admittedly I'm a bit nervous about starting again and my confidence isn't all that great, not helped by me even as I write this post struggling to understand how to draw the side view of a human face without it coming out badly. Of course, this does not mean I'm done studying as there is still a lot of things I do not know how to draw and professional techniques I do not understand, but, I think I'm at least in a better place for that now than I was at the start of the year...


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I was just recovering from my sickness and still had the world's most awful brain fog as I was practicing the human torso on this page. Before I started to use references from Zygote Body, I was really struggling with the basic shape and proportions of the body, and what I was drawing was reminding me of the picture I drew which made me decide to spend the year learning to draw the human body in the first place.


Eventually though, I started to figure it out when I opted to reference the feminine and masculine body types from Zygote. While I did initially try to draw a masculine body, I figured I'd probably understand what I was trying to draw if I referenced the female torso first, at which point, things started to become a bit more clear to me.

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Of course, its far from perfect and as you can see, even when I started to get it, I still had some trouble most noticeably with the side views, as well as my usual struggle for the 'perfect' symmetry. While I'll need additional practice in order for everything I've been drawing this year to become second nature to me, I consider all of this a good first step!


I had more trouble than I expected to have when drawing the face. Although I did eventually manage to draw the face from the front. Side view still leaves a lot to be desired though, and is certainly something I'll be quietly studying alongside other parts of the human body (muscles, breasts, etc...) that I haven't quite figured out as of yet. Of course this also includes having a greater understanding of how to draw clothing as well. I'm thinking that most of that progress will be seen in the actual art and animations that I plan on making in the future.


Now let's redraw that one humanized Lighthoof pic that inspired me to make an effort to understand human anatomy!


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Posted by NightfallGloam - October 19th, 2023


I haven't slept well recently and my mind was feeling quite foggy recently.


Hoping to get better soon, but, may not be as active for a while as I recover.


Posted by NightfallGloam - October 15th, 2023


Hello, everyone!

I return once more with yet more progress on my study of human anatomy, this time continuing with feet and giving arms a go! I'll be honest, arms have been a difficult thing for me to learn but I think I'm at least starting to get it, and while there are still issues with how I'm drawing feet, I did recently learn a more simple way to draw them.


Assuming I don't wait another month to post my next update, I think I'm close to finishing my study of basic human anatomy, which will mean I'm ready to draw at least some of the pictures I'd like to draw before the year ends. After that, I will still be studying human anatomy and other art fundamentals quietly but will be posting art alongside that. Currently, I just need to learn to draw the torso and head, with some additional work on the arms and I think I'll be good!


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So anyway, here is what I've actually drawn so far! It was at this point in my studying that I remembered that much of human anatomy, and doing art in general is figuring out how to break down objects into simple shapes. That said, there is definitely more outside of human anatomy that I need to understand if I really want to go further with my art.


As you can see, while some work is still definitely needed, particularly with the top-down view one which just looks horribly broken, I've learned how to draw the foot (finally!) from various angles. Feet might always annoy me for a myriad of reasons, but at least I can see the basic shape(s) I'm supposed to go for.


Turning to the arms now, I had intended to do more arm poses and movements but ended up just repeatedly drawing the same pose until I got a remotely satisfactory looking arm out of it. Did also try drawing a couple of torsos which I am not very satisfied with but had to do in order to get at least close to the right proportions. It doesn't help that I hadn't been having the best sleep recently so my ability to focus and memorize had been compromised somewhat, am trying to get into a regular sleep schedule though. This probably explains why the hands look wonky here.


Will be revisiting the arm at some point I think but I do want to move on to the torso and head. Of course, things like muscles and such also need to be studied, but I am considering those more advanced things that I will do alongside posting art.


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Posted by NightfallGloam - October 4th, 2023


Hello, everyone!

I am back with more of my human anatomy studies, this time focusing on the feet, legs and arms! Of course, thanks to the internet being the internet, I feel like its necessary for me to mention that no, I do not have a thing for feet and you are unlikely to see bare feet in anything I do, at least in a 'fanservicey' way. Still gotta study drawing it though if I want to draw humans competently and it is unfortunately something that will require another page, as you will see.


On the brighter side, I have largely figured out legs already, and I think I did well with this second attempt at arms. I have started to include the bone structure in my practices for a greater understanding of the human form, though that seems to be attracting more mistakes currently.

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Learning how to draw legs has kind of been a bit of a blessing for me in a way, as I have learned a better technique for drawing the legs and waist from a tutorial I just recently followed, and it was decently quick for me to figure out how to draw a believable leg. Maybe I could improve on the thighs, kneecaps and calf a bit, probably should have also given poses a try but overall, I'm pretty satisfied.


I have also attempted to take what I learned about legs and apply them to the arms, as they are both limbs after all, and I think my results look better than previous attempts, but I should definitely study them separately and see if there is anything I'm missing, as they still don't look quite right...


Feet continue to cause a lot of issues for me, so I will be trying them again at some point. While I did partially learn a way to draw them, it felt a bit complex given my current skills, and drawing them in a front facing position also has proven to be a bit difficult. As you can see, when drawing them front facing, I have attempted a triangular shape to them with no success. Hard as hands may be, they've never given me this degree of trouble but hopefully I can figure them out soon.


The next page will be entirely studying feet and arms, so hopefully I've figured out at least some of my issues then. I'm not expecting to draw like a professional concept artist from ArtStation any time soon, but, I would certainly like to know what I'm doing wrong with my attempts at drawing a foot in general. At least this most recent study has got me in the habit of drawing more regularly though, perhaps from my success at drawing legs and arms, so maybe it won't be a month until I post my next blog.


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Posted by NightfallGloam - September 6th, 2023


Hello, everyone!

Before I begin, I just wanted to say welcome to all my new followers on Newgrounds! I do not know where these follows are coming from as I haven't actively been posting anything to any of the portals recently, but just so you know, I do plan on drawing lots of MLP (FiM and G5) fanart here, alongside my own original works. In fact, I am learning anatomy currently so I can do humanized MLP fanart.

If you don't mind that, well, welcome! If you'd rather not see Brony stuff, well, I understand, sorry to disappoint in the not too distant future.


I'm not dead, just procrastinated once more and ended up not practicing drawing as much as I would like, especially with this human anatomy stuff. I have, however, also started taking Drawabox alongside this human anatomy practice now as I felt like, going into the second page of hands, with the various perspectives my references might end up going in, I should start getting a better understanding of art fundamentals.

You will see my admittedly rough attempts at perspective and drawing in 3D here too. And my attempts to draw arms too, which are apparently more complex than I thought they'd be.

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Anyway, here it is! On this page, before I started anything else, I attempted to draw the bones of the hand, details and all. While a bit wonky, I feel like I did pretty well for what was my first attempt at drawing bones, though some spots definitely have incorrect proportions. I attempted to draw the bones again when I was doing the arm, and ended up with the longest fingers I've ever seen.


After many attempts I think I finally managed to draw fingers that actually look more like fingers and less like balloons, as you can see with my thumbs up, peace sign, clenched fist and pointing attempts. I am personally majorly disappointed in the arms, which again, are apparently more complex than I thought. I can see that I also need to practice more with the fundamentals of art, with my attempts at bringing perspective into this study.

While I was able to successfully draw an arm from the wooden mannequin I have, and did manage to do an okay attempt with the bones, if not for the giant fingers, I feel like I struggled to draw a proper, convincing arm.

I will be giving arms another shot alongside the body part I plan on drawing next time, which will be the feet and legs... Yes, I am well aware of the reputation feet have in online art communities, but it is also another set of limbs I just haven't learned.


While hands will always be notoriously difficult for artists, I do feel like I've at least gained a lot of confidence from this for my own hand drawings, and it has become a little easier for me as I've gradually understood exactly what I'm looking at.


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Posted by NightfallGloam - June 21st, 2023


Hello, everyone!

Last time I made a blog post, I was studying the proportions of the human body itself, from head to feet, mostly in an effort to memorize the whole 8 heads measurement, but also to learn what the ratio is between the legs and the upper body.


That study was done mostly using a wooden mannequin I happen to own, however, this time around, despite also having a wooden hand to reference, I instead opted to use a photo of my own hand to study.

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(I lack a scanner, so you'll just have to get used to seeing a photo of the pages throughout this journey)

I'd originally intended to cram both the palm and the back of the hand on the same page, but, I decided I needed more practice just trying to get the proportions for the fingers right and that I should spend more time making the back of the hand look right, so instead, the palm will be the second part to this, and maybe also trying out various hand poses too... Outside of human anatomy studies, I think learning hand poses will also be good for practicing drawing in 3D, imo.


I think, towards the end, on the last hand, left of writing "Hands Are Difficult!", I did pretty good for a total noob. Of course, if you think I can improve anywhere, do feel free to make suggestions in the comments!


In any case, after doing all this over the past few weeks, I definitely sympathize with anyone who draws hands all the time now.


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Posted by NightfallGloam - May 29th, 2023


Hello, everyone!

As mentioned in my last update, I said I was planning on studying human anatomy... Well, that has been quietly happening since I made that post, much to the surprise of myself as I'm usually such a procrastinator that, well, you cannot guarantee I'd actually follow through with the things I say I'm going to do. Hopefully, that is actually changing now though.

I do plan on understanding ALL of human anatomy and as a result do not expect to post everything here, as I intend to keep things SFW over this account, but I will post what I can so long as I can be sure its between the E-M ratings so that anyone who cares can follow my progress. Anyway, time to show pics so you can be sure this really happened!

Human Body Practice (Using Wooden Mannequin and an Earlier 8 Heads Drawing Reference)

Embarrassingly, although there is evidence from 2018 of me getting it right on this very account, I did kind of screw up a recent drawing I made of a humanized version of an MLP character I happen to like, which I ended up taking down. This screw up would end up being the biggest motivator for me to really try to understand anatomy better so the same mistake doesn't happen again. For whatever reason, the ratio between the legs and body was a hard one for me to get until more recently. Observation is a magical thing!

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As you can see, I do still struggle with keeping consistent proportions, but I think I finally got this very important thing. Anything human-related I draw going forward should (hopefully) actually look, you know, like a human!

Hands (Are ALWAYS Hard!)

Now this is one that I'm much less confident with, because although I have used observation on the wooden hand mannequin I happen to have, as you could probably tell further to the right of the page, my ability to draw organic hands looks cursed.

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Oh, that one hand on the bottom right looks atrocious...

There is still more of that page left, and I do plan on filling it with hand drawings, and maybe even using the page after that to draw more hands until I can get the basics memorized, but sweet Celestia I do not like that last hand I just drew.

So there it is, my current progress on anatomy. I should be drawing more in general to be honest, don't know why I don't do it more considering that, even when I'm only studying, I still enjoy the simple act of drawing at all. Seriously, learn to draw, if for no other reason than because its fun!


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Posted by NightfallGloam - May 2nd, 2023


Hey, Newgrounds!

Wow its been a while since I've been on here since signing up/posting stuff under my current username in 2018. I do actually plan on getting back into doing art and I have been studying animation recently though still not all that confident in my own abilities.

Between procrastination, skills becoming rusty and the rise of AI I've been much less motivated but I do still have ideas for some art I'd like to make, such as humanized depictions of MLP: FiM and MLP G5 characters, and maybe also my own original stuff at some point in the future. Speaking of that, I actually decided I'd study human anatomy again after I posted a drawing I was not happy with on another website back in April and ended up deleting soon afterwards. Hoping to redraw that pic in particular with a better understanding of anatomy and where I went wrong. Maybe it was a "you are your own worst critic" thing but I did feel kinda embarrassed at the time.

Not sure what else to really add to this post, just wanted to say I do plan on doing art and animation again and that I've been quietly studying human anatomy recently, though still fighting procrastination and such. Yeah, I admittedly procrastinate way too much in my life!


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