i don't know if this is the right place for this but i wanted to share some of the resources i hit up on the regular. i use these for practice, inspiration, "i dont know what to draw today" sketching, and occasionally more polished drawings.

some of these do have paid options, but i get plenty of mileage just using the free offerings. a lot of these websites do have the option to make an account, but other than Youtube i haven't needed to do so in order to use the tools. "clothed" here can mean anything from underwear to full outfits. as always check terms if using for more than just practice.

Pose References:

• Adorkastock - free (plus options for paid packs), clothed photographed pose refs, occasional drawing challenges, no account needed
• TrueRef - free (plus options for paid membership), clothed photographed pose refs, monthly drawing challenge, no account needed
• PoseManiacs - free, assortment of 3D & clothed photographed models, daily highlighted pose, no account needed
• Animal Skull Reference Tool - free, useful for animal heads - point the skull, select species, and hit search to bring up photos that roughly match direction, no account needed

Timed Gesture Drawing:

• Gesture Drawing Online - Youtube - videos are broken up into chapters of 1-5 minute sketching times, clothed models but YouTube flags them as age-restricted so you probably need an account.
• Line of Action - free (plus options for paid packs), timed sketching for not just human figures but also animals, environments, faces. both clothed & nude models. no account needed.
• Adorkastock - free sketch tool using 3000+ images from their pose library, no account needed.
• TrueRef Flow - free sketch tool using the TrueRef library, no account needed. some interesting options in the settings!

Stock Photos for Reference:

• Unsplash - free (plus options for paid membership), photographs, illustrations & 3d renders, no account needed
• Pexels - free, photographs & video, no account needed
• SamBeAwesome Ko-Fi Shop - free & paid packs of stock photos in a variety of subjects, no account needed (guest checkout available)
• Animal Photo References - free (plus option to donate), no account needed

I grabbed a scanner recently, and part of the plan for future art is to seperately paint skyboxes and distant backgrounds since my colored markers struggle with large areas.

This is just a compositing test using the first suitable picture. I painted a spacey background and scanned it, then opening the scan and drawing in GIMP I put the two together. I did some mild color tweaking of the background to draw out color, darkened the black of the spacegun, and then at the end added a tiny bit of color noise to visually bring the layers together.

Original drawing:

Painting:

Composite without visual noise:

I want to do some more lineweight variation and have denser details before I color it. There will probably be both paint and marker for coloring, maybe digitally composited.

I want to give it a quiet but foreboding and otherworldly atmosphere with the eventual colors. Clashing conventional earthy tones with bright pink alien crystals.

Think of it like a cylinder plucked out of a (mostly) correctly luminance/brightness oriented RGB cube..

Source.

Artist.

Website of Anime Private School.