Making Simple Shapes: Three Dimensional Shapes

3-D Shapes by 1918underwood

Three dimensional shapes are the real-life objects we see around us every day. This is the world that we interact with: height, width, and depth. If you can draw simple three-dimensional shapes, you’ve got the building-blocks of drawing the three-dimensional world.

Cubes and Rectangular Solids

A cube or rectangular solid is like an extension of a square or rectangle into three dimensions. Rectangular solids surround us: buildings, filing cabinets, stereos. Read the rest of this entry »

Making Simple Shapes: Two Dimensional Shapes

All Around by bldalton. Click to view.

Simple shapes are great additions to Muzy. After all, every complex shape is made up of simple ones… Here are some tips and ideas about making simple shapes.

Straight Lines

Lines are the simplest shape, aren’t they? They’re useful for so many things. Of course, drawing a line is as simple as putting down your brush and moving it on the canvas.

A straight line is a little tougher. On Muzy, you can draw a straight line by holding down ctrl (or command on the Mac) before you start drawing. You can also hold down shift to lock your line into 15 degree increments. This lets you draw a straight line at a perfect angle, if you desire it. Read the rest of this entry »

Drawing Hair

"Untitled" by Riff shows an excellent use of brushes to render convincing hair.

Drawing hair may seem pretty intimidating at first when you consider how many strands are just in a handful of it! But the trick to drawing hair is NOT drawing it strand by strand. Break a mass into small chunks and it’s much easier to handle.

It’s not necessary to draw every little detail in hair, sometimes even a few rough strokes is completely acceptable! But it does not always seem convenient to draw hair when all you have is a blunt, round brush.  But don’t worry, that can be remedied! Read the rest of this entry »

Color Palettes

Color palettes come in many styles… as many styles as there are artists’ imaginations. Luthien created this color wheel to demonstrate the relationships of colors in her post on The Color Wheel & Contrasts.

I thought I’d talk a little more about the palettes you can generate and use from the color wheel. Here are a few types of palettes to get your creative juices flowing. Read the rest of this entry »

Drawing Dottiness

tree by 1918underwood

It’s no secret to any of you that I enjoy my dots, and Muzy’s round drawing brush lends itself to creating dotty drawings. I thought that I’d review some ways to use dots in your drawings.

Dotty Lines and Swirls

One of the ways that I use dots is to create lines, like the ones in the drawing”tree.” These lines are much like any other line you might draw, except that they’re drawn with disconnected dots. Not only does a “dotty” line give an interesting look to the picture, but the use of dots allows you to create a line of varying widths (and also opacity), similar to a line you might draw with a calligraphy pen. Read the rest of this entry »

Blending Color While You Draw

Shading is an important, even essential aspect of drawing. We all have our own shading techniques. I, myself, am a blender. Hard lines? They frighten me. After all, reality has no hard lines… it’s all shades of gray. Mostly. I mean, that’s not a hard and fast rule, either, is it? Philosophy aside, one of the techniques I use incessantly in drawing on Muzy is blending color or shades of a color as I draw. Here’s how it’s done. Read the rest of this entry »

Choosing Draw vs. Collage for Your Drawing

The drawing and collage creation tools on Muzy are very similar to each other. You can use either one to create a drawing. So, what’s the difference? Which one should you choose?

The Drawing Editor

Some Muziers prefer using the drawing editor for their original drawings. This editor is simple to use, and it relies on your drawing skills for the final result. If you want an editor that’s easy to use, has few tools, and relies on you drawing talent, the drawing editor might be the right choice for you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Using Zoom in Muzy Drawings and Collages

Zoom is one of the most useful tools on Muzy. It makes adding detail to your drawings and collages much easier, and it’s essential for erasing around complex shapes. If you want to improve your drawings, zoom is a good tool to learn to use. And, of course, it’s simple! Zoom is available in the Muzy draw and collage editors, and in the cutout feature of the image upload editor. In the draw and collage editors, zoom helps you make more detailed drawings.

Read the rest of this entry »

When You Run Out of Canvas Space…

Running Out of Canvas Space

Muzy is unique because you have the ability to let other people use your drawings. That means you’re often concerned with things that wouldn’t normally be an issue… like if you’re making a drawing of a dog, and its tail runs off the edge of the canvas. Well, if you’re creating a drawing just to be viewed, that’s not a problem. If you’re making a drawing for other people to use, they might want the dog to have a tail.

In this drawing, I’ve run out of space for the tail…and the dog’s feet. Read the rest of this entry »

Making an Object Glow in Muzy Collage

Here is a method of drawing a glow around an object that you’re including in your collage on Muzy. First, place your object in the background. To create a nice bright glow, a dark background is best. The items I’m using are Forest Clearing by Cooperweb and Rubber Monkey Toy by Fuzzy.

Read the rest of this entry »