There's tons of useful resources online, and more I’ve found over the years from friends, teachers, and odd threads. I’ve put a collection of stuff I use here for you to use if you’d like! I will stick mostly to software, teaching tools, and some traditional tools for art.
There’ll be a little table below going over different sources for convince~
Table/key
Inspiration sparking sites
A good go-to is Pintrest, it's lasted this long for a reason amongst the other sites. It's one of the few that really gets those ideas going!
Other artists
Follow artists that aren't in the field of art you partake in, seeing others' works from ceramics, to doll making, to the oddities of odd fine art. It is always fun and interesting to see what others do. I highly suggest finding artists in wide fields, if your thing is digital drawing find someone that does physical odd projects like woodworking.
Improving skill/Daily warm-ups
Gonna bounce in before the sources, i know some peps do have issues with getting things started or trying to improve without direction. I have another post about improving without direction which you can find here. but the fear of that blank page shouldn't stop you, to help you to just put something down can be the warm-ups. MAKE THEM MESSY! Don't worry about any of it~
Drawing challenges!
There are tons of these bad boys, from monthly challenges to even daily ones. The monthly ones vary from the Anime-challenge (animation short each month), the character design references challenge (design a character!), or the general monthly themes like Mer-may (draw mermaids!), kai-june (draw a monster giant destroying stuff!), sketch-tember (sketching~) and more! I think there might be something for nearly every day of the year lol.
https://www.domestika.org/en/blog/10862-12-fun-monthly-art-challenges-for-instagram-twitter-and-more
Live sketching/models
These are a little harder to do online, but theres usually a few places you can find a “daily model” to use as references or warm ups.
image/3d references
Only 3d assets can offer alot of help with art, and some sites that offer sales of them are pretty decent. You can buy or not, but either way its a useful tool!
These falls more into assets but same thinking applies
Software
I've been through quite a few programs over the years and found some excellent ones to have on hand! Everyone has preferences so these are very to my tastes but still good!
A good art program can make things easy or infuriating. Do take the time to learn your program, binge every tutorial, and get obsessive like you're trying to revenge on a teacher by being a master of the craft. My go-to is Clip Studio Paint. I’ve paid and upgraded as there are too many good parts to this program to pass up.
A good program to hand on hand, especially if you hoard references, is PureRef, a pretty cheap program that saves all of your references in one doc, that is zoomable, drawable, and saves the whole thing. It's pretty insane and a must!
Hardware
Theres quite a few tablets and cintiqs and things can be up to taste but heres my two cents.
Brick tablets (nonscreen drawing tablets) are very good and easy to get into digital drawing. You’ll find there's gonna be a learning curve, that's normal for everything. Especially bricks and cintiqs. these can be used with ipads, phones, laptops and pcs, just check if they are compatible. Bricks tablets are pretty cheap, so I would stick to well-known brands like Wacom to start.
Good for beginners, $50-$500, work area ranges 3"x5" to 12"x8"
(i used my first paycheck on this ‘Wacom One Pen Tablet’ back in high school!)
Cintqus are screen tablets, basically drawing on a monitor instead of a brick. These are generally expensive, they need and usually require a decent pc/computer to work properly. The quality of work that changes from brick to Cintiq can be great, as the hand-eye coordination is better. Look at reviews of cintiqs within your price range, if you do go on the cheaper side, ensure you have a good warranty. (trust me, it's worth it)
Perfect for intermites and pros! $300-$3000, work area ranges 13" to 27"
(I used an XP-Pen Artist 15.6 at $300 x 2, first one's power port broke 1-2 years of use during college. the second one worked perfectly so far!)
Go to tutorials
There are a ton of tutorials online but until I have mine all sorted, you guys are pop over to these peps for help~
Traditional materials
As much as do digital art, i have my little set up for my lovely sketchbooks and pencils. Im a bit particular with the materials i use, and i’ll have everything listed out~
I use a few different types of sketchbooks, but the main ones are 8.5X11.5 or 5.5X8.5 spiral top sketch books. The side spiral sketchbooks arent to my liking as i like leaning on my stuff and its a bit annoying. Lol.
I put my pens and stuff in a canvas roll bag, keeps things organized and tucked together!
Graphgear 500 0.7 drafting pencils work best for me, a mix of weight, line quality and smoothness just really hits all the marks for me~ just annoying how pricey they are.
Faber-Catell Pitt artist pens are the best-lining felt pens out there. I love these things so much and will fight someone for a pack.
Generals tri-tip eraser works so nicely, big easy of use and the shape helps long term with erasing.
A white-out pen, mistakes happen and its good to have on hand
Charcoal pencil, as odd as this might be its reall nice to have on hand for smooth shading that pens cant do.
Red, Yellow and Blue colored pencils, are used similarly to manga/comic artist. Doing sketches in very light/bright colors, lining with blank pens. Editing out the bright colors are really easy after the fact.
A folding bone
Lead refills
Wrap up! i'll try editing this once in a while when i find something new to add or need to adjust stuff! use these as you like! some cost money some dont. this was just an info dump of all the stuff ive used over the years and thought ya'll would like! <3
keep drawing huns <3!