# How to draw liquids?



## GatodeCafe (Nov 2, 2008)

Alright, I've been doing the whole "learning to draw" thing lately, but I've been unable to find a good resource concerning how to draw realistic fluids/gels/goos. Anybody have any suggestions or neat tutorials I ought to check out?

Also, I've been having a bit of trouble regarding air movement/wind, as well as fire. Pretty much anything other than solid objects and fabric, I'd like a resource for. Anybody?


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## dragonofdarkness13 (Nov 4, 2008)

hey I'd like to know how to as well ^^


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## Arshes Nei (Nov 4, 2008)

It's best to observe the liquid you're trying to draw in reference photos. You want to look at how thick the liquid is and its reflective qualities. Water is going to look different than milk. Milk works differently than glue.

What the water is doing and the mass and density is going to effect it too. So it really depends.

I mean for example this water drop tutorial http://www.webdesign.org/web/photoshop/drawing-techniques/creating-realistic-water-drops.13224.html works a bit differently depending on the fluid. 

The one commonality in pooled liquids like drops is how light bounces. The brightest highlight is actually at an angle. http://www.huevaluechroma.com/021.php See the demo in that page.


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## dracothrope (Nov 5, 2008)

For fire, I've come to find that googling reference images helps a tonne. Just like liquids, fire looks and acts differently going from a tame candle flame to a roaring, smoky inferno! I don't think I've found any specific fire tutorials, but googling everything from 'fire' to 'poi' and 'campfire' etc. yields many different results. Note the way that fire lights figures -- much more red a glow than you'd expect!

For wind, I think it's all in what the wind is pushing or blowing through. There isn't much to denote air movement on its own, but if the wind is blowing through anything that will yield (hair, leaves, longer or baggier garments) then those objects should be responding to the atmosphere that you're trying to imply. Doing some thumbnails to determine if the image looks 'right' before going to the full piece will help to make the image look more natural!

Best of luck!


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