Been out for a while but hopefully now that college's done I can go back to posting and getting better. Here's some traditional stuff i did while I was away. Thinking of using it somehow as the background for an animation I want to do.
Some graphic design, trying to sell it over here as a print.
Sorry about the "tags" I took it off my instagram and I'm trying to somehow grow as a brand.
Wanted to get better at character design so I started a little project where I draw 100 different characters all based on mushrooms. So far the worse problem is making them look like actual mushroom people and not penis people, but oh well I dug my grave :P
I started experimenting with traditional art and India Ink. I'm starting to like how it flows and moves with water. I might try to combine both somehow, not sure how yet but it'll be interesting.
I'm also working on a little animation, gonna post some work in progress later.
I would consider doing some more technical studies, quick ones to help you with construction and light. I think right now I see a lot of creative drive and experimental energy, but at some point you have to lock down and try to tackle your fundamental issues. Why not now? A study once a week that you post and get feedback would do so much for you. You just need to commit to it.
I did some during the last couple of months when I was taking some drawing and painting classes, didn't upload any because I'm dumb but let's do them. Would you mind giving me some sort of direction? I know you've done a lot of that in the past, maybe linking me to those posts would work. I just never know what to actually study when it comes to fundamentals. Or who to study it for that matter.
But I'm in, once a week seems doable and I don't have a single problem with that Lately I've been trying to actually understand light in my freelance work but sadly I can't post any of that. But the point is that I started learning a bit more about how shadows hit things and how a hand might look over a body and the shadow that it casts isn't always just on the side of it. But since this are just words and no images, it's dumb to keep talking so... PUT ME TO WORK! Let's do it
I did some during the last couple of months when I was taking some drawing and painting classes, didn't upload any because I'm dumb but let's do them. Would you mind giving me some sort of direction? I know you've done a lot of that in the past, maybe linking me to those posts would work. I just never know what to actually study when it comes to fundamentals. Or who to study it for that matter.
Not to be rude, but you could just as easily find that advice as anyone else could, and it's in your best interests to do so. Just start digging.
Sure, I could and I have but it's a bit easier to be pointed in the right direction by someone that is much, much better at it than me. I can read it up and try to decipher it which I've done a lot of in the past and not gotten anywhere or be told, what I should try and improve on. I'm not asking for a step by step, I'm asking for direction. You can only get so far with google. The internet is endless, and googling will only get me to the top of the cake, not deep down where the good stuff is. I bet you have a ton of links you've gathered in the past that would take me hours to find on google. But hey if I did wrong by asking for guidance, I completely understand. Just saw it as a better and smarter way to do such things. The posts I can find for sure, already looked for them and I'm reading through them since most of them are on this thread. But other stuff, more in depth stuff, is a bit more difficult to find.
While I have you here, I never got the hang of posting. What should I post on this thread? Finished pieces or my work in progress stuff or a mix of both? I know it's a super basic question but I'm committed to becoming the best artist I can be so I figured I should do this the right way
First, I suggest reading back through your own thread. So much of the advice in here still applies. All those bacon crits, drawing eggs, everything.
Being self critical and self directed is important work. Start flipping through your own thread and reading our responses, looking at your old work and seeing the mistakes you gradually fixed, and what habits you still need to break. Reading your own posts is also an introspective experience. Try to look at your old work and the crits you got at the time.
Did that last night, and found a bunch of stuff. Also thank you so much for the enrichments. That helps tons. You made an incredible guide there! I'll do them for sure Thank you so much for all your help.
Had to do some images for my website and the facebook page and all that. Here they are. I tried my best to make the shading actually make sense. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense. Trying my best to improve on my shading.
Where is the light supposed to be coming from, in either of these?
Simple shapes and still life work is going to help you get over some of the most basic light scenarios. Right now you are still making it up as you go and you don't seem to have the base knowledge to wing the logic.
If it's from the top left why are there shadows on the top of the far left end of the tentacles and highlights in the folds? and you've put drop shadows essentially randomly all over. Still life is good, I'd break out some really simple shapes and as you're studying them, think about WHY various parts are in light vs in shadow, why the values are as they are. That will help you when it comes to 'making up' a light source without observation to guide you.
Apologies, I messed up. It's backwards. The tentacle light comes from the top right and the moai comes from the top left. But still I'm definitely gonna do that. Gonna try the whole drawing and painting an egg exercise along with some other things.
1) If you really want to get a handle on the technical aspects of form drawing and lighting (hint: you should want to do that), you really should pick up Scott Robertson's How to Draw and How to Render books, which is probably the best $60 you can spend on any art thing out there today, for real. (If $60 sounds like a lot...well, figure out a budget for how to afford books, because I don't know many artists that are actually good, that don't have bookshelves stuffed to the brim with art books.)
2) Since you might not have those books in front of you at the moment, I took a stab at explaining some of what he goes on about in animated .gif form. Not as well described and illustrated as he does it, but hopefully it's enough to get your brain thinking about this stuff. I've sort of changed the character of the drawing in order to serve better as a technical demonstration, rather than a 'here's what this drawing should look like'. The principles are the important thing.
(Sorry if this seems slow, but I had to make the frames long enough to make the text actually readable.)
EDIT: I really should have done the lighting with a vanishing point rather than parallel lines on second thought.
Thank you so much for that @Angel_of_Bacon it helps me greatly! I think I understand a couple of things and it made me realize how far the whole "breaking in down to simple shapes" actually work. Gonna try to do some studies today, hoping to get a better understanding of light and how it behaves. I'm a bit confused with the perspective stuff, but I'm gonna download the gif and pick it apart in Photoshop to hopefully understand it better. You did an incredible job, I'm just a horrible learner. But again thank you so much for this, it really helps me greatly.
The Scott Robinson are pretty great, pick them up. It'll give you a more technical text to refer to, with more information than we can reasonably throw at you in a forum crit.
Be sure to actually post your studies, its a great reward for giving crits for us to be able to see you trying to take our advice. It will also really speed up your improvement, as will be able to address issues much more directly. Doing studies should help you start to assess your own flaws without as much reliance on our input. That should be a major goal, to work on your critical eye.
Pick up the most simple geometric shapes around your house and start with those. Get a desklamp with a flexible neck and move it around your objects. Do studies at different angles, actually try to observe whats happening and absorb the information. Remember that this is a mental process and not just a physical action. You need to approach each drawing with your goals in mind, and not allow yourself to lazily just hack away at it. Spend a long time looking at your objects. Don't settle for inaccurate results.
Welp, you're probably about to be even more confused in the short term, but hopefully better informed in the long term. I put slammed together a brief rundown of perspective concepts (and threw in some other things I had done on the subject previously) in the hopes it'll be of some help understanding this stuff.
Again, I'd really reiterate picking of the Scott Robertson books because the depth and quality of the illustrations and explanations far exceed my own ability and understanding. And I haven't even touched on stuff like circles, arcs, 4+ point perspective setups that involved curving parallels, etc.
(spoilered for huge, all except the first 2 images are animated, so watch 'em.)
Just wanted to say, that I am incredibly grateful for all the information you've all provided. I've been a little caught up at work and haven't had much time to do studies, but this next week will be smoother and I'll put all you've said into practice. Thank you so much for everything. Just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was wasting everyone's time by asking for criticism and then not applying it.
Finally got a chance to just sit and study stuff. Gonna do some more studies tomorrow but with charcoal so I don't have to think too much about the line and I can focus more on the light. I'm starting to on a technical level understand what you mean about my lighting, definitely trying to fix that up. Here are a couple of things I did today.
Also I'm working on a piece for Robot Day over on newgrounds and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it, I'm slightly happy with the initial idea, just wondering if it looks good. I also did some thumbnail coloring to get a color scheme going and a bit of light to set the mood. Any comments would truly help me out.
The pose doesn't read well to me. I can't tell why either of his legs are bent that way. skewing the knee off the page doesn't really compensate for the way the rest of the pose is supposed to look. I think you really need some reference for this.
The composition could use some work, the silhouettes don't read at all. Try drawing up some thumbnails with no grey tones, just plain black and white. Try checking out someone like Phil Hale, to see just how simple compositions can be, while still remaining dynamic.
Will do, should I be doing this with lines or with the light? Asking cause if I'm gonna try this again with charcoal making lines is a little more difficult but making "blobs" of light and shadows is a bit easier so should I focus on making their structure better with lines or with the shading?
You should experiment. You are going to end up putting down light lines for structure, most likely. Remember, you are trying to focus on being accurate, so play around and let your mind work on the puzzle at hand "Does this look like whats in front of me" "how can it be more accurate" "what is the lighting actually doing" That process of self critique is very important.
I see, thank you so much for that video. I think I have enough info to get back to the drawing board. Really enjoying the whole studying up thing. Really needed some of that
Oh! I noticed your boxes aren't quite straight! Remember to use your shoulder to move your hand around, and not your wrist, especially when drawing straight lines.
I'll keep that in mind for sure. Btw, thanks for the artist name, I fell in love with his stuff! I also found another artist I really liked because of your suggestion. His name is Jon Foster so thanks for that
Realized something either incredibly sad, or incredibly dumb. I come here looking for criticism to further my artistry, but instead of pouring my soul and having everyone pick me apart, I only post certain things that I hope you will like, and then I move on to the next thing. Trying to impress everyone and that's really putting a rock on my learning path. So below, each post. I'm gonna make it a point to post everything regarding my art. Including all the sketches I'm doing and the idea behind the actual piece, because I think not only should I get C+C on my pieces, I should get criticism on my process as well. Thus making me overall a better artist.
So yeah, be prepared for a barrage of imagery, all neatly stacked inside a spoiler. Hopefully I don't break the internet by posting too many sketches and stuff. If there's anything you'd like more information on, be sure to ask, as I really want to get better, and talking it out would surely help me. Hopefully my intentions are clear, and I don't come off as an asshole.
Composition stuff for The Robot Day piece:
Caricatures:
Lastly, I'm also working on a couple of animated things, would it be ok if I posted that stuff here too? I don't have a scanner that can scan stuff from a sketchbook without me having to rip the sketchbook apart so for that stuff I'll have to take pictures, but for stuff I draw on loose pieces of paper, I'll definitely scan them. I guess this is well, like my re-introduction to the forum. Trying to actually get better and putting all pride aside
I'm thankfully, or rather luckily have a job creating art for other people, but I realized that to a certain point, art is much more than that. Art is doing what makes you happy, and I'm striving to get that. Be able to create my own stuff, and have people enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it, and for that I need to be a better artist, and put my early projects, and my soul out there for critic. I'm probably talking too much by this point, gonna shut up now.
After all that stuff I posted yesterday, I decided to go a new direction with the Robot Day piece. Less robot and pico, and more tanks and men! To me that's what that site is about, since I grew up on Jeff (Johnnyutah) Tankmen.
Here's some tank studies and composition sketches based on that. I really like the diagonal line I got going with the tank but I need to come up with a more dynamic and interesting thing for the top part. Not sure what to do with the actual Tankman.
Working on a piece for a client, and I'm hoping to get some feedback on it. I'm trying to apply everything everyone has said in terms of light and planes and all that, and I feel like I'm going in a good direction. I feel like this might be the best piece of art I have ever created.
Hopefully this doesn't land me in any legal trouble, by posting it here, but I'd love your feedback on what I got so far. I need to redo some stuff with the thrones as based on the specs they are backwards, but other than that I'd love some critique on it. Hope you like it.
Took a break from that piece to work on the Robot Day image.
Going with Tankman, and paying homage to some inspirations. Johnny Utah, Newgrounds and Iron Giant.
Some more work on the pic.
The clent work is starting to benefit from the studies, but the robot sketch is pretty difficult to read. I admire your willingness to tackle crazy angles and foreshortening, but it feels like you are getting ahead of yourself. As you better learn to effectively construct and light your basic shapes, you'll have an easier time working on something like that.
I also try to take my own reference when setting up a complex pose, even if that means drafting help from friends.
On the client work, the colors feel odd and nothing seems like its being effected by its surroundings other than the beam of light. If they are sitting on water, for instance, at sunset it would be reflecting the orange sky. But then there appears to be a horizon then another horizon? Im not so sure.
Thank you, for your comments. I hope you don't mind me, not stopping on the Robot piece, as I do understand that I might be getting ahead of myself, but I think it's better to try and fail than just quit right now, and I really want to finish up this piece. That being said, I'll keep working on my light for sure. But I think I'm getting a better understanding of the whole idea, I started thinking of everything as planes and I think that's helping me understand some stuff I originally had trouble with. It's still a little rough, so maybe on the next pass it'll be a little easier to understand.
As for the client work, I need to add the reflections, but I haven't gotten to it just yet. But maybe explaining what it is, will help you, help me;
So the client asked for a very specific "passage" (I think that's what they call words on the bible; I don't know) to be illustrated. It basically describes what heaven looks like, and basically you have God sitting on a throne in the middle, surrounded by 24 sages 4 creatures with eyeballs all over them and wings and such other things. And their all up in heaven in a sea of glass. Colors are a place holder right now and I'm not thinking too much about them other than what I want everything to generally feel like. Since the image takes places on top of the clouds, I thought the best way to show this was to have second horizon where you can see the sky below. It's difficult to explain, but I'm trying to capture the view like if you were on a mountain looking down at the city, but instead of the city, it's more clouds. Since it's so high above, I thought you'd mostly see just clouds, but if I have to explain it with words. I'm not exactly where I want to be.
If there's anything else that I need to explain, let me know and I'll try my best to explain myself
Is that client image a color composition you're working out, or are you planning to keep rendering that up for the final illustration? If the latter, I think you're getting way ahead of yourself. I would go back and finish up a reasonably tight drawing before I ever started painting such a complex scene. A lesson I've learned the hard way is that a few hours of planning and drawing up front can save you hours of painting confusion later on.
Or am I wrong, and the chairs are going to remain that simple, and the figures intended to remain as black shadows?
Posts
Some graphic design, trying to sell it over here as a print.
Sorry about the "tags" I took it off my instagram and I'm trying to somehow grow as a brand.
A cover art I did for an electronic song.
I'm also working on a little animation, gonna post some work in progress later.
But I'm in, once a week seems doable and I don't have a single problem with that
And not rude at all mate
Being self critical and self directed is important work. Start flipping through your own thread and reading our responses, looking at your old work and seeing the mistakes you gradually fixed, and what habits you still need to break. Reading your own posts is also an introspective experience. Try to look at your old work and the crits you got at the time.
Do the enrichments: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/196641/enrichment-directory#latest
Some shape studies would really help.
Simple shapes and still life work is going to help you get over some of the most basic light scenarios. Right now you are still making it up as you go and you don't seem to have the base knowledge to wing the logic.
Tentacle one, it comes from the top left.
Gonna do some still lifes tomorrow. To try and understand the whole thing.
1) If you really want to get a handle on the technical aspects of form drawing and lighting (hint: you should want to do that), you really should pick up Scott Robertson's How to Draw and How to Render books, which is probably the best $60 you can spend on any art thing out there today, for real. (If $60 sounds like a lot...well, figure out a budget for how to afford books, because I don't know many artists that are actually good, that don't have bookshelves stuffed to the brim with art books.)
2) Since you might not have those books in front of you at the moment, I took a stab at explaining some of what he goes on about in animated .gif form. Not as well described and illustrated as he does it, but hopefully it's enough to get your brain thinking about this stuff. I've sort of changed the character of the drawing in order to serve better as a technical demonstration, rather than a 'here's what this drawing should look like'. The principles are the important thing.
(Sorry if this seems slow, but I had to make the frames long enough to make the text actually readable.)
EDIT: I really should have done the lighting with a vanishing point rather than parallel lines on second thought.
Twitter
Natural sunlight is often treated as a series of parallel lines since the point of radiation is so far away.
Be sure to actually post your studies, its a great reward for giving crits for us to be able to see you trying to take our advice. It will also really speed up your improvement, as will be able to address issues much more directly. Doing studies should help you start to assess your own flaws without as much reliance on our input. That should be a major goal, to work on your critical eye.
Pick up the most simple geometric shapes around your house and start with those. Get a desklamp with a flexible neck and move it around your objects. Do studies at different angles, actually try to observe whats happening and absorb the information. Remember that this is a mental process and not just a physical action. You need to approach each drawing with your goals in mind, and not allow yourself to lazily just hack away at it. Spend a long time looking at your objects. Don't settle for inaccurate results.
Welp, you're probably about to be even more confused in the short term, but hopefully better informed in the long term. I put slammed together a brief rundown of perspective concepts (and threw in some other things I had done on the subject previously) in the hopes it'll be of some help understanding this stuff.
Again, I'd really reiterate picking of the Scott Robertson books because the depth and quality of the illustrations and explanations far exceed my own ability and understanding. And I haven't even touched on stuff like circles, arcs, 4+ point perspective setups that involved curving parallels, etc.
(spoilered for huge, all except the first 2 images are animated, so watch 'em.)
Twitter
Also I'm working on a piece for Robot Day over on newgrounds and I'm trying to figure out what to do with it, I'm slightly happy with the initial idea, just wondering if it looks good. I also did some thumbnail coloring to get a color scheme going and a bit of light to set the mood. Any comments would truly help me out.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
I suggest slowing down. The structure of the shapes is also important. Don't settle for wiggle boxes and lines, try to get things to be really solid.
Also, proko:
So yeah, be prepared for a barrage of imagery, all neatly stacked inside a spoiler. Hopefully I don't break the internet by posting too many sketches and stuff. If there's anything you'd like more information on, be sure to ask, as I really want to get better, and talking it out would surely help me. Hopefully my intentions are clear, and I don't come off as an asshole.
Caricatures:
Lastly, I'm also working on a couple of animated things, would it be ok if I posted that stuff here too? I don't have a scanner that can scan stuff from a sketchbook without me having to rip the sketchbook apart so for that stuff I'll have to take pictures, but for stuff I draw on loose pieces of paper, I'll definitely scan them. I guess this is well, like my re-introduction to the forum. Trying to actually get better and putting all pride aside
I'm thankfully, or rather luckily have a job creating art for other people, but I realized that to a certain point, art is much more than that. Art is doing what makes you happy, and I'm striving to get that. Be able to create my own stuff, and have people enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it, and for that I need to be a better artist, and put my early projects, and my soul out there for critic. I'm probably talking too much by this point, gonna shut up now.
Here's some tank studies and composition sketches based on that. I really like the diagonal line I got going with the tank but I need to come up with a more dynamic and interesting thing for the top part. Not sure what to do with the actual Tankman.
Some other stuff I had on the sketchbook
Working on a piece for a client, and I'm hoping to get some feedback on it. I'm trying to apply everything everyone has said in terms of light and planes and all that, and I feel like I'm going in a good direction. I feel like this might be the best piece of art I have ever created.
Hopefully this doesn't land me in any legal trouble, by posting it here, but I'd love your feedback on what I got so far. I need to redo some stuff with the thrones as based on the specs they are backwards, but other than that I'd love some critique on it. Hope you like it.
http://gifmaker.cc/PlayGIFAnimation.php?folder=2015070607IsjT9TZRZ0NOq67NyF924l&file=output_aMIf0V.gif
Going with Tankman, and paying homage to some inspirations. Johnny Utah, Newgrounds and Iron Giant.
Some more work on the pic.
I also try to take my own reference when setting up a complex pose, even if that means drafting help from friends.
On the client work, the colors feel odd and nothing seems like its being effected by its surroundings other than the beam of light. If they are sitting on water, for instance, at sunset it would be reflecting the orange sky. But then there appears to be a horizon then another horizon? Im not so sure.
As for the client work, I need to add the reflections, but I haven't gotten to it just yet. But maybe explaining what it is, will help you, help me;
So the client asked for a very specific "passage" (I think that's what they call words on the bible; I don't know) to be illustrated. It basically describes what heaven looks like, and basically you have God sitting on a throne in the middle, surrounded by 24 sages 4 creatures with eyeballs all over them and wings and such other things. And their all up in heaven in a sea of glass. Colors are a place holder right now and I'm not thinking too much about them other than what I want everything to generally feel like. Since the image takes places on top of the clouds, I thought the best way to show this was to have second horizon where you can see the sky below. It's difficult to explain, but I'm trying to capture the view like if you were on a mountain looking down at the city, but instead of the city, it's more clouds. Since it's so high above, I thought you'd mostly see just clouds, but if I have to explain it with words. I'm not exactly where I want to be.
If there's anything else that I need to explain, let me know and I'll try my best to explain myself
Or am I wrong, and the chairs are going to remain that simple, and the figures intended to remain as black shadows?