Thumbnails of the images from the 3rd song off the album I've been working through. You can see my terrible attempts at the first song below.
This sucks. I have no idea how the marine or the stalker looks, so I drew this all from memory, and I got it all wrong. Realizing this last night, I just half assed it and decided that I'll do it over once I have some legit references.
5 min. drawing of a friend from a photo
Spoilered for whole song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnr1Gt2wlhc
1. Lost Perfection a. Coulrophobia
These hours seem like years...
I've been staring at this wall, wondering when it's going to take all of our lives.
I'm just glad we have jokes.
I think way too much back here.
My eyes are slowly closing; boredom is causing this loss of interest.
When will I awake? Asleep...
This party of four includes three grown adults and myself.
The first adult is very shy and wise enough to keep the second one from conversation.
(They're on a mission).
Gender is not recognized.
The third adult is a male and talks too much.
The stench of shit is in the air...
The room storms with laughter... fours turns into a hundred and the noise is unbearable.
"It's time, you are in hell, this place will kill itself soon!"
I cry, and the hands surround me.
Continuing the lyrics for the song spoilered up there.
This one I didn't want to draw all the faces. Got a little lazy.
I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANATOMY... Man I can't wait to get my book in the mail.
People said this looked like a walrus. I'll give em that. It is supposed to be a top perspective + sillhouette (sp?) of a dude crying. IDK if that reads well.
I wanted to post a productive crit of your 5 minute reference photo but I couldnt come up with anything worth while so ill give you my impression, it probably took me 2 or 3 minutes to figure out it was two people kissing, im unsure if the picture is cluttered, the extreme close up nature, but i thought those glasses were a bent fork.
now that i can see it im not sure what i was missing before
Thanks farb. It was pretty close up, taken with a phone.
I've been looking at some ACer's old work, and even Dverse's resolution uploads and God, I feel like such a dumbass even uploading this shit.
Wanted to practice some gestures after seeing some in the resolution thread.
Continuing the song lyrics.
I never wanted to wake to this.
[/SPOILER]
Spoilered for whole song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnr1Gt2wlhc
1. Lost Perfection a. Coulrophobia
These hours seem like years...
I've been staring at this wall, wondering when it's going to take all of our lives.
I'm just glad we have jokes.
I think way too much back here.
My eyes are slowly closing; boredom is causing this loss of interest.
When will I awake? Asleep...
This party of four includes three grown adults and myself.
The first adult is very shy and wise enough to keep the second one from conversation.
(They're on a mission).
Gender is not recognized.
The third adult is a male and talks too much.
The stench of shit is in the air...
The room storms with laughter... fours turns into a hundred and the noise is unbearable.
"It's time, you are in hell, this place will kill itself soon!"
I cry, and the hands surround me.
Born into a hell...
I never wanted to wake to this.
Keep practicing, dude. I would do more anatomy/life studies.
Thanks, Nib. I can't wait to get home so I can actually start doing all this stuff people suggest me to do!!!
Man this is frustrating.
I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say, so I'm just going to say it. I'm on a FOB overseas, I don't really have many recourses at my disposal. I'm on a work laptop with most sights blocked and cant download or install anything, I ordered an anatomy book that hasn't gotten here yet (over a month in the mail ) I have maybe 2 hrs a day off, and spend the 1 hr I'm not doing personal hygeine drawing and listening to music and I have to fit personal fitness in there somewhere, and by then its dark out and people are turning the lights off. And on top of all that my DVD payer bit the dust last week.
Having said that. I'm having a hard time finding life studies to draw. Any ideas or suggestions, y'know with those constraints in mind, would be helful. I WANT to practice. I WANT to get cracking on fundamentals, but I read something on here, and write it down, but when I go home to actually do it, It's fail-tastic.
UGH, sorry about that rant.
I appreciate all of your feedback. I'm doing what I can with it. I just don't know what else I can do. That book needs to hurry the fuck up and get here.
This is from my friends compewter, watching East Bound and Down. Funny show.
If you have a few lamps and a mirror or two, you can do a lot with very little. Just set up little still lives out of whatever you have. Very basic stuff is good for structure, cups, bottles, anything that you can put a light on and draw.
You can also start drawing yourself for life drawings, Its not optimal, but its a start.
so uh, heh, I was looking at my amazon account to figure out why I hadn't received my anatomy book, and it turns out my shipping information was incorrect, so it was returned to sender.
Now that I have this opportunity to order again, any specific book you recommend for anatomy?
continuing to draw from life. i was maybe 15-20 minutes in when he drove off, so I just scribbled it in and called it a night. Will keep doing this. Very challenging
Continuing to draw from life. Had to wait at the laundromat for my laundry. This is the view sitting on the tin steps outside the door, smoking mah pipe.
As it turns out I'm terrible at drawing circles, they're either too big, too small, or lopsided. X( those tires are tiny as balls. Reminds me of charlie brown's motorcycle race.
So I got my pens this week. This is me playing with them yesterday waiting for my laundry to get done.
I scanned this second one twice, the darks look better, but the white looks too dark.
This one is the favorite of the 2 scans, so I'll spoiler the second one.
EDIT: Any tips or tutorials on inking? EWA gave me one a while ago on line variation, but it seems like I'm attacking these lines at random, I have no idea what I'm doing, but its fun
I was on facebook chatting with a friend yesterday, and she had this idea "You draw me something, I'll draw something for you." She said she would like a "bunny.... wearing....
headphones?"
So I decided instead of just a rabbit with headphones I'd be a little more creative, so I grabbed some rabbit photos and did some studies. (I also learned that replicating something reverse of the image is a fun challenge! c skull)
And I took a few photoz with my nintendo DSI and came up with this.
I've got some references for DJ kits/turntables n such, + headphones, need to take a picture of me with my arm to my headphone.
Anything blatantly wrong? Maybe the fisheye thing isn't working...
Also going to rotate the pointer finger a little to the left (audience)
Making slow headway. Changed some stuff: Fingers, sleeve other hand, added the table. Not happy with the table, going to overhaul it, and I cant quite get the other hand right.
Edit:
I keep seeing the view go up by 100 at a time, but no comments I guess that means I'm not doing anything wrong?
Also, I still have no idea how to ink stuff. I'm just scared I'm going to ruin a perfectly good pencil drawing by trying to ink it when I don't know how...
Inked this one. It didn't really instill confidence for when I ink the cyberpunk one. Skrewed up a lot.
My first commission! YAY. The guy said "I want a evil joker with evil joker hands biting the tip off a nos bottle." So I did this in about 5 minutes. He said it was what he was looking for, so I'm working on the bigger one, better comp imo, forgot the book its in at the hewtch . Need som references for those jingly hats he's wearing, an other shit.
The inks don't look bad for a first go at it. Inking takes a looong time to get good at, its a skill I need to spend more time on.
Your jesters finger is blending into its head, you probably want to move that hand over.
I think your shape studies are going in the right direction. Try experimenting with your shading. Cycle through a bunch of different motions (little slow circles, very light sweeping strokes, things like that) Shading with the form will also help (AOBs image here: )
The inks don't look bad for a first go at it. Inking takes a looong time to get good at, its a skill I need to spend more time on.
Your jesters finger is blending into its head, you probably want to move that hand over.
I think your shape studies are going in the right direction. Try experimenting with your shading. Cycle through a bunch of different motions (little slow circles, very light sweeping strokes, things like that) Shading with the form will also help (AOBs image here: )
It took me a minute to figure out what he was getting at with the picture, but after a solid 2 minutes of looking I got it Thanks for the input.
I really wasn't completely happy with the joker, the bird was a late add also, thought it would add to the rebellious tone of the image, so I changed it up a bit on the bigger one. I'm going to upload that and get some feedback on it before I move any further, but I left that sketchbook at my place, so I'll have to be sure and grab it tomorrow.
A doodle I did at work. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Work is bizzy, and I ran out of paper. They were also getting kind of upset with me useing the scanner every other day for leisure. So I've had to cut back on that.
edit: Having taken slept between working on it, I realize how far off the shapes are His look like overlapping layers of bone, mine looks like mush
So, first time in 5 or 6 months I've tried anything digital. Was using gimp before. I the pressure options on photoshop, line variation and I don't have to change the line width every 2 seconds. Good times
Gonna be doing lots of stuff in photoshop now. This project was just to get me familiar with doing lines, some of the hotkeys etc, I've got a color project I'm going to do to introduce me to color picker and my first time trying to paint something. We'll see how that goes when I get to it
So here it is, my first go at painting ever!!! Well, aside from crayola watercolors as a kid.
So from here on, along with your critiques, any tips or experience you guys can share with photoshop and painting in general would be invaluable. The reason being, you could tell me what to fix, and I would have no idea how to do that. Thanks so much for all your help so far!
I spent about 4n'ahalf hours drawing yesterday and don't have much to show for it. I'm probably going to take today off. Art is exhausting :P
Edit:
On the topic of photoshop help, I like the towel, but its pretty blurry, I couldn't figure out how to make an edge without making it look like a sloppy mess of color.
SO I lied about taking the day off yesterday. After watching a lot of FZD videos on youtube, I was super excited to get home and continue playing with PS. Little did I know how frustrated I would get by the end of the night, starting with a paint study that didn't go so well then learning lots of hard lessons about photoshop. Thankfully, I came away with one thing that I liked.
"Once I became trapped in this suit, I was compelled..."
I like the way this one is coming along. I need to figure out something to do for the legs aside Mr Many Belts like the arms.
The perspective on the Lighter is off also, need to fix that. Gonna add smoke coming from the gun and fix some of the linework on his left arm.
Things I wasn't so happy with.
This is what the above image started off as. I think he evolved nicely. At the time I drew this I was about to call it quits for the night, I was getting pretty frustrated.
I liked the idea of black and white, and using one color as a focal point.
I liked this one, but realized I had screwed up the layers by copying the background into the new layer, so I couldn't paint underneath it. Was going to draw him looking up to a fully evolved robot type thing. I'll probably do something with it later.
The speed limit here is 24 KPH, which is slow as fuck when you need to get anywhere at a distance. . .
This is something of an idea I've had for a while, but I'm still much too terrible to even begin to execute.
YES, can't wait to get home and keep playing.
Edit: I can't help but notice this threads view count going up by the hundreds, so either A) I'm not doing anything wrong, or more likely I'm so miserable that there's nothing to critique
Fixes:
Head was too egg shaped, the lighter perspective, did some stuff with the legs. Tried to incorporate the running jacket lines I had on the shoulders elswhere, desaturated some of the whites to add shadows or something...
I think the piece would be stronger with a less ambiguous light source. It kind of looks like there is light coming from above the guy, but I would expect more highlights on the jacket and more shading on the underside of the pants. It looks like you just picked some random lines for the monitor to be highlighted instead of thinking about what planes and edges might stand out.
Also, that looks like a pretty pedestrian monitor for a setup that is otherwise elaborate.
Keep practicing! Finished pieces are good, but sketchbooks full of mistakes can teach you greatly!
Also, that looks like a pretty pedestrian monitor for a setup that is otherwise elaborate.
THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK NIB!!!
That was just a placeholder. It was late that night and didn't have time to do anything with it.
Also about the lightsource. Its supposed to be the monitor, but like dimly lit, I don't know how exactly you'd do soft light using black and white, though I do see what you mean about it coming from the top.
What I did was blacked out the jacket and pants and erased all the highlights in the direction of the monitor, but the shadows were a little random.
I didn't work on it yesterday, was pretty exhausted when I got home and went to sleep. I'll keep this stuff in mind and try to fix it.
I can do thumbnails, funn stuff that I'd probably spend days on if I knew WHERE TO GO AFTER I GET HERE! I have like 50 files like this on my computer, I just don't know what to do now. Everything looks like shit when I try to build it up.
Primary problem, using 100% flow/opac? I don't even know.
Everyone has a different work process when it comes to digital painting, but have you looked at some speedpainting demos? example. Speedpaints are a way to put down an initial idea without getting bogged down in the detail at too early a stage, which can lead to uneven values or poor composition. They also help you practise conveying light and form and colour and contrast quickly and economically. Then, if you want to start detailing later, you've got a good foundation to work with and pulling it together is relatively quick.
On that note, I'm having a lot of trouble getting an idea of light direction and three-dimensional form from your thumbnails. Light in general seems like a bit of an issue in your work. One place to start might simply to be to enlarge what you have and start working on planes, maybe just sticking with greyscale but trying to solidify the forms and bring in a sense of depth and groundedness.
I saw that you were questioning line variation a page back, and just wanted to chime in about the "randomness" of where to put thicker/thinner lines. There are a wide variation of reasons to make a line thicker, but there are some general rules you can follow:
- The heavier the shadow on an edge, the thicker the line. Line width conveys lighting.
- The closer an edge is to the viewer, the thicker the line. Line width conveys depth/perspective.
- Sometimes, an artist will place thicker lines on the outline of an object, to separate the figure from the background.
I'll also agree that lighting seems to be one of the big issues you have. I'd say that basic forms/structure are something you would want to work on too. I saw that sphere you did a couple of pages back, and think that's a good idea, but take it to the next level. Find something like an orange, apple, and a box, put them somewhere with some directional light like a desk lamp, and then draw it all from different angles. Paint them as well. That alone will help a lot.
Cool progress, though. The mask guy is pretty groovy.
Thanks for the kind words pthano. I read that last night, and put a big stupid smile on my face. Awesome
@ Tynic, the problem is, I can't get past the "speedpaint" stage into adding detail. Today's example below. I can plane stuff out, but I don't know where to go from there. As for the light, I'm doing a 3 tone thumbnail, not too much value left for adding a light source, just getting the comps down. The thumbnails were just cuz I was getting frustrated, saying, "If I could do this better..." what kind of illustrations I would want to do, so I threw those down.
If you get this the first time, you're a bigger nerd than anyone I care to meet.
If you get it after the first time, you're still a huge nerd.
Staff is placeholder, probably going to switch which hand he's holding it in. cuz its covering up the armor
Another thumbnail
I did a group of these, but they were pretty hideous for the most part.
Those aren't speedpaints, though, they're sketches. A speedpaint tackles the whole canvas at once, not just building up little areas or a figure but really working with the canvas, almost as if it's a sculpture. Anyway, it's just one approach.
If you want to add detail, then work big and once you've got a basic sketch down, think really hard about what you want the finished product to look like. What kind of material is each element made of? What texture should it have? Where is the light coming from, and how will it interact with that material? How smooth or lumpy should the contours be? Etc. Then you go in and make it match as best you can to your inner vision. There's no trick or special technique, you just have to do it and learn as you go.
Also a three-tone thumbnail is all about light. It's not just about differentiating foreground, midground, background, it's about simplifying a realistic scene so what's compositionally important stands out, and the only way to do that is with light. The bottom one of your latest post plays with that a bit more.
I'm going to second Tynic's suggestion to work big.
When I'm doodling or just starting something out my canvases are usually around 3000 x 3000 pixels at 300 dpi, and I'll usually resize the canvas a bit during the process to make it bigger and/or change the composition. The bigger the canvas is, the easier it will be for you to add detail.
If you're really trying to speedpaint scenes and environments, then experiment with brushes. Different textures different sizes, different settings. Mess around for a bit, then copy the entire image, paste it on a layer above, resize or flip the layer and switch the layer setting to overlay. Or just play with the layer settings.
The added randomness in the early stages of a painting will reveal forms or effects that you may not have considered.
@ Tynic: Hadn't really thought about just doing it :P I thought that was something you learned then applied. I'll give it a shot on my witchdoctor guy. Imma need to find some more references though
The process I've been doing thus far is starting at around 400x300 and the blowing up the image to 3000x 2400? (i suck at math) for stuff that I've been working to finish. (like the cyberpunk guy) but over time, I feel like I run out of space, even though I see finished stuff with WAY more detail, I don't know how to refine. I guess I'll just have to figure it out then
I swear this program is one big toy. Everyone should have one.
@ Chico, I the random shapes that appear, like in the spaceport one, theres this building I just want to blow up an spend a week on cuz it looks unintentionally cool.
What does overlay do? I don't even know how to use textures :P
Anyone know of any good custom brushes? I've seen them posted before, but idfk where to find them again lol
Posts
Spoilered for sideways scroll.
Thumbnails of the images from the 3rd song off the album I've been working through. You can see my terrible attempts at the first song below.
This sucks. I have no idea how the marine or the stalker looks, so I drew this all from memory, and I got it all wrong. Realizing this last night, I just half assed it and decided that I'll do it over once I have some legit references.
5 min. drawing of a friend from a photo
Spoilered for whole song
1. Lost Perfection a. Coulrophobia
These hours seem like years...
I've been staring at this wall, wondering when it's going to take all of our lives.
I'm just glad we have jokes.
I think way too much back here.
My eyes are slowly closing; boredom is causing this loss of interest.
When will I awake? Asleep...
This party of four includes three grown adults and myself.
The first adult is very shy and wise enough to keep the second one from conversation.
(They're on a mission).
Gender is not recognized.
The third adult is a male and talks too much.
The stench of shit is in the air...
The room storms with laughter... fours turns into a hundred and the noise is unbearable.
"It's time, you are in hell, this place will kill itself soon!"
I cry, and the hands surround me.
Continuing the lyrics for the song spoilered up there.
This one I didn't want to draw all the faces. Got a little lazy.
I DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANATOMY... Man I can't wait to get my book in the mail.
People said this looked like a walrus. I'll give em that. It is supposed to be a top perspective + sillhouette (sp?) of a dude crying. IDK if that reads well.
A little office doodle on a sticky note. In regular ink, head too big, legs too small, boobs ridiculous, and light coming from the wrong direction.
Had fun though. Reminds me of predator a bit. Or Alien.
now that i can see it im not sure what i was missing before
I've been looking at some ACer's old work, and even Dverse's resolution uploads and God, I feel like such a dumbass even uploading this shit.
Wanted to practice some gestures after seeing some in the resolution thread.
Continuing the song lyrics.
I never wanted to wake to this.
[/SPOILER]
Spoilered for whole song
1. Lost Perfection a. Coulrophobia
These hours seem like years...
I've been staring at this wall, wondering when it's going to take all of our lives.
I'm just glad we have jokes.
I think way too much back here.
My eyes are slowly closing; boredom is causing this loss of interest.
When will I awake? Asleep...
This party of four includes three grown adults and myself.
The first adult is very shy and wise enough to keep the second one from conversation.
(They're on a mission).
Gender is not recognized.
The third adult is a male and talks too much.
The stench of shit is in the air...
The room storms with laughter... fours turns into a hundred and the noise is unbearable.
"It's time, you are in hell, this place will kill itself soon!"
I cry, and the hands surround me.
Born into a hell...
I never wanted to wake to this.
FUCK I suck...
Thanks, Nib. I can't wait to get home so I can actually start doing all this stuff people suggest me to do!!!
Man this is frustrating.
I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say, so I'm just going to say it. I'm on a FOB overseas, I don't really have many recourses at my disposal. I'm on a work laptop with most sights blocked and cant download or install anything, I ordered an anatomy book that hasn't gotten here yet (over a month in the mail ) I have maybe 2 hrs a day off, and spend the 1 hr I'm not doing personal hygeine drawing and listening to music and I have to fit personal fitness in there somewhere, and by then its dark out and people are turning the lights off. And on top of all that my DVD payer bit the dust last week.
Having said that. I'm having a hard time finding life studies to draw. Any ideas or suggestions, y'know with those constraints in mind, would be helful. I WANT to practice. I WANT to get cracking on fundamentals, but I read something on here, and write it down, but when I go home to actually do it, It's fail-tastic.
UGH, sorry about that rant.
I appreciate all of your feedback. I'm doing what I can with it. I just don't know what else I can do. That book needs to hurry the fuck up and get here.
This is from my friends compewter, watching East Bound and Down. Funny show.
Not sure why he looks like a mexican...
You can also start drawing yourself for life drawings, Its not optimal, but its a start.
What is the mirror for? :P sorry, I = new
also quick self reference in the question thread
Ha ha, durr. Y didn't i think of that /facepalm
I = a little slow
Drawing from life.
My M9, and tether/holster/magazine and a few rounds.
Did this yesterday about 2 hrs.
continuing to draw from life. i was maybe 15-20 minutes in when he drove off, so I just scribbled it in and called it a night. Will keep doing this. Very challenging
As it turns out I'm terrible at drawing circles, they're either too big, too small, or lopsided. X( those tires are tiny as balls. Reminds me of charlie brown's motorcycle race.
So I got my pens this week. This is me playing with them yesterday waiting for my laundry to get done.
I scanned this second one twice, the darks look better, but the white looks too dark.
This one is the favorite of the 2 scans, so I'll spoiler the second one.
EDIT: Any tips or tutorials on inking? EWA gave me one a while ago on line variation, but it seems like I'm attacking these lines at random, I have no idea what I'm doing, but its fun
headphones?"
So I decided instead of just a rabbit with headphones I'd be a little more creative, so I grabbed some rabbit photos and did some studies. (I also learned that replicating something reverse of the image is a fun challenge! c skull)
And I took a few photoz with my nintendo DSI and came up with this.
I've got some references for DJ kits/turntables n such, + headphones, need to take a picture of me with my arm to my headphone.
Anything blatantly wrong? Maybe the fisheye thing isn't working...
Also going to rotate the pointer finger a little to the left (audience)
Making slow headway. Changed some stuff: Fingers, sleeve other hand, added the table. Not happy with the table, going to overhaul it, and I cant quite get the other hand right.
Edit:
I keep seeing the view go up by 100 at a time, but no comments I guess that means I'm not doing anything wrong?
Also, I still have no idea how to ink stuff. I'm just scared I'm going to ruin a perfectly good pencil drawing by trying to ink it when I don't know how...
My first commission! YAY. The guy said "I want a evil joker with evil joker hands biting the tip off a nos bottle." So I did this in about 5 minutes. He said it was what he was looking for, so I'm working on the bigger one, better comp imo, forgot the book its in at the hewtch . Need som references for those jingly hats he's wearing, an other shit.
practicin
Your jesters finger is blending into its head, you probably want to move that hand over.
I think your shape studies are going in the right direction. Try experimenting with your shading. Cycle through a bunch of different motions (little slow circles, very light sweeping strokes, things like that) Shading with the form will also help (AOBs image here:
)
It took me a minute to figure out what he was getting at with the picture, but after a solid 2 minutes of looking I got it Thanks for the input.
I really wasn't completely happy with the joker, the bird was a late add also, thought it would add to the rebellious tone of the image, so I changed it up a bit on the bigger one. I'm going to upload that and get some feedback on it before I move any further, but I left that sketchbook at my place, so I'll have to be sure and grab it tomorrow.
This is what I'm working on now for the joker.
Could use some feedback before I go any further.
also, HONK HONK MOTHERFUCKER
A doodle I did at work. Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Work is bizzy, and I ran out of paper. They were also getting kind of upset with me useing the scanner every other day for leisure. So I've had to cut back on that.
Original
edit: Having taken slept between working on it, I realize how far off the shapes are His look like overlapping layers of bone, mine looks like mush
So, first time in 5 or 6 months I've tried anything digital. Was using gimp before. I the pressure options on photoshop, line variation and I don't have to change the line width every 2 seconds. Good times
Gonna be doing lots of stuff in photoshop now. This project was just to get me familiar with doing lines, some of the hotkeys etc, I've got a color project I'm going to do to introduce me to color picker and my first time trying to paint something. We'll see how that goes when I get to it
So from here on, along with your critiques, any tips or experience you guys can share with photoshop and painting in general would be invaluable. The reason being, you could tell me what to fix, and I would have no idea how to do that. Thanks so much for all your help so far!
I spent about 4n'ahalf hours drawing yesterday and don't have much to show for it. I'm probably going to take today off. Art is exhausting :P
Edit:
On the topic of photoshop help, I like the towel, but its pretty blurry, I couldn't figure out how to make an edge without making it look like a sloppy mess of color.
"Once I became trapped in this suit, I was compelled..."
I like the way this one is coming along. I need to figure out something to do for the legs aside Mr Many Belts like the arms.
The perspective on the Lighter is off also, need to fix that. Gonna add smoke coming from the gun and fix some of the linework on his left arm.
Things I wasn't so happy with.
I liked the idea of black and white, and using one color as a focal point.
I liked this one, but realized I had screwed up the layers by copying the background into the new layer, so I couldn't paint underneath it. Was going to draw him looking up to a fully evolved robot type thing. I'll probably do something with it later.
The speed limit here is 24 KPH, which is slow as fuck when you need to get anywhere at a distance. . .
This is something of an idea I've had for a while, but I'm still much too terrible to even begin to execute.
YES, can't wait to get home and keep playing.
Edit: I can't help but notice this threads view count going up by the hundreds, so either A) I'm not doing anything wrong, or more likely I'm so miserable that there's nothing to critique
I'll go with B for now.
Fixes:
Head was too egg shaped, the lighter perspective, did some stuff with the legs. Tried to incorporate the running jacket lines I had on the shoulders elswhere, desaturated some of the whites to add shadows or something...
Not finished. Just cropped and blacked out so I could upload it to get feedback.
Though, I'm a little embarassed how long it took to do, and I'm only this far
I need to fix the lower legs, the pants don't really make sense.
Also, How can I sell elastic material around the knee area with the armor piece there?
Also, that looks like a pretty pedestrian monitor for a setup that is otherwise elaborate.
Keep practicing! Finished pieces are good, but sketchbooks full of mistakes can teach you greatly!
THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK NIB!!!
That was just a placeholder. It was late that night and didn't have time to do anything with it.
Also about the lightsource. Its supposed to be the monitor, but like dimly lit, I don't know how exactly you'd do soft light using black and white, though I do see what you mean about it coming from the top.
What I did was blacked out the jacket and pants and erased all the highlights in the direction of the monitor, but the shadows were a little random.
I didn't work on it yesterday, was pretty exhausted when I got home and went to sleep. I'll keep this stuff in mind and try to fix it.
The monitor is placeholder. :P
I had to get a saying in there. I like the idea of this guy adapting other catch phrases for his own use.
UPGRADE TODAY!!!
Hikers
Spaceport?
Ship running aground
Anchored
Spaceship
Cavern
This is what I learned from all these thumbnails.
Help me
I can do thumbnails, funn stuff that I'd probably spend days on if I knew WHERE TO GO AFTER I GET HERE! I have like 50 files like this on my computer, I just don't know what to do now. Everything looks like shit when I try to build it up.
Primary problem, using 100% flow/opac? I don't even know.
On that note, I'm having a lot of trouble getting an idea of light direction and three-dimensional form from your thumbnails. Light in general seems like a bit of an issue in your work. One place to start might simply to be to enlarge what you have and start working on planes, maybe just sticking with greyscale but trying to solidify the forms and bring in a sense of depth and groundedness.
- The heavier the shadow on an edge, the thicker the line. Line width conveys lighting.
- The closer an edge is to the viewer, the thicker the line. Line width conveys depth/perspective.
- Sometimes, an artist will place thicker lines on the outline of an object, to separate the figure from the background.
I'll also agree that lighting seems to be one of the big issues you have. I'd say that basic forms/structure are something you would want to work on too. I saw that sphere you did a couple of pages back, and think that's a good idea, but take it to the next level. Find something like an orange, apple, and a box, put them somewhere with some directional light like a desk lamp, and then draw it all from different angles. Paint them as well. That alone will help a lot.
Cool progress, though. The mask guy is pretty groovy.
Thanks for the kind words pthano. I read that last night, and put a big stupid smile on my face. Awesome
@ Tynic, the problem is, I can't get past the "speedpaint" stage into adding detail. Today's example below. I can plane stuff out, but I don't know where to go from there. As for the light, I'm doing a 3 tone thumbnail, not too much value left for adding a light source, just getting the comps down. The thumbnails were just cuz I was getting frustrated, saying, "If I could do this better..." what kind of illustrations I would want to do, so I threw those down.
If you get this the first time, you're a bigger nerd than anyone I care to meet.
If you get it after the first time, you're still a huge nerd.
Staff is placeholder, probably going to switch which hand he's holding it in. cuz its covering up the armor
Another thumbnail
I did a group of these, but they were pretty hideous for the most part.
eve online much?
If you want to add detail, then work big and once you've got a basic sketch down, think really hard about what you want the finished product to look like. What kind of material is each element made of? What texture should it have? Where is the light coming from, and how will it interact with that material? How smooth or lumpy should the contours be? Etc. Then you go in and make it match as best you can to your inner vision. There's no trick or special technique, you just have to do it and learn as you go.
Also a three-tone thumbnail is all about light. It's not just about differentiating foreground, midground, background, it's about simplifying a realistic scene so what's compositionally important stands out, and the only way to do that is with light. The bottom one of your latest post plays with that a bit more.
When I'm doodling or just starting something out my canvases are usually around 3000 x 3000 pixels at 300 dpi, and I'll usually resize the canvas a bit during the process to make it bigger and/or change the composition. The bigger the canvas is, the easier it will be for you to add detail.
If you're really trying to speedpaint scenes and environments, then experiment with brushes. Different textures different sizes, different settings. Mess around for a bit, then copy the entire image, paste it on a layer above, resize or flip the layer and switch the layer setting to overlay. Or just play with the layer settings.
The added randomness in the early stages of a painting will reveal forms or effects that you may not have considered.
The process I've been doing thus far is starting at around 400x300 and the blowing up the image to 3000x 2400? (i suck at math) for stuff that I've been working to finish. (like the cyberpunk guy) but over time, I feel like I run out of space, even though I see finished stuff with WAY more detail, I don't know how to refine. I guess I'll just have to figure it out then
I swear this program is one big toy. Everyone should have one.
@ Chico, I the random shapes that appear, like in the spaceport one, theres this building I just want to blow up an spend a week on cuz it looks unintentionally cool.
What does overlay do? I don't even know how to use textures :P
Anyone know of any good custom brushes? I've seen them posted before, but idfk where to find them again lol
edit: It just ocurred to me how much I emote