New to Tablets

Noodlesalad

About me:

I have an art degree from a state university, my emphasis was graphic design. I graduated in Dec 2007, right when the job shit storm hit, and spent about a year doing abstract watercolor paintings and painting people's dogs while I was working out the fact that there was no design work in the city I lived in. I interned at a web design company for 4 months, where I had my first real lessons in working with the web, and then moved to Portland at the beginning of 2009. I work as a web designer building sites in xhtml and css.

I always wanted a wacom tablet, thinking it would clean up my lines for me (i'm dumb). I got one finally about a year ago, but still haven't really broken it in I would say. It's been a long time since I tried any serious drawing, and this is the first real experience I've had with a tablet. In photoshop it feels like I'm drawing with a sharpie pretty much.

Anyway, here's my first foray into tablet drawing in the order I did them (spoilered cause I think it's easier to look at):

My very first tablet drawing

Obligatory overly edited photoshop drawings with blending options and over smudge toolness

w/o photoshop blending options or smudging. a little texture added to the first one.

A while back I made a facebook group for portraits, so I owe a bunch of people portraits. For the sake of full disclosure, I traced a line drawing over her photo, and eventually knocked the opacity of it down or deleted it out in places

painted on top of the photo on the top. I tried to smooth it out more than the other ones.

I'm going to have to put down the tablet, reread some of my old anatomy drawing books, and use the old fashioned mechanical pencil til I can draw without having to trace.

I did the first 4 or so on here probably 8 months ago, and the others within the last week. I'm trying to motivate myself to draw a lot more and get better. I've never practiced as much as I should have, and I'm hoping to rectify that.

It's tough juggling a full time job while trying to learn to write, draw, and build websites and maintain sanity all at the same time, but I'm going to give it a go!

Sir_Wang

the bottom pic your missing her expression, the means to her portrait. the slanted eys almost touching the cornea. well the right one is good the left one makes the prtrat lack what the emosion shold be. in your portrait she seems scandolous, in the origanal she seem more of a questioning, sductive, im right your wrong kinda, perspective, almost like shes saying what you gonna do. in yours she is saying, its time for bang bang. The generic eveness to the eyes takes away from the personality. It appears you draw what you see, but you seem to see things in a sexier sense.(critiqueing the life drawings) i wish you would post the first life drawing original. Your cartoons dumb down your talent. too many effect, your natural talent is gonein these. I think freshman of highschool when i see things of this nature. Especialy when coupled with suck great realistic drawing. Dont do the cartoon thing by the cartoon thing, use your talents and integrate them into a specific style. This is the way people always are happy. No offense, but i hope your not happy with these cartoons. your lifes have too much potential.
typing and spelling errors, too much franzia.

rts

The last two are paint-overs, and I am not a huge fan of seeing that on this forum. I have actually been paid to do paint-overs for NFL cards before, but the difference is I have learned how to draw and paint well enough that I can make sure they read correctly. Right now, you need to work on drawing from observation, and paint-overs are not going to help you with that honestly.

Don't take this too harshly, I just really feel you would benefit from learning to see, which is 99% of drawing.

winter_combat_knight

Overall i think your third image is the best. It feels solid, and much cleaner than the others. Im not keen on the blurry brush strokes in the first.
I dont want to sound like an arsehole and tell you what to do. But working in pencil will be much more beneficial. When i first started here, i worked mostly digital, and people told me all the time "get back to basics you idiot". That advice is very true. I think the main problem for beginners starting out on the PC tablet is that, because there are so many features, effects, digital styles that can be achieved with a tablet, they loose what it actually is that they are drawing. Because theres no fear of screwing up your work, you tend to not think tings as carefully as you would if you where using inks.
If you are really wanting to work using your tablet, I think the best thing is to keep it simple. Use hard brushes, full opacity, and approach your work in the same way you would if you where doing it traditionally.
Would you ever print out a photo and paint over it with acrylics? Probably not. Why do it digital? If your goal is to practice colour, why not try duplicating the image using your measuring and observation skills. You'll be much better off for it.

Also, i understand it is FREAKING TOUGH dude. I myself am also trying to learn to draw, paint, write and get healthy, while also trying to find a full time job. Hang in there dude. Keep at it!

Noodlesalad

I think I'll take the advice and get back to the basics. Thinking back on it, my last drawing class was probably over 5 years ago, and I haven't kept at it, so my drawing skills are pretty rusty. One life drawing class is not enough to master drawing from life to begin with either.

So yeah, I'm definitely not satisfied with where I am, and appreciate you guys giving me some of your time. I'm gonna pick up some of the books on the questions thread, dust off the old sketchpad, and go outside to draw.