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Phthano's Bad Art Emporium
Phthano
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello denizens of PA Artist's Corner. My name is Phthano, and I'm 18 and from the midwest. I created this thread to force myself to draw more often and man up and actually make some progress. I'm going to try to post most everything I am drawing from this point on, so I am baring my black squishy soul for you all. Be as harsh as you like. I apologize if the scans or pictures aren't high quality, but some of the stuff is too big to scan.
A mario painting I did in acrylic:
A girl I drew for a friend
A mario painting I did in acrylic:
A girl I drew for a friend
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Have you checked out some of the tutorials and such in the stickies? Do you have some goals for yourself as an artist? What artists do you like/look up to?
I mean life, yeah don't draw from wife.
Unless they're sexy wives, then, by all means sketch 'em up.
I look forward to seeing your progress in this new year, which is slightly old by 5 days now.
Arden Canelo: Thanks.
I'm going to go draw from life some more.
Some influences: http://fealasy.deviantart.com/ , http://zain7.deviantart.com/ , Jean Giraud.
As such:
Most of your pictures have the person facing straight on at you; your second picture as well as the one of Beethoven are the exception (where it's most noticeable) but why I think this is a problem is because of foreshortening.
While there's nothing wrong with foreshortening in itself and it's something that should be practiced, it is something that is particularly hard to deal with when you are working from photographs. As you mentioned you work from photographs often, I will expand a little further on this subject since it's something that's hard to notice until you start using plain old life as your reference more often.
To give an example of what I mean (with some exaggeration to emphasize) though, compare these two images and think about their noses.
1
2
Look at the first picture; evidently, based on it's title, the mask is intended to have a very long (and gigantic!) nose but because of the angle of the shot, this is hard to tell. While you can point at the shadows, note the value changes as it goes from the top of the nose to the bottom, etc. etc. to indicate that that is in fact a very long nose, the picture's angle simply does not allow you to picture the form of the nose very well. As a further ridiculous example, picture Pinnochio staring straight at you straight after a lengthy, truthful! interrogation. Just how exactly could anyone ever do justice to that nose with such an angle as this?
The second picture has a side angle view. You should get a better (though still hardly perfect) sense of the actual structure of the face. You can ask yourself questions that with a straight on head shot you'd have a harder time addressing: does the chin jut out? how pronounced is the forehead? does the mouth recede or protrude? how long is this person's nose and how wide?
My main point is that, if you really do have to work with pictures, have some variety! Things exist in three dimensions and though you are working with a two dimensional surface, if you can't think of things three dimensionally they won't come off as reality. After all, if you approach drawing two dimensionally (that is, without a form of which that would allow you to see it from all angles) then how could you ever represent life, a very three dimensional thing? Also, straight up head shots are boring IMO, not only because I can't really picture the face from multiple angles, but also because mirrored features is boring and artificial! It just screams prison lineup to me.
And my main, main point which is very important whether you intend to go into cartoons or portraiture and which is the most helpful thing anyone can ever offer you as advice is to simply draw from life.
Think of it as taking away a middleman; a photograph by its very nature provides a flattened view of the world. You can't jump into a photograph to touch or feel or even move around to better understand your subject matter. You can't see how far, close, deep, or shallow something is by a photograph. You can guess, but you can never really know. That's not to say that photos can't ever be used as a reference tool, but if you're serious about improving your art, stepping away from photos and looking towards your actual surroundings is one of the best ways to go about it.
I wish you luck! Don't underestimate the importance of simply keeping at it. You'll probably see this thrown around some time in the future and that is because it is awesome. The Journey of an Absolute Rookie.
Thanks for all the input and critique guys. I'll post some more stuff when I finish it.
INSTAGRAM
im not knocking on large art by any means, i just think youre in the sketching stage where you should be drawing everything and anything, filling entire pages with sketches, trying to get shapes and textures under control, working large is holding you back imo
Gonna have to go with him on this. Looking good man, keep it up
Really try to focus - quality is always better than quantity.
On a plus - your portraits look like who they are supposed to look like so :^::^::^:
Just slow it down mate!
this is an excellent point-- especially when you are working from photos or other "flat" reference materials! Think of all three dimensions and it will make it easier to visualize the elements that compose the objects you are drawing. (this is especially helpful when drawing body parts, because the volumes of those body parts change when the body moves, but the overall space they occupy is the same.)
I think it is really great that you are so enthusiastic, Phthano-- having a good attitude is the first hurdle.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Thanks. When you're just starting out, enthusiasm is all you've got. I've been drawing a lot of stuff but not posting it. I'll post some moar stuff soon.
things have structures and it's really valuable for artists to recognize this first, then after understanding them artists can deviate from it and add their own styling or brand to it.
your drawings hardly have any structure right now so I highly recommend you step back and draw basic shapes first, like the earlier poster suggested. Personally, I find breaking down things into shapes actually helps me appreciate the value of the object, and it's way easier to manipulate afterwards too.
Learning structure will also help you decide why certain shading is darker than the other, which helps you making thing not flat.
and here, I made a quick (and probably not too good) lining over one of your drawing just to show some breaking down http://i54.tinypic.com/swzh1s.jpg though since my ps is having some problem i cant finish it well, but i did some shape structuring on the nose, albeit not perfect, but i hope it'll give you some idea... keep it up.
Good that you're studying some shapes and face structures, but perhaps try to slow down a bit more.
Let's take a look at your cube: note how the left side actually seems to get higher as it gets further away from us.
It's clear that you want to show some perspective but are struggling a bit.
Figures like these helped me start off: You don't have to do all of these lines for each cube you draw, but try to make some notes here.
See how the cube seems at it highest at the edge closest to us? And the further it gets, the less high the edge lines get.
Try to draw a cube by connecting two random dots on the horizon line just like in the figure, and you'll see that you get a very convincing result. Now compare that with the cube you've drawn.
Try to see what happens if you put a cube lower on your page, further from the horizon. Or what happens if you start drawing the cube higher than your horizon?
First draw the upright edge closest to you, and connect the dots from there. You can even try and draw your house that way!
Once you've done a few of these using guidelines, try some freehand ones, while keeping earlier results in mind.
portraiture is a very very deep pool to jump in right away. i've been drawing for quite some years and have only begun to understand the human face better recently. and cubes and shapes are definately a big help.