A Day in the Life (NSFW)

AgentofOrange

It's been long enough since I've had some good critique. Here are varying sample of my drawings in Adobe Illustrator CS4.
If you have any experience and advice with this program, and can give me tips for line making, cleanliness, use of tools and so forth, I'd appreciate it.
Also, critique on form, color use, and any suggestions are welcomed.

Arden Canelo

A lot of the colors seem too close in hue to each other. Like they kinda blur into one another and make the image not readable. It's up to you of course what colors you pick, but this is how it looks to my eyes. I've never really thought about masturbating in front of a mirror like that. You got some clean lines, but that goes with the program doesn't it?

Iruka

With your faces, I sorta feel like they are kinda goopy, the lips and eyes wiggle in weird places.

Do you do any work thats not done on illustrator? This is more personal opinion, but your drawings kinda remind me of rotoscoped animations, which sometimes the technique overtakes the process, and no interesting stylization comes into play. You might be going for a sorta looser, more charming type of drawing, but the nature of illustrator kind of robs it of that hand drawn feeling. Some of these might be kinda cool graphic, bright paintings.


I really like how you play with transparency, though.

Phthano

The Earthbound one almost made me cry.


(In a good way)

AgentofOrange

I've noticed that there is a problem with my colors. When I look at my drawings from computer monitors other than my own, they tend to be washed out and blurred. I'm not sure what to think of it, perhaps my brightness levels are unique? Or I'm insane?

I spend a lot of time choosing my colors, and always feel proud of them. If you have any specific statements or crtics, I'd like to hear it.

I'm not entirely sure what to say about the clean lines; it isn't necessarily up the the program entirely to make smooth contours, but I understand that this medium is a bit strange when compared to traditional art. I mean to say, my lines weren't always so smooth, but it's hard to separate skill and what the program actually provides for the user.

I see what you mean, Iruka, about the "goopiness". I don't work often with traditional media anymore, I used to sketch constantly, but it's diminished completely in the past few years. I suppose I need to get into practice.

I do think, however, that the "rotoscope" like appeal is actually what I was going for. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding you. I like the sort of surreal perspective of something real, something that looks as it should, but slightly skewed or shifted as if under the influence of a hallucinogen.
That mindset cannot be entirely appreciated, especially when looking for criticism, so, perhaps I need a better explanation with what you may disagree with.
I have fun with illustrator, and you're correct, I do try to have a loose and fun sort of drawing. What about the appearance do you see that is lost from the "hand drawn" feeling? I wonder if we could understand it.

I'm glad you enjoyed the Earthbound drawing, I like it's simple nostalgic image.

Mustang

That final image......do people actually get off like that?

AgentofOrange

I have a story written in my head, and that last one with the girl masturbating is a tiny scene within it. It's supposed to be a cathartic and almost charming scene, jarring in its vulnerable and honest intent.
But I was just messing around with ideas of pop art when I drew that, and my love of green and pink.
I don't know of people actually preferring to doing that, but, uh.. whatever

Iruka

Orange, my opinion on the aesthetics is going to be sorta... well pretty personal preference based, so take this all with a huge grain of salt.

For me whats going on is that you don't always seem to be making illustrative choices. With hair and eyes, you are sort of symbolizing things. Hair feels sloppy and shaggy, things feel wobbly and goopy, its like what happens when people copy photos but dont know any of the understructure. Thats actually what I was getting at with the rotoscoping, which tends to look really stiff and uninteresting if the animator doesnt already know how to animate.

When people sketch theres is a sort of liveliness to lines that adds a different quality to the work. With your drawings, I tend to think you are going for flat but realistic, so I see the wobbliness as mistakes and not choices. With minimalism comes the scrutiny subtleties, which sort of amplifies the confusion. Vectors sort of lend themselves to graceful curves and bold shapes, so if the wobbliness is an attempt to get a sketchy feeling back, I don't think its working.

Here are three different styles that are all pretty flat, but have alot of character
Mikkel Sommer

Yamamoto Takato (kinda big)

Ctso

All three of them have a lot of structure and weight, Even ctso whose pretty minimal on the inner detail and does alot of contour stuff. Of those three, perhaps Yamamoto has the most realistic image, and Mikkel the most simple, while Ctso has some of that surreal color and insanity going on.

You can see in Yamamoto's image, though, that there is very little detail in the faces, but that doesn't effect his ability to really properly describe eyes. I feel like that is the sort of thing you are aspiring to, maybe? If thats the case, you probably just need to do some anatomy work to help you describe better with very little.

With the first image and the last image, they are so bold and simple that they work, but the other images (well, not the earth bound one) feel in between.

Anyways my basic advice would be to experiment more and try and push your self. Gather up some influences that do things you like and try and imitate them in illustrator. I hate that program with a passion, so you get alot of respect from me for having a way with it, but I think you should try some other things. If you continue to be really bold, I think some good stuff will come from it.

AgentofOrange

Excellent! Yes! This is the sort of stuff I like to hear, thank you.
I think my figures are to be more interesting, yes, I believe you are right, I need a liveliness to them. I like what you've shown me. I remember when I was getting started in minimalism, I fell in love with this girl's work. Here, I'll share some, perhaps you can see how I'm practically throwing myself at her.

Agata Bogacka

I think what I'm going to do for awhile is try to sketch figures, and work out ideas over and over on paper before I even think to approach the computer. As you said, grow to have a better understanding oh the form and not just recreating it mechanically.
It's funny how I can acknowledge this commonly as a universal problem in developing artists, and only just now realize how it's still my problem. Sketch sketch sketch...

I'm still looking forward to any technical advice from any digital artists here.

wakkawa

The first thing I thought of when I saw these were traced illustrator drawings. Not saying you did, they just give off that vibe.

Honestly, I would stop working in this style for awhile. It is fairly obvious you are covering up your lack of fundamentals with "stylized" lines and color.

AgentofOrange

I'm not making a conscious effort to conceal anything, I'm earnestly having fun with lines and colors and thats nothing more than what I sought to do previously. Now I'm eager to pursue greater recreational practices to enhance my understanding of figure and form. Yes, practice.

rts

I don't know. While I have similar feelings to everyone else about your work, there is one thing that concerns me even more. It just doesn't feel like we are being given much to sink our teeth into. Something can be simple and still have depth. I feel like I can look away from your stuff after looking at it for just a couple of seconds without losing anything.

I hate to sound like a conceptual artist since they are pretty much my least favorite thing on the planet, but maybe try to come up with an idea that is meaningful to you and then try to describe that idea with a minimalistic image. Right now it seems more like you are just trying to create vector people.