Raptorart (recent stuff) Potentially NSFW...

RaptorArt

Thought I'd share some art on here, that I've done this year
would like to see what you guys have to say
here we go

first bunch will be a few of my OC characters
I don't have a story set out, or what not, i just draw them for fun







Next batch is random shit i paint on Deviantart with a small program called DAMURO
it's basically a paint program that is installed into DA, and you can draw on it
and it's not easy, lol





Next few pieces are probably some of my best stuff done this year







Enjoy the art, and let me know what you guys think
Visit me on DA if you like
DA---> Raptor007

Fugitive

It's super late so I won't say much, but one thing you could immediately start thinking about right off the bat is simplifying your brush strokes. You've got a lot of squiggles and small strokes made with a narrow brush. It would help you define your planes and forms a ton if you pared those down to the more basic elements, then moved on from there.

The example used on this page is basically perfect for showing what I mean.




Basically, less information, applied thoughtfully can be more effective at selling an image than a lot of haphazard strokes.

In fact, since your focus is on digital painting, I would give that whole page a good hard look, and then watch this video as a good supplement. It will get you started on a lot of solid fundamentals that you can use to springboard into more advanced methods.

RaptorArt

I see exactly where you are coming from Fugitive
some of my favorite artist i watch on DA paint like that
but i can't get myself to do that quite yet, I'm always afraid that I'm gonna leave out a detail or something
i do understand what your saying though, thanks for the tutorials

Mayday

RaptorArt wrote:

but i can't get myself to do that quite yet, I'm always afraid that I'm gonna leave out a detail or something

As much as I have similar problems with defining basic shapes I'll be an asshole and chime in to say that adding detail is what happens AFTER you do the basics. So don't be afraid and rock those huge brushes, dude! Try to do it with something simple for starters.

Fugitive

Well, I would also highly suggest you shake the conflation between "detail" and "quality" (I think you already saw that one coming). It's a mistaken idea a lot of artists have to tackle at some point, but basically the most effective image isn't necessarily the one that renders every single detail with OCD precision. In fact, its usually the opposite. When an artist gets bogged down in details, they typically lose sight of the image as a whole, and it suffers.

Whenever you see a stunningly complex piece, it virtually always started as a basic assembly of shapes and planes (sometimes overlayed on top of impossibly complex linework, but I'm specifically talking about the painting process), that was whittled down, built up, and sculpted over a dozen hours or dozens of hours into a well-worked piece. But that first, simple stage is when you catch problems with composition, its when you get down the basic idea of the forms, figure out the lighting/color scheme, and other fundamental nit-picks that can sink an image if they don't get addressed in that first hour or so. After that, you just do pass after pass until you've got it to the right level of polish.

I'd type more, but this is kind of a hard concept to explain without some solid visual examples. But yeah, don't be afraid to fuck up! What's it going to cost if you spend 15 minutes drawing a bad Ironman helmet to try and break some bad habits? You'd have wasted those minutes anyway.