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Looking for critique and any general comments about my drawing...
Highlander_77
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This is my first post in this forum. I've been reading it for awhile, and I finally decided to throw myself to the wolves and submit some drawings for critique (mainly because I now have some drawings to submit...)
A little back story (I'll try to keep it short-winded). I used to draw avidly...as in all the time. When I was a teenager, I really got into comics books along with some friends of mine. We decided we wanted to make our own comic books, so we started gathering ideas and sketching up characters. I started seriously working on improving my drawing, and made good progress for several years. But, as life goes on and other priorities appear (work, college, video games, etc), I gradually lost touch with those friends, and kind of lost interest in comic books and in drawing. The last time I had really seriously tried drawing anything was probably around 1997...so I've let my skills deteriorate for a long time.
Anyway, I recently rekindled my interest in comics books, and my interest in drawing them was rekindled shortly thereafter. So, I've started practicing again (as much as I can in the limited free time I have with a full time job and two small children). I realize I've got a long way to go and a lot of work to do before I could ever do this professionally...but I want to give it my best try. This is what I've drawn so far, partly to see where my skills are at, and get an idea what areas I need to work on the most (as far as figure drawing goes...there's a whole slew of things I need to work on once I get a good handle on my figures), and partly just to see if I could enjoy drawing again (towards the end, before I quit drawing last time, I was finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with the results of my drawing efforts...). I did enjoy drawing these, so I guess that's got to be a good sign. Anyway, let me post the actual drawing before I bore anyone to tears...
I like this drawing of Spider-Man, though I see several problems with it (which I won't point out...I want to see everyone else's criticisms before I add my own to the mix. I figure somebody else will probably point them out anyway).
RAAWWWRR! HULK SMASH!!!!
This was fun to draw...the ripped pants don't look so great (clothing is one of the many things I need to work on once I get the basic figures down), but I was pretty pleased with it overall (considering how long it had been since I had drawn seriously...and this was actually the first drawing I did of the ones I'm posting here).
I'm not so thrilled with this Catwoman, but I wanted to include at least one drawing of a female character. Women are undoubtedly harder to draw than men...being able to really draw women well is pretty important to me.
I threw in a sketch I did from a photo of my 2 year old daughter Kayley, just for a change of pace (and because it was such a damn cute picture!). I probably should have scanned the actual photo so I could post it here for reference....that probably would have been helpful (d'oh!).
So that's what I've got so far....let me have it! :P
EDIT: Looking at these drawings after I posted them...they seem to have come through very light. It's weird, because I don't remember them looking that light when I scanned them. There are whole areas of shading that aren't showing up on these. I guess it shouldn't really affect a critique of the basic drawing...but it's a little dissapointing that they didn't reproduce better. I'll have to see if I can re-scan them and darken them up some when I get home tonight...
A little back story (I'll try to keep it short-winded). I used to draw avidly...as in all the time. When I was a teenager, I really got into comics books along with some friends of mine. We decided we wanted to make our own comic books, so we started gathering ideas and sketching up characters. I started seriously working on improving my drawing, and made good progress for several years. But, as life goes on and other priorities appear (work, college, video games, etc), I gradually lost touch with those friends, and kind of lost interest in comic books and in drawing. The last time I had really seriously tried drawing anything was probably around 1997...so I've let my skills deteriorate for a long time.
Anyway, I recently rekindled my interest in comics books, and my interest in drawing them was rekindled shortly thereafter. So, I've started practicing again (as much as I can in the limited free time I have with a full time job and two small children). I realize I've got a long way to go and a lot of work to do before I could ever do this professionally...but I want to give it my best try. This is what I've drawn so far, partly to see where my skills are at, and get an idea what areas I need to work on the most (as far as figure drawing goes...there's a whole slew of things I need to work on once I get a good handle on my figures), and partly just to see if I could enjoy drawing again (towards the end, before I quit drawing last time, I was finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with the results of my drawing efforts...). I did enjoy drawing these, so I guess that's got to be a good sign. Anyway, let me post the actual drawing before I bore anyone to tears...
I like this drawing of Spider-Man, though I see several problems with it (which I won't point out...I want to see everyone else's criticisms before I add my own to the mix. I figure somebody else will probably point them out anyway).
RAAWWWRR! HULK SMASH!!!!
This was fun to draw...the ripped pants don't look so great (clothing is one of the many things I need to work on once I get the basic figures down), but I was pretty pleased with it overall (considering how long it had been since I had drawn seriously...and this was actually the first drawing I did of the ones I'm posting here).
I'm not so thrilled with this Catwoman, but I wanted to include at least one drawing of a female character. Women are undoubtedly harder to draw than men...being able to really draw women well is pretty important to me.
I threw in a sketch I did from a photo of my 2 year old daughter Kayley, just for a change of pace (and because it was such a damn cute picture!). I probably should have scanned the actual photo so I could post it here for reference....that probably would have been helpful (d'oh!).
So that's what I've got so far....let me have it! :P
EDIT: Looking at these drawings after I posted them...they seem to have come through very light. It's weird, because I don't remember them looking that light when I scanned them. There are whole areas of shading that aren't showing up on these. I guess it shouldn't really affect a critique of the basic drawing...but it's a little dissapointing that they didn't reproduce better. I'll have to see if I can re-scan them and darken them up some when I get home tonight...
"Madre de Dios! Es el Pollo Diablo!"Highlander_77 on
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I can see the obvious errors with how spiderman's thigh and groin get foreshortened and connected, and hulk's exaggerated left ankle probably wouldn't support his weight, but I think that's more to do with the hulk not having normal anatomy anyway.
Catwoman's torso looks a bit stiff, her breasts should be slightly more squashed, and showing the effects of gravity. I think trying a different light source or shading style would emphasize this more, but there are other solutions.
So far your work looks clean and quite professional. I'd love to see you try your hand at some original characters, as well as where you are in terms of colouring and inking. Also I'd like to thank you for making a first post that actually followed the rules, and not making a webcomic about video games.
Keep posting your art here!
As for how I drew them...the actual figures (anatomy, proportions, poses) I just drew from scratch. I did have to look at some pictures of Spider-Man to get the web-pattern on his costume right (I've always hated drawing Spider-Man for that reason...next time I draw him I'm putting him in the black costume, lol). I also was having trouble with his right hand. I ended up getting my wife to hold her hand in that "web shooting" position (upside down devil-horns) at the angle that I needed so I could make a quick reference sketch on a seperate piece of paper. Then I adapted it to my drawing (had to make the hand a little more masculine and such). And in the Hulk drawing, I was having trouble drawing his face (not that there was anything wrong with the face I was drawing...but it just didn't look like the Hulk...not the Savage Hulk, anyway...which is what I was going for). I ended up looking up some Hulk comics to see how other artist drew his face, at which point I realized that the Hulk's face doesn't follow the usual proportions for drawing a human face. His nose is rather small and pushed up just beneath the ridge of his brow...and a much greater portion of his lower face is devoted to his mouth than on a normal human. Once I got those two details figured out, the face came out much better.
As to the specific criticizms...Spider-Man's left leg is definitely one of the things that I had noticed looked wrong with that picture. I had already redrawn that entire leg by that point, though...and I just couldn't bring myself to go back and screw around with it again (originally I just had that leg sticking straight out to the side...which looked fine in and of itself, but looked kind of disjointed with the positioning of the rest of his body. So I redrew the leg as forshortened coming toward the viewer...but I probably should have redrawn the whole pelvis/hip area in the process). I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, but I did draw Hulk's left ankle a bit skinnier than his right...the foot might be a little narrower too. It does look too small (or "PUNY" as Hulk would say :P ) to support his massive bulk. I may have to go back and redraw that, because I really like the rest of that picture overall.
And yes, Catwoman has problems. I definitely need to spend some time studying the female figure (not an entirely unappealing proposition ;-) ) to get my women to look more natural. As to her breasts...that was actually somewhat a conscious choice. I figured that her costume, being as tight as it is, would probably act somewhat like a bra in supporting her breasts in place...so I decided not to really emphasize the gravitational pull. Whether that was a good choice or not, I can't really say (comic book women do tend to have gravity defying breasts...but I've never been a fan of giant, fake-looking breasts...so I may have to work on that).
As to the rest of it, original characters were actually the vast majority of what I used to draw. I did very little drawing of established characters. I've got a massive pile of old sketches of characters that my friends and I came up with. The early stuff (first few years we were working on ideas) all looks like crap. There's a selection of stuff that I did later on that looks pretty decent...and a few which I'm actually impressed with when I look at them now...and those upset me very much, and make me wish I had never stopped drawing in the first place, when I consider where I could be now if I hadn't. I could post some of those, but I don't think they'd be particularly relevant to where I'm at now, since I'm literally talking about stuff I drew 12 or 13 years ago. Still, if you're curious....
As to where I'm at in terms of inking/coloring...well...nowhere, lol. I never had good inking tools in the past, and any attempt I used to make at inking used to result in something that looked very amatuerish in comparison to the pencilled original...so I never got very far with it (I always figured I would tackle it later). Coloring was pretty much the same deal. At this point, if I ever get that far, I think I would probably be more likely to do the "inking" on my computer over a scanned image rather than doing it on paper with actual ink. But who knows...like I said , I haven't gotten to the point of really thinking about it yet...I need to improve my basic drawing skills and work on things like backgrounds and perspective before I worry about inking and coloring.
Well...that was a long winded reply. Thanks very much for your input so far, and I welcome any and all further comments from anyone who feels like throwing their 2 cents in...
I know there are a lot of really good artists on here...surely a few more of you must have some criticism and advice to offer...
That said, I do like the Hulk and the drawing of your daughter. I think if you posted more stuff like the drawing of your daughter you'd get more feedback.
Post more.
Yeah, I've seen lots of "draw from life" replies. The thing is, when you say "draw from life", do you mean just drawing realistic scenes from photographs and such? Or do you mean like actual, live model drawing. Because the latter really isn't an option for me. I haven't got the time or the extra cash right now to take a life drawing class. Drawing from photographs was something I was messing around with a bit a few weeks ago...though I was more interested in studying the basic forms and positions than I was in things like lighting and shading and such. To be honest, I've always preferred drawing from my imagination over drawing from any sort of reference material (though I will use references on occasion when I just can't quite figure out how something should look...like Spider-Man's hand, as I mentioned above). Since my ultimate aspiration was always to become a comic book artist, and I assume that comic book artists mostly draw from their imagination and rarely use models, I always figured that that was how I had better learn to draw: memorize the anatomy and such, and then just try to put what was in my head down on the paper.
I'm certainly no anatomy whiz myself, but overall your stuff reads fairly true, for comic book-proportioned characters at any rate. I have a small beef with some parts of the musculature on the legs, especially how huge the calf muscles are and how much they bulge out from the sides of the tibia and fibula (The Hulk's left leg is a mess). The ripped shorts are also conforming to the muscles near Hulk's crotch like latex or something. The spot where Hulk's wrist meets his palm on the right arm also seems off.
I'm not much of a comic-book style illustrator myself, and I realize a lot of comic book characters are drawn to be very balloon-muscled and absurd, but I'm going to give my opinion on some of your lines anyways. You're using line a lot to convey muscle mass in the comic pieces. Sometimes It's appropriate (the Hulk), sometimes It really isn't (Catwoman), and Spiderman is somewhere in between. Making a line is making a strong statement about the form of the thing you're describing; you're saying that this shape is different enough than the shapes around it that it deserves a clear separation. Catwoman is the most obvious example of you going a little too strong relying on lines to describe your characters. You have strong lines along the ribcage and the middle of the abdominal muscles, suggesting to the eye that there are sharp changes in shape, when in reality the form is supposed to be very supple and lithe. Changes in value are much better suited to this job, whereas using a line to describe such subtle changes comes off as harsh and amateurish.
That's about all I have to say, but while we're talking about value, I --highly-- encourage you to start exploring lighting in a more substantial way than just darkening the bottoms of muscle bulges, adding shadow beneath the chin, and other mouth-breather calibur decisions about light. Good shading on a pencil piece takes into consideration the light of the whole scene, rather than just locally shading every single bulge and bump.
Life-drawing skills can augment the abilities of any representational artist in profound ways. You may want to draw exaggerated and stylized comic-book characters--and that's fine, but you have to know the rules before you can bend them as they say. Comic book artists do mostly draw from their imagination, but I assure you they are able to do this so successfully because they have an intimate understanding of human anatomy.
Drawing from life can be something as simple as sketching your wife as she reads a book or your kids as they play. Don't think that you need to hire some artist's model to lounge on a chair for you to do life drawing. Sit in front of a mirror and draw your face or your hands or your feet if you must.
As to the specific criticisms, I definitely want to do some more work on anatomy...it's probably one of my stronger areas, but I would like for it to look more natural than it does right now.
As to the linework...part of that is due to the nature of comic book drawing. The pencils in an actual piece of comic art are going to have ink laid down over them...and the sort of value changes and subtle shading that can be done with a pencil don't really translate to inking...hence why you tend to see a lot more lines used. Having said that, there are probably still more subtle ways to handle some of those details...especially on a female figure.
I do intend to study lighting and shading more thoroughly. Right now I'm mainly concerned with just getting all the right shapes in the right places and basic things like that. I have Burne Hogarths book on light an shade, and I've also found some good resources online to study once I get a little further along. That's also definitely an area that would be aided by doing more life (or even photograph) drawing, to see how real shadows and light sources work.
I guess I can do that just to fill some space. It'll have to wait until I get home tonight, since I haven't scanned most of them yet.
Honestly, when I looked back at my old drawings...as good as I thought I was back then, there are only a handful of them that I wouldn't be embarassed to show people now. But I'll post up whatever I think is worth showing at any rate...
As for your pieces, the Hulk is your strongest drawing IMHO and the pencil sketch of your daughter is beautiful, she'll love it when she's older
I think the problem with Spider-Man is more that his torso is too short than that his leg is too long (unless you mean that his leg is too thick...which it might be...but I still think his torso is too short in comparison to his legs and arms). As for Catwoman...yeah, she's got all kinds of issues, lol. I definitely need to work on drawing women.
Hmm...it's funny you say that (about the upper and lower half being drawn at two different times). After initially drawing that one, I went back and redrew several large parts that I wasn't happy with (although I don't think I redrew the right leg...). I was kind of aware even as I was doing that that his torso looked a little too small...but at that point, if I was going to redraw the torso too, I might as well have just crumpled up the paper and started over from scratch...and I just wasn't motivated enough to do that at the time (it was late at night :P ).
Inking is not one of strong points. I've only made very tentative attempts at inking in the past, most of which turned out disastrous. I don't really have any good inking tools either. To be honest, I think my main problem with inking is that I always feel like I'm just tracing what I already drew...which is not the way an inker is supposed to approach inking, I know. I tried briefly attempting to "ink" some drawings digitally using my Wacom tablet, but I haven't got enough practice with the tablet yet to draw effectively using it.
I may just use Photoshop to darken the pencils to the point where they can be colored...or run them through Live Trace in Illustrator, which effectively does the same thing.
Coloring is also something I haven't done a lot of, but unlike inking, it's something I would like to do more of.