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Shiekahn_boy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
If I spelt the Title right, Do I get a cookie?
Alright, I would like Critique on my lil sketches of charecters. Im only 15, but Im looking to improve in art. Last time I was here I sucked. I mean, really, It looked like poop wrapped in paper. Im going to show a timeline here. yes, i did draw manga, I was a misguided youth. It took me some time before i really started drawing what I NEEDED to draw to really understand art and the human anatomy.
2004
This is ugly as heck. Misguided youth *tsk* *tsk*
2005
I started getting the feel of my scanner AND my art, but I was still doing shitty manga.
2006
I started to draw manicans, but not very often. I wanted to just get the pic done sometimes and this was my best. I was really motivated by anger as you can see. Alot of assholes tried to bring my art down, but i pressed on.
2007
Alright, this is my recent charecter that I done. It took me 3 attempts to get him the way i want him at the time. But i think he's missing a few things. I'm still trying to figure those out. Ive been practiceing with matchstick figures and lil manicans, but im still trying to get down the anatomy of humans.
Have I improved? I think I have, but im questioning my artistic skills. I wonder sometimes if they are good enough to build on, or am i missing something that will make my tower topple.
Suggestions?
Alright, I would like Critique on my lil sketches of charecters. Im only 15, but Im looking to improve in art. Last time I was here I sucked. I mean, really, It looked like poop wrapped in paper. Im going to show a timeline here. yes, i did draw manga, I was a misguided youth. It took me some time before i really started drawing what I NEEDED to draw to really understand art and the human anatomy.
2004
This is ugly as heck. Misguided youth *tsk* *tsk*
2005
I started getting the feel of my scanner AND my art, but I was still doing shitty manga.
2006
I started to draw manicans, but not very often. I wanted to just get the pic done sometimes and this was my best. I was really motivated by anger as you can see. Alot of assholes tried to bring my art down, but i pressed on.
2007
Alright, this is my recent charecter that I done. It took me 3 attempts to get him the way i want him at the time. But i think he's missing a few things. I'm still trying to figure those out. Ive been practiceing with matchstick figures and lil manicans, but im still trying to get down the anatomy of humans.
Have I improved? I think I have, but im questioning my artistic skills. I wonder sometimes if they are good enough to build on, or am i missing something that will make my tower topple.
Suggestions?
"your a moron you know that wolves have packs wich they rely on nd they could ever here of lone wolves? you an idiot and your gay, wolves have packs and are smart with tactics" - Youtube Wolf Enthusiast.
Cardboard Tube wrote: »What the fuck are you people even arguing about? Shut up.
Shiekahn_boy on
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Also, it's hard to say much more than that with only one recent drawing to look at. By all means, post more.
About posting more, I'm going to make a fresh batch of art so people can see what my level is here and now, not of whats in the past.
Why im a little afraid of buying anatomy books. \/ "Its a lil dirty."
Thank you for the comment, I very much appreciate it. I love to hear critique over my art. (If its not in a totally asshole/troll way.) Even if it's still in its early stages.
how old are you?
I know how you feel. When I first tried to dive headfirst into studying anatomy I was 13 or 14 and kind of had the same reaction. But really, the thing is you can't study anatomy and try and dodge the "icky parts". When my parents became aware I was studying anatomy they had no problem with it because they are both very aware of how you become better at art. If your parents are for some reason shocked that you are trying to get better at drawing via drawing nude figures then they don't understand the process.
Plus, you can always learn proportions and things of that sort without bothering with naked pictures. Also, you can always just leave out the donger or vagina when you draw it, because while it may seem slightly out of place it isn't exactly pivotal in terms of knowing how to draw clothed people anyway.
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Im a bit like that just because I was trying to draw something partially nude-like (without the naughty bits) and some guys on my football team just went crazy. They were saying crap like "Dude he's drawing porn!" or "Dude sweet! Can you draw me some?" Then the assholes go and tell half the school's girls. Now every girl thinks im a big pervert. Thats another reason im not so great with anatomy. I don't get much time to draw when school starts, just between classes and lazy days my teachers get. Alot of people I'm around know I draw so its not really a good thing to do in class. Bunch of nosy asses want to look at what Im drawing and I get all nervous.
So what im saying is, It's sometimes hard. But im planning on asking my parents about me studying anatomy and get their ok. I really don't know their reactions. I just need there ok so if they walk in on me and im on a page with a naked person I will not have to explain myself.
Thanks for all the help guys, I appreciate all your suggestions.
Oh, and Greatnation, Don't worry. One of these days I will change. My hormones will go raceing and I'll be drawing Giigii's and Peepee's. :P
Not all good books on anatomy have a ton of nudity in them though. Burne Hogarth's books are excellent (though a bit advanced), and generally his illustrations don't go out of their way to show you a wang on every other page (as some anatomy books seem to do).
Heck, when I was doing figure drawing from live models I actually liked the old/wrinkly people more, their skin was so much more interesting to draw and texture. You might be weirded out for a minute or two but the atmosphere makes it so there's nothing sexual at all about it.
With regards to what you've posted so far: There's some decent improvement going on for sure, although there are still a lot of anatomical flaws, even for a stylized character. Do you have any anatomy studies you've done to post here? They really are the easiest way to gauge where your art is right now. Apparently the last time you posted here everyone told you to draw anatomy and draw from life - did you actually do it?
The final drawing of your scarecrow/scythe guy looks like it has some potential, but it has a lot of issues as well: the pose is very flat considering he's a crazy living scarecrow holding a scythe. He's just... standing there. I'd expect him to be jumping out at you, or moving around. Look at this guy here:
(this book could really help you. Also Hogarth never draws donger, so that's nice)
That right there is some dynamic posing. It's very difficult to do but it makes your pictures oh so much more interesting to look at. Comic book art in particular uses dynamic poses and foreshortening to give really dramatic effects.
At some point you're going to have to start thinking about how lighting is going to get applied to your drawings. Right now you have an outline of a character. It's impossible to tell his shape or form or get a real feel for his depth because there's no light on him at all. This is the big problem with drawing anime, since the messed up anatomy choices makes realistic shading bizarre. To practise this you don't even need anatomy text books, or live models or anything. Just get an apple, and sit down at your table with a pencil a sketchbook. Now try and draw the apple as accurately as you can. It's a lot more difficult than you might think! You can learn an incredible amount from doing this even a couple times.
That's a tough situation...it's been so long, I forget what it was like to be in school sometimes. School kids can be amazingly effective at making your life difficult when they want to.
I can also relate to what you said about getting nervous when people want to look at your drawings. I HATE when someone tries to watch me draw (with a few exceptions)...I don't like answering questions about what I'm drawing while I'm drawing it...I don't like showing people stuff that's unfinished. And I can also understand how, even though there's nothing "dirty" about it, you feel uncomfortable with the idea of someone coming up behind you and seeing drawings of naked people. It can be embarrassing, especially if it's someone who doesn't understand it.
One other recommendation that I can make, and one that might be a little more your speed right now than the Hogarth books (not that you shouldn't get them too...but they can just be a little intimidating at first, because Hogarth's stuff is just so damn good). There's a book called "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way". Now, you may scoff at the concept, as most "drawing" books that claim to teach you how to draw comics or manga are pretty much full of crap, and give you no fundamentals at all. But this one is different...it has a lot of solid, fundamental information. It's written in a very clear and interesting way (by none other than Stan "The Man" Lee himself) and illustrated by the masterful John Buscema (with a lot of artwork taken from Jack Kirby comics as well). It doesn't really go into great detail in terms of musculature and such (it was written in the late '70s, and superhero comics back then weren't drawn in quite the same muscle-popping way they are now), but there's a lot that goes into the basic shapes and structure of the human figure, proportion, perspective, etc. And, there's obviously not going to be any tits or penises jumping off the page at you in this book. ;-)
It may not be the be all and end all of anatomy books, but it's a good place to start.
They're pretty strict about the whole porn thing, even artistic nudes are a no no.
Really? At my school we had students as nude models in some of our classes. Mind you this is in Canada, but aside from a bit of ruckus caused by new students who weren't used to that kind of thing, no one really batted an eye.
Really? Cos my high school art teacher didn't give a flying fuck as long as it wasn't purposefully lewd and as long as it got the student interested in the actual assignment.
As for the football guys, seriously though, fuck'm. I know that's an extremely hard stance to take in your shoes right now, but take it from a whole board full of people who can back me up when I say "There is a world that exists outside of high school, so fuck'm if you can see that now and they can't."
Don't hold yourself back because of other people.
Parents are a little trickier because, while I'd take the same attitude with them personally, there's nothing wrong with wanting to maintain a respectful relationship with them. But Ahab's right, if you impress upon them with the idea of the great masters doing it, they may come to see it as art and not filth. In regard to your own squeemishness... well it's too late for you now. You saw a peener in a book, so that means you're gay now. Welcome to the club, I'll go get your membership jacket. But on a more serious note, if you are truly serious about becoming a better artist you are going to have to study this stuff, and if wieners make you uncomfortable then you should really explore *why* that is and ask yourself if it's really a good reason to hold up your artistic progress or not. No one is asking be that creepy chick from the broken home that sits in the back of class and draws the overly realistic penis with big lumpy veins, but golly, do you get all cock flustered every time you jump in the shower?
So yeah, this advice sounds like a broken record because if you are actually serious about becoming a better artist, you'll dump the anime trash now and start doing some real life figure drawing.
I would stray from Burne Hogarth for the time being. He's a great artist, but does little in way of *teaching*. He leads by example, but unless you have a basica understanding of what you're looking at, form wise, or why it is as it is, his stuff can be a bit too early to jump into.
What you do, Lil, I wouldn't lump in with the cookie-cutter stuff. You manage to bring your own style to the table but infuse it with an overall sense of "anime", but at the end of the day it's still all your own. It's like the different between Nurato, or InuYasha vs. Yoshitaka Amano. One feels generic while the other is still in the same vein as anime, but has a flavor all its own.
Just buy the anatomy book, and if anyone has a problem with it, tell'm to choke on your fuck.
*edit*
oh so, i have a funny story about anatomy drawings and school. so i use dto goto a catholic middleschool. In the 7th grade, mortal combat 3 ultimate blah balh blah w/e the fuck it was called had just come out. one of my friends was attempting to use tracing paper to copy a bunch of the characters in the strategy guide. he gets stuck on...i forget her name, you remember the girl ninja's in mk3 right? bikini + mask? ya so he hands me his half finished tracing and asks me to complete it cuz he cant make out half the lines through the paper. so i proceed to finish it, and BAM! my teacher catches me drawing what she deemed as "pornographic material" and i was slapped with a suspension from school.
yay!
If you're running into flack from teachers on the other hand (or afraid you might), try going to the school's art teacher (or hell, any teacher who teaches humanities courses- art history, english, etc.) and tell them the situation- I know you said you haven't actually taken any art classes, but that shouldn't matter. Just say something like, "I am trying to study anatomy for figure drawing, but I'm afraid other teachers are going to get the wrong idea of what I'm going for here." Having someone that can back you up on the administration side will probably prevent any kind of real faculty-realted altercations over this sort of thing.
This could also help offset any negative reactions with your parents (not that I would think they would be too worried about it to begin with, provided they are not either complete morons or extreme religious conservatives)- being able to say "Yeah I was talking to the art teacher Mrs.So-and-So about how to improve my drawing stuff and she said to work on anatomy like this" might help.
Also, having a big ol' studious lookin' book (like this, just a personal favorite of mine during my high school days) on your desk while you draw usually prevents the wtf's and the dur hur's.
(Somebody needs to post the picture of the David statue wearing jeans from The Simpsons in here.)
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Never really read it or anything, but w/e.
yay! bewbies!
Just don't copy any of Michelangelo's women. Because apparently *he* never bothered to study female anatomy... He seems to have just made men and stuck some lumps on their chests and then called them women :P
Seriously, though, half the human population has penises, and the other half has vaginas. I know that's a shocking thought, but they do, and I recommend getting used to the idea quickly. You don't have to draw the 'icky' bits, that's what underwear and bathing suits and strangely deformed victims of cruel science experiments are for, (or in my case when I was your age, cyborgs! Cuz if it's made out of metal it ain't actually naked! yeah my mother never bought that argument...)
Anyway, there are a *lot* of anatomy books out there, and I'm sure you can find some which don't have tons of penises in them.
Well, we can save him some time looking for those very easily. ;-)
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=29171
Right in the first post of that thread.
Searched through some books and found that awile back I did buy a Anatomy book. But it was filled with more superhero-like anatomy. But it was still good. It wasn't all superhero-ish. It showed shadeing, a page with a muscle guide for men and females, even gave me advice on how the skeletal frame is on both of them. Its called "Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference for Comic Book Artists" (yeah, just found it again so there IS heros in it. :B) It's by Christopher Hart.
EDIT: I look at this book more closely and it Isolates and focuses in each chapter on how they are shaped, what they look like in a different perspective, and the bunching and contracting in some of the more active muscles. It's actually a little helpfull. When in the hell did i buy this book? I also found my book "FEAKS!" It's pretty much a book that i saw some werewolf drawings, animal gene spliced humans in. This book is a little helpfull. Not as the other one. This is one i might use when I have looked over the Christopher Hart one more closely.
NOBODY GIVES A SHIT! The point is, it's all in your head! Those people six feet away from you probably weren't even aware you even existed, let alone that you had an anatomy book in your hands.
Now if you were staring at the book pawing at yourself, you'd have a problem, but you weren't.
As it is NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT AN ARTIST LOOKING AT ANATOMY--MALE OR OTHERWISE.
Now given I have not read that particular book and there is a possibility that there is value to be had there- but for the love of Pete do not take it as your one and only source of information, I beg of you.
Check out Loomis, or Hogarth, or the Bridgman, something with some meat on it.
I mean, Hart doesn't even spell anatomy right on his own webpage. "Human Antomy"? ANTOMY?! Are you fucking kidding me, Christopher Hart?
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Thats the one I have. It's not a manga one. I saw those up there and thought I had done them.
Edit: Im not really "artistically inclined" but even I can see that those look like shit. I see those all the time and I think they looked like my 2004 drawings.
See, you're gonna have to get over this. It's not weird that you feel the way you do regarding this subject, but the fact of the matter is that you can't skip looking at naked men if you're seriously studying figures. Ppl in a book store don't care if you're looking at a book with naked ppl on it, browse the books at the store, but if you still feel embarrassed about it, study these things in your room.
Also, as far as studying goes, use your better judgment: If you draw a naked guy at school, you'll be made fun of. If you draw a naked woman in an old person's home, they'll probably think you're a pervert. Anticipate these things, don't use them as an excuse to not study.
Jesus, I just went on amazon.com and did the search inside link?
DO NOT USE THIS BOOK TO LEARN ANATOMY FROM. The figures on "The Muscles" pages are so far gone in exaggeration and proportion that taking it seriously at all is just going to fuck you up in developing really bad habits later on. You'd be doing yourself a favor by throwing that crap in the garbage, or donating it an arch-nemesis of yours.
Get a book that focuses on human anatomy. Not superhero anatomy, or manga dude anatomy, or anything "Xtreme" or "cutting edge" or "cool" or whatever. Plain 'ol fashioned people anatomy without any of the Liefieldian horseshit going on.
Please. PLEASE.
EDIT: WHY DO I KEEP LOOKING AT THIS GUY'S HORRENDOUS SHIT.
I AM MAKING MYSELF SO DAMN ANGRY.
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Go eat some pie.
I think that might be a little overly harsh (especially the Liefeld comparison...talk about a low blow!). I actually own this book myself (now, before I completely wreck my credibility, I also have several of Burne Hogarth's books, the Cyclopedia Anatomicae, and this book that I picked up recently, and have found to be excellent so far... http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Human-Body-Anatomical-Guide/dp/080695891X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-5553796-5245612?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186205804&sr=1-1
Now, while those muscle drawings are indeed greatly exaggerated...if you go and do a Google image search for pictures of bodybuilders, and then compare them to those drawings...they're not as far from reality as you might think. No, granted, bodybuilders are themselves often gross exaggerations of normal human anatomy. You wouldn't use the anatomy of a bodybuilder as a reference for drawing the anatomy of a person more normal proportions. So while I also wouldn't recommend that he use that book to learn anatomy, I think there are some useful nuggets of information in there for someone who has an interest in drawing superhero comics, already has a decent knowledge of human anatomy, and wants to learn how to exaggerate the anatomy in the way that comic books are generally drawn (just like a cartoonist would learn how to simplify human anatomy to draw cartoons).
Of course, the OP doesn't yet have a handle on the fundamentals, so I wouldn't recommend starting with that book. But I also wouldn't go as far as to say that he should throw it out.
Stop caring about what everybody thinks, in the genuine sense and not the Hot Topic sense.
And also start absorbing all the penis knowledge you can and just get fucking used to it, because if there's anything more obvious than putting a lot of penis in your drawings, it's meticulously avoiding all penis in your drawings.
Especially if you are drawing naked dudes and naked girls and the girls are all fully fleshed out but the dudes are all hazy in the groinal region.
And you know why everybody thinks you're drawing porn? Because you shy away and get all flustered when people see you drawing naked folk and you act like you're doing something naughty. You are afraid they think you are doing something naughty and therefore making it look like you are doing something naughty. See the hole it keeps digging?
Real world example: I was in my room browsing Domai (which I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, is also a good resource) and doing some figure practice. Some friends knock on the door and I forgot to shrink the window before I got up and let them in so I open the door and there's big ladybooty on the screen. Now instead of scrambling back across the room and yanking the plug out of my computer I just sort of left it there and guess what? Not a damn word.
Actually that's a lie they were all "Wha--hey wait a minute!" but then they saw the sketchbook and then not a damn word.
Am I getting the point across?
Alright actually I was reading an anatomy book while they were in close proximity and then a wiener appeared on one of the pages and BAM dickorgy. Can't explain it, man. Just, it was weird.