First post here, lemme have it!

Modred189

Hehe, joking of course. Here is my first post to the PA forums, and I was looking for some constructive criticism. PA is a different audience than I am used to (My DA account page: http://modred189@deviantart.com ).... more comic-oriented. My work is a little different than a lot of people I know. I have inspirations in anime/manga, classical.modern artists as well as truly modern fantasy artists (Michael Whalen being my favorite). Most of my work is in graphite, tho I am getting into digitally coloring them.


World of warcraft drawing I did over the summer. ~3hrs.


My submission to the PA Child's play contest. ~2 hrs, pencil doodles for each, and colored with photoshop elements.


Dragons, I draw dragons on and off all the time. Between dragons and robots, I always come back...


The graphite original. ~2hrs.


I also do a little photomanipulation when I have time. ~5hrs, Photoshop CS



Please forgive the scans, they are terrible and muddy my drawings, but I am too cheap to invest in a new one.
Thanks in advance for any input!

Also, if you are a deviantart member, check out my site: http://modred189.deviantart.com :twisted:

TwoRightFeet

I really dig the last piece. The baseball seamlessly fits into the building, like the display case of an 800-foot-tall baseball fanatic for their autographed ball...

tynic

Your pencils are assloads better than your coloured stuff. The rocks the dragon is sitting on look like some kind of crusty paper bag.

Also your sig is miles too big, just FYI. 500x80 max.

saltiness

The photomanip one looks pretty cool, I just don't get why there's shadows on the outside of the pillars holding the baseball.

Modred189

tynic- yea, my digital stuff is really new, last year or so. Also being the time during which I have no free time to work on it :-P
Thanks for the heads up on the sig, I slapped my normal forum sig in there before reading the rules thread and forgot to change it before posting.

Saltiness... I know what you mean about the shadows, especially since they don't go all the way to the top of the walls/pillars. I wanted a nice darkening near the top, ominous-like, but for some reason i stopped. I think I had to turn it in... The idea behind the picture was that baseball was once held up on this tall pillar of "America's Game", but since all this stuff has occurred, baseball's image is a little tarnished. Hence the darker image, and the sick pollution-like hue to the sky.


And a cookie for the first person who can identify that building!

Lemming

Also - his name is Twisp, not Catsby :P

Modred189

Are you sure? 'cause I was under the impression his little demon looking buddy was Twisp.... ah well, i didn't win anyway!

Lemming

Modred189 wrote:

Are you sure? 'cause I was under the impression his little demon looking buddy was Twisp.... ah well, i didn't win anyway!

Nope! That's part of why it's funny.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/04/07

MKR

This is an excellent first post.

Also, welcome to my dA watchlist. :P

Modred189

Lemming.... rofl. i stand corrected! Only the PA guys would purposefully name them backwards.... just to confuse me like 2 and a half years later.
Wow...it's been that long...

MKR... thanks for the +watch on DA. I will have to chek your stuff out. However, your flapping laptop/wordprocessor avatar bothers me...lol.

Modred189

Oh, and tynic... fixed the sig, Thanks again for the heads up!

paulwind

Your pencil stuff and your photomanip are pretty darn good. Definitely keep going with those. Also, try and draw from life--look at magazines, get your friends to pose for you, whatever it takes. It seems like you're on the right track, just keep it up. Also, don't forget backgrounds!

Man, I was not expecting this at all, I was just about to give up on all posts by new people.

The One Dark Knight

RAWR


FLAMES/BITING CRITICISM INBOUND


First things first.

These aren't too bad. The values at least, are fairly good on the dragon, and the pencil work on everything is pretty good. However, there's quite a few things that you need work on.


First off, I can't say this more:

L2 ANATOMY BETTER

It's something that everyone could work on consistently. If anything, it's the number one criticism I find myself giving out. I'm mainly going off the (presumably female) elf in the first piece. The pose is just really awkward. Actually, both poses are fairly unnatural. The waist is ridiculously thin, she seems like her neck should be breaking, and her left leg appears shorter than her right one.



It seems to me that your #1 problem here is you appear to have no sense of form. Everything just looks really flat - the folds don't work right and seem inverted. The rock that the dragon is climbing up looks, frankly, terrible. If anything, adding the values in is just going to make things look worse until you learn how to better understand form.


Form is the shape of everything. It helps your drawings appear 3d instead of staying flat and lifeless. If you don't have a good sense of it, everything seems like it's on the same plane, which seems to be the problem you have.

The dragon is actually fairly good (not the rock, but the dragon itself). You can clearly see the component shapes and it looks a lot better than the first drawing you posted.


I'd really have to see more to get into specifics, but that's what I have for now.

I don't think you suck, I just think (as always) there's room for improvement.


Also, the comic isn't really that funny




BUT


That photmanipulation is actually pretty damn good and fairly awesome

Modred189

TODK, Thanks for the feedback. Constructive.
The good thing is that most of your complaints have to do with things that I did fairly quickly (i.e. the comic and the coloring of the rocks.)
And yea, the elf looks odd. She was an afterthought that didn't work out as planned. An odd thing is that the pose on the undead warlock on the right is FROM the game.

Thanks for the comment on the dragon. I find with my pieces that I HATE backgrounds and I slack off on them, I get bored with them. I know that kind of ruins things, but ah well. Just look at the first pic for proof.


And the comic? Funny? No. Cathartic? Definitely. lol

PinkNova

Very nice shading, but the color needs a little work with the lighting.

Ravenshadow

First when using color do not, i repeat, do not shade with black and highlight with white. Use variations of the original shades.

Second anatomy anatomy anatomy. Your pencil skills are decent you just need some better anatomy.

The photo manip is cool.

Nothing in this thread sucks, but nothing really stands out either. Keep practicin' looks like your headed in the right direction.

Modred189

Thanks for the comments, raven. I don't use black at all in any of my pieces. There's some outlining in the comic, but no black shading. All of my shading is done with Burn/dodge and smudge.

Also, a note for all on the colored pieces, they were done with photoshop elements 3.0 and my Wacom graphire 6X8

Ravenshadow

Modred189 wrote:

Thanks for the comments, raven. I don't use black at all in any of my pieces. There's some outlining in the comic, but no black shading. All of my shading is done with Burn/dodge and smudge.

Also, a note for all on the colored pieces, they were done with photoshop elements 3.0 and my Wacom graphire 6X8

yeah, stay away from burn and dodge. Use a low opacity brush to lay down blocks of color and use the color sampler to smooth things out. You'll get a much better affect.

Gachamecha Athlete

paulwind wrote:

Man, I was not expecting this at all, I was just about to give up on all posts by new people.

Aw shucks! :oops:


Modred189
The mountain the dragon is climbing looks more like melted glass or something, ruining an otherwise great picture.

My favorite is the building. But I'd make the sky look cloudier and darker.

And- Jack Thompson's face looks disturbing and disproportioned.. Not that he deserves to be portrayed with any dignity...

Modred189

And- Jack Thompson's face looks disturbing and disproportioned.. Not that he deserves to be portrayed with any dignity...

Was I that far off?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b352/ThePantsAssociation/jackthompson.jpg

MKR

Modred189 wrote:

And- Jack Thompson's face looks disturbing and disproportioned.. Not that he deserves to be portrayed with any dignity...

Was I that far off?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b352/ThePantsAssociation/jackthompson.jpg

The chin is a bit too thick, and he doesn't look pissed off enough.

Gachamecha Athlete

Modred189 wrote:

And- Jack Thompson's face looks disturbing and disproportioned.. Not that he deserves to be portrayed with any dignity...

Was I that far off?

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b352/ThePantsAssociation/jackthompson.jpg

Fix the chin, it looks like its sliding off to the left. And give him more an expression, instead of that blanked-out one he has. He should look more disgruntled. The rest of the comic is fine.