Hey guys!
Nice to meet you, I'm Tim. I'm aiming to become an illustrator/comic book artist.
I started drawing a couple years ago, and I really want to start pushing myself to become as good as I can be. Problem is...I don't really know how to go about that, aside from practicing, of course. Due to my schedule, I can only realistically get in 3-4 hours a weekday, so I hope that's enough.
Here's some recent stuff I've done:
Digitally Inked
Traditionally Inked
Oils
Oil studies from life
Any help/critique you can give would be awesome!
Posts
Thanks! I definitely don't do it enough...
That's what I ended up doing today actually, but I haven't done anything from life in probably close to a month. That's definitely a change I need to make, I know how important that is.
I realized as I was working on this that I completely forgot about reflected light, namely on the cylinder of the camera lens. Unfortunately by that point I'd laid in a heavy value and couldn't pull it out. Guess I need to analyze a little more before I leap into it.
20 hours a week is pretty good if you actually stick with it. I would keep rotating between fun relaxing work and studies of some sort. the noahs art camp threads (thread 1)(thread 2) are good for ideas for general improvement exercises. You can also check out our enrichments: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/196641/enrichment-directory#latest
For books, scott robertsons "How to Draw" and "how to render" are insanely technical books, but good to have around for reference when trying to gain these early structural skills.
Hmm, I think it may need to be tilted downward to be more in line with her arm.
Thanks for looking.
Thanks Iruka, I'll definitely check those out. I'm guessing it would be more beneficial to get the videos to go along with the art camp assignments?
I've decided that I'm setting my sights on working for Blizzard entertainment, so I really want to push myself to get to that point.
Couple more form studies (I see I need constantly changing file names to post things or the system rejects them, good to know)
Mini-Deathwing statue still-life that I'm working on.
Just looking at it like this I can tell that the size of the eyes are incorrect, and that the far one isn't receding into space correctly, giving the face a flatter look. I'll have to resolve that.
I wasn't sure if I wanted to post my comic pages here, but hey! Why not.
From what I can see in the comic, it looks like a good layout. The proportions seem well done. The poses, though technically correct, seem a bit stiff. You seem to be getting into drawing for life. Have you thought of just taking a sketch book outside and quickly draw people walking by; not detailed drawings, just gestures to try and capture how they move their bodies and what the line of action and weight are?
This is looking good ^ ^
Scrapped the old version and tried again, really tried to focus on the angles and forms.
Little taller than it should be compared to the width I think, but I think I came a lot closer than the first attempt.
That dragon study looks pretty good. If you're having trouble with proportions, make sure that at the very beginning of your drawing you are focused on nailing the biggest planes possible. In this case, my first move would have been to draw the 2 big rhombuses that make up the 2 sides of his face, and then the big triangle that points down on top of them (making up the top of his head/horns). Three big simple shapes, not broken down into form at all, but when the dimensions and angles of those are locked in your proportions are correct from the get go, instead of noticing it's too tall after you've put in all the work already! It's really worth it time-wise to take care with that first step. It's all about making things easier on yourself! Having some big shapes that are correct then makes it easier for you to start placing the features because you'll have more to reference for their placement. You gradually place smaller and smaller shapes in the already-accurate larger ones until you have a nice refined drawing. Like carving your forms from a block of wood, you need the big planes there first.
Putting those same shapes over your drawing makes it easier to see what's off. (Even though I understand that the photo might be from a slightly different angle than you were drawing)
Keep up the good practicing!
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