Real paint! I struggled simply using the tools I had to get what I was looking for, in the end most of what I like about the painting occurred as a result of happy accidents. Bob Ross always did make a lot of sense to me. Acrylics, copied a photo for the most part.
I've been drawing a lot during a Star Wars Roleplaying game my friends and I play. This is us escaping a star destroyer, after detonating an emp device that took the whole ship offline (but ours was shielded):
Later, we end up on Tattooine searching the Jakku canyons for a Sith temple.
We find the temple one night, a few days into our search, in a deeper portion of the canyon. The temple was a death trap. Probably a bad idea to go there, ultimately.
After that whole storyline, we went to Bespin. This is our Wookiee and Astromech characters visiting a museum of space oddities.
My character participates in a Cloudcar race while we're there!
Remember to try and diversify the sizes in each composition, rule of three etc. (small, medium, large)
Try this exercise on for a start: draw three boxes on a piece of paper. None of the measurements (from box to box, each box's individual length etc.) are allowed to repeat themselves. If you find one measurement that is very very close to another measurement, either fix it or start over.
You want to go for a dynamic composition, anyone can do a harmonic and symmetrical composition, dynamism is fucking hard.
I tried to do four in a row. Upon further review, I think only one really adhered to your assignment. You're right, this is hard. I'll try to keep that more in mind. Any other good exercises for this sort of thing that you can remember?
@m3nace After thinking about it for a while, I'm not entirely sure what to take away from your exercise. I guess that the main subjects of my compositions shouldn't be so uniform in size? Tried to apply this to my cloudcar drawing (shitty msPaint edit -- it DOES feel more dynamic. Fancy that):
More Star Wars RPG notes:
Revisited the cloudcar drawing, tried making it a bit more dynamic:
We completed a heist! We stole a gem from that museum you saw in the previous post and escaped, but our getaway shuttle had a bomb on it! One of us didn't make the jump to the safe platform, and only survived the fall through clever use of the force (cheating).
Also playing a DnD campaign, as a Dwarf fighter named Craic:
Probably some really fucked up perspective on this page:
Hiding from goblins in a cave with a lake. One of our party botches a hide roll, and a blind amphibious creature ambushes him, causing quite a ruckus.
And we fought an ogre! Our druid has a pretty baller entangle spell.
And quick portrait of a friend and a ball lighting practice page in which I do not actually ever successfully draw a ball.
It seems like environments are a strength of yours. It's fun to see all the different environments in your roleplaying drawings, but for some of them it seems like the wide angle is really not the best to show the action you are describing (such as the platform jump and the cave amphibian). Maybe try challenging yourself to draw different angles to highlight the story in the scene.
The pic of your parents is nice too, if a little low on contrast. It may have been nice to add a little richness to that, since you have a bit of artistic license to do so.
Thanks, Iruka! I agree on the contrast. It was semi-intentional, as the source was an old photograph and I wanted to maintain that look a little. I actually had the thing printed on canvas and it came out a lot more washed out than I'd intended. I need to get better about checking my art on multiple monitors.
I've also been doing a continuation on that space comic I'd posted in the 'Comixperimentation lab'. The style has shifted about a little, as is my wont.
Eventually I'm going to have him devise a way to circumvent the safety protocols to get out of the space station and onto the moon to die. Or maybe he tries and fails. Who knows? Not me, yet.
I like the space comic a bunch. I actually... dont mind where it ends now. I wish that there was just one more level of contrast, or that the shapes and the dialog were a little more designed as to maximize legibility.
The first two sketches from this last post are also nice. I think with just a little more control here and there, your work will be really solid. It has a really nice mood and charm to it, but sometimes the roughness gets in the way of reading the characters and shapes.
@Iruka Thank you for the feedback! I have no idea where I'll take the space comic, if anywhere. I'll probably end up revisiting the idea in some way or another, if not specifically this dude.
I'm not super confident in my linework on paper, having learned to draw primarily on a tablet (ctrl+z is cheating, and does not a draftsman make), so it ends up pretty rough, even if I know what I'm going for (also, impatient).
So I took a road trip across the US and back this summer. Took a few pictures. Thought I'd commemorate it by (digital) painting my favorite locations. These aren't final, and I'd love feedback on the forest in particular, but here are the first two!
Love that tree, dude! My only real suggestion is to clump some of the leaves together in a more clustered nature. It generally reads fine so I think its successful, but some distinct grouping will make it feel more like leaves on the tree.
It already looks a lot better! One thought would be to change up the value or opacity of some branches a little. The variation of that sort in the tree to the left looks very nice, and might add more depth to the main tree
That canyon painting is cool!
Another installment in my adventures in the Star Wars universe. We're on our second run through, new crew, new story. The two humans, Soot and Ash (myself and another player), are a couple of former clone troopers. We went AWOL shortly before Order 66, received gene therapy to slow down our accelerated aging, and (about 19 years later) have ended up on one of the many cities floating above the surface of Ithor. We own a restaurant called 'The Hydian Way' with the little one. She is a force sensitive Aleena orphan who we met on Ithor. She fronted much of the cash to start our restaurant. The droid in the kitchen is C00-K. He likes to burn things.
We make a habit of handing out flyers and coupons to anyone we meet, advertising our business.
After an unfortunate run-in with a false-flag terrorist group claiming to be fighting for the Rebellion, our investigation into the kidnapping of our friend Wa Haiga (at the hand of the terrorists) led us to the surface of Ithor (a place forbidden to all but native Ithorians). We infiltrated an archeological dig (run by the Empire) and stumbled into an underground Sith temple. Several statues attacked and would have killed us, were it not for a mysterious Ithorian hermit (of dubious alignment) living in the temple.
We later found ourselves in the sewers of our floating city, investigating a quarantined section in search of more information about our kidnapped friend. Things soon turned Jumanji.
More Star Wars RPG:
After escaping the wave of horrible mutated pincer bugs, we found our way to the central hub of the sewer -- the supposed source of the sith corruption. We came across a likely suspect and he attacked!
Fresh from barely defeating the dark force user, we discovered he was merely an apprentice to the true threat, who descended through the retracting dome ceiling, astride a sickly green dragon. Another desperate fight, many crits dealt, but the sith lord and the dragon both were eventually brought to the ground and defeated. A flamethrower features highly in the fight.
Ithor was saved! Sure, much of their floating city was destroyed, and several thousand citizens were made into unthinking rage zombies, but at least the sith lord was defeated. His force influence waning, those poor afflicted souls, creatures and otherwise, melted.
Later, on a search and rescue mission on another planet, we find ourselves in a cave, being accosted by a horrible crystal encrusted slug creature!
A friend and I have been having fun tossing around ideas for a Sam and Max type point and click little adventure game. I've been doing low resolution sketches to put some of our ideas down!
More DnD sketches! And a fully filled in character sheet! I've erased my health so many times that the shitty computer paper I used is now permanently smudged.
We started our adventure in a city built from crystal, in the middle of a lake. Its inhabitants were suffering from a wasting disease, affecting mostly elves. We tracked the source of the infection to a mansion owned by a warlock known for summoning and binding demons.
In investigating the demon binding, we were led to a sacred barbarian temple, where they worship 'demons.' We summoned one and fought it, but it turned out to be a god, not a demon, and rather than killing us it decided to assist. Can't be a god when all your followers die of disease!
The floating castle was a side mission we took on. We rescued some kidnapped knights and their warforged buddies from the nefarious Blessed Talon (terrorist group). Excellence is a medusa we know. He's been pretty helpful and friendly, always averting his remaining eye politely when dealing with us weak mortals.
Caddy is a warforged we met (and reactivated) in the floating castle, and he's wearing Drey's 'Cloak of Billowing,' which has no benefit whatsoever beyond cool factor -- he's also using Drey's old sword. The 'Fight the Talon Menace' poster was 'designed' by Anders (the warlock two posts up, in pen), who has taken on the role of Minister of Propaganda for a guild we've all joined called the Whistlers (hence the whistle below 'the'). Those bastard Talons will pay for what they've been doing! Those assholes! Strath is a tiefling druid.
I 'finished' an oil painting last night. Here's the initial sketch from months ago:
Here's the first oil draft, a week or so later, on canvas paper:
Last night I decided to buckle down and actually DO the damn thing, and this is what I did in a few hours. I'll be giving it to the intended recipient tomorrow! I might change some stuff tonight because I'm seeing some unintended messiness in the floor!
So that's kind of a fun progression. I learned how to use oil paints, that's also fun. I used SO MUCH WHITE, like holy shit, and all my linseed oil. And much of my brush cleaner. Anyway it's just a door, but if anyone manages to get a comment in before tomorrow, poitning out some huge mistake I haven't noticed yet, you might influence the final look! If not, just enjoy!
Posts
Later, we end up on Tattooine searching the Jakku canyons for a Sith temple.
We find the temple one night, a few days into our search, in a deeper portion of the canyon. The temple was a death trap. Probably a bad idea to go there, ultimately.
After that whole storyline, we went to Bespin. This is our Wookiee and Astromech characters visiting a museum of space oddities.
My character participates in a Cloudcar race while we're there!
Try this exercise on for a start: draw three boxes on a piece of paper. None of the measurements (from box to box, each box's individual length etc.) are allowed to repeat themselves. If you find one measurement that is very very close to another measurement, either fix it or start over.
You want to go for a dynamic composition, anyone can do a harmonic and symmetrical composition, dynamism is fucking hard.
@m3nace After thinking about it for a while, I'm not entirely sure what to take away from your exercise. I guess that the main subjects of my compositions shouldn't be so uniform in size? Tried to apply this to my cloudcar drawing (shitty msPaint edit -- it DOES feel more dynamic. Fancy that):
Revisited the cloudcar drawing, tried making it a bit more dynamic:
We completed a heist! We stole a gem from that museum you saw in the previous post and escaped, but our getaway shuttle had a bomb on it! One of us didn't make the jump to the safe platform, and only survived the fall through clever use of the force (cheating).
Also playing a DnD campaign, as a Dwarf fighter named Craic:
Probably some really fucked up perspective on this page:
Hiding from goblins in a cave with a lake. One of our party botches a hide roll, and a blind amphibious creature ambushes him, causing quite a ruckus.
And we fought an ogre! Our druid has a pretty baller entangle spell.
And quick portrait of a friend and a ball lighting practice page in which I do not actually ever successfully draw a ball.
trying to nail down a style for this comic that won't be too crazy time-consuming, but is still fun to look at
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Painted this as a christmas present for my parents. My dad's favorite photo of them:
detail of my dad's big dumb face:
And I've been (finally) making some of those western comics too!
I gotta figure out how to get a consistent look without feeling like I'm not learning.
The pic of your parents is nice too, if a little low on contrast. It may have been nice to add a little richness to that, since you have a bit of artistic license to do so.
I've also been doing a continuation on that space comic I'd posted in the 'Comixperimentation lab'. The style has shifted about a little, as is my wont.
Eventually I'm going to have him devise a way to circumvent the safety protocols to get out of the space station and onto the moon to die. Or maybe he tries and fails. Who knows? Not me, yet.
The first two sketches from this last post are also nice. I think with just a little more control here and there, your work will be really solid. It has a really nice mood and charm to it, but sometimes the roughness gets in the way of reading the characters and shapes.
I'm not super confident in my linework on paper, having learned to draw primarily on a tablet (ctrl+z is cheating, and does not a draftsman make), so it ends up pretty rough, even if I know what I'm going for (also, impatient).
I'll keep chuggin along!
A gift for a 3 year old:
This looks very Pixar :heartbeat::heartbeat::heartbeat:
That canyon painting is cool!
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
We make a habit of handing out flyers and coupons to anyone we meet, advertising our business.
After an unfortunate run-in with a false-flag terrorist group claiming to be fighting for the Rebellion, our investigation into the kidnapping of our friend Wa Haiga (at the hand of the terrorists) led us to the surface of Ithor (a place forbidden to all but native Ithorians). We infiltrated an archeological dig (run by the Empire) and stumbled into an underground Sith temple. Several statues attacked and would have killed us, were it not for a mysterious Ithorian hermit (of dubious alignment) living in the temple.
We later found ourselves in the sewers of our floating city, investigating a quarantined section in search of more information about our kidnapped friend. Things soon turned Jumanji.
I feel like you have the kind of lines where you could get away with some really nice ball point pen drawings, or fine tip micron pens.
I did hourly comics day again this year:
made a bookmark that was SFM (safe for mom)
a dog i got to hang out with
Arches national park. Sketched this on-site last summer -- i did not have the color markers i needed/wanted, so i made do
Museum sketches
DnD related sketches
After escaping the wave of horrible mutated pincer bugs, we found our way to the central hub of the sewer -- the supposed source of the sith corruption. We came across a likely suspect and he attacked!
Fresh from barely defeating the dark force user, we discovered he was merely an apprentice to the true threat, who descended through the retracting dome ceiling, astride a sickly green dragon. Another desperate fight, many crits dealt, but the sith lord and the dragon both were eventually brought to the ground and defeated. A flamethrower features highly in the fight.
Ithor was saved! Sure, much of their floating city was destroyed, and several thousand citizens were made into unthinking rage zombies, but at least the sith lord was defeated. His force influence waning, those poor afflicted souls, creatures and otherwise, melted.
Later, on a search and rescue mission on another planet, we find ourselves in a cave, being accosted by a horrible crystal encrusted slug creature!
A friend and I have been having fun tossing around ideas for a Sam and Max type point and click little adventure game. I've been doing low resolution sketches to put some of our ideas down!
More DnD sketches! And a fully filled in character sheet! I've erased my health so many times that the shitty computer paper I used is now permanently smudged.
We started our adventure in a city built from crystal, in the middle of a lake. Its inhabitants were suffering from a wasting disease, affecting mostly elves. We tracked the source of the infection to a mansion owned by a warlock known for summoning and binding demons.
In investigating the demon binding, we were led to a sacred barbarian temple, where they worship 'demons.' We summoned one and fought it, but it turned out to be a god, not a demon, and rather than killing us it decided to assist. Can't be a god when all your followers die of disease!
The floating castle was a side mission we took on. We rescued some kidnapped knights and their warforged buddies from the nefarious Blessed Talon (terrorist group). Excellence is a medusa we know. He's been pretty helpful and friendly, always averting his remaining eye politely when dealing with us weak mortals.
Caddy is a warforged we met (and reactivated) in the floating castle, and he's wearing Drey's 'Cloak of Billowing,' which has no benefit whatsoever beyond cool factor -- he's also using Drey's old sword. The 'Fight the Talon Menace' poster was 'designed' by Anders (the warlock two posts up, in pen), who has taken on the role of Minister of Propaganda for a guild we've all joined called the Whistlers (hence the whistle below 'the'). Those bastard Talons will pay for what they've been doing! Those assholes! Strath is a tiefling druid.
Here's the first oil draft, a week or so later, on canvas paper:
Last night I decided to buckle down and actually DO the damn thing, and this is what I did in a few hours. I'll be giving it to the intended recipient tomorrow! I might change some stuff tonight because I'm seeing some unintended messiness in the floor!
So that's kind of a fun progression. I learned how to use oil paints, that's also fun. I used SO MUCH WHITE, like holy shit, and all my linseed oil. And much of my brush cleaner. Anyway it's just a door, but if anyone manages to get a comment in before tomorrow, poitning out some huge mistake I haven't noticed yet, you might influence the final look! If not, just enjoy!
http://habitica.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ivan_Aivazovsky_Stormy_Sea_at_Night.jpg