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guromonsterboy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hello, everyone! Thank you for taking the time to look at my thread, you can call me JR, I am from Singapore, and I am committed to improving my art so please take a look and let me know what you think I can do to improve, if anything is wrong with my thread, let me know and I will edit it.
My goal as an artist is to be an illustrator. I want to improve my story-telling skills in my illustrations and designs and also my technical skill in drawing and painting.
I graduated with a local diploma in animation, on the way to possibly going into a degree course this year. I do too much practicing, studies instead of proper illustrations, I feel like I need to change that too.
I have been drawing since I was around 17/18, I started with Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and moved onto Loomis books and many other books and videos but I still feel I have a lot of problems with how I draw and wish to confront those problems.
I started out really wanting to have a nice realistic painterly style like Andrew Loomis, Craig Mullins, Norman Rockwell, J.C Leyendecker, John Singer Sargent, Alex Ross and I still do in a way but I felt like I was hitting a wall wanting to be too photo-realistic, copying a photo and failing to be photo-realistic really brought me down, instead of interpreting it my own way like those artists I admire.
I also really like anime/eastern style like Granblue Fantasy's art, Pablo Uchida, Kim Jung Gi, etc. I wish to try a blend of the two or really go one way or the other, I am still rather confused about this area. I still wish to have a nice painterly style but I feel like I am too hung up on making my painting like the photo that I back off easily and so felt like an anime style would be better/easier for me. I feel as long as I can be happy with what/how I draw, any style, realistic, cartoony or anime is ok.
I will start with recent stuff, portrait and food studies done with references, I have lost the reference photos but I think any errors can be seen without them.
Environment/landscape art done with references.
Part of a Draw 100 challenge I wanted to do for hands, started yesterday.
Some recent illustrations with some gore-ish themes, done with no refs.
Some sketches and Inktober 2016 stuff.
Left two are how I sketch from photos and right two are explorations in how I want to draw from imagination. Still trying to find what I want to do.
Other older master studies, colour and value/comp studies of famous paintings.
Sorry for the wall of text and probably badly-sized images, thank you for taking the time to read some if not all of it and see my art, I look forward to your feedback, critiques and suggestions. I will try to keep this thread up weekly, taking everyone's suggestions and seeing what I can do over the week.
My goal as an artist is to be an illustrator. I want to improve my story-telling skills in my illustrations and designs and also my technical skill in drawing and painting.
I graduated with a local diploma in animation, on the way to possibly going into a degree course this year. I do too much practicing, studies instead of proper illustrations, I feel like I need to change that too.
I have been drawing since I was around 17/18, I started with Betty Edwards book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and moved onto Loomis books and many other books and videos but I still feel I have a lot of problems with how I draw and wish to confront those problems.
I started out really wanting to have a nice realistic painterly style like Andrew Loomis, Craig Mullins, Norman Rockwell, J.C Leyendecker, John Singer Sargent, Alex Ross and I still do in a way but I felt like I was hitting a wall wanting to be too photo-realistic, copying a photo and failing to be photo-realistic really brought me down, instead of interpreting it my own way like those artists I admire.
I also really like anime/eastern style like Granblue Fantasy's art, Pablo Uchida, Kim Jung Gi, etc. I wish to try a blend of the two or really go one way or the other, I am still rather confused about this area. I still wish to have a nice painterly style but I feel like I am too hung up on making my painting like the photo that I back off easily and so felt like an anime style would be better/easier for me. I feel as long as I can be happy with what/how I draw, any style, realistic, cartoony or anime is ok.
I will start with recent stuff, portrait and food studies done with references, I have lost the reference photos but I think any errors can be seen without them.
Environment/landscape art done with references.
Part of a Draw 100 challenge I wanted to do for hands, started yesterday.
Some recent illustrations with some gore-ish themes, done with no refs.
Some sketches and Inktober 2016 stuff.
Left two are how I sketch from photos and right two are explorations in how I want to draw from imagination. Still trying to find what I want to do.
Other older master studies, colour and value/comp studies of famous paintings.
Sorry for the wall of text and probably badly-sized images, thank you for taking the time to read some if not all of it and see my art, I look forward to your feedback, critiques and suggestions. I will try to keep this thread up weekly, taking everyone's suggestions and seeing what I can do over the week.
+2
Posts
Welcome! Nothing is wrong with your thread, so no worries there.
Realism is difficult, but the fact that your striving for it despite the frustration is great. All of these names indicate that you are looking at art alot, which is also a really good habit.
I'm guessing your animation program was not very focused on fundamentals, which is pretty common. You might benefit from looking into some online classes. Sometimes more direct feedback helps us break through our hangups, where books and videos never have a hard time changing our perception of what we actually put down on the page. We have a big list of online courses here: http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/196620/online-art-class-reviews-and-masterpost/p1?new=1 its by no means complete, but may help you look at whats out there.
As for your work itself. You seem to have sort of chunky strokes that aren't well blended, but it doesn't seem intentional. I'm curious as to if you are using a very small tablet, and low resolution files when you paint.
When working digitally, in Photoshop or otherwise, you have to work a little to make the tool work for you, which means trying different brushes and working on your settings to get the results that best suit your needs. I made this a while ago:
Which maybe something to think about. If you want a visible stroke in your work, that's fine, but right now it seems a bit haphazard and messy.
If you are only spending 45minutes to an hour on a study, you may have to consider some longer sessions. To get a truly realistic result might take you a while, and I'd encourage you do do your best to be accurate over being fast. Your paintings all feel like the begging of something and not a finished work, and I think the extra time forcing yourself to refine and observe will better highlight where you need work.
You may want to watch this proko stream on shading:
it also has a lot of q&a In it.
Other videos of his would probably help as well:
I'm sure other people have more to say, but I hope that gets you started!
Yeah I am still striving for it, it has been rather frustrating in it's own way. But I definitely feel that at least the grinding for it really pays off in terms of fundamentals and painting in general.
Thank you for the resources! Yeah, direct feedback will probably help more, I was definitely planning to sign up for a 1-year Schoolism or proko course to go alongside my degree course and really get into it rather than just the usual free stuff and the usual Loomis books. For the direct feedback part of like the more expensive Schoolism courses I believe I will get into it in time.
Yeah I really have no idea about those chunky strokes that aren't well blended I really want them gone too, hahahah, I do have a medium size Wacom Bamboo tablet from many years ago but it is sizeable enough to not be a problem and when I paint it is 300dpi I believe? I don't know if it's me trying to resize the image files to make it fit better on a forum page causing it but it should not be, seems like this is a problem that is caused from the very start because of the way I paint or the brush, IDK.
Hmm, yeah I should go deeper and do something like that I tried to go back to basic round brushes rather than the random one I got that was like from a top digital painter, hard to say if there's any real changes, but I will try to make something like you did to make sure I get the most out of my software.
I am not too sure but I think the visible strokes in my work might me wanting to be like Leyendecker and have that nice layering effect with strokes across the forms but definitely have not got that down yet so it looks not refined or well-thought out.
That's a good point about working longer on a study, I will try to go way past an hour and force myself to really try and power through and observe more properly, I will also make sure I keep the photo for better reference/feedback.
Thank you for the videos! I will make sure to draw alongside them to fully comprehend depth and form which is something I also want to work on now.
For now, I have done these in the past week.
I will leave these un-resized and see how that goes, I want to improve my digital linework too so there's that to look at.
More hands for Draw 100, I broke past a 100 at this point.
Another food study with the photo.
And progress shots of an illustration I want to do, like I want to do at least one original non-study work per weekly post here. Want to work on digital linework a lot too and anatomy proportions and clothing.
Thanks for taking a look!
So far, I haven't sort out my brush stuff doing those examples yet. I have watched the Proko videos and made notes and I have done a longer study further on in this post.
100+ feet, I decided to change the way I do line quality according to the proko video but only halfway through these, like thinner lighter lines recede, thicker darker lines come forward. Still not resized if need be just let me know.
I also tried to apply the same theory to the previous work and improved that.
Here's a longer study I have done, in total around 3-4 hours and the process.
And here's some doodles from imagination trying to get the way I draw heads down better.
I will look at tweaking my brushes and do the examples soon.
Thanks!
I tried to test out the brushes I had, I am not too sure what I was actually going for here, I felt not that much difference but I learn about rotating the brush for edge control in digital painting recently so I will try that out more and I found out more about the brushes I had on hand.
Here's the illustration I was working on coloured with the line layer one and the one without, still working on it.
Here's a study I gave up on and will return to properly another time because I did not do the groundwork proper and so the study did not look like the photo.
Thanks!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=GOuIgevbHs8
So, basically the first exercise he mentions is looking at something from a certain angle then drawing it from another angle, then turning the studied object to the same angle as the drawing and check the drawing against it.
I only saved the pictures for the latest study I have done. All of my assumptions were wrong, hahaaahah. I assumed/extrapolated based on the front view of the object all the other views/angles for all of these.
I also more or less finished up my previous illustration so having something not a study done is nice, I will move on to another illustration instead of noodling away at this same one all the time.
Thanks!
And a roughly 3 hour including sketch study that I might meddle with more to make it look more like the photo. Used some new brushes for this.
Thanks!
I worked more on the study and I think this is the closest I can make it, I can still see how different it is but I think I got what I needed out of it and I can move on.
Here's a comparison to last time, I feel like I always make heads too big and too wide and I never catch myself doing it, I will have to remind myself of that in the future.
As I mentioned, I want to set a plan where I follow Proko's playlist and start to rework and revise things so I decided to start and revise the way I draw gesture which is usually very fast and very scribbly and instead try to follow Proko and make them more studious and clean.
Thanks!
Thanks, yeah being more free feels better for me, I am always too structured, lolol.
Here's some more stuff I have done this week/really only today, hahah. Following Proko's playlist.
Gestures
Beans
And a 30min quick sketch from imagination just to do something other than studies.
Thanks!
I don't know about me having that talent but I think practice over time helps to get faster, I did have actual figure drawing education/modules in a course before so like I am just building up from there/revising things more proper. I think working on gesture/short poses to practice getting the whole pose fast will help. I also have a problem with proportions at times but continued revision should minimize that problem enough.
Continuing through the Proko Playlist.
Structure: Basic Structure with boxes, cylinders or spheres and drawing animals with that groundwork
Landmarks of the human body.
The robo-bean, building on top of the bean from the previous time.
So far it's gesture (use CSI lines more, use less lines), bean, structure (work on boxes), landmarks (remember the bony joints) and robo-bean at least touched upon. Next is Mannequinization of the human body and going back to these topics one more time. Then onto the anatomy playlist I think.
Thanks!
Hahahah, I don't know about that, but if that were true, if at the rate I am going right now I will take 9 years, I better draw more, lololol. Draw enough to cut that time in half hopefully.
Here's a look behind the curtain I want to show of how much time I have spent in Photoshop since 29th of December 2016 till now. I recorded this using a work app.
So like at the rate I am going if it will take 9 years I would want to draw more to reach that level faster or at least to some levels below where it's still of a hire-able quality, hahahaha.
Regardless, doesn't feel right doing a post without art so the 21mins I spent today is on these robo-beans.
Thanks!
Mannequinization stuff
And majority of the 4 hours I spent in Photoshop today was trying to make this look like the colleague I am painting this for.
Thanks!
Got more mannequinization stuff done and also found the option only in the last few to make my brush size pressure sensitive so I can control my lines better, hahah.
Also quickly painted out something to not only keep doing studies from photos still a WIP
Thanks!
Did some more work on this illustration from the last time.
Painted and sketched something else.
Lost where I was at regarding photo reference with the mannequinization stuff so some overlap with the previous stuff.
Thanks!
Did not manage to draw at all this week except today so just 3 mannequinization images, will start on Proko's anatomy playlist proper tomorrow.
Thanks!
Managed to do quite a few things this week following Proko's video playlist.
Simplification of joints.
Pelvis studies.
Spine studies.
Rib-cage, spine and pelvis studies.
Scapula studies.
Pecs invention and trace-over.
I will work on having more confident/clean lines next time I do studies, as I uploaded these look pretty rough up-close. As I never bothered to zoom-in and clean it up or do it confidently/less messily in the first place.
Thanks!
Some of these are too messy to really crit thoroughly, slowing down and resolving any perspective and porportion issues is probably a worthwhile endeavor. Doing 5 accurate drawings way slower generally sticks with me more than trying to do 20 drawings way fast. Unless you are doing gestures, dont rush the process.
Make sure you are watching his critique videos, too.
Sorry to say I have nothing to post for this week/(for me) last week, I had a university interview then got food poisoning after for the better half of the week, hahahah. I will have something this week though.
Thanks, Iruka! Yeah I also tend to not bother zooming in and just really roughing it in and calling it done cause it looks good zoomed out and decide to move on with the videos more quickly, I will slow down and do more accurate slow drawings rather than doing them fast or loosely instead.
I will watch and draw along his critique videos as well!
Thanks, SeveredHead! I am falling into the only doing studies and not illustrate anything trap again but I hope when I get back into it, it will help me draw stuff from my imagination more easily.
even using some reference when you do character work can really help, i put a naked person (with a similiar body type of the character im doing) on my reference page just so my dumb brain doesn't forget how bodies are supposed to look.
Ahh, yeah I can see your point. I will see if I can build up a reference library of different body types for reference.
Here are some technically older stuff from the Proko playlist, focusing on drawing breasts from last week just before the food poisoning, hahah.
Here's a revision run-down after watching the critique videos, so mostly the same as the last post with hopefully better line quality I will compare across and see how I can continue onward with the Proko playlist.
Spine
Pelvis
From imagination, quite a few problems here, I will have to revise pelvis anatomy.
Rib-cage
Shoulder bones
Thanks!
Here are some more stuff I have done.
Abs
Abs from photos
Obliques
Shoulder muscles purely from invention/imagination
Revision of the studies focusing on the breasts after watching the critique video
Thanks!
Lower Back:
Upper Back:
Neck:
Hey @Iruka, I resized in my first ever post here but I stopped with the second post and asked if that's ok if not let me know? But had no reply so I just saved it at A4 canvas size for everything till now, also nobody actually said anything till now even though I haven't resized for like every post since the second one which would be like around 17 posts by now so I assumed it was fine? Reading back I also had trouble resizing while maintaining quality. So sorry about that but thanks for letting me know though, better now than later I guess.
I didn't get much done last week, settling Degree Course acceptance paperwork and bank loans. I also don't know at what size I should resize without losing quality and still compile lots of drawings together because when I zoom in onto these, they get pixelated fast? I saved for web at maximum quality jpeg with height 1000 px.
Arm bone tracing
Hand Bones
Thanks!
I didn't post last week because I was preparing for a week long army reservist period which was last week so I am sort of combining two unproductive weeks together.
Arm muscles
Hands with hand bones only reference
Hands from imagination.
All resized do let me know if it's resized wrongly! With these I have hit the end of Proko's playlist so I am going to rehash everything and also move onto more fundamental painting exercises.
Thanks.
These last sketches both show a lot of promise and some major pitfalls, mostly in proportion and structure. The last image, for instance, seems to lack a palm that's properly sized for those massive fingers. A little more time spent measuring and observing will probably help.
Ok! I know to resize to that size now and I have all the old images so when I have the time, I can go back in and edit all the old posts too to make the thread better.
The last batch of sketches were all from imagination but I did ended up looking at my own hand from time to time so I will take note of that. Thanks!
Hands from reference.
Grey-scale painting from reference, roughly 15 mins each.
I have more greyscale stuff done, tried to go back to more fundamental stuff to do a once over.
Arms with reference
Heads with reference
Still life with reference
Thanks!
Ok! Thanks!
Did more monochromatic studies of metal, glass and ceramics.
Thanks!
Monochromatic still life
And coloured portraits
Thanks!