Heya /draw/!I'm a bad artist. I don't draw nearly as much as I should; I'll go for months without drawing a single thing. Thus, all the knowledge I've learned in art class about anatomy, perspective, how cloth should hang, colors, etc. tends to degrade until I can't remember it very well. I'm attempting to build up a good drawing habit, so I've challenged myself to draw at least one character in my sketchbook, six days a week. This is my first week trying it out, so I was hoping you could give me some feedback on what I can improve on. If nothing else, you can tell me what to draw in upcoming weeks.If anyone wants to redline a particular piece, let me know and I'll throw up the somewhat larger individual scanned drawing.
You're not bad. The only thing that really stands out to me is the depth/perspective/presence/whatever it's called. It's most obvious in Deathbird and Ciru....that Arrancar chick. With Deathbird, it doesn't look like you lack an understanding of the proper balance or anything, just like it got away from you a bit. It would probably help you to avoid that sort of mistake by drawing a background, since you would have a constant frame of reference for the perspective to make sure she fits in it right.As for Circle Sandwich, The problem is mostly in the way the torso's bent. It looks like she should be bent toward the based on the shoulder placement, but the way the chest connects to the waist there doesn't look right for that to be the case.
Seconding the point that you're not all too bad. Little things like Arisa's eye being kinda off, or too long a forearm on Zenith Omega when your accounting for foreshortening. Other things... I'll hope to help you out with them more as I hope you continue your practice retinue. Keep drawing. Draw until it becomes muscle memory. And then draw some more.
oh man cirucci's head is like that pelican staring down that ladybut yeah, the art and detail is fine, it's the perspective you got a problem with.
try practicing figures that aren't in costume before adding costumes.
Ah, thanks guys for the feedback! I'll definitely work more on perspective for next week.>>28092I'm not sure what you mean, geers? I always build characters up from stick figures to body to costume.
>>28103I think he means draw nudes, so you can get a better understanding of musculature.
Alrighty, week 2. Tried to mix up some more perspective and poses, as well as bit of backgrounds.What I learned this week:I hate drawing trees/forests. (Takeru)Drawing muscular girls is hard. (Takeru)I will never figure out how to make lines in hair. (Erza)I love drawing non-humans. (Sam & Max, Sheep Man)As I said last week, I'd love to get any feedback to help me improve. I can provide larger versions of singular pictures to redline. I like posting them in groups like this, because I think it gives an advantage to critiques (you can see if there's a common problem in all of the pieces, or if it's a single goof-up)
>>28350Well, I'm no artist, but:Takeru's probably your weakest one here; her breastplate looks like its made of cloth, not lacquered armor, and she has no lips. You say you have a hard time with trees in the back, and I'd say the cure for that is to force yourself to keep making them. Yeah, it'll suck at first, but there you are.Ezra's expression is a little weak, but that may be because I am not familiar with the character. Your Sam and Max are brilliant, though. Hodiin's fire effects are really well done, too. Sheep Man's wool looks a little plasticy, but that might be a feature.
>>28350First thing I noticed is line quality. Learn to draw with a stiff wrist. Learn that you don't need to take your pencil off the paper so often (in fact, when I'm sketching I find it can sometimes throw me off if I have to take my pencil off the paper). This is especially noticeable in Erza's hair, where you've kinda lightly feathered or flicked it down- which stops it from looking long and flowing like hair should.And learn to draw a strait line, and use the curves in your shading to add mass (pic related). You're Hodinn is great because you used your curved lines to add mass. But given that, you can see how those same curved lines are detrimental to say, the black background in the image to the left, or the trees in the image to the right.Mind you, I think a lot of those problems will go away with more experience and confidence (so keep at it man). Though contour drawing practice (google it) will help.
>>28385Don't mind my constant repeating myself there either =P. Small textbox + going back and typing more in.I agree with the Sam and Max as well. Strange how the most freeform stuff (if that makes sense) always ends up looking the best.
>>28362>>28385Thanks! I really appreciate the critiques! I'll be sure to work on these points this week. Glad you guys liked the Sam & Max piece.
I hope you're not slacking off Mindwipe. Get cracking!
>>28733I'm still drawin', honest guv! I'm just not reliably near a good scanner.Although, I was near one long enough to scan Bones' birthday picture.
>>29120I AM BURSTING WITH EXCITEMENT!MINDWIPE, YOU AMAZING SO-AND-SO.
>>29120 Wow, thats really good. Perspectives hard as fuck to do, but ya pulled it of nicely.
>>29121>>29122Aw shucks you guys, I'm just glad you like it.
>>29120Simply awesome.
>>29120Pciture taken 0.2 seconds before I slammed into a building.
Okay! Now that I'm back near my scanner, let's try to get back in the swing of things.Trying to follow >>28385's advice from last time and use curves in my shading to add mass. I'm sure it's something I'll have to practice a bit before it starts looking correct. I'm also thinking I might want to figure out a shortcut to shading black clothes because I nearly wanted to cut off my hands after how long it took me to shade in the black using my mechanical pencil. I'm attempting to try and avoid taking my pencil off the paper so often, but it's a very bad habit I've had most of my life, so it isn't going away easy (It might also explain why I'm so abysmal at inking).Poses this go around are pretty meh. Each of the drawings I started with no real clear end goal in mind, so I think they suffered for it in that respect. I'm not sure what to do about posing except look at other drawings/pictures.As always, critiques and requests are appreciated.
>>30241You're making progress, keep it up. Just some general advice that comes to mind now, and I'll have a better squiz later.The using-curves/shading-to-add-mass thing is something I learned from Art Attack (a British kid's show) when I was young. Dude got you to draw carrots and trees by using curved lines.I don't draw with a mechanical pencil generally, so I can't relate. For large black areas I normally hold my pencil flat (if that makes sense) and shade like that.One activity someone suggested to me was to draw a Pacman level, without rulers or any aid, at a slow and steady pace. That might be good practice to learn to keep your pencil on the paper- Though it's really more an exercise of control than it is an exercise of gesture drawing.One last general tip that I've read about- And used to do constantly and still do occasionally, is to draw circles as a warm up. Just quickly go over a few circles of different sizes until your hand (well, rather your arm since you should be keeping your wrist stiff) feels limber enough.
>>29123Since you did that so awesome, and we have a good theme going, can we have The Amazing Spider-Anon versus The Dr. Goblin?
>>30344Sure thing! I'll get to work on it.
>>30346AWESOME!
I finally managed to get back home! Here's last week's sketches, along with Dr. Goblin's request. I'll post a larger version of that one next.
Here you go!Advice, criticisms, requests, are all appreciated.
>>30506>>30505Yes!Wonderful!
>>30506I love my "This is bullshit" face.
>>30506I actually squeed. In real life.
>>30559>>30558>>30553Glad you guys like it!
Whoops. Missed last week due to a mixture of snowstorm and law school shenanigans. Here's this week. I thought I'd try that thing where you only color in the highlights or something black and leave the rest blank, and its supposed to convey that the entire article of clothing is black. I had no idea what the technique is called, so I just looked at various artists who used it until I thought I could throw something together. I definitely think it has the potential to look nicer than just shading in the whole damn thing, but if anyone had any tips about it, I'd be grateful. All I know is that I have to keep in mind light sources and curves when determining what should stay white.Comments, critiques, requests are all encouraged.
>>30744Hey Mindwipe, your improvement is showing.
>>30745Oh Anonymous, when you say things like that you make me the happiest girl in the whole world~
I'm still doing it... sorta.I'd get like one or two sketches into each week and quit. I just lack time, ideas, and general talent. Thus, these go in the reject pile!
Eugh, only finished three this week.I feel like I've slipped backwards, or something. I'm not very happy with these sketches I've been churning out.As always, comments, critiques, requests are all encouraged.
Mindwipe, you should try posting some of your stuff on icrithttp://img.icrit.org/ic/
>>32146 Aw man, trying to get rid of me? But, seriously, I post here because this is where the artists I admire post (Psudo, Maye, Endpiece, @$$, Hellstroem, Coelasquid, and everyone else). I don't really see the point in getting to know a whole 'nother *chan.
Is it sad that I have more fun drawing the Serv Bots than I do trying to make a sexy Tron Bonne?Those legs bother the hell out of me. Ideas on what's wrong?
>>32210Everything past her knees seems kind of blocky and angular. Maybe it's just because of her shoes. If you remove the heels, it's easier to tell she actually has proper feet.
>>32218The problem is, she has these super-high heels. I tried toning them down a bit, but maybe that was a mistake...Actually, I never learned properly how to draw heels.
>>32219Well, good time to practice, at least.
>>32219I think the biggest problem is how flat the foot is and how chunky the heels are. Not the fact that they're big, but the way your drew them in particular.
Also, I just noticed that you changed the shape of her eyes. It really shifts her look around.
Cross-postanDid this for Nurse's Let's Play of Pokemon Platinum.
DerpJust a quick sketch based on an idea Bones and Hal had.
>>32553I could take him.
Cross-postan.I get the feeling I screwed up somewhere on the character on the left. I wire framed it out, but it still looks kinda awkward to me....
For Ferrous Fellow: "squirrel in an Ironman helmet"
For Spider: "a kitten"
Draw Belphegor getting hit on by Bloopy.
>>33244Oh! Alright. I'll have to do it when I get back from Yellowstone, though (I'm away from my scanner).
>>32218The leg doesn't really connect into the hip. I'm probably describing it poorly, but it kind of looks like a seperate part from the rest of her body.
>>33244D'oh, sorry it took me so long to get to this, Spreeses.Not that it matters anymore, right Nurse? Haw haw haw.
Bones' request: "Wes and White dicking around in an automotive garage."Reposted cuz I can't draw cars like at all.
>>33934For some reason I'm getting the feeling they're working on the Magic School Bus.
>>33908Awesome! Thanks!
Yeah, I need serious fucking help with digital artwork. I need to learn how to...(1) Digitally ink(2) ShadeIf anyone can point me to something that can help me out here, I'd be eternally grateful.
>>344431) Practice.2) Practice more.3) ???4) Profit!Okay, so that doesn't help much, does it? What are you inking with? Do you have a pressure-sensitive tablet?Draw at higher resolution for greater detail. You can reduce the image size/resolution later.Zoom in when inking for greater control.Zoom out to make sure everything is going okay.If you only have a fixed-size brush, the draw over the line again to add a line-weight. Change the brush size if you need to.Clean up and correct the lineart as you go, if you have to.What tool did you use to ink over the redline? Photoshop has an aliased 'pencil' tool and an anti-aliased 'brush' tool which has a smoother line.
>>34453I am drawing with a Wacom tablet, which is almost 10 years old at this point. One issue I've had with zooming in and inking is that the lines get squiggly. I heard that there are tools that help smooth out lines, but I'm not sure what they are (One person mentioned the program "Sai," but I'm fairly sure that's a Windows-only program).For the Redline, I used the pencil tool, and for the inking, I used the brush tool.
>>34443Well, if you were wondering how I did this...For a while, while doing quick sketches, I basically used two brushes in photoshop. A thin one and a thick one. And I'd set the thin brush to the pen tip, and the thick brush to the eraser. The only keyboard shortcut I would use was "X" which would switch the foreground and background colors.If you're just working on the background layer, then erasing anything there would use the background color. Essentially, I was using the eraser to switch between a thin brush and a broad brush and only having to tap "X" anytime I wanted to put down white or grey.It was very quick and put out decent looking stuff. But I've since dropped it. (probably not unrelated to doing fewer rapid fire requests these days)
>>34456I wasn't aware you could set different brushes to the tip and the eraser (currently, it paints with either end). I'll have to look into how to set up those shortcuts. They sound like pretty good timesavers.
>>34457It should default the other tip to erase when you install the driver.
>>34459...Actually, I had totally forgot that I had installed the driver that came with my tablet on a computer I owned about three models back. I did so and whaddya know, my tablet IS pressure-sensitive.Tried looking up some tutorials on how to ink, and zoomed in like >>34453. Used the old redline and inked over it again. Came out much better this time, I think, although it did take considerably longer (Though maybe you get faster with more practice). Well, I'm going to try making a new sketch tomorrow, at any rate. I still need to work on inking, and after I feel comfortable with it, I'll start looking at the shading techniques.
Hm. This pose wasn't very good. Still it was more interesting than an arms-crossed pose, and I think the inking came out better than before. Please let me know if you see anything in the process I could change up or fix.
>>34503A good point for posing is the way Disney artists do it.
>>34506 Thanks for the reference sheet, Free Glass. I always have a hard time coming up with poses. I'm about as creative as a... um... really uncreative thing. Anyways, after numerous attempts, I'll end this week with a haters-gonna-hate pose. Thanks for all of your help, everyone. I greatly appreciate it.
Messing around with the tablet some more this week! Decided to do a picture of Udo Jin-e, villain from Rurouni Kenshin (I've been reading through the manga lately). I think it came out pretty good for a single-color piece... any comments/criticisms welcomed.
Here's what I've done over the last two weeks since I started using my tablet again. Tell me where you think I can improve, what you like, what you don't like.If nothing else, next week I'll tackle practicing shading.
Here's the complete piece of fanart I did of Escapist Radio Theater.
>>34661And not a single one of those things ever happen in the actual comic... Thanks man, : )
>>34666Heh, that was the idea. And I'm glad you liked it.Also, I see I forgot to color certain areas (to be fair, I was working on this until 1am...)
This was the other idea I had.
Alrighty, day one of attempting soft shading! Feedback, tips, requests are all greatly appreciated.
Yeah, I'm totally overdoing this shading, I think. I think I need to go look up some more research tomorrow...
...Well, I suppose I shouldn't expect to get it in the first week, but I can't help but think I'm going about it all wrong...
And here we go! Not great, but better than last week at any rate.Comments, critiques, and advice about what I'm doing right/wrong are very welcome.
>>35100Zeigeist's face looks a tad flat, otherwise it's decent
>>35100I like how much Doopier your 2nd Doop is.
Ooookay. Well.Originally, I was trying to use complementary colors to shade (choosing a color for the light source, then going with it's opposite for the shading). Then I tried doing the shading I was using previously on the same picture. On Wednesday, the picture itself took too long to do, and on Thursday and Friday I was just so tired of making these pictures that I decided to try something simpler.Given that I have one more week before law school starts up again, the paper I want to publish this fall isn't finished, and these pictures can end up taking all day to finish (or they wreck my sleep schedule), I'm not entirely sure where to go with this challenge now.As always, Critiques and advice are always appreciated.
Derp. I'm sorta phoning it in now that school has started and I have less time.Still, gotta keep drawin'...