Things Nobody Else Will Tell You (About Your ART)

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Snail
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Post by Snail »

Image

Far from being done as of yet (as I'm sure you can see - no mouth.) It's the first time in quite a while that I've tried to draw a portrait so I'm a bit stuck at the moment.

<a href="http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x156 ... Tysene.jpg"> Reference</a>
<a href="http://sokpuppets.smackjeeves.com"><img src="http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x156 ... -full2.png" border="0" alt="SOK Puppets"></a>

Polerin
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Post by Polerin »

Nose could probably use a left nostril... unless it's much bigger than it is in the pic the tip likely wouldn't cover it. I'll be interested in seeing how the mouth turns out in that style (which I like btw)

-edit-
Ah, didn't see the reference photo. The eyes need to be a little bit smaller and closer togeather, which should help the nose issue a lil. The head is a lil wide as MM said, but I still like the general style.
\
Last edited by Polerin on Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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MixedMyth
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Post by MixedMyth »

That's a really interesting shading style! Hmm. Off hand, my major two crits are that the hair needs to be more spikey...and in more directions, rather than coming to a point. Also, I think the face is a little too wide if you're sticking to the photo.
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Sincerely
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Post by Sincerely »

I think I managed to get all of the anatomy problems minimized. Tell me how wrong I am:
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Post by Polerin »

sincerely wrote:I think I managed to get all of the anatomy problems minimized. Tell me how wrong I am:
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only thing I notice is that the hip on viewer's left looks a little small.

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Turnsky
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Post by Turnsky »

here we go, inking attempt #2
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ignore the wings, i really shoulda tried to ink something far less complex overall, maybe later =p
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Mvmarcz
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Post by Mvmarcz »

All I can say is

No they don't brush pens rule!!!!!!

The leg in the foreground seems rubbery to me.
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Doombug
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Post by Doombug »

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For some reason my eyes tend to drift to the right, so all my pictures of faces end up hopelessly lopsided. I don't even realize until I turn them around. Does anyone have any ideas on how to avoid this?
And yes, she is half blonde half brunette. :P

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Post by Sincerely »

I usually turn my pictures upside-down while I'm working on them to check alignment. Or draw them upside-down and then discover that they're horribly mutilated when I right them, and fix it from there.
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Bohemian
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Post by Bohemian »

I'm trying really hard to get my comic up, and this looks like a great topic.

I'm trying to produce comics as efficently and quickly as possible while still having them look nice and have a distinctive look to them. So I employed heavy use of cross-hatching and really cranked up the sketchyness of my sketch-heavy style.

I'm not a very good inker at all, and I tend to go overboard with colors and such if given the chance, so I'm trying black and white which I think suits me more.

Here's a sample comic. Tell me if you think the super-sketchy style is working. Be brutal, please!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v612/ ... orum-1.jpg

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Jesusabdullah
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Post by Jesusabdullah »

My opinion on sketchy styles in general, from my own experiences: It's easy to get to this point where you try to pass off sketchy sketches as finished art because it's quicker/easier, and then rationalize by convincing yourself that it looks better than it actually does. I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case with you, but definitely watch out for that.

As far as the actual piece itself: The art looks okay to me, even though it is sketchy (better than mine fo' sho'), but I really really wish there were real frames. I can't really tell what's going on otherwise.

Edit:
Doombug wrote:For some reason my eyes tend to drift to the right, so all my pictures of faces end up hopelessly lopsided. I don't even realize until I turn them around. Does anyone have any ideas on how to avoid this?
Do you draw your noses first? When this happens to me, it's because I center the end of the nose where think the nose should go, but because the angle's a little to the side, the part where the nose actually connects to the head gets shifted over, and then the eyes, being drawn relative to that, get shifted as well. If that's the case with you, maybe try drawing the eyes first, or try drawing the base of the nose first, and then put the actual structure on top of that.

Did that make sense?

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Post by Johndar »

This is a picture I sketched up randomly, and I wouldn't mind some crits. I was going for stylized anatomy, but I'm not going to use that as a defense, just throwing it out there. I already see some things wrong with it myself but I'd like to see what the good folks on this forum think.
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Keffria
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Post by Keffria »

Sorry for taking so long to respond to everyone's helpful advice. Sin, you're right and I am an idiot - the super-impressive sunrises I was looking at generally didn't have, erm, an actual sun in them yet. I've made some colour- and balloon-related changes:

Image

Honestly, I'm getting really tired of this page. I think this will be the last time I post it. ;>_>

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Aiken
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Post by Aiken »

Just got back from this weeks life drawing.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o154 ... ketch2.jpg

Not too sure how I feel about it. It was a wierd angle to do, and looking at it now i'm fairly sure I did the head too big.

In any case, BRING IT ON!
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Sput
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Post by Sput »

that looks much more like a sunrise!
lazy sput is lazy.

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CaptainClaude
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Post by CaptainClaude »

you know, in movies and tv shows they often shoot sunsets for use as sunrises, because it looks better, and there's more time to get the shot. happens slower than sun rises.

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[AlmightyPyro]
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Post by [AlmightyPyro] »

The more you know!
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CaptainClaude
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Post by CaptainClaude »

...the less you have to learn.

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Keffria
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Post by Keffria »

ryclaude wrote:...the less you have to learn.
Hurray! I'm through with this "learning" crap.

Also, Turnsky: it's good that you're going for some line variation in your art, but there's no rhyme or reason to it at this point. (I know it's harder with traditional media, but it's still no excuse.)

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McDuffies
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Post by McDuffies »

Snail: his chin seems very small, specially compared to his forehear avd giant haircut. Looks almost like a child's physiognomy. Or like he's missing good chunk of his chin.

Sin: That's very nice.

Turnsky: That's better though thickness seems to be a bit random. Be more strict with light sources. You won't have both sides of arm inked thick, for instance, since one of them is always going to be in relative dark.

Doombug: Pupils are too large for eyes of that size, so the girl comes out looking like alien. To add to that impression is the nose that doesn't look like human nose. Check out the shadow that goes from eye to the tip of the nose. It follows the outline of the nose which is rather vertical, and not diagonall as you drew it here. In fact, on her left side of the face, it's drawn properly, but in the right side it looks like some weird-looking flat and wide alien nose.
Shading is nice. I'm trying to work with similar kind of shading sometimes.
Loopsidedness: Like Sin said, turn upside down. Or you can put the page against the light so that you can see through it from the back. Or just let pencils sit over night before you ink them.

Bohemian: That's interesting page layout, though you'll have to be very careful to make it readable. Remember, the first concern of an artist is to make what's going on in the page apparent from the first look.
One little complain is that the main character (I presume) appears several times, always from the same angle, with similar expression on the face, in similar place. Such redundancy may be damaging for the page layout.

Johndar: I think that the drawing wouldn't migh a big of darker shading, that would make the drawing more distinctive. For instance at the back of his cape, seen behind his cape.
I would personally also make his head and face larger. As it is now, the face seems to be the least distinctive part of the drawing, all covered behind the giant hair and wings and all. I on the other hand think that it's very important to have some focus on the face - that is unless you purposefully want to hide it.
I hope he's not flying, cause those flimsy wings would be improbable for the task. Not talking about physical possibility, but the balance of the figure would be off.
I think this pic suffers from some of the problems that AP's recent pic does, in that your thick (unrealistic) lines clash with the realistic shading. This effect is most notable on the lips and ear, although it's present in most of the head. I don't have a specific solution to this, but I think making your lines lighter or thinner might help, so that the overall image seems more coherent.
But LC, clash isn't always bad thing in art. Try think outside the box more. Try not to compare Senshi's drawing with things that you've already seen in comics. I find it rather interesting: shading has a realistic quality; it makes you forget the cartoonish roots of the style, but lineart keeps reminding you. Drawing has both cartoonish and realistic quality, but not at the same time: it keeps swinging back and forth as your attention goes from shading to eyes and nose.
If Senshi wanted conventionally realistic look, she'd have to find a way to blend lineart with shading. But as it is, drawing looks very interesting to me.

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