The User Art Topic

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Corvvs
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Corvvs »

I hope it's ok if I post here...

I made this a day ago, when I was experimenting with charcoal. C&C welcome. Maybe next time I shouldn't ink it. :hmm:

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Jetrel
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Jetrel »

Corvvs wrote:I hope it's ok if I post here...

I made this a day ago, when I was experimenting with charcoal. C&C welcome. Maybe next time I shouldn't ink it. :hmm:
Nice work on the cape; that capework is not exactly "DC Comics" level quality, but you actually look like you're on the right track. Keep at it. :D

Two areas for improvement (in future drawings):
- Your shading is ... nonsensical. Shading follows actual rules (optics, basically). I've typed this out too many times, here (need to make a good tutorial on it), but suffice it to say, shading in art basically works like a simplified version of what happens in a 3d rendering program.

It's all about "what direction a surface is facing towards", compared with "what direction the light is coming from." Stuff is brightest NOT when it's facing most directly at the light - rather, it's brightest when it's halfways between the light, and the "viewer's" eyes.

- Your composition is okay, but it's a bit boring and common. Composition is all about balance and symmetry. Putting the figure right in the middle will make things balanced and symmetrical, but it's kinda boring, because everyone does that right from age 5 onwards. It's best to have something, anything in there besides just the "main figure", and use that something so that you can still balance the picture without having them smack dab in the middle.
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Corvvs
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Corvvs »

Jetryl wrote: Nice work on the cape; that capework is not exactly "DC Comics" level quality, but you actually look like you're on the right track. Keep at it. :D
Thanks.
Jetryl wrote:Two areas for improvement (in future drawings):
- Your shading is ... nonsensical. Shading follows actual rules (optics, basically). I've typed this out too many times, here (need to make a good tutorial on it), but suffice it to say, shading in art basically works like a simplified version of what happens in a 3d rendering program.
I tried to do that, as I have seen you type that out a bunch about people's portraits. Time to retry it.
Jetryl wrote: - Your composition is okay, but it's a bit boring and common. Composition is all about balance and symmetry. Putting the figure right in the middle will make things balanced and symmetrical, but it's kinda boring, because everyone does that right from age 5 onwards. It's best to have something, anything in there besides just the "main figure", and use that something so that you can still balance the picture without having them smack dab in the middle.
Hmm. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks.
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Elvish_Pillager »

It occurs to me that I haven't posted anything for some time, while my drawing skill set has changed drastically. Here's some of my more recent stuff (all from observation), in case you're interested.
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Girgistian »

I'll have to say those are cool... as a yet inproficient shader, I'll also admit I couldn't have drawn anything like that with just charcoal - meaning Elvish Pillager's works. As for Corvvs' bird-fella, you've still got something to learn about drawing itself, I think the idea is nice. It's kinda amusing, a bird carrying a bird-cage.

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Pfft. Just noticed the jpeg form messed it up a bit. Oh well.
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Corvvs
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Corvvs »

I did some more charcoal...

hope the link works. Now I ought to get back to my gryphon portrait. :roll:

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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Shadow »

Girgistian wrote:I'll have to say those are cool... as a yet inproficient shader, I'll also admit I couldn't have drawn anything like that with just charcoal - meaning Elvish Pillager's works
...
Mh classic drawing sadly isn't my cup of tea either.
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Thrawn
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Thrawn »

A WIP for a friend

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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Jetrel »

Elvish Pillager wrote:It occurs to me that I haven't posted anything for some time, while my drawing skill set has changed drastically. Here's some of my more recent stuff (all from observation), in case you're interested.
Wow. Quite an improvement, I have to say. :D Good work!


If I were to make any suggestions, I would recommend practicing the use of pencils to make "continuous tone", rather than "discrete lines". Right now, it's obvious that your drawing was made with individual strokes of the pencil, whereas (given a very strict attempt at photorealism, which is educationally useful), you ideally would be unable to see any pencil strokes. Neither one is inherently "better" than the other, but if you're shooting for photorealism, one helpful path to go down is trying to get to the point where it's irrelevant/unclear which medium your work was created with (was it paint? diluted ink washes? pencil? airbrush? digital?).

This would be useful so that you can explore making texture, and exploring finely-detailed edges - which you kinda can't right now. Right now the visible linework of the pencils is so strong that it overwhelmns any texture in the individual objects, and when it's used on the edges, and loose lines that jut over the edge make the edge a lot messier.

The tool for this is just some rolled up kleenex or cotton swabs - they also sell rolled sticks of paper (shaped like a pencil/stylus) called "smudge sticks" for the very purpose. You basically would take these, and smudge the individual lines together into a continuous tone (when appropriate in the drawing, such as on a continuous surface). I recommend against using your actual fingers, because the oil and water on them will act as a binding agent with the graphite, and make smudges of it that are extremely difficult/impossible to completely erase (it turns graphite into a form of unerasable paint/ink, basically).
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

A crayfish and an eel duking it out. White pastel on black paper.

Image
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by kitty »

nice! the lobster looks particularly impressive while the stones in the foreground could have used some more love.
do you do this kind of work after photo ref or from head? just curious.
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

A photo. You're right about about the stones, they would have needed more work, this was a class assignment and I ran out of time.
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by panzervb »

That's very nice, could you make a 1280X1024 desktop wallpaper varient?
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by kitty »

the stones aren't bad at all - i like their variety, they jsut aren't as finished as a foreground object could be. no big deal.
but what kind of art classes do you take? i thought you said you were a biology student, or do i recall wrongly?
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Sgt. Groovy
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Re: It is gone again Art Topic

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

It was a drawing course at an art club, different techniques and such. Yes, I'm an biologist, and that's why drawing nature themes intersts me. There isn't much jobs for biologists around (the last one I applied had 115 applicants!) so I have thought of checking out if publishers would be interested in buying illustrations for scientific texts.
That's very nice, could you make a 1280X1024 desktop wallpaper varient?
I'm sorry, but such big resolution wouldn't look so good, the penmanship with pastels is pretty coarse.
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