My first want-to-be "portrait"

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traverser
Posts: 124
Joined: July 10th, 2006, 11:01 pm

My first want-to-be "portrait"

Post by traverser »

Inspired by Zhukov's Vanguard
My scanner needs software, so I had to go directly to gimp. My face drawings were so bad I had to remove them, leaving only the eyes. I like the wolf head, but it seems like very un-wesnothy un-cartoony look. It is hard for me to do the body as well.
Attachments
the original wolf-head
the original wolf-head
helmet.PNG (3.04 KiB) Viewed 2386 times
with color and eyes
with color and eyes
feef.PNG (16.21 KiB) Viewed 2393 times
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wayfarer
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Joined: June 16th, 2005, 7:07 pm
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Post by wayfarer »

One thing I've learned the hard way that you need for complexer pictures references. My first aim would have been google hitting wolf head. For beginners it always helps to use a photo other drawing, ... to get a feeling where to put the nose mouth eyes anatomical correct, else you can watch your work for hours wonderring what's wrong with it.

For example I stumbled upon this guy on DeviantArt. Great artist and such and looked over his turitorials.
Than I found this.
http://www.henningludvigsen.com/wordpress/?page_id=203

The guy made a photo and traced the linework after it. Let's ignore the result. At first I felt cheated, but actual I must admit after that using references just as references it really helped my pics.
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Jetrel
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Joined: February 23rd, 2004, 3:36 am
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Post by Jetrel »

(Very good advice from Wayfarer.)


The fundamental problem you have here is that you just don't have a lot of learned skill at drawing. Clearly, you haven't done much. So, gee, uh - how do we fire this engine up from a cold stop?

I would suggest getting a copy of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". It's a bit hokey, and cliché, but the "psychological theory" behind the book is sound.

Basically, the book asserts that to draw - to create in yourself that magic ingredient that usually gets called "talent" in other people, but is actually something that almost everyone can do, you have to do a few things:

1] Force the visual/pattern recognition centers of the brain to do the bulk of the thinking when you draw, NOT the logical centers of the brain. They are extremely powerful, and most of the "logical/follow this set of steps" rules you've learned for drawing are probably rather misleading. Logic can be rebuilt, and can guide the visual centers, but at the start, it gets in the way.

Really, it's like Yoda saying "You must unlearn, what you have learned." You have to relax your brain, and let go of all preconceived notions about how things actually look, because your memory of how they look is wrong. Everyone's is. Even the "talented" kid's memory generally is wrong; what makes them "talented" is that they're naturally willing to correct themselves.


2] Teach/coax the visual memory parts of the brain into learning how things actually look. Some exercises for doing this include drawing objects that are upside-down (for example, drawing a copy of a photograph of a person, except having both the photograph, and thus the drawing, be upside-down). The idea behind this is to look at the visual image as not an image of a person, but as an image of an object, in order to free the mind from its preconceived, and grossly incorrect notions about the appearance of human beings in general.
traverser
Posts: 124
Joined: July 10th, 2006, 11:01 pm

Post by traverser »

thank you
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