Outsider Art for Bad Moon Rising

[doofus-01]

Could be just me

No, the wings just aren't very good. I hate wings, they suck up so much time.

But in other news, I think I got this one finished.

[Lord Ork]

Is this awful screen or is her ear purple? Too much shading on it. Very cool portrait, on the other hand.

[A-Red]

Speaking of the ear, I think it's too far back. It is a nice portrait though.

[doofus-01]

Yes, that ear was off. I've updated it. Thanks.

I'm moving on to the final version of this guy (more forms than shading at this point updated):

scarrion_new.png (2.88 KiB) Viewed 3496 times

And the sprites for both of them:

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bad_raenna.png (2.83 KiB) Viewed 3494 times

[Turuk]

For Scarrion, I would at least put a little definition inside of his ear, the current one color seems a bit odd.

[AI]

The shading of his right hip-guard seems inconsistent with the lighting of the other metal objects. It appears to be lit from the left rather than the right, which makes it look like it's in the same plane as his... belt buckle(?)

[doofus-01]

I've worked on his ear and made the hip-guard less well lit. Thanks. I may just have to completely redraw that hip thing.

7Scarrion1c.png (125.39 KiB) Viewed 3158 times

This is possibly the last generic portrait for the faction. I was having trouble with the hands, so I'm posting it early.

7dogface1c.png (80.64 KiB) Viewed 3156 times

[thespaceinvader]

...cool shades?

A little skinny in the belly, perhaps, too.

[Turuk]

Given the size of the wrist and forearm, his left hand should probably be bigger under the pickaxe head, maybe?

[woodmouse]

I don't know about this, but I ask anyway, are the "shades" on his eyes pillow shaded?

[SomeOneNamedMe]

Could you Distinguish where the primary and secondary lights are coming from. Something is bothering me about the shading.

[Valkier]

Greetings Doofus-01! I thought I may be able to help you out a bit. I'm not entirely certain on how crits are given here and what offends who, but I do believe in giving helpful crits instead of mean comments, so I believe I should be safe with what I want to say. If this does bother you however, please let me know and I will promptly remove my comment.

First what I like: You faces are coming along rather nicely with each iteration of your portraits. I'd say those are your strongest point. I also like that you're trying new things every time you post. Believe it or not, some people find a part of character drawing (or any drawing for that matter) that they become comfortable with, and don't dare try to expand away from it out of fear. It's a crippling reality that hits many artists, and so far you're doing very well to avoid it. It means you're going to learn much faster than most.

Some things that stick out: As you've said, your anatomy has room to improve. I wouldn't beat yourself up too hard over it. People devote their lives to the study of anatomy to perfect it. Your arms actually aren't too far off from reality. I believe just a few minutes with some arm references and a few practice pages and you'd have them squared away. The torso is where I am seeing you struggling the most, and you should. It's difficult, and I won't even begin to try to claim to be a master. Pirticularly in the abdomen area with the muscles and ribcage.

I think I can help out however. Again, I am not an expert at drawing the human figure, my forte is usually still lives. That said, I do have books on how to draw figures and have found a wonderful shorthand method to construct them when no model is available. I didn't know how well recieved my idea of being helpful and critiquing would be, so I only drew some basic steps for an accurate male torso. If you would like however, I can do more in the future. Again, this is only a male torso. I'm still trying to learn a similar method to do a female torso, but there's simply not much info on it yet other than "Don't just throw breasts onto a male torso!"

Anyhow, here's the steps I took and a step by step chart of how I did it. I made some mistakes while drawing so if you see a torso shorter than the other, it's because I cheated in photoshop and corrected them as I went along. Sadly, I'm not a robot.

1. Start with an almost egg shape. This is going to house in where the torso will sit.
2. This is where you choose the angle of how your torso will be facing. It's a pretty simple line, but it really sets up the rest of the torso.
3. Here you're putting in the lines for the rest of the major anatomy. The line going across the midel marks the bottom of the pectoral muscles, and the line in the middle is simply there for symmetry.
4. Here I put little half circles to mark where the collar bone meets the sternum, and where the space that the pectorals separate at their bottom. I also added in a box where his waist and crotch will be.
5. Continued the middle symmetry line down to his crotch. I also set in the top of his collarbone and put an angle to how the pectoral muscles sit on top of the chest. One thing to remember while drawing the human body: Whether it be muscles or fat, it's all sitting on top of the skeleton. The human body is a very bumpy ride. I also marked in where the top of the abdominal muscles will sit within the ribcage. As such, I puffed out where the pecks would stand out in the profile of the chest.
6. I put in the neck muscles and finished up marking in the abdominal muscles. Notice where the bottom muscles meet the top muscles at the midpoint? That forms your belly button rather neatly. When drawing the full figure, this is especially useful as the belly button is pretty much the midway mark between the top of your head and the bottom of your feet.
7. I put in the side muscles at the hips (the name escapes me at the moment) and put in the curves of the abdominal muscles. Note that I use the symmetry line to mark where they curve out. It gives the muscles on their other side some foreshortening. Plus since they meet in the middle, you would not see that side of those muscles anyhow. This step really solves a lot of problems are far as removing flatness to your torso.
8. In this step I put in where the shoulders would sit in relationship to the collarbone. I also extended the profile line to show you how that square box marks the hips of the figure. I threw in a couple lines at the side of the abdominal muscles to show where the ribs are. These may or may not be accurate lines. Generally, it isn't an overly pronounced region anyhow, and only really visible if you're drawing a figure that lacks clothes.
9. I removed the construction lines to show you how it all ends up fitting together. Please note that I did put a line in from the back to his midsection to show the bottom of his ribcage. It helps you to remember that the torso is basically a cylinder, so it is going to have a lot of rolling shapes to it. I did insert some guide lines as to show where to put the nipple. Conveniently, it also helps you set up where to put in the muscles that are underneath your arm.



I hope this helps you out some. Again, if this isn't the kind of help you're after, then just tell me and I'll remove this post. Otherwise, I hope you find something useful in this that you can apply to future portraits.

[melinath]

Again, if this isn't the kind of help you're after, then just tell me and I'll remove this post.

...or, as an alternative, this could go into the tutorials for the wiki, perhaps? I would love to be able to access this when I try to draw a person.

[Turuk]

I'm not entirely certain on how crits are given here and what offends who

Funny that, as there is a nice big box at the top of the screen that will fill you in on what is right and wrong. There is nothing with your critique, but there is never an excuse for pleading ignorance.

[thespaceinvader]

Please add this to the wiki =) It's a useful little tut.