Note: All the images have been scanned at 50% of their original size (except for the mage…. turns out he was scanned bigger than its original size @_@).
The first one is all done except for the colors. Which I will do on my comp using Painter X.
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t136/[IMG]
The second is an evil mage walking in a deadland he created by leeching the life energy of everything in his passage. I’m still only working on the mage though, so I didn’t scan the rest of the pic, since there is only sketchy guide lines.
[IMG]http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t136/
The last one, I have a really good reason to be lazy to finish it. I started working on it when I was with my ex gf, and I made it thinking about her. So everytime I tell myself I should finish it (you should always finish what you started), well, the memories of her come back, and I just don’t feel like wasting my energies on it… I need to find a way to view the image as something else. I know. ^^
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t136/
Again, comments and ideas are welcome.
WTF, I was just wondering why this part of the forum is so dead. I didn’t ask for your pity. You clearly didn’t choose to start on a bright way with me here.
What a dumb ass first post you did there.
Oh yes I do, Tyranitar is my fave pokemon, are you only asking that because I have it as my avatar?
The 2 others are done using pencils ranging from HB to 4B.
My pencil of predilection, the one I do most of my work with, is the 2B pencil.
Thanks for the comments. And yes O_o, I’m really the one who did those. I’m not like that Angel_Sweetie!
And there are more to come. If you really like them, then I’ll post them all here when they are done.
Chimerahound, just shut up already. You came in here trying to be nice, but your approach lacked any kind of respect.
QFFT
How long did these take to do?
And besides, not everything you wear will make you look muscular and make your 6 pack stand out.
But what I gather is that muscular men with 6 packs are your thing.
I love the 2nd one.
The 1st one has a bit of a different style to me, and something about the warrior guy seems a bit off. I understand its done now, so maybe coloring will give me a better idea of what’s going on. Not like its bad by any means though
As for the jaw, no way! It’s staying like this for a good reason you’ll discover once all the details surrounding her body are done as well as the lighting emanating from it. 😛
So yeah, I am currently studying the human body in dynamic poses and movements (since I know there is certainly a lack of this in my pics in general… side note: Thank you so much Burne Hogarth!). The next batch of pics I’ll post will be way beyond the level of these in that regard and in term of overall presentation.
That’s good that you are doing something to improve your work.
Studying the human body closely by drawing real people will help build your skill. You will gain a greater knowledge of muscles and bones and how they interact when the body is in different positions. You can also understand real lighting and shadow tones on the skin better by looking at real models.
Try holding your pencil like you would a large eraser in front of you to draw your lines and that will allow your lines to flow more smoothly as well so your characters won’t look as stiff. This works great when drawing muscle definition as well. If you use the HB to 4B pencils like you say and some paper with a little grit to it, the soft graphite should just roll off onto the paper for a smooth line.
That’s good that you are doing something to improve your work.
Studying the human body closely by drawing real people will help build your skill. You will gain a greater knowledge of muscles and bones and how they interact when the body is in different positions. You can also understand real lighting and shadow tones on the skin better by looking at real models.
Try holding your pencil like you would a large eraser in front of you to draw your lines and that will allow your lines to flow more smoothly as well so your characters won’t look as stiff. This works great when drawing muscle definition as well. If you use the HB to 4B pencils like you say and some paper with a little grit to it, the soft graphite should just roll off onto the paper for a smooth line.
WTF is that crap? Go tell your crap to children who never took art class.
You’re like trying to explain to me the most basic of stuff, things I’ve known and applied since the age of 4. And nothing in there has to do with what I need to work on.
Just don’t post any reply to me ever again. You really proved there that you’re just full of crap… again.
The girl coming out of the ocean/water on the third picture really needs a lot of work as well. Nudity in a drawing doesn’t always equal a good drawing, especially if you haven’t mastered the flow of the shape. If you ever expect to do illustration for a living, you are really going to have to get this.
To be as blunt and honest as possible, you know as well as I do that no studio of any sort is going to pay a salary or top dollar for anything that you have drawn above. Also, I see that you have two conflicting styles as well. Instead of trying to do a more realistic style and an anime style, just focus on one and work at it. I have never seen any artist who can do both equally well. Every artist lacks in either one or the other.
This is constructive criticism whether you want to accept it or not. Instead of getting mad when someone tells you the truth, thank them and get to work or you are going to end up growing old, working a dead-end job, and making excuses and complaining your life away as to why you never made anything of yourself.
I get paid pretty well for the work I do.
Don’t talk about something you know nothing about. It’s not like you have mentioned that you were working in that field.
It would be interesting to see if you can draw anything at all. Then I’d come at you and tell you you can’t hold your pencil correctly… even though I never saw how you actually work.
BTW, these pics are quite old. The oldest being 7 years old, and the youngest being a bit more than a year old.
Now, to keep on pointing at you total ignorance and lack of judgement, there are studios who pay good money for my stuff (even if they are no Square-Enix, DC Comics or whatever other mega-company).
Go share your ignorance with someone else.
Peaceinthemiddleast!
A++ WILL BUY FROM AGAIN
I have worked in the field of art for some time now just not for someone else. If you are interested in giving some criticism about my work, I am all ears.
I am trying to get a picture uploaded here you so can see what I mean about the shading and form but it says that it is too big even though I have sized it below the 100 KB limit. Do you know anything about this? It seems as though the function doesn’t work at all since it tells me I have exceeded the space limit by something like 86.5 KB when that is the exact file size to begin with. It is also less than the 800 x 600 dimensions as well.
—
If anybody has a idea how to attach a picture with the attachment function please let me know.
Thanks.
Now if you want to explain to someone how to hold a pencil, go do so with a 3 years old kid (the age I actually started drawing one bit seriously).
As for your picture, just go create yourself an account on www.photobucket.com and upload it there. After that, just put the direct link to the pic in one of your post.
As for judging your work, don’t worry, I’ll do so, and will show you what a constructive advice really is.
Also, I’m going to post a batch of finished work from 2007 soon.
My thoughts after finishing the piece were that a little more shadow behind the bride could have been done a little better to smooth out the definite pencil line where the arm reaches down to touch the apple. I would have liked to make the overall color scheme a little darker as well so some of the features on the flowers and such would stand out better. I didn’t have enough time to paint the flowers in the second vase and the apple wasn’t colored perfectly so it looks a little like a striped pool ball too (A most regrettable thing). Most of the objects used in the picture are just various things I saw in a local craft store (I hate crafts but they work with the picture pretty well). Unfortunately, time constraints with the clients killed some of the creative process with this piece because they needed it the day before.
Anyway, Let me know what you think.
I had a feeling that you would make some sort of comment like that. It was wise of me to post a piece of art that I had a few pictures of during the development stages. Here is a copy of the original HB pencil sketch.
This is a perfect example in comparison to your drawings of what I mean when I say that you do not understand shading and flow techniques. Do you even know what negative space is and how to apply it to your art?
You have said that you know so much about art and you work around all these professionals. If that is the case why do they not give you an honest critique of your work?
59
Try to do this kind of work by creating something ENTIRELY from your imagination.
The amount of knowledge and techniques required to do so is way beyond what you’re showing so far.
Applying shading from an image you create in your head, and "applying" shading by only copying it from an existing image are 2 different things.
You totally fail as an imaginative artist there.
And I’m still not convinced these pics are not photoshoped. You’ll have to post a bigger picture.
I don’t think that you can draw anything imaginative and especially shade and draw flow correctly unless you can understand what already exists.
If you think that anybody can draw something with realistic proportions, flow, and shading which includes yourself, please show everyone here on this thread that you can draw something realistically using any picture you want for reference.
I have spent a lot of time in a studio drawing model after model trying to gain in skill what people with 20-40 years experience have on me and I will tell you the fact that "not anyone can draw like that as you claim." I have seen young person after young person, college student after college student come into these classes thinking that they were the "real-deal artist" only to leave disappointed at the end of the semester because they never invested the time to master the skills of shading, and flow. I have a long way to go myself as far as drawing and painting is concerned to find myself on the same level as some of the artists I interact with in class who have been at it for a lot longer than myself. I get compliments on my work every now and then from some of these people but you had better know that I have to work my *ss of for them. Nobody in such a setting is going to compliment crap and I have been told straight up numerous times what I have needed to work on over the years.
That said, if you think that every picture that looks better than yours is photoshop then you probably think that Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and everyone else for that matter used it as well. Why don’t you prove to everyone here on this thread that you can do something like that with such a program? I am really only a novice with any photo-editing software since I only have some stuff that came with my digital camera that allows me to stitch stuff together to create panoramas and do some simple resizing, etc. but I haven’t seen any pictures to date that are colored very realistically with such software.
I have a friend who has done digital stuff on the side who told me about something called a WACOM board (I hope I spelled this right) that he has used with some sort of digital art program but he said it surely doesn’t replace an artist’s hand. In fact he has stated that, "It allows the amatuer to hide frequent mistakes that a real artist would never make.
I cannot possibly give you much praise if all you do is copy a picture or photoshop it.
I had not realised constructive criticism was analogous with slander.
As for showing you something looking realistic like this picture above, give me some time and I’ll create one from scratch. Doing like you and using pictures as reference. I don’t know if I’ll use colors or not, but you’ll see the technique behind it and probably shut your trap.
The thing here is that you’re doing the mistake of calling what you do art, and everything that doesn’t look nearly as realistic as sub-par. This is completely ridiculous. A complete artist can work with different styles which in the end helps to give different moods and flow to the pieces. The ultimate goal of an art piece is to express an emotion (or multiple emotions) or an aesthetic achievement. Merely recopying pictures like you do don’t require much skills, no mather how you wish to convince yourself. I’ve been able to do that since high school. Try to draw a human model just by thinking about it, without the use of any outside references and you might get an idea of what I am talking about.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a picture to draw so I can shut your arrogant trap.
This is priceless.
I may even screenshot this and frame it.
It’s better than my drawings. It’s shopped.
If not, I said it was made using pictures. Which he admited it is. He tries to tell me I know nothing about art, and I tell him I don’t use the same approach as him. I work using my knowledge of the human body, using my head to comprehend how every pieces fit together so I can come up with something that’s taken entirely in my head(unlike him). He works using pictures and merely copy them. That’s not the same approach. Some use models, some study the human anatomy and develop their knowledge about it. Knowing how it works allow you to do like Jim Lee, Burne Hogarth or Yoshitaka Amano. They don’t use models to create their pieces (although they certainly did in their early days before getting a firm grasp of how it works in its entirety, in their art classes). They have studied anatomy thouroughly and their pics are authentic. Heck, he might not be pro, but our own NAMOR, certainly a good artist by judging his pieces in the general Discussion forums (in the thread NAMOR INSPIRED) shows that he can draw a convincing art piece using his knowledge alone (the piece with the guy pointing a gun at us from inside his car comes to mind).
Sophiris came in this thread to stir shit with me saying I’m not good because the 3 unfinished pics there weren’t made using outside references like his.
That’s complete nonsense.
BTW Sophiris, what kind of HB pencil would give this sort of black? Charcoal will be this black, but HB pencils? Oh… of course.
You inked this part already, right?
It is also bizarre for an artist to completely do his shadings during the sketch phase when the piece is expected to be completed using water colors like gouache.
Where my problem is, however, is that you post in that art section and you must therefore accept that, in addition to the praise that you have deservedly garnered, there will also be criticism and I think we all hope that said criticism is of the constructive variety. I really don’t see how Sophoris’ criticisms haven’t been constructive and, to me, it is somewhat disingenuous to turn his criticisms into him merely attempting to stir shit. Maybe you are privy to some information that I am not, a reason perhaps why Sophiris would criticise you just for the sake of it, but superficially it seems as if you have thrown a bit of a tantrum.
You have resorted to name calling and ad hominem long before Sophoris and you have even insinuated that his art requires less talent than your own, sort of the same thing inversed that started this whole debacle in the first place. And, whilst calling for bigger prints may be a legitimate query on your part, your absolute insistence on seeing them in order to judge the authenticity of Sophiris’ work seems a little objectionable. If it helps you make a better determination, then of course that is valuable, but if no larger prints exist then, through no fault of his own, Sophiris is made to look a fraud.
My problem with him so far is that I acknoledge one of my weakpoint, and admitted I was currently working on it. But he came back to me stating that my shading was not good and that people wouldn’t hire me because (it would seem) the shading in my pieces there aren’t photo-realistic (as if that’s what I was trying to achieve in the first place…). He came in here pretending to know better than me, and started shooting his bullshit about shadings and flow. He did the same kind of thing in an other thread. He assumed I had never held an Ultimania book in my hand, which is false. But he still assumed it.
Basically, what he does with me so far is assume to be better than me in stuff he have no ideas if I have or not some knowledge about.
I took his first constructive criticism seriously and admitted I had to work on the stiffness of my characters. But then he added to it as if the stiffness was due to some kind of lack of basic knowledge. That’s completely wrong but he insisted on it. You can now see me arguing that the stiffness of my pics is due to the way I come up with my pics: I try to use as less real world references as possible, and use my own understanding of how things look like.
I don’t pretend it’s perfect, and have been pretty clear from the start. As I said, I am currently studying and hopefully perfecting my understanding of dynamic anatomy, so I can give a more "living" feel to my work. This is to further improve the way I work: with as less outside references as possible.
When I was working with the kind of references that Sophiris is using, I would always feel the work I’ve achieved was not entirely mine and I always hated that. But I assure you I can do the same as he can, and that this reaction of mine towards him, contrary to what he seems to believe, isn’t due to jealousy.
It is a direct reaction to the arrogant way he assumed to know how I work, and how he tried to explain to me how to literally "hold a pencil", when I’ve been studying art my whole life.
Any respectable artist can come up with some picture references and do just the same as he does. To me, it only shows his own weaknesses when it comes to anatomic knowledge.
But, if I must be impartial here, then I’ll say that the color application is impressive. If the pic is authentic, that is.
My bad about the pencil. This is the one that gives you that black color you were asking about. I don’t differentiate between this one and my HBs since I carry all my softs together.
Actually since you mentioned it, I will have to disagree with you about Yoshitaka Amano. Yoshitaka Amano most definitely uses real models as well for his artwork. He often uses his own face to get the look he wants for the characters he draws. Here’s a book you can read about it. He addresses this very clearly when asked about it by upcoming art students on page 25. Sorry, I don’t have a color scanner but the cover is mainly black and white anyway. The resolution kind of sucks since the scanner is old. It never worked the way I wanted it to back in the day when I bought it to try and scan some of my work for a website. The guy who said he would build my site disappeared with the money I paid him for the job anyway so the machine just collects dust.
Anyway, enjoy the book!
Also, you are right about the difficulty of drawing realistic looking people out of your mind. That is what some of the other artists do who I have mentioned are way above me in experience. However, they continually check against the real thing for accuracy. This is why they show up every Tuesday at the local art studio to draw real models. I can draw certain positions very well without a model but others I do very poorly at in the absence of a model so I am continually trying to level my artistic playing field.
The two simple concepts of shading and flow are the two main things that have transformed my work from decent to better. There is some books that talk about how Michelangelo could make 5 different ascending or descending flawless shade changes in a single stroke with a pencil which is absolutely amazing considering that I average only about 3 and some of these artists who frequent the studio can do no more than 4. You ought to try to do this and check with a card to see what you can do. If you can do this well then there becomes less of a need to use so many different HB pencils since you can get multiple shades out of just one and you don’t get that annoying line between shades that comes from switching pencils.
I never calculated the amount of shades I can do, but I can pretty much only use a 2B pencil to render an entire piece and come up with countless nuances.
I like using the blending stubs as well to fill in the gaps that the pencil misses on the rough surface of the material I am working with. These stubs work great for spreading pastels as well to get a multi-shaded effect. You have to make sure to use a clean stub for each pastel color and pencil or the colors will get mixed and look like crap. If the colors get mixed, I have found it nearly impossible to get the pastel off without damaging the material I am working on so you need to plan ahead when applying color.
Gouache is mainly used to touch up and bring out certain colors. I have found it to be especially helpful when I have laid on too dark of a layer of pastel in a certain area and I need to equalize the color result across the piece. Gouache, since it is liquid is easy to use to fix certain gaps with a small brush that I may have intentionally or unintentionally missed with the blending stubs as well. Gouache can mix a little better than pastels because of the liquid-base so that is the nice feature for this medium.
I have tried watercolor pencils in the past but I don’t like to press hard with them on my material to get some color out of them because it leaves a varying levels of marks. On top of that taking a watered-down brush to try and spread the color from the pencils is never very exact so I don’t use them anymore.
I don’t use the numbered H pencils either because they always give me a distinct line from their hardness even when trying to shade with them I still notice an obvious skip in shade. Also, since I am definitely not trying to get an anime effect with line art either I find it best to avoid them.
But unlike you, I only draw the main lines and leave the shading and texturing for the final medium used. One thing I don’t like when I work at home is that whatever the color medium you use (unless it is color pencils) I often find myself missing some colors to keep going, and must stop working to go buy a new tube of that given color. That plus the fact that these mediums cost a lot of money in the long run.
So I’ve started lately experimenting with computer programs such as Painter X to speed up my work. The technique required to render a piece is the same as with any other medium, only the tool is different (I still do my sketch on paper, then I scan it). Years ago, I would never have considered using this kind of medium to do my work. Back then, it wasn’t yet accepted as a viable tool for art and was sulked by the art colleges. But as I grew to learn more about it, and as time passed and saw this medium being more and more accepted as an art tool, I got into it and really enjoyed the versatility and pleasure of its use. I came to realise that what I didn’t like about these kind of programs was that there were artists who used their hi-tech features to cheat, like using light flares, distortions, reflections, textures and the likes. I don’t like that and concider it to be a weakness for the artists who uses them. Sure the program offers them, but if you’re a complete artist, you should be able to do these distortions, flares, textures and reflexions (for example) by drawing the shapes and using the proper colors by your means alone.
Basically, I do exactly the same thing with the program as I would with any conventional medium. But, I don’t have to wash anything afterwards or go through lenghty color blending and researches (yeah, I can be lazy like that ^^ … I always felt these work "phases" were tedious and boring.). It speeds things up and allow me to get this clear image out of my head almost instantly (Basically, it allows me to concentrate on what I enjoy the most, which is producing the image itself). That allows me to produce a lot more pieces in a shorter time period. And at times, it really is a blessing when I have a lot on my work table. I still use conventional mediums when a client is particular with his demand, but when I’m free to choose, I usually go for Painter X.
As for the H pencil you mentioned, I totally agree with you. These pencils are to me completely useless for the same reason you stated.
As far as shading goes, the reason why I choose to do a lot of it in the beginning either with pencil or pastel is because when you work with anything liquid and you have to apply more than just a little to a material, especially a thin piece of paper, it has the tendency to warp it and that not only sucks for me but clients get ticked when whatever they ordered doesn’t look perfect to their expectations.
I have tried charcoal as well but I have never been able to get things looking as good as I could with an Ebony pencil. Charcoal leaves dust on my material, and more dust the harder I press with it, that I sometimes have a hard time cleaning up. Of course I have left some pretty bad fingerprints on some of my drawings as well that I couldn’t get off. The pencil shading picks right up in layers with little work from an eraser so tend to stick to that medium to start with. I like to draw with charcoal if I am just going for flow in the model class but for any kind of work that I would sell I can’t in good faith tell a client that it will cost several hundred dollars when I can’t guarantee my best work with such a medium.
You are definitely right about the cost of art products as well. It is like some companies just want to beat you down and leave you poor and penniless if you want to use their product. The profit margin must be extremely high. I honestly can’t see their products being low in sales since nearly every high school, college, university, and tradional art trade school has an art program.
As for charcoal, of course it puts dust on your work, but just blow gently and the residues will go away without putting any marks on your work.
I haven’t worked much with the ebony pencil as I think its too soft to fit the way I work.
As far as I am concerned Amano has better understanding of color theory than any artist I have ever seen. He understands how to utilize analogous color schemes, complimentary color schemes, and nature-based color schemes flawlessly in his work. I had an opportunity to go to a Final Fantasy Art Exhibit for his work in Ueno, the art district of Tokyo back in 2002 and I will have to say that the colors on his paintings are about ten times as brilliant as the photographs we get of his art in books that are sold in either Japan or America.
If you ever get such an opportunity in the future to see his work in real life, who cares about the cost, by all means go. He makes my coloring on my work look like child’s play to be completely honest.
Of course! In order to draw a convincing human figure you have to pay attention to how it is done, study the myology and osteology and comprehend them in order to adequately represent it in your work.
When I say I try to work with as less outside references as possible, I don’t mean that I create everything out of nothing. What appear in my work are countless hours of analysis and study. It’s not perfect and will probably never be. But that’s what I prefer to do, and I like seeing how my understanding of anatomy gets better with each pieces I achieve. There are still times that I don’t have the choice to use a model, or photographic references (when doing a portrait for example) but it is when I start from nothing and see the pictures builds itself up and become more concrete that I truly enjoy what I’m doing. Especially if the end result is more than satisfying, which usually happen when I finish a piece, but never stays so for long. As I tend to notice every tiny flaws here and there when I look at it weeks later. Like most artists, I am pretty critical about my own work, even if you probably didn’t think so at first during our dicsussion here.
As far as I am concerned Amano has better understanding of color theory than any artist I have ever seen. He understands how to utilize analogous color schemes, complimentary color schemes, and nature-based color schemes flawlessly in his work. I had an opportunity to go to a Final Fantasy Art Exhibit for his work in Ueno, the art district of Tokyo back in 2002 and I will have to say that the colors on his paintings are about ten times as brilliant as the photographs we get of his art in books that are sold in either Japan or America.
There are many others, like Alex Ross for example (who uses photo references like you, btw), but Amano is certainly among the greatest.
If you ever get such an opportunity in the future to see his work in real life, who cares about the cost, by all means go. He makes my coloring on my work look like child’s play to be completely honest.
I won’t miss him if he comes in Ontario one day (for some reason, I doubt he’ll ever come to Quebec, so if he comes to Canada, he’ll probably go to Toronto and I’ll have to drive there). He’s one of my favorite artist and the uniqueness of his style and the perfection of his applications and technique puts him above most of his contemporaries.
BTW, I’m still waiting for a higher resolution version of that image of yours.
same here
I would encourage you to do so in your own thread though. ^_-
Roger that.
So why not cut the pic in half? Then you can sell the right side and use the proceeds to buy more number 2 pencils to darken the left side and then you have 2 pics for the price of one!
That last little joke was just terrible… but seriously I’m not kidding!
I have another criticism about your pencils but it’s actually more of comment. I don’t wanna go into techniques you already know about like Sophiris allegedly did so instead I’ll tell a short story. But get ready cause I’m about to drop some knowledge!
I went to the Gallery for the Society of New York Illustrator’s like 4 years ago and was blown away. One grizzled old guy in particular was super awesome at drawing cowboys and Indians but could draw horses better than anybody I’ve ever seen. He did photo-realistic, cartoon, watercolor, oils, sketchy, moody, caricatured, you name it! I knew he was awesome when he grabbed me by the arm and said "Boy I’ve been drawin horses fer 50 years ya know that?" I talked to him for like 30 minutes straight and then shook his hand and walked around some more. When I came back he was talking to a buncha freshman college noobs and they were asking him a buncha questions about pencil techniques. I kinda interrupted in a joking way with the comment "yeah, but how do you know when your finished?" He turned and looked at me angrily as if he had never seen me before in his life, pointed his finger in the air and said "UNTIL THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE PENCILS ANYMORE!"
This is me
http://mullet2dmax.deviantart.com/
So I guess this won’t apply to my drawings. 😛
And just as a side note about that third drawing. There were many sketch lines here and there that I edited out before posting them here. And yeah, I started detailing the right part of the pic first.