Old cats can sometimes be useful...

[Ilaekae]

I'm starting this thread here in case anyone wants to pick my just-barely-operating brain. The comments below are what I posted in the original mentor sign-up to Chaos, just to give you some idea of why you should avoid even being seen talking to me...:)

******************************************

Okay, I can't refuse any woman with curly hair... Y'got me as a mentor, but give me a few weeks to get some time/space cleared. I'll have to find some crap to post, too, so people know what they're getting into.

I'm in the process of returning to classic art (painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture) after 40 years of advertising design and illustration

My strong points, in no particular order: Design, line art of all kind, Adobe Illustrator (considered a specialist before I retired), use PS primarily as a modifier to Illustrator, cartooning of all kinds, acrylic painting, assemblage, printmaking, brush drawing, litho crayon, realism carried to abstraction, fantasy/surreal, drybrush, paper manipulation, textile manipulation. As an exhibiting artist, I would probably be considered a surrealist.

I'm multi-styled, with a strong emphasis on "simplicity is the most powerful." My realistic work is, bluntly, a good distance above "okay," but I have a tendancy to drift into surreal and contrasting flat field treatments sometimes when I do it. Ironically, I also like to work in an extremely decorative manner on some pieces. I hate oils, and treat water color the same way I do Illustrator's FILL--fill in everything that ain't filled yet with some color...heeheehee. I can do things in black and white (because of my heavy GRAPHIC background training) that many people can't do with all the color they can find.

I also have a strong three-dimensional background IN REAL LIFE, not comp modeling. And I have no fear of size. I've done paintings and standing "graphic" scuptured pieces over 13 feet high and 11 feet wide.

I still have some reputation left as a conceptual graphic designer, and I taught associate arts students for 10-12 years.

Here's a place/link for some of my art...for what it's worth. A lot of it is from CA competitions...

http://ImageEvent.com/aljmary/caartrecord

If you think I can be of some help, just post a note here and I'll answer it as best I can, or I'll hook you up with someone who can help. Please be aware that I have a somewhat caustic sense of humor, so don't jump if I call you an idiot...(which, I've been informed, I won't...)>:D >:D >:D

[TheGnoll]

well i've been waiting to see your work for some time, and at last i find a link (uhm yeah, i COULD have asked, but you are a grumpy ol' cat so i dunno how you would have reacted).
I like the decorative/stylez elements A LOT (like the bird or the guitar from your link), and apart from that all i see reminds me of an acid trip or brings up to my mind pictures of hippies n stuff from the seventies).

I have no real skills actually and since you mentioned you hate oil n stuff ii am guessing you are not the right person to ask about values and that kind of stuff.I was wondering if you could help in the field of illustration from a theroical point of view, information on composition and how to actually fit in bits and pieces in an illustration in a clever way.
Links, book suggestions are what i'm looking for, i'm open minded and NO, i woudn't like beign called an idiot, but i guess i could stand it :D

ciao

[Ilaekae]

You have a hyena as an avatar and I'm grumpy! And it was the 60s, not the 70s...you idiot...:wink:

Didn't think I'd do it, did you?:nohope:

One point to get out of the way first is that just because I don't like oils doesn't mean I don't paint/understand values and stuff like that/and all that other boring shit. I just prefer to work in acrylics, and I've been doing it for over forty years...so you can ask me about anything. And I mean anything.

You claim to have no real skills, but you understand that "certain things" go into making an illustration, so I'm going to assume you're fudgin' the truth a bit here. How about to get this started, you post something that you're having a problem with (and tell me what YOU think the problem is...) and let me do a thorough look over, then post some comments back and see how it goes from there. That should give us a good starting point before we get too theoretical...

To make this work, we can't afford to be shy...okay?

[alesoun]

*sigh* I need help with everything! I work in pencils/acrylics purely and simply because that's what I have. If I do and re-do stuff I can get it better, but my brushwork and colour sense is dreadful, and it's a happy accident if I don't skew things to the left. It feels as though everything I do is hit-and-miss. Hmmm......

Would it help if I said that my hair goes into ringlets when I wash it?

[Ilaekae]

Don't y'hate when that happens? My beard looks like a bunch of zig-zaggy snakes when I wash it...

Gawd forbid I'd ever ignore somebody who leans left... How 'bout you post something or three here and let's take alook at it?

[chaosrocks]

http://photos.imageevent.com/aljmary/cagodsatwar/CA-GODS-WAR.jpg

hehehe

[Ilaekae]

Thankz loadz, Tinkerbell! Now everybody knows I'm anal...as well as grumpy...




...idiots...

[alesoun]

222815

222816

222817
Chosen at random; one painting of a china dog, one pencil drawing and a painting I never got round to finishing..........

[chaosrocks]

always thought that one needed more airplay dear.
<3

[TheGnoll]

aw shit i knew i'd left a weak point in my message...i'm def no hippy expert.
About the values n shtuff, i saw that one coming.And about the rest of your comment, i just guess i'll take a step backwards.
Ok, i'm not convinced i have no skills at all...but lets say i'm still really young (19) and i'm only now starting to understand how the whole frustrating art thing works.I've been drawing with my pencil for some time and its pretty much the only medium i feel confident with.BUT i'm still not confident with the rendering (lets say i don't have enought patience to actually sit down and render something in a decent way), anatomy is a life-long study (so i'm still struggling with it) and then there's the BIG color issue.I kinda think i can put on paper whats on my mind, but then, when starting to actually work on something, i get stuck.Its either cause i just don't know what to do next, or because i lack "something".color is the big issue cause, call it frustration or laziness, i just can't get over the initial rought out, and i'm never sure how color actually works.
I need to find a way to concentrate and focus on a specific subject, at least, i GUESS that is what i should do.Lets say right now i'm in one of those shit periods when you seriously think "can i really do this?"...

dunno if what i wrote makes sense or not, maybe its just a rant, but now i feel better.

you can see everything i do in my CA sketchbook, and my "best" works (stuff from thi year) are here:

http://forumtgmonline.futuregamer.it/showthread.php?t=112568

in short, i don't need help for a specific illustration, but i feel like i'm stuck, i have no idea on what i should focus on, and in short i need someone to tell me not just WHAT to study, but HOW to study too.Nothing too spot on, just some wise words old farts are usually good at providing :P

ciao

[Alice]

Hey!
Maybe this isn't spot on the kind of mentoring you had in mind, but here it goes;
I have a background in arts with artschool and sculpting. Couple of years ago I went to class, learning CG animation and I started illustrating for clients. In 2 months, I will graduate from my marketing and advertisement course and will continue working as a junior art director and illustrator.
Here's a little link to my portfolio; www.heybaberiba.com

I'm a junior and sometimes I find it hard to understand how clients in US and UK handle things and what's expected on the market abroad. Especially when it comes to portfolio content and approaching agencies. I would love to have contact with someone who's "been there before" to ask for advice about stuff like that :)

Cheers
/Malin

[Ilaekae]

Welcome aboard, Alice. Morrigana and Chance are also joining us, so I'm going to be a bit busy here two-finger typing replies to everyone.

I'm studying what you all have posted and what I can find in your sketchbooks, etc., and I'm now getting some specific comments together for everybody. Bear with me a bit if I seem to disappear for a short time...I'm one of the people who has a really bad time with the forum as far as posting and loading is concerned, so even though I can see your comments, I may not be able to reply immediately because I can't log/post in. It does usually clear up after a day or so, so it shouldn't be a big problem.

[Chance.]

Hey I found it, and I didn't have to spam an admin. Amazing I underestimated myself.

Gnoll, I know exactly how you feel man. I am in the same sort of place, except I have a lot less patience than you do. So I'll be feeding off of all of the wonderfully sarcastic instruction you will be receiving. ;)

Ilaekae, wow, that's the first time I have written your name. I have been mispronouncing it this whole time. I thought it was Iklae. [bangs head on table]
Once the pity party concluded the young artist returned to his keyboard

Retarded computers are my life. I know what you are dealing with (probly not but I can always use my imagination)
I hate my dialup connection with all my being.
So we will be patient.
Wait,
and Watch
For the Wise Words
Of
The Master.

[Morrigana]

Oooh, almost a group of peers to help each other. YAY! 8P

Gnoll, I have to say I really love your creature designs. Especially the swimming fish monster. I do like how you work some of your lines.

[Alice]

Great!
Besides, I like people who dares to be frank and a bit "rude" online, they usually gives the best critics :)

[alesoun]

Thanks for taking the time, Ilaekae! Hey looky,- my first official "thank you" post! I know what you mean about posting troubles; CA has frozen on me 3 times tonight. I can wait. I'm patient! *taps pencil on computer screen*:bashful:

[chaosrocks]

dear Ilaekae mentees
I hope you know how lucky you are

but actully the old master asked me to post to you that he is having a totally nasty time with his internetz, he is not ignoring or neglecting you, infact he loves you with an all consuming passion (well after his awesome wife and large huntingknife...but you alll come next in line). and he will be with you as soon as he can get the problem fixed.

(chaos iswatching you....)

roxie

[Chance.]

We are all beaming sympathetic thoughts toward our master and await his arrival eagerly!

Thank you, Chaos, for keeping us up to date!

WOW our master has his priorities straight. That is always comforting. I'm getting more exited the more I learn about this enigmatic grumpy cat.

I wish I had a wife so I could love her with all consuming passion. but alas I'm not so lucky. So until then I will have to invest my soul in my 12 inch long Nepalese Ghurka knife. You ever seen one? It has a huge recurve blade that can take someones head off. Man I love my knife.

Whoa! did I just say all that out loud?
how embarrassing

No one listen to me, I'm not saying anything of importance...

[Morrigana]

Mmmmmm, ghurkas......I wish I had one.

I can patiently wait for him to get his internets back in gear. I have things with which to entertain myself.

[Majo_Neko]

Hmm looks like this is the place

I hope you all don't mind I'll be joining in on the party.

I have no training in arts whatsoever, all self taught and not that great really.
I don't know much thoery of anything, I have a basic foundation on the building blocks of anatomical design and poses.
Colour thoery is just slightly above no existant.
I basically just do what looks and feels right even if in the end it's not so much

I would love to have some guidance in illustration and composition especially.
Also colours, I love colours, but I don't really understand them that well and would like to have some help in that area, how they work together, values, using colour in shadows and light, etc.

And I see the mention of acrylic painting? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself but I would love to know some basics on how acrylics work. I've been wanting to try painting with them forever but could never really get up the nerve to just grab them...

I'll try and get together a small portfolio of some of m works since I only have a few scaterred pieces on DA and most are really old

I'm glad to be here and hope to learn with all of you.
(And I' not afraid of being called an idiot, tha's actually one of my nicknames :tihi:)

[Chance.]

I have things with which to entertain myself.

The way you said that creeps me out...:$



Well, while we wait we could introduce ourselves! I'm not certain how many of us there are going to be, but this is a good way to get a head count. I'm sure that none of us took the time to read each other's adds in the mentor signup thread, and it may be a bit before everyone gets around to each others sketchbooks (if the even have one, shame on you if you don't)
So let's go around the room and share some juicy details about ourselves. If you are not inclined to give out your personal information, at least respect the rest of us enough to make something up.

---------------------------------------------------------------

My name, that is, my real name is Chance

I am a whopping 18 years old. I am always right, and indestructible, but you knew that as soon as you heard my age.

My experience is in pencil and digital, though I am not spectacular in either. I am just starting to learn some of the other analogue mediums.
I want to learn how to digitally paint on the same level as say, Bumskee, but that, methinks, is simply a matter of time and patience.

My love is ink. My dream is to be a great ink illustrator, I think the medium is one of the best for communicating ideas in a clear, direct manner. No frills or tricks to hide behind, just pure, artistic skill.
Here I hope to gain a better grasp of high contrast graphic ink style art, but am willing to learn anything our exalted master wishes to impart.

My world view is conservative Judeo-Christian, something you should know to have an idea of where I am coming from. I, however, am not ridiculously dogmatic and do everything in my power to avoid being abrasive no matter how much I may disagree with you.

Interests, I love all things Celtic or Viking. I avidly study most types of weaponry, and buy whatever I can afford, which isn't a whole lot. Despite this I have managed to pull together a decent arsenal which I would love to describe in detail if you are interested, just say the word.

Time for me to sit back down and give someone else a chance to talk. Who wants to be next to introduce themselves in this group therapy session?

(oh, and Ilaekae, just smack me around some if I'm taking over your thread.)

P.S. I love to teach. I can't stop myself, so be prepared I'll have a lot of encouraging words for the rest of you.

[Morrigana]

*smirks* Even though it was a completely innocent statement, I am somehow pleased that I creeped you out, Chance. 8P Not often I do that unintentionally.

So, my introduction.

My age is inconsequential, since I really don't act it anyway. And I look about six years younger than I am. My name is Raven, though I respond to Morrigana or Raven equally.

I've been doodling and creating pictures since I was really really little. I tried my hand at acrylics, and failed miserably. Then I found Photoshop, and haven't looked back. The only thing I do traditionally is lilttle pen doodles and sketches.

I like doing fantasy/dark fantasy illustrations, and male pin ups. I am absolutely in love with the male form, and think it's actually been rather shunned in recent years. Men are gorgeous!

On the more personal side: I hate crowds and stupid people. I have two ravens, a parrot, 1 cat for myself and 3 others that have adopted me. I prefer predators to prey, and am dark, twisted and violent. Halloween is my nine year anniversary, and yet my soulmate is rotting in jail. I play WoW, read lots of books, write my own stories and suffer from bi-polar disorder.

This is my latest painting. It's just a little speed piece I did in a couple of hours. It also demonstrates one of my true obsessions.

http://morrigana.youareannoying.us/sketch/lando.png

[alesoun]

I'm just me. Photo in my sb if you look for it. Work in my sketchbook for all to see. 472 years old, green hair, red eyes. Fib, sometimes.....

[Chance.]

Oho, another vampire enthusiast, well I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. We should discuss the finer points of true vampirism at some point. It's always interesting to hear other peoples viewpoints.

Alesoun, can't you give us a little more than that? Come on I know it can be hard to open up, but we need to be friends so we can help each other!

And then the young artist realized that he was probably giving everyone a completely distorted idea of his personality, but he didn't know how to take back the misconceptions he had sown. So he wandered off into the night laughing hysterically

Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! BWAAAAAAAAHHAAAHAHAHHAAA

[alesoun]

Okay! I'm Shirley. Nearest name my ma could get to my Uncle Charlie (she didn't like Charlotte, thank Heaven!) I'm definitely not a Charlotte; at 5 foot 10, I'm far too tall to be a delicate Charlotte! I'm of Celtic and Viking blood (I live in Scotland) and love the folklore. If you like Celtic stuff Google George Bain; he's great!

[Morrigana]

Vampires are fantasticaly fascinating creatures. So many variations of them, and so wonderfully hot. Er...ummmm.... 8D

[TheGnoll]

uhm... this is starting to get pretty wild, people.I really don't wanna sound like an old fart but i think we'd better keep the off topic stuff for the off topic thread...there's PM, msn and the lounge for that stuff ;)


Morrigana, thanks for the compliment.And your bio creeps me out.You are weird.But that is not an issue for me.And i like that last painting from you.

I'm not sure its good to do this lil'bios but whatever, its fun.

Ok, my real name is Ryan, and i'll be 19 in a few weeks.
I smoke and do drugs occasionaly.I'm half indian, half english, and half italian cause i live here.I used to have long hair, but now i look like a skinhead.I listen to any kind of music.I'm tall and thin and my left ear is pierced and i've got glasses.
The thing i love more in the world is my cat.The second thing i love more is my group of friends.I'll be starting a painting/comics and illustration course in Bologna's Fine Arts Academy in a few weeks, and i can't wait.I'm a nice guy :)

Ilaekae, can't wait to see what you have for us ;) I'll be back when you pop back ;)

ciao

[Chance.]

Not trying to go terribly off topic, but I thought it might be useful to get all of the hello's out of the way while we wait for the Ilaekae to get up and running.

Mini bios are a good way to get a basic understanding of who you are talking to. Very useful if you want to avoid offending them. For example, now I know not to make derogatory comments about Indian, or English people (not that I ever would) [well, I might about the English as I'm pro Scotland. FREEEEDOOOM!!!] Actually, I'm mostly English too so I can sort of get away with it.

But yeah, anyway, sorry again, I wasn't trying to be off-topic and as soon as Ilaekae shows up I'll shut up and learn all I can from him.
At least we have established that there are at least two loopy people in this class, (yours truly being one of them) Ilaekae deserves to know what he is dealing with. Though I'm sure that he is more than capable of keeping us in line.

Alesoun! Scotland! Wow! I want to visit there, it is so interesting!!! I love the music. Lucky! Oh, wait that's the Irish isn't it...

And no, I never really do shut up.

[alesoun]

Irish and Scottish music are very similar, but the bagpipes and dancing are different. Actually, my Ma was born in Belfast of Scottish parents, my dad was English, and my youngest uncle was born in India. Who thinks families should be tidy?

[Sepulverture]

Hi folks, especially hello to the senile old cat. This one requests admittance into the old ones mentoring program. Here're my offerings, some stuff from the last two or three pages of my sketchbook.

and for the record my head is bald and very 8-ball-esque, and doesn't make any cool noteworthy shapes when my hair is wet:(

Anywho here they are:

anywhowho: how the hell do i subscribe to threads, i wanted to subscribe to this thread, but realized it'd been too long since I posted much here, and my brain got stupid and i forgot now :(

[chaosrocks]

go to thread tools click subscribe to this thread...follow the directions

chaos

[Ilaekae]

MMPBWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I'm in! Bastards thought they could keep me out, but as long as there are shovels, I'll get back in...

On a serious note...my sincere apologies to all of you. Every time somebody tweaks the forum software, my computer goes nuts. I think we (me and four much put-upon geek friends) finally figured how to get around the problem, so I shouldn't be in this situation again--knock on wood. It has to do with the fact that some of the forum's little doodads aren't compliant and the fact that I have some really weird proprietary software on my computer. When they meet, it's like a bomb going off.

I have stuff to post, which I'll put up later tonight, because I have to leave in a few minutes to help a friend move his crap to a new apartment.

Chaos, I love you forever for posting my note for me, and watching the minions don't eat each other. Again, my apologies to every one, and, Chance, quit drinkin' out of the toilet...:P

Bear with me and we should be mostly caught up later this evening...

[Chance.]

Drink out of the toilet!!???

I'm scandalized, I would never do such a thing, it's against my religion.

Maybe I should stop using those spray on fixatives indoors though....

[Morrigana]

Chance: I believe ventilation is one of the directions for fixatives. At least last time I checked. But rules are no fun. 8P

Sepulverture: I would love to see the portrait with the baseball cap to remain without eyes. It's so perfectly disturbing like that. Like some statement about soulless and wandering youth.

TheGnoll: I'm almost proud to be called weird so soon upon meeting someone. *smiles* I didn't think I'd hit creepy until at least a third conversation.

[Sepulverture]

Thanks Morrigana, I actually painted that to put on the cover letter of a resume when applying for a job a few months ago (and got the job, yay).

[Ilaekae]

Alright. I read through all the crap you guys posted while I was indisposed and came to the conclusion that I'm being punished for something I did... Who put you all up to this? Davi? Seedling? My parole officer?

Again, I apologize for the time I was away, but things should be running a bit smoother now. I did a good bit of work with four of you as at least a start, and Chance, I've been thinking about what to do with you, since Davi says I can't drown you like the little weasel you are, so I need you to answer a couple of questions I posted below. Then we can get the circus seriously moving.

Majo Neko, welcome aboard. Give me an idea how I can see some of your pieces, even at DA. I see no problem with what you need, it'll just take a while to get all of it "down on paper" so we can stuff it in your head. As for acrylics, you're in the right place. I'm actually one of the few people here who LIKES them, and I was in the original testing period when they first appeared in the US.

Sepulverture, why do I get the feeling I should be in a cemetery when I say your name out loud? Welcome to the zoo. You've posted some interesting pieces. What kind of things are you looking for from me other than lunch money and a free beer?

Okay, everybody. I read through the bios and stuff you all posted, and if you think it's going to make me wet my pants, you're on the wrong boat. I survived friends that were wanted for multiple murders, one who threw my kitchen stove out the second floor window because "It keeps asking me stupid questions," and a roommate who sat at the foot of my bed every night hoping I'd die in my sleep because he had a mental problem that made him think he was a vulture and he was REALLY hungry. After that, vampires are a walk in the park. :P

On the stuff I post...we're just getting started, so I kind of working a bit blind. It will get more specific/better when we settle in and I get to know your strengths and weaknesses a bit better. Sometimes, I may seem like I'm going overboard on something you think is pretty elementary/simple, but I'm basically talking to ALL of you at the same time, even though I aim a specific post at a specific person. That way, we all may learn something we didn't know before. If I don't know about a specific thing, I'm going to ask you for a little time so I can track it down, or find somebody I can have post here that does know.

And thank you again for being patient...

[Ilaekae]

Alesoun...

Based on the three pieces you posted, it's obvious you have well above average drawing skills, and the few places you need work will resolve as you go along with your drawing. It's just practice.

But...(Don't y'hate when somebody says that?)...there are some problems, many of which may be due (possibly) to the way you work. Now I'm going to assume that your pics are "fairly" accurate as far as color and overall values are concerned. If that's not the case, just compensate at your end for anything I suggest.

The pencil sketch:

The skewing to the left: This is common. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you draw with the paper flat on a table or your lap, meaning the paper is at a 90° angle to your torso when you're sitting straight. In this position, everyone who's right-handed has a tendency to "go uphill" with drawings, and even when handwriting on a non-ruled blank sheet. (There are some people who actually go DOWNhill, but nearly everyone I ever met who did this was suicidal, so all of you out there--if you draw right-handed DOWNhill, find a shrink fast...seriously)...

The way to correct for this is to have the paper surface flat directly in front of your eyes, no matter what angle you work at. For example, if you work on your lap, tilt the pad up at a 30°-45° angle or so on a small drawing board or painting panel (or even a stiff thin book) so when you look down, you're looking square-on at it. If you're drawing FLAT on a standard table (about 29-32 inches high, the paper is "going off into the distance" so to speak, and you will have trouble compensating for this tilting uphill. Another possibility is to use a small easel set off to your right so the paper is at a comfortable drawing level. This allows you to just glance back and forth sideways between the props and your paper, and without visual distortion.

Again--out on a limb here... I'm guessing you started this drawing with the stove in the fireplace. Then you relaxed a bit and started the fireplace and then worked your way out to the drawing edges. This is the easiest way to skew left there is, because the part you're drawing is a long way from the edge of the paper, which should act as a reference line for vertical/horizontal. You lost your reference for direction because you were so far from it.

So...try this. Get a couple of those ugly colored index cards in different sizes and keep them handy when you're drawing. When you have to draw the left side of the fireplace for example, stick the card under your left hand lined up with the edge of your paper and the other side about a half inch from where you're drawing your vertical line. Now you have something handy and close to reference off. You can do the same for the top, bottom and right. You don't have to keep it there, just long enough to draw a really light guideline you can work off as a guide. Also, as you start a new item, flip your drawing in front of a mirror. This will REALLY exaggerate the tilt and force you to correct for it, especially in ares that are like the globe and the face on the dog figurine.

The Doggie figurine:

Kudos for even attempting this. I've seen these ugly little bastards and they are a flaming trip and a half to paint--they're shiny! And they're a variation of a real dog without the nice undercuts and subtle dark/light patterns that real dogs have.

The basic drawing looks fairly solid. He's actually sitting the way he should, so the problems to contend with here are color and value. Let's deal with the brown areas first.

The tail part is probably the most accurate for color and value, but even here, the extremes should have been pushed a bit. A porcelain piece has extremes of light and dark because it's seriously affected by the surroundings. Highlights can be glaring and hard-edged, and the darks in the brown area especially can range from near black to purple to green, depending what's near the figurine. It's like painting a glass, just without the transparency. The gradations from tone to tone will also tend to be more hard-edged than if you were painting something fuzzy or with a matte sheen.

The deepest parts of the figure should be a good bit darker than you have them, then we decide, for the sake of argument, that the actual color of the figure is the middle tone in our value chain, and because of the glazing, the highlighted areas are just short of blinding near-white with a bit of a yellowish tinge. This goes for your "white" parts of the figure, also, just bumping the darkest values to a blue-purplish color that's about twice as dark as you have it now.

This will add depth to the figure and make it pop more. As for the actual areas you've painted, I'm seeing them as remarkably accurate except for the too-little contrast in value and color.

One hint when you're doing a study like this--always assume that part of the environment belongs to the prop you're painting. Think of it as somebody "getting into your space/face." They're not actually touching you, but they are affecting you. The same applies to what you draw. A small section of the floor at least, and maybe the barest suggestion of other things that are close by would give your central piece the presence it needs to prevent it from floating in space like a tossed out apple core.

The horse painting:

Again, the basic drawing base is actually not that bad. There's a few problems with anatomy here and there--the horse's chest area, and (most importantly) the body of the young lady. I'm thinkin' her butt's up behind her belly button because her torso isn't long enough. You subconsciously knew something was "wrong," so you over-compensated by making her legs a bit long. The short torso also threw off your arms, because if you made them where they should be, they wouldn't look right. So...the most hated sentence in CA history...study your anatomy a bit more. One thing I can't help noticing is that our pretty young lady has no obvious butt. How do you expect her to attract the local studs with no behind? Let's get a nice delectable (and solid) one in there so her legs have something to anchor to.

Actually, I like the positioning and relationship between the horse and the female figure--nice angle, nice line-up--we definitely know there's something going on here. But...(there it is again...ACK!)...you're weakening that interaction by having too much background. This is a compositional problem, with the extraneous background at the top starting to overpower the main figures just by its sheer massiveness.

Rather than describe this, I've done a crop/draw-over of your originals. This should make your pieces a bit more "powerful because the primary elements are where the viewer expects to find them. I've also tweaked the pics in PS a bit as far as contrast is concerned to show you what I mean by increasing the range of values, especially at the extreme dark/light ends. This holds with your pencil work, also. Try to get some deeper darks in there so the items develop more of a 3-dimensional presence. Maybe you need a softer pencil or a Wolfe pencil in addition to the one you use for most of your work just to punch the darks. (My modifications made the art a little garish, but they at least get across what I was talking about as far as value range is concerned.)

Allow me to say, overall--nicely done. you've got a really solid start, and where you go from here is up to you. Concentrate just a bit on composition, anatomy and values, and your overall work should improve quickly and dramatically.

alj

[Ilaekae]

Morrigannia...

I understand you're shy, so I'll be as nice as I can. Hell, I haven't actually killed anybody in ...ummmm...at...least...damn, it's gotta be at least a week...hope that puts you at ease... :P

For this first pass to you, I'm going to concentrate on the speed painting/blending problem you have. Then we can go from there. Looking over all the bio posts, I noticed that you once started with acrylics and hated them. Combining that with your stated blending difficulty tells me that you have a tendency toward the slick smooth look that oils can give, and a look through your website confirmed that. You should actually try playing with a small selection of oils someday. You might like it. the acrylics you tried aren't geared for that kind of approach, and work better for somebody whose heavy into direct painting, impasto, and dry brush.

Speed Painting...

Morrigana, forgive me if this sounds like I'm being elementary here, but I don't know how you work, so I want to make sure I cover everything...

I've really grown to hate the term speed-painting because it sort of disguises its true relevance to what we do. It's what we used to call "blocking" or "blocking in." A term that means exactly what it says/describes. "Speed painting" seems like some kind of magic that makes you whiz along a lot faster without paying attention. What it actually is is the quickey establishing of a basic fundamental three-dimensional artifact on a two-dimensional surface. We're slappin' paint on to establish the primary planes and values of what we're painting. Period.

This basic structure is then refined to get us to where we want to be as far as a recognizable image is concerned. How well we refine that basic speed-paint image is the determining factor on how successful our final piece will be. The first and biggest problem pops up when we start the smoothing process and become so involved in it as an exercise unto itself that we forget why we did the speed-paint/block-in in the first place.

Some basic things to remember in finishing a piece this way is that we DO NOT want to lose the original block-in. This seems to be the biggest problem I've noticed with digital painting, and to a degree, with beginner oil painters. (When I refer to painting from here on, it applies equally to oils and digital unless I say otherwise...) I also want to state upfront that I don't normally work this way, so I did a little playing around to see what the problems might be. Here's what I came up with...

Speed-painting usually works best if you work opaquely, except in certain cases where you really might want a lot of variation to start with, like say in an environmental piece--especially one that has a lot of structures and metal/stone in it. I'm guessing a landscape would be another example. For everything else, speed-painting is exactly the same as blocking in with masses of opaque paint to define the rough planes and values.

The problem when blending comes in when we attempt to make a smoother transition from one plane or value to another, because we also have to consider how close to each other in color/value these two areas are. Basically, a nose, for example, is a wicked jaggy in-and-outie thing that sticks out all over the place and has very abrupt changes in surface direction, while a forehead or the upper thigh has a much flatter shape and therefore, a less obvious transition from one area to another.

Now I know there are tools in PS that push the "paint" around and moosh it up to blend it, but these don't seem to work as well as gradually layering the transition area with a soft brush loaded with a mid-range tone and the brush set to 10-20% opacity max. This most closely imitates the actual process using oils (even though they ARE different). Problems develop when we accidentally make the transitional area (the blending) either too wide and gradual, or too narrow and sharp. The first you need for something like a forehead, the second for the harder edges of the nose, for example. Trying to blend a forehead area with teeny little brushes and too high an opacity is just as dumb as trying to paint your bedroom walls with a #000 sable brush. The reverse is true for the nose and other complex areas.

I did a pathetic-looking simple shiny tube thing below to show the stages I went through in my hit-and-miss attempt to illustrate this. I actually did the tube and the background on two different layers to speed things up.

First image: I roughly blocked in a shape on a background. The lightest tone is maybe 30%.

Second image: Using a big soft brush set to 10% opacity, I loaded the 30% gray and flicked up and down to start smoothing out the surface. I also used some darker tones to clean up the left and right a bit. Using a really big chalk brush, I roughed in some background texture for contrast.

Third Image: I loaded a bit lighter gray (and then white) at 10% opacity, bumping it to 20% as I worked. The "tube" is getting smoother, but I can still see a subtle striping effect. Using a slightly smaller chalk brush, I roughed in some shapes in the background.

Fourth image: Using light grays and ultimately white with a soft brush, I started at roughly 30% opacity and quickly flipped up to 50% and 100% to get the final look. This got rid of the striping. (I accidentally made the white area a bit too wide, but was too lazy to go back and correct it. You get the point.) Using smaller and smaller chalk brushes with lighter and lighter grays, I finished up the "pebbley" background. The pipe edge was cleaned up a bit with the eraser and merged with the background.

Apparently, the best CONTROLLED smoothing is accomplished with brushes at lower opacities, but to make a really smooth surface, you must go close to 100% to finish off.

Now I'm going to try to tie this to Morrigan's pieces below that I lifted from her website.

I've been studying blowups of the brown torso and the face (good likeness, btw...) and based on what I learned with my little experiment, I think I spotted a number of things that might be causing your blending problems. I think, but I'm not sure, that you're blocking in with transparent (low opacity) brushes. If you're not, then you're refining the first block-in with them. This is causing a lot of tonal variation where you don't want it, and some really hard edges where two areas overlap just right. This is most obvious on the uppermost nose area of the portrait. See what happens when you go to a more opaque setting, even if you have to move to a soft-edged brush.

In addition, there is a second problem happening (I think--not sure) that is not really your fault... I think your brushes are set to allow COLOR DYNAMICS, which really screws up any attempt to smooth out a surface because it's adding a "texture" of its own to what you're doing. That's possibly why you are getting a mottled appearance on the portrait. With this turned off, and experimenting with a hard edge AND a soft edge brush might give you what you need.

I'm going to talk a good deal more about the brush settings in a second post, so there's more to come, but I think you should look at that area and see what happens when you scribble randomly on a blank page with different settings.

Values: I'm going to refer to the face here, because it's easier to ID the areas I'm pointing out. The clothing, hair and beard/eye brows are showing a pretty-much believable set of values overall, but the exposed skin areas are not following suit. With as strong a light source as you have, the left side of the face and nose, and the underside of the hand should be a great deal darker than they are, in some places literally "blending" into the hair in value. This weakness in value may be a result of your problem with blending, causing you to be a bit tentative when working on the face/likeness.

Your desire to speed up the painting process might benefit from making a change in one area you didn't expect. The hair.

I noticed on all of your pieces that I saw on the website that you spend a lot of time "stroking" in the hair. Try to get into seeing hair as a mass or series of "solid" shapes that are a given appropriate value, with the strands applied judiciously where they are most needed--at a transition between dark and light, near the upper surface of the hair mass where they pick up the light, and in areas where strands dangle near or over the face and near the extreme outer edges of the hair mass. This oughta save you...oh...I'm guessing...a month alone on any given portrait. (GRIN)

alj--more to come.

[Ilaekae]

Alice, Alice, Alice...

Somehow, I get the impression you're not thirteen years old...:P

Because of your specific question, I went to check out your website and sketchbook with the mindset that I was an art-buyer. Very nice...really! I think I can give you some pointers, but whether they'll help or not is up to you...

The US advertising market is obviously huge, and you will definitely be able to get work out of it, but there are some idiosyncracies that can drive you nuts. The worst is "type-casting." A lot of these people must be so anal, or so mentally handicapped, that they can't handle someone who can actually do more than one thing well at a time. Because of my long history of running my own business, I picked up /developed at least 30 different...ummm...what people here would call "styles," I guess. I just refer to them as "approaches." You seem to be the same type of person. Bravo! Oh, and that's where the problem comes in...

In the US, many Art Directors and large-agency types have a tendency to pigeon-hole people into what they see as certain areas of expertise. This can cause a multi-directional outsider with a wide-ranging portfolio to be stuffed into a "what-ever..." file, both mentally and literally...and then forgotten. Then, if by some chance you get to do a cartoon, for example, you're a "cartoonist" forever in their minds...and don't really do anything else. Very short-sighted people...

The way to get around this is to prep a series of different pieces (a mail-in portfolio file) each aimed at a particular part of the market and send only the one that you think is most suitable to that market. In your case, I would send an example of EVERYTHING you do to most people, but do it in individual coordinated packages about a week or maybe a month apart. This serves the double duty of reminding them you exist and also exposes another facet of your abilities. So this makes sense, I've "borrowed" some items from your website and split them up into what I see as obvious "areas of specialization," for want of a better term...

Harry and the Angel...

Beautiful work here, btw. This would be very attractive to ad agencies, publishers, theatre and motion picture promotional specialists, and, probably to some degree, magazine and editorial types. It's good solid art, with a strong attractive color sense and just an underlying touch of humor. This, btw, is a major strong point for you. A slightly skewed but subtle sense of humor is a big part of what many buyers will find attractive.

Colored line art with the sixties feel...

Again, beautiful work. But it clashes with what we have above to the point that it's scary to some really dumb buyers. To the good, it's "RETRO!" And retro is a big deal in the US. People who can supply "authentic" 50-60-70s art are always in demand, but doing just that won't make you rich. Consider it a potentially lucrative "second specialty" to all the same markets as above.

Decorative Black and White...

I was so deliriously happy to find this stuff I choked on my coffee. There are really not that many people who do this kind of thing this well. Graphically pleasing, well-balanced, and either with a lot of humor or a slight feeling of nostalgia with minimal art. This will be very attractive to the Editorial art market especially, but can also get you in the door at the other markets I mentioned above.

Fourth possibility not obvious on your website...

I went through your sketch book and at one point you complained about doing "cute." Don't do that. Cute is good. Cute can be your friend. Cute will sleep with you and make you breakfast in bed and not brag to its friends afterwards...Cute will get you into the book-publishing market (Children's books) and other similar areas. And...(you're gonna hate this...sorry)...you've got Cute down solid. And you've got a strange kind of Cute--a slight spookiness and monster-under-the-bed Cute. Very nice. Even your nicely done attempts at Monsters in the sketch book have a slight underlayment of humor and Cute. This is worth pursuing with a totally separate mailing file to most of the markets above, as well as a something to specialty houses that produce seasonal materials and decorative materials as well as the obvious youth publishing market.

I can see you there, sitting in your jammies with a cup of chocolate and marshmallows looking all smug and content. "That weird old asshole likes my stuff!" Now...relax a little, tilt your chair back a bit...and let me yank the rug out really fast so you end up on your head with your cup balanced on your butt...

Cartoons...

You have cartoons on your website. Don't panic...they're not that bad, but they aren't anywhere near the level of the rest of your stuff. This is your weak spot. The little cartoon creature to the right of the color 3-D image below is miles beyond the pure line art cartoons, as is your little spikey-haired bowling pin "button" I picked up from your website. You have potential here, but need a lot more practice/refinement. The biggest problem is the cartoons somehow aren't as humorous as those "terrifying monsters" in your sketch book. It's like you're working too hard at making them funny. Graphically, they need a cleaner, simpler approach, especially where you have the cross-hatching as shading. It's just not working. I'd like to see you try to get more of the feel of your sketchbook critters into the line style you're using for the cartooning.

I'm not sure if that was in any way helpful, but at least it gives us a starting point.

Alj

[Ilaekae]

TheGnoll...

The first thing 'Gnoll said when he posted was he had "no real skills" and needed a lot of help with composition. Who am I to argue with that? Before we go any further, let's all look down at the end of this thing where I've posted some samples of his work so we all know how accurate THAT statement is. Go ahead, do it now...I'll wait here.

Okay. Now that's why 'Gnoll is gonna be the resident idiot for maybe a week or so. Then I'll probably give the honor to Chance for a while...especially since he already had a special T-shirt printed up and everything... :P

************************************************** *

'Gnoll, the last thing you need from me is guidance in drawing and Composition 101 (...second door on the right...). In fact, I'd like to see you help out a bit as a mentor here with some of the less advanced people if you can spare the time.

There are small anatomy nits and nats I could be critical of here and there, but you already know about them. The weakest part I see that is a consistent trait is that you don't push the darks in some drawings as far as you probably could. But...that's only a problem if your intention is to leave them as pencil drawings, so...

let's move on to your color problem.

I've picked up some of your art from your website to use as examples while I chatter away. (I reduced 'em a bit to prevent overloading the attachment thing...)

After studying your stuff for a few hours, I'm wondering if the primary problem is that you might be a tiny bit afraid of screwing up. Your drawing/pencil skills are top-grade. This you know, and it makes you feel comfortable enough to keep going with more complex work in the same vein. Result? Improvement, and since you're already better than many "pros" I've come across, that's saying a lot. That would indicate, hopefully to both of us, that you've simply hit a wall--or more accurately, a door in a wall--and now you're simply trying to find the best way to open that door.

You've already started experimenting with color, and from what I can see, I think you're on the right track. This is reinforced when I look at your blue dragon. It's not really that bad. It's just not really that good, either, and that pisses you off a bit. What I see when I look at your mummy, beast and drakeling is you experimenting with ways to use color that you're comfortable with, but then you suddenly jump to the dragon, which doesn't appear, at first glance, to retain any of your strengths--your drawing ability--and without the supporting line work, it becomes obviously monochromatic--which pisses you off even more.

So...how do we do this? In stages. One step at a time.

I've posted three of your pencil sketches as an example of how you'll have to adapt your thinking when it comes to color.

Batman: This piece is a sketch carried to the point that it would be difficult to use as a base for a painting because it's so "complete." It's a great value study, but the image would suffer unless you pretty much obliterated most of the pencil work to achieve a "painting." Let's save him, and drawings like this, til later, when you feel more comfortable painting "above the drawing" opaquely...

The Baron: We're getting closer to where we want to be here. This is a great block-in drawing. We know where the structure is, and have an idea of the values. It wouldn't really take much to paint this "below the surface" and then fine tune the pencil work with semi-opaque paint "above the surface."

The Girls: This is almost perfect for where we want to be for coloring, especially the one on the right. We know where the mass/structure is, and there's not a lot of rick-rack to contend with as we finish up with painting in the details. Actually, the one on the left might almost be too clean, so maybe something close to this with a tiny bit of The Baron added in. Get what I mean?

Next we have three colored sketches.

Beast: Not bad. I'd believe this, but you're relying too much on your pencil work for the darks. Areas under his head, lower torso, under his knee/legs, etc., are not passing to the shadow-world where they belong. It needs to be darker in these areas to make this sucker get up and walk, AND I DON'T mean use a darker pencil. We're talkin' paint here. This is obviously the place where you could start to play with some warmer much darker tones to get away from the monochromatic look.

And take a look at what you did with the high-light areas on the arms and upper body. The arms are starting to drift away from monochromatic because you've used a yellowish/ocherish tone for the highlighting (this is good), but we drift back to monochrome when we get to the upper torso and head because you switched to a colder white (this is not so good). It's the subtle things like this--complementaries playing off each other, and using complementary color to push the forms to the back or front where we need them--that really start to make a painting rather than a monochromatic study. While we're in the area, the shadow he's casting on the floor could be a lot stronger and to the brown/red/ochre end of the gray scale to really push him off the paper.

Drakeling: Damn! You actually used more than one color here...heeheehee...

Okay...I'm kidding. This is actually rather good for a starting point. Good color foundation, and actually a real jump up from the beast drawing. The areas from his cheek and lower jaw to his upper chest, the right ankle, and the place where his right leg joins up with the lower torso are almost there in value (darkness), so what we want is this same feel under his crest, belly, left leg and the hands. This a pure value problem and not a color thing necessarily. The fluorescent purple actually works well off the brownish cast of the body. What we want to do now is to get a little more color in this sucker, and the way to do that is to correct a major problem first...

The background.

What...you went to sleep right before you did this? I'm imagining the thought process right now--"Damn I've got this great brown-orange thing! Spiffy! Now...to make him really pop off the page and scare the hell out of the cat, I'll put a...ummmm...brown-orange background in!" Of course! Who wouldn't? :P

Okay...I'm back to serious. The background is really crippling you. How about something remotely complementary to the creature? Maybe a bluish-green/deep dirty green/dirty cold blue/olive green range? Cold, but not too cold. we want the background to retreat into the background where it belongs and get Mr. Universe here to the foreground where he belongs. Making it a good bit darker in value than it is now would also be a good thing. Think contrast without being garish.

This also opens up a whole new world of possibilities for some additional color on the figure. With all that cool green/blue stuff in the background, we suddenly have some local color reflection to contend with. The figure can take some little flecks and spots of really dirty blue/green where he's picking up and interacting with the background colors. Now we're moving away from monochrome and, again, into real color.

Which allows us to gracefully segue into...

The Mummy...

You're actually getting close to where you want to be here. Nice dramatic scene, nice complimentary contrast, nice reflected reds from the background...all good stuff. I can see surface painting flecks of yellowish gray and whites, ochres, and all those nice dirty scruffy mummy colors in the areas directly facing the light. Probably all with a slight orange cast because the light source seems to be red.

Things that need more thought and work...the area behind the mummy would be darker under such a strong light source, especially at the floor level behind his legs, and in the recess behind the column. Now...for a question I've been dying to ask you since I first saw this piece...

How the hell did you determine the shapes and location of those shadows behind his right arm and head? I can't for the love of gawd figure it out...and I'm dying to know the reasoning...

To finish for now, I'm suggesting that you check through the crap I wrote, see if it makes sense and we'll go from there. I don't think you're going to have as difficult a time transitioning to color as you think you will.

alj

[Ilaekae]

Chance...

I looked through all 17,375 pages of your sketch book and discovered that a 300-pound orc likes popcorn with chocolate and nougat. Thanks. I didn't know that. The second thing I learned is you're developing some really decent drawing skills. I pulled some of your pieces out so I could talk about them in the context of what you wanna do, but I didn't get a chance to really talk to you up front. I don't think you're going to have any trouble at all with your plans to go B&W/ink, but I want to get a better idea of your working habits first before I make any suggestions.

Do you work with a brush and pen, or mainly on the comp?

Do you see yourself going mainly towards illustration or more towards a comics kind of thing? Or both? I'm asking because there are specific problems in serial comics that rarely pop up in illustration.

If you work with pen and brush, how large do you work? And do you work directly on a board or trace to vellum?

If you work soley on the comp, what do you use as an app? Do you ever use a vector app like illustrator?

Give me some answers here when you get a chance and I'll get back to you fast with specifics.

alj

[alesoun]

I tried to say thank you earlier today, Ilaekae, but CA kept logging me out while showing me as logged on. I'll never understand pcs!!!

It'll be a day or two before I can start it, but I'll use your advice to finish the pic of the bad-tempered mutt. I'd done about 4 hours on it already (probably two of them looking and cursing).

The Kelpie and the Buttless Broad is something I'll tackle after that. Both pics were done on acrylic board (okay, they were done on board, but that just sounded too nautical somehow) so I can crop them with a bandsaw and seal the edges with copydex, right?

I drew the fireplace from my husband's favourite chair, and now that the rugby/soccer season has started it may be some time before I can perch there again, but when I can, I'll grab a 4B pencil and push the values...

Thanks again for taking the time to help.

[TheGnoll]

nice nice nice

I've been waiting for something like this...so thanks a lot Ilaekae :)
and the fact this is just the beginning is even better news.
I am only guessing such an in-depth comment requires an in-depth awnser.

I read the comments directed to me and the others, and you were right, they can be interesting for all of us.


The first thing 'Gnoll said when he posted was he had "no real skills" and needed a lot of help with composition. Who am I to argue with that? Before we go any further, let's all look down at the end of this thing where I've posted some samples of his work so we all know how accurate THAT statement is. Go ahead, do it now...I'll wait here.

Okay. Now that's why 'Gnoll is gonna be the resident idiot for maybe a week or so. Then I'll probably give the honor to Chance for a while...especially since he already had a special T-shirt printed up and everything... :P


I took this as a very nice compliment, so thanks.


'Gnoll, the last thing you need from me is guidance in drawing and Composition 101 (...second door on the right...). In fact, I'd like to see you help out a bit as a mentor here with some of the less advanced people if you can spare the time.


this was more than i expected.Dunno about how much help i can provide, but i awnser question with pleasure, i'll do what i can.


There are small anatomy nits and nats I could be critical of here and there, but you already know about them. The weakest part I see that is a consistent trait is that you don't push the darks in some drawings as far as you probably could. But...that's only a problem if your intention is to leave them as pencil drawings, so...


Small anatomty issues, you call them, and yeah, i do know about them, but most of the time i'm the last person to actually noticed them, wich pisses me of.But then again, its such a huge subject i can't really ask for help on that.But if you see some recurring mistakes, please point those out too, and i'll try and work on them.
Its not the first time i hear about the "not dark enought darks"...and i think that can be associated to the beign scared of messing up problem.Rendering is something i find incredibly boring (altho i know it necessary for the kind of work i want to produce)...and the exercise to improve my rendering skills are even more borign (life drawing, value studies etc).Yeah i know, its a useless and unproductive rant.I'll listen to suggestions about that too (altho you specified you are not a fan or realistic/whateverthef*ckitscalled work, i sure you'll have some good pointers...and looks like we agree on the "boring stuff")
My aim (obviosuly) is to be capable of producing full pencil drawings AND painting, i definately don't want to restrict my (job) opportunities.


After studying your stuff for a few hours, I'm wondering if the primary problem is that you might be a tiny bit afraid of screwing up. Your drawing/pencil skills are top-grade. This you know, and it makes you feel comfortable enough to keep going with more complex work in the same vein. Result? Improvement, and since you're already better than many "pros" I've come across, that's saying a lot. That would indicate, hopefully to both of us, that you've simply hit a wall--or more accurately, a door in a wall--and now you're simply trying to find the best way to open that door.


I hope (and have the feeling) you are right about that.Lets see if this old cat can help me open the door, or at least point me out how to :)
And yes, i guess my problem is i'm afraid of screwing up.I've always drawn in pencilis, and that gave me quick and efficient results other people liked.While when i tried working in color, people (in school, in life, anywhere) mocked my color work because not only it wasn't to my pencil standards, it wasn't even up to THEIR standards.So i'm guessing that meant i usually tried and stay in my comfort zone without "risking" much.Now that the time to actually start doing something with my "art" is coming, i realized i seriously NEED those skills in color and value and painting.I WANT to reach certain painting levels, but i find the process very "frustrating" (wich is absolutely normal...but most of the time, when i have to choose between "shall i draw or shall i practice painting" ...guess what my choice is?)


You've already started experimenting with color, and from what I can see, I think you're on the right track. This is reinforced when I look at your blue dragon. It's not really that bad. It's just not really that good, either, and that pisses you off a bit. What I see when I look at your mummy, beast and drakeling is you experimenting with ways to use color that you're comfortable with, but then you suddenly jump to the dragon, which doesn't appear, at first glance, to retain any of your strengths--your drawing ability--and without the supporting line work, it becomes obviously monochromatic--which pisses you off even more.


I watched various training dvds, practiced different methods, and i'm still not satisfied...or well, not confident at all with none of these methods.I'm pleased you picked that dragon, cause not many people noticed is was basically the only time i tried to "ditch the line and work with paint".
"Its not that bad and really not good either" is what i think when i finish any of my works, wich basically should be the thing that keeps me going...but the again, you understood how pissed off i am, so that will probably help you helping me too.
"Monochromatic" is something i hear a lot in my "color" work, and that pisses me off a lot indeed.Hope you'll be able to help with that, but then again, i am the best person to help myself, i guess.


I've posted three of your pencil sketches as an example of how you'll have to adapt your thinking when it comes to color.


Painting under and above is something i really struggle with.I never actually tried doing both of the things at the same time, cause i don't feel as is i know how to.Lets say i understood what you mean with block-in drawing...you want lineart that isn't necessary "clean", but awnsers to some of the first questions the painting stage will require.So i'll need to describe from and give an indication of value.


Next we have three colored sketches.


I do rely a lot on the pencils cause its my "comfort" zone, ad i'm not familiar to any painting method.And when you mention those color association, in backgrounds, highlights and more, i believe you're talking color theory here.
I'll need to know about that, but i think i can start by reading book on the subject...i found one by Betty Edwards, but link me up to anything you might find useful.
All those issues you pointed out made me laught out loud, especcially since the seems so bloody obvious when someone points them out :D
About the mummy, something that worries me is that i have no idea of what you're talking about when you mention things like "surface painting"
Amd for the mummy question...well, i basically have no idea.I just thought a big shadow that recalled the undead's shape would add to the piece, and i like the hand shadow, but not the rest.As far as how accurate it is, i have no idea.I just thought i knew where the light source was and projected (i have NO IDEA if this word exists) behing the thing.These digital toys like selection etc can be extremely tempting at times, and seldom take attention off from far more important matters.


To finish for now, I'm suggesting that you check through the crap I wrote, see if it makes sense and we'll go from there. I don't think you're going to have as difficult a time transitioning to color as you think you will.


Checked thru the whole thing (was quite scary in the end, but proved very interesting in the end), and hope you're right about the fact its not going to be too hard.And i'm pleased to hear this is just the beginning, so bring it on, i'll be waiting for your next post ;)

EDIT:i forgot to mention something.Isn't the fact these pictures you examined are in a non-chronologic order weird? why is something like the dragon (i did something like a few months ago) is better than something "new"?there must be something wrong in this :D

ciao

[Morrigana]

Ilaekae: You are right on the money about a few things I do. I have a tendency to block in my shadows and highlights at about 40% opacity. That's ending now.

As a side note, my mom used to paint with oils, and I did one or two little pieces with it when I was eight. She had a lot of fun with them. I don't really remember how much fun I had with them.

For the top piece, it wasn't a brush setting that caused all the purple distractions. That was my amateur attempt to blend other colors into shadows. I failed miserably with that one, but have improved since.

It's almost funny you bringing up my problem with hair. Just this morning I was reading through another tutorial, and when she was talking about hair, I realized I was really regressing on it. So I did a really fast little sketch of hair after I read your comments, and only used any strands for last minute highlights, and it looked a million times better. Sometimes I just need a fresh pair of eyes to get something corrected.

And then on to your blending pipe. I tried doing it too. I do have private issues with being able to draw straight lines, so I cheated a little during the blocking part. It was actually very neat watching it all come together quite that well using the large brush. I've only done it that way a few times before, and didn't get as powerful a result. Something else I take away with me.

http://morrigana.youareannoying.us/sketch/pipe.png

You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to more. Just reading through all the posts to everyone reveals such a depth of knowledge, that I am grateful to be able to tap into.

And would it be helpful if I posted a rough synopsis of how I work?

[Morrigana]

Gnoll here's a site I have found useful when trying to learn color theory. I've gone through it a few times, and I still struggle with the whole principle *frowns*, but I have found them very informative. And interactive to a degree.

http://www.worqx.com/color/index.htm

[Sepulverture]

Ilaekae - Lunch money and beer are a good place to start... so cough up. Other than that pick a subject and I'm probably in need of assistance in it. I'd like to start learning traditional painting, but bills come first, so I suppose for the time I'd like to work on color theory (painting digitally to start with, and possibly using some traditional media like brush-pens). One thing I know for fact that I need major help with is perspective. I've got a grasp on some of the basic concepts of perspective drawing but not a firm enough grasp, and although I know some of the theories of drawing in perspective, in practice I'm not very strong at all. I need to gain more confidence in my lines, I need help with hatching, line weight, anatomy, dynamic composition, loosening up, driving stick shift, and chainsawing leprechauns. Whichever you think you could do best teaching me, I'm ready and willing.

[chaosrocks]

first learn tht the plural of medium is "media"

(sneaks in for a marshmallow attack)
crx

[Sepulverture]

I'll remember that chaos, thanks...

Now that we have that out of the way Chaos need to learn that that actually spelled like that <---- that :meow:

[Chance.]

First I would like to issue a very big THANK YOU to Davi, for not allowing me to be drowned like a weasel.
I had forgotten about the orc comments. I can't even remember what that was all about. Maybe I should go back and read my own SB once in a while.
Boy do I wish I actually had that many pages.

It is good to know that my drawing skills are starting to get somewhere.
You are such a softy, complimenting us in your very first posts.

Now to art business.
Up to this point I have worked mostly with digital, and a bit of sharpy and ballpoint thrown in here and there.

Which medium?
Brushes sound fun, but as I am finishing my portfolio for my college aplication, I won't have the time to fool with them until at least the end of November. As to surface... Printer paper? $5 walmart sketchpads? I'm pretty clueless in that particular area.

I work predominantly digital for inking, which allows me to maximize time usage with no cleanup and since its pretty much free, for now I think I'd better stick with it.
I'd love to get into more traditional media later, when I have more time on my hands.
Photoshop is my murder weapon.
No, I have never touched vector stuff, and to be honest, it scares me.

Comics or Illustration?
Both, but with the greater emphisis on illustration. Comics is something I want to do for fun, with no plans of going into that industry. Illustration is what I hope to major in at school.

Thanks for the unbelievable amount of time that you have already put in for us. I really appreciate what you are doing.

Oh, yeah, I'll be happy to be the resident idiot until I get killed or you find someone better.

[Kronos]

Hi peoples!

I hope you guys don’t mind but I PM’d Ilaekae to see if it was alright for me to join in on this learning fest of awesome. The Gnoll told me about the thread so if you hate me, hate him instead.

Um, a little bit about me I guess? My "real" name is Tom, I’m 19, male, from and in little tiny New Zealand and drawing kicks all ass. I’m not studying at any uni at the moment, I was doing fine arts last year, but art education in New Zealand is wankey and shit imo so I’m doing my best to improve on my own. I’m doing a very small amount of work for a very small game company making web games doing the art, its rad, but most of the time I’m sitting at home drawing or procrastinating about drawing. Anywayz.

I’m somewhat confident on the drawing and technical side of things, or at least I feel I’ve gotten to a point Im improving enough just on my own. I’d like to get some help on the compositional and story telling side of things. I VERY rarely think before I start drawing so, just about everything I do are just random sketches of monsters in non-distinct space in funny places on the page.

I’m more than happy to try help anyone else with any problems they have too, it’s a lot to ask of Ilaekae to dedicate his time to all of us for zip, but maybe we can make it easier on him by helping each other out too. I know I probably look like a dick when saying that, being the guy whos just adding to Ilaekae’s work load… but ahh…. Oh well



Check out my sketchbook in my signature, but heres just a few examples of some stuff…

some sketches

227409

227412

227410


and an example of me trying something thats not just a character in white space, i'm working on this at the moment i guess, so specific crits would be appreciated.

227411



I don't know if i'm organized enough to try help others out at the moment, but i think once the ball starts rolling i should be able to give my two cents.

THANKS FOLKS!

[TheGnoll]

hate HIM instead, cause he's the talented bloke that doesn't need help :D

ya know i'm kidding... welcome to the pit Tom! ;)

(uhm, guess we'll have to see what the old cat says :D)

ciao

[Ilaekae]

Okay, Chance, Kronos and Sepuzbetrtwemnbw...whatever...I'm prepping a kind of crit/strong-point, bad-points thing on all of what I see of your work. then we'll go from there. Give me a couple days to catch up here. Majo Neko, I'll do the same for you as soon as I see something of your art.

The weakpoints I see OVERALL with everyone generally is basic color theory, composition, and (though I haven't mentioned it anywhere before), except for possibly 'Gnoll, a curious aversion to texture. So...

I'm going to prep a series of quicky tuturial-example kind of things in these areas and post them for you all to look through. They're going to be "here's how it works," "here's why" and "here's where you can adapt it to your personal area" kind of thing.

I'll also do some specialized "painting" stuff for the people who need some guidance in acrylics, oils and the "real world" media. A lot of this can be interpolated to digital, so it should be useful to everyone. Strangely, a lot of digital suggestions are also adaptable more than you'd thing to the "real" media people, so it should work out fine.

Morrigana, you asked about posting a short description of how you work. Do it. You don't have to go into extreme detail. Just give me an idea of the steps/sequence you use start to finish. It wouldn't hurt if those of you who are basically in the painting stage (digital or otherwise) did the sme thing. This often can give me a big clue to potential problems in your working habits that might be going unnoticed.

One thing here about my approach to each of you... I'm going to be supportive, make fun of you when you need it, and just generally push you in various directions. I AM NOT going to hand you what you need to do yourselves on a silver platter. The exception will be people like Alice who might pop in and out once in a while--she has already made the leap to "professional mindset," so I'm going to come down hard on her and people in her situation. They're already working, and they're facing a different kind of situation than the rest of us "un-working" schloggs, like me, for example...

As I see improvement in your work, I'm also going to get harder on you, because as you see improvement in your own work, you're going to tend to get a bit lazy maybe because you start to like what you see... Don't even think it, Bubbas and Bubbettes...:yayca:

[sve]

I would love your guidance, Ilaekae, but I know you got already too much on your plate...I will certainly read your advice and apply to my own work. Thanks for your thoughts on the matter.
I like your body of work, some more, some less, can give you my impression about them someday if you care.

[Ilaekae]

Actually that would be nice. It's mostly old junk and competition pieces so far, but I know I REALLY have a lot of probs scattered throughout that mess...

And don't be afraid to pop in and ask something for yourself when you can. I always have time for beautiful young ladies...heeheehee...

[Sepulverture]

Illaekae - Thanks for taking the time with the strong/weak point breakdowns and the tutorials.

- Sepuzbetrtwemnbw

[llothcat]

Mind if I join in? I've been watching this for a while, and was gonna post sumthing, but then something bright and shiny flew by and I forgot about what I was gonna post.

(Actually I was reading this at work and they have this no internets policy that I ignore. It means I can't post at work, so far, w/o getting caught. I'm going for a new job soon)
____________________________________________
Anyhow:
My name is Debra

BA is studio art from UCR. They specialize in photography, and barely covered the basics. Emphasis was on critique, usually. And conceptual woo-woo things. A useless degree so far. They did manage to introduce me to the open source projects side of things, though.

I've a light background in comics that began 6 years ago. Never actually made a living at it. I know I need help in anatomy, still, and I need to play a bit more with my concepts and such.

I do mostly digital paint right now, since I want to master painter--though it usually kicks my ass. Painter version 8.

In the past 2 years I've discovered vector, and I know I've a long way to go in it. (Don't get me started on how sucky my logo designs are. I tend to do things that are way too complex.) Inkscape is my tool of choice, 'cause I couldn't afford Illustrator for a long time.

Recent work is posted both in my sketchbook and at llothcat.deviantart.com
I do have my own website, but I haven't yet set up the portfolio part. It's kinda a messy warehouse right now.

[chaosrocks]

Kitty dear
woul dyou like to close this mentor class at a certain number? do you really want to juglle all these balla t onece at what ever level they drop in at?
up to you
but Id think four would be about all you could handle at this indepth level.... the rest will just have to take the class....
thats why I opened you the mighty lecture hall
don't burn yourself out my dear..... we want you for the long haul

chaos

[Ilaekae]

You're probably right as usual, Luv Bug. llothcat is in as the last mentee, mainly because she's into vector, so I probably better cut it at this point so I can get to everybody. That would give me seven or eight, depending on how much Alice pops in, and I think I can handle that if everyone is a bit patient. The lecture room is also going to help when there's overlap, so it really isn't as bad as it looks on the surface.

ADD: As I sit here, my youngest cat is in the corner gleefully chewing and ripping my litho crayon self portrait to shreds that she just dragged off the self. I'm surrounded by critics...

[Chance.]

Thought this might be relevant. Maybe help master determine where we need to work.

[Sepulverture]

la la la

[Ilaekae]

la la la yourself. I'm workin' on it...

Should be caught up tomorrow late...



pissant...;)

[Morrigana]

Well, I've had a horrible week, fighting off sickness. I couldn't even think of art. Even my doodles while working were less than inspired.

I will wholeheartedly admit I have issues with color theory. Things just never turn out quite how I want them too.

A quick rundown of how I work:

1. Using a photo reference of roughly the pose I want, I make my sketch in PS. I am practically lost without my sketch. After the sketch is done, I make sure the image is around 6000 pixels on the largest side.

2. Using a different layer for each major aspect of the painting, I block in the base color.

3. Starting with the background layer, I block in my shadows and highlights, and then blend it until I think it's finished. Blending involves lots of the color picking tool, matching the surrounding colors.

4. Rinse and repeat for each layer.

5. Touch up colors, tweek the contrast with the Layers function, shrink it down to web size, post it.

On one of my recent paintings, I started doing things in a slightly different way. I still have each element on their own layer, but I give it a rough blocking of shadows and highlights first, then refine them in order.

[llothcat]

Apologies..just got off work....13 hr shift

....bad week?
I get to fight the DMV thanks to the non-work Progressive did. The DMV thinks I don't have insurance, and so suspended my registration. I've been with Progressive since 2002. They are now fired...I went with another company today. I'm pissed. I hate the DMV...not looking forward to Monday:P

hopefully no cops will catch me on the public streets. I so do not want my car towed over this nonsense.
end of grumpy rant:P


rundown for how I work :

0)quick ref search through google. Or 3d modeled. Or sight. Or memory.

1)sometimes I pencil on actual paper and scan in. If comics or a IRL piece, this is a definite first step.

2)Lately I've been getting more used to the wacom and just drawing directly into the computer. Esp. tricky on my home computer. ( The monitor and the wacom sometimes don't like each other much..so I get a shaky cursor, and some other issues due to the great ceiling collapse of last year. Yep, the home computer is dying a slow death. Just nursing it along. Anyhow.....)

3) In the various programs I use, I try to keep the layer count to one or two at most. Scribble away until I'm out of time.

[Chance.]

I tried doing a sketch from a reference photo, to start learning to see high contrast values. Unfortunately my body thinks it is 12:30 am, even though the clock says otherwise. The result? An unsatisfactory drawing.
Whatever, I'm heading to bed.

I look forward to your next update sir.

[Ilaekae]

It's 2:30 Sunday night and I'm apologizing again. Sorry for that. A family emergency popped up on Friday (My younger brother had an accident, nothing really serious, but it could have been worse...) and I had to be out of the house for most of the weekend, so Im playing a bit of catch-up again.

Thank you for the posts Morganna, Sepy, llothct and Chance. I have to get a bit of sleep yet, but I'll be finishing off the four I still owe overviews to monday and posting that night if all goes well.

Thanks for bearing with me temporraily...

On the good side, while I was spinning my wheels at my brother's, I figured out a series of tutorial type things that will be helpful to all of you. You may have noticed I'm also giving Seedling a hand with her Classroom thing, and some of the assignments I have planned for there are going to be used here also, but in a more specialized mode. Talk to you all late monday...

alj

[Sepulverture]

Take your time friend. Hope your brother's doing alright.

If you need accommodations give me a hollar, i can get'cha big hotel discounts ;) a heh heh heh. yay for working at a big hotel chain.

[Chance.]

:lens:

[Ilaekae]

Chance:

i told you I didn't think you'd have any trouble going to the B&W work you want to do. I just didn't say it would be easy...heeheehee

Looking through your samples and sketchbook, plus the two pieces you posted since we last talked, give me a fairly good idea of what you have to do to get to where you want to be. First off, some random thoughts...

This dramatic hard-edge type of drawing isn't just one universal do-all. It's actually a number of different approaches which only APPEAR to all end up at the same place. Where that place is depends on why you're doing the art in the first place.

The most extreme version (at least that you've shown so far) is the type of thing with the dancers and the grinning monkey in the space suit thing. Highly abstract, no shades of gray, and a nice wood-cut type of feel.

This is an approach that is great for free-standing illustration and editorial spots, but it has some drawbacks when you try to apply it to other areas. Its charm comes from a lack of detail, which is a bitch to sustain in any kind of sequential art, like a comic, and can be a bitch when you're working an a multi-level illustration with a foreground, multiple middle grounds and any number of backgrounds. The reason is because it's difficult to separate the "layers" visually without a (sometimes extreme) modification to get depth to the illustration. A standard method is to have the most detail in the foreground, and lesser amounts as you move back. As an alternative, you used a gray shade in your caped guy in the mountains and the halloweenie thing with the grinning guy next to the tree to gain the depth. (There are some things I'll point out about these pieces below)

It's also hard to achieve a likeness if you're attempting a portrait, unless you move to a middle-range type of illustration that retains the solids you like but uses a good bit of detail to soften the "edges" and create a more gradual shift in tones. You've done this to some degree on the male portrait

As far as your tools are concerned...

PS is a good basic app, and a hell of a lot better than using a ballpoint pen, BUT...(I love saying that...BUT...BUT...BUUUUUUUUTTT...heeheehee)...but , you really have to explore the possibilities this app has for you to do this work a bit more. Deciding you're going to use one or two brushes/settings/etc. won't cut it. I'd also like to see you start to mess with a brush and ink, or pen and ink, to see what happens.

AND...it would be a good idea to really start thinking about maybe looking at Illustrator (GASP!). Yeah yeah, it's spooky, but it's a hell of a lot easier to learn than PS once you adapt to its peculiar drawing style. You indicated that you're getting ready for college, so as a student (discount discount discount), you should be able to get a great deal on it, so might as well do it up front. I can literally hold your hand and guide you through it if you buy me a couple of drinks and some flowers, maybe... Don't worry about it right now, but you'll see why I'm suggesting Illustrator specifically to YOU when we get a little further on. I'm doing some example/tutorials on ways to use multiple apps to achieve results you can't get as easily with just one or the other, and many of them fall into your area of interest.

Now let's do a bit on your work... (I posted some reduced examples of your stuff below so we can refer to it)

The pencil sketch: We both know you can draw. We both know you're also not a rank beginner, because you can actually draw what you see. And we both... know... that... you... need a lot more practice at it, don't we? This is EXTREMELY important for someone with your goals, because the pencil work you do is the foundation for all the ink work to come, and there's no way...NO WAY...to fudge a hard-edged ink drawing to cover up a mistake.

The Girl's Portrait: I'm guessing you probably got a good likeness here. I'm also guessing that even though it looks like ball point, it was done on the comp? Either way, you've got a few small problems with the application of texture/shading--other than maybe you don't know when to stop. [grin] The obvious linear texture has to be controlled more, and dictated by the actual curvature of the shapes you're drawing.
You actually did pretty well overall, but the forehead, upper lip to the nose area, her left cheek, and her temple really start to get a bit confused because of the texture's directional elements.

I think you should have carried some of this fine hatching at least partially up into the hair so the transition wouldn't be as abrupt. As it is, it now looks like two totally different pieces of art tacked together.

The dancer and Monkeyboy in his space suit: Both nice and crisp as they should be. the dancers are much better, though, because you didn't go in and dec it up with a lot of hatching. The weak part is the girls lower dress--the strokes need more control, like they're in a place where you actually want them rather than "that's where my brush ended up." The decorative edge at the bottom also looks a bit slapdash and should have had a bit more thought put into it.

While we're here, here's your first lesson after the fact: Composition is EVERYTHING. As a spot, the figures shouldn't be bleeding off the lower left edge like that, especially since they have all that "air" to breathe at the top. The drawing of the figures is only step two. Where they exist in their world is step one, and you're not finished until both steps are completed.

Monkeyboy's weaknesses are in the slightly careless way you produced the "mechanical" parts, especially his hands and arms. Instead of using the tablet, try using the "point to point" thing with shift key. It'll give you a perfectly straight line, which is what you want here.

The "Scarecrow" guy and the guy with the mountains: Remember that thing called composition I mentioned above? The Scarecrow's head is dead center and he ain't got no feets. What? You're a marksman and you're gonna put one through his temple from 500 yards so you're zeroing in on his skull? For the sake of argument, let's let him stay centered, BUT (BUTBUTBUTBUT...) how about givin' him a place to stand! At the least, his lower ribcage should be near the vertical center of the drawing.

I like the mountain guy, but again, we've got a major composition problem. The guy is nearly centered, but we can live with that... What we have trouble (as viewers) with is getting a bit lost on the way to where our hero is. The rock he's on "leads" to him, the tree at the right gently "leads to him, but the two most massive parts of this image lead away from him. The huge tree on the left is the first thing I see. Then I jump from that to the edge of the mountains in the background and just skip right over him. On this one, I did a rough crop and little mountain guide to show what I mean.

I wanna bounce over to the male portrait for a second, then come back to the two pieces above...

You've got a nice thing going here, but your anatomy is off a bit. I'm thinking his eyes are a bit too high, which causes all the features below them to stretch a bit. Now--dark/light... He's being hit with a strong source light from our left. This would cause "blind-out" like on his right jaw. Nice. But (BUTBUTBUTBUT!...damn...I'm sorry...I won't do it again. I promise.) the same light would blow his hair and most of his ear to hell also, especially along the extreme (our) left edge. No matter how dark hair is, It reacts to extremely strong light, too. I'm also thinking that the almost light part of his forehead would extend just a tiny bit more to our right, because it's a lot flatter than most people realize. At least part of his glasses should also show up on the right, because they ARE almost flat.

Now we're going back to the scarecrow, mountain guy, and we'll include the face as well. They all have something that doesn't come off the way it should. In all three of these pieces, you more or less started off with a wood cut look for the primary drawing, but instead of continuing this approach, you drifted into a kind of scribbly effect, mostly on the trees and the face's hair. The trees especially, should have more of the "cut" look to them than you have now, because they don't look solid, and they fight the rest of the drawing. The solution on the portrait is not to continuously scribble but to actually put in real lines with a real beginning and end, the way you did on the dancer's dress (but obviously thinner).

To end this saga which is now about three pages short of the history of civilization, I stuck a quicky thing I did in PS to see what textures I could come up with in two minutes that would work with your hard edge approach, for what it's worth...

Your strong points--you already have drawing skills that are improving. Good. You also have a strong sense of "extreme" value. They both just need practice and refinement. Your weak points--composition (we can fix that), and (Now...I want you to remember that you said this yourself at least 50 times in your sketchbook...REALLY...) if you can get away with it, you're lazy. That's L...A...Z...Y... with one "Z," and you are the only person in the world who can do anything about that. If you can get away with it, you'll do a really neat thing, and then just fudge in the "unimportant" stuff because you just ...didn't wanna do this anymore...

That was kinda blunt, wasn't it? Did you have to hear it at your age rather that at mine? HELL YEAH! I don't want you to love me, I want you to listen to me and get pissed off and try to make me eat my words.

Think that's a fair start? We still friends? Will you still take me to the prom?

alj

[Ilaekae]

Kronos...

I have good news and bad news: Your skills and basic techniques are at a professional level. ...heeheehee...

I went through everything I could find of yours, and whatever the hell you're doing, KEEP doing it. I found small things that bothered me here and there that I'll talk about below, but you are not at the level where you need nit-picking to death--you passed that long ago.

Your pencil work is beautiful, and your sense of "character" is probably the best I've ever seen in someone at your age. There's a maturity to your work that tells me you spent one hell of lot of time working to hone those skills, and you've learned how to "see" in order to capture what's important.

And--if your head isn't already too inflated--you have a natural and subtle sense of humor that comes through naturally in your pieces, and they do more than just stand there as static figurines (the running monster and the rough pencil of the guy jumping.).

I'm guessing that, given your age and circumstances, that your looking for material that would qualify as portfolio pieces, whether you're looking for further education or work. If so, that we can do.

I've posted some reductions of your stuff so everyone can refer back to what we're talking about, but there are five I want to comment on specifically for various reasons...

The guy in the pink tie: There are two things that really bother me here...

--the area directly under his chin seems to be either too light, or he has a double chin that isn't coming across clearly, and

--the right part of his skull around the part in his hair seems to be depressed to the left, even allowing for the perspective and angle. I can believe that it really IS like this, but it does look a bit strange.

The grinning monster with the single horn (pencil): I look at your other pieces and i see a good bit of planning going on, especially in the structural part of the anatomy. Here...I think...maybe you went to sleep just about the time you were getting to his legs. They don't have a solid-looking mechanism for walking. They appear to be more "flippery" or rubbery, without a real joint where the leg attaches to the body.

The two creature sketches in color: Obviously unfinished, but I'm looking at the faces. The coloring, structure, and values are great. I'm asking here whether you stopped working on these before you finished the faces, because they lack that bit of "crispness" that your pencils have--like they're just a bit out of focus. It could be because you had more work to do yet, but I'm asking to make sure.

Finally, the little guy on the mushroom: I think there's a problem with the position of the body. If he's lounging back and slightly to our left, we're seeing too much of his left arm with his body in that position. If we assume his left arm is correct, then his entire body should be more to our left by a good bit. His left leg also needs a lot of work to get it into the same scale as his right one. I'm thinking either his thigh on that side should be tilted down a bit to his butt, or his knee should be a good bit further up in the air.

From a layout standpoint, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be (POSSIBLY) good to have something like another mushroom in the background to the upper right, going off the page at the top, and possibly something like a pebble or two, or another mushroom bud tucked up against the base of the mushroom he's sitting on, just to anchor it a little more firmly to the ground. Otherwise, he may end up looking like he just landed on his little flying saucer.

Now that you're all smug and self-satisfied, how about we talk about where you wanna go from here? You've got two very clear-cut and salable directions possible, one a bit hard-assed, into the adult illustration/creature/CA kind of thing, and the other, a softer but still monster/fantasy/funny thing that would easily open up the children's market. Off the top of my head, you could easily do both simultaneously and not even work up a sweat, and that doesn't mean that we rule out more "realistic" illustrations (industrial/eco/portrait/that kind of thing) We could develop some believably commercial "reasons" for you to do specific things that best use your skills to develop some portfolio pieces. I'm also guessing that you would benefit from a bit more work in the color area and some guidance in composition.

Still interested?

alj

[Ilaekae]

Sepulverture and llothcat, I'm still making some small changes to your comments. They'll be up in a few hours. Sorry for the delay.

[Chance.]

[insert expression of extreme excitement]

I'm probably gonna read this about fifty times over the next hour.

Hey I don't want you to tell me what I want to hear. I want to be broken down so I can be built back up stronger. You could have been a lot harsher with that.
Man, I cannot wait to get started working on some of the things you mentioned.

I'll probably pull together some questions later, but for now I'm going to go chew on all this junk for a while.

[edit] Other than color, composition is one of my weakest areas. Considering how important it is going to be for this minimalistic style, it would be good if we could work on it some.

2nd[edit]
I know for a fact that I need to build some confidence when putting pen/brush/pencil/etc. to paper. The hands are a good example of how... shaky my lines can be. I want to fix that, but I have a sinking feeling that building this particular skill can only be accomplished through blood, sweat and hours of drawing consecutive parallel lines.
Are there any good exercises I can do to build stroke confidence?

3rd time's the charm [edit]
I am a lazy git, and that is a personality flaw that I've gotta get over if I'm going to succeed in art, cause there ain't no room for slackers. Period.
Sometimes saying stuff you already knew aloud helps you believe it a bit more.
Fudging details is a result of that. It probably has something to do with the lack of texture that you mentioned earlier.

Anyway, feel free to put that whip, and the big hammer to use if you see slothfulness in any of my assignments.

[Ilaekae]

Sepulverture...

I'm zeroing in on something that I think is causing you a lot of trouble right up front... when you sketch, I get the feeling you never met a line you didn't like. You just keep stickin' 'em in, one on top of the other. Seems like a minor thing, doesn't it? It isn't. It could be what's causing the structural problems when you shift over to painting.

When I do figure studies after a long period of inactivity with litho or pencil, I work large and I have a tendency to scribble until I "find my groove." then, suddenly, I'm not scribbling anymore--I'm putting down lines where they belong. I still scribble, but it's more controlled, and helps me develop the mass of the figure without having to keep looking over at my paper. When you sketch, instead of "looking for your groove," you seem to be intent on not missing it by putting down every possibility it could be, and then some. This causes a pile of "guidelines" that look right in the sketch, but suddenly become a problem when you have to decide where the painting's imaginary surface should change direction. You're driving to Tulsa with too damn many roads that all look the same on your map. Dude, that's a good way to end up in Finland...

The way to resolve this is to force yourself to attempt drawing something with a single line, or maybe two-ish, that are placed where you think they belong after you study the item you're drawing to determine where you think it belongs in relation to all the other lines you already have down. (I'm not sure that even made sense...I'll come back and see if I can describe that better, but I think you get my drift.) Try a rough LIGHT block-in of the structure, and then attempt to draw the final in with as few lines repeating as possible. It gets easier as you do it over time. Trust me.

The benefits are obvious. You won't have the little problem with the guy below that has one eye higher than the other (the unfinished painting of the face with the goatee) because you'll know exactly where his eye starts and ends in relation to everything else on his face.

You've got one hell of a nice solid approach to painting already. Nice skin tones, a pretty good sense of color, and the unfinished profile portrait, especially, has some nice clean confident brush work and nice color range. Try not to lose the freshness by overworking the final smoothing of tones and shape. This will get you into anatomy problems quicker than anything else because you'll find yourself obliterating minor things like...oh...cheekbones, for example...and the edges of the eye socket. Nothing important...[grin]...

I like the painting with no eyes, though the treatment of where the eyes belong bothers me a bit, but off the top of my head, I can't resolve my "bother" without a good bit of staring and thinking... BTW, this piece has a nice Thomas Hart Benton-ish thing going on. Was that on purpose or just great minds thinking alike? :) The color work here isn't as crisp as on the other portrait, but it's relatively easy to correct with a bit of playing. The shadowy areas are getting a bit muddy in places. I'd also like you to start experimenting a bit with textures...just subtle little things...to get away from the tendency we all have to make things too slick and smooth on the comp.

i like the little guy in the boat. Ballsy color. And...all...those...lines... Okayokay...here they work. And they work for a reason. As you moved into the background, you inserted some relief from the hatching in the treatment of the distant hills. Nice. From a composition standpoint, maybe I would have moved the little boat to the right some, maybe to the point of the foreground reeds overlapping it. (And watch the horizon. Hills that flat wouldn't be able to drift down to the right like that unless you were on a planet the size of downtown Manhattan.)

The little guy kneeling sketch: Nice use of hatching here. I can believe this guy is really squatting in my yard. There are some anatomy probs here and there, but the most obvious is his left hand--I think you got a couple of extra joints in there, because I'm not sure which direction his hand is facing.

The evil bastard in the top hat: This is great. I would have liked a little more care on the background to give him some presence, and the values are just a tad too close. I played a bit with the contrast on this one to try to bring him out of the background a bit, and to give him a bit more dimension.

...and...letting me near a stick shift is a felony in nearly every civilized country on earth...except maybe Italy...and you don't chainsaw leprechauns, you weed-wack 'em. Didn't your daddy teach you anything?

You indicated you could use some help on more advanced color theory, a bit of help with line work, and composition. No problem on any of these. On the perspective thing, I can help here to, but I'll have to go back and give myself a refresher course because it's been so long since I consciously thought about it, I can't remember what I know, or if I knew it in the first place.

Now a question... Where do you want to go with your art? Nothing too metaphysical here, just a general kind of thing... You've got some good solid potential, but it will take a good bit of work to get up to speed...not because you have major problems anywhere, but because you have a lot of teeny little just-slightly-wrong things that pile up and cause problems just because they're there.

alj

[Ilaekae]

One to go, llothcat. It'll be up in a few hours...:)

[Ilaekae]

Llothcat...

We have one teeny little problem that shouldn't hang us up too much--I have Painter, but only loaded it about two months ago and haven't even had time to open it yet. So...you're going to be an excellent excuse for me to get off my ass and get into it. I can give advice generally for now, but not specific to Painter. Getting up to speed shouldn't be a problem, because we all know us guys in our...late-ish...20s...ummm...really learn fast. (First person to open their mouth or laugh is dead meat...)

First, I like what you're doing in vector. The hyena, especially, is hilarious. I did spot a few nits that you should watch out for in the future because they could really mess up a nice piece...and they're all the kind of thing that's easy to screw up in vector because of the way it works...

Our chubby little "stripper": Cute piece. Good. Tangency problems. Not good.

Tangency is a biiiiiiig problem in vector, because it's so easy to do it without meaning to. It's where two or more items come together, or almost come together, in a clumsy way. The upper right ribbon "almost" touches the border, the three pieces of ribbon at the upper left "almost" cover up the little bits of white behind the green burst, the center of her hair "almost" covers her head (overlooked mistake--just extend the top of the skull a bit...), her feet "almost" stand on the white star at the bottom, and the inner-most points of hair on either side just touches the ribbon edge/her arm edge.

Other things that might be worth a look--I like the stars at the lower right, but wonder if it would focus more attention on our little miss if we got rid of the small star she's standing on, moved the larger star over to where it was, and moved the other small star down and away from the ribbon. The only other thing that just slightly bothers me is the tights and ribbons. She just so sexy in that black thing, but the gray tones of the rest of her outfit kind of go a bit drab by comparison. Maybe an orange or something that plays off the hair and eyes, as well as the green background.

Deathcat: Love this little sucker. There are few nits again, in the area where the girl is. We're losing her arm against the background windows, the whip needs to be stronger/brighter, and the detailing in the ponytails looks a bit forced--it doesn't have the smooth flow of her hair's outer edges..

Evil Coffee: My coffee actually does this, but it's more bluish-green and glows in the dark. Strange surreal little piece, but there are two teeny items just obvious enough to be annoying--the bottoms of the legs on the water cooler just seem to be truncated helter-skelter, like somebody got pissed and kicked them around. And...the drain/electrical opening that the coffee is crawling into is just a tad skewed relative to the floor pattern. In real life, this is very unlikely to happen, and in a piece like this, where everything is so crisp and clean and architectural-computerish, it really stands out.

In the following pieces, I noticed a good many were done for various competitions here on CA, so I'm going to concentrate on compositional and layout problems instead of nit-picking anatomy and stuff like that because I assume you already got a good bit of that. I'll mention something that's really obvious though, just so you know I'm not asleep while writing this...

Let's sneak Sasquatch in before the painted pieces:

Good action, good expression, bad BAD tree. Right in the middle. Where everybody can see it...and it's nekkid. I'm gonna sit here drawing dirty pictures in the air with my cigarette to give you time to think of a good excuse as to why you put a tree...the same color as Sasquack...right in the middle of your drawing...sorry...times up. Don't feel bad. I couldn't come up with a decent excuse either... So...

How about we move it to behind the creature so he overlaps it somewhat. And maybe put a few black smaller trees in the same general area to give a moodier feeling. Spooooky woods... That means you'll have to add some to the character with the beard, which may not be a bad thing--like a slightly upraised arm with open hand facing us and something dropping from it (flashlight?) in shock. Where Sasquatch overlaps the tree, you can paint in a thin outline break so the black drawing of the trees separates from his body. This would give you a more powerful image and concentrate the reader's attention on the action.

You could even make this more obvious by moving the type to the top in the black tree area--just reverse it out without the boxes.

Dialogue-wise...your copy was just a bit stilted, so how about this?

"This will be hard to explain, so I'm gonna make it simple. My buddy and me actually ran into Sasquatch...

...and he didn't like it at all."

or

...and he wasn't happy about it."

Going through the painted pieces, I spotted some rather consistent problems that seem to fall into two distinct areas, so I'm going to concentrate there--composition and color.

Skull Island (eow): Actually a lovely little piece. Definitely needed some additional work on the trees in the foreground, but the biggest problem was one of "cropping." The massive moodiness to the right was actually starting to overpower your primary image, so I chopped a piece off to see if it helped without damaging the sinister darkness...

Sunbeams in the ruins: Again, my first reaction was that we had a balance problem with too much "dark," but here, it's the reverse. I'm assuming that the transparent bands coming downwards to the lower left are breaking beams of sunlight. If so, they really should be brighter, with a yellowish cast, and the items that interrupt them should be lit a lot more strongly and a lot warmer in tone also. This would solve the balance problem immediately and add a bit of warmth to what is tending to be a monochromatic piece right now.

The cute little assassin girl and squidman: Cute piece, but from the first time I saw it, something bothered me about it. And...I finally figured it out, I think. If I'm right, this is a good reason to work in layers more often. The two figures seem to be leaning too far to the right (pink line) when compared to what I think is the actual vertical where they should be, based on the background (yellow lines).

Couple in the dungeon kind of thing: I assumed something gruesome or devious was going on here, so the overall composition bothered me. There was so much background that the characters kind of lost some of their punch, so I pulled it in to see if I could kind of heighten the tension. An alternative maybe would be to really darken the upper section and background to an almost black mass with minimal detail in it, which would have the same affect.

Question: The texture on the blocks in the foreground--I know this wasn't finished, but is that pattern from a brush or is it an artifact of something gone wrong?

Portrait dated 10-14-07: I love the "I've-got-10-pounds-of-licorice-and-you-ain't-gettin'-none" expression. The facial coloring is very pleasant, but maybe the white blouse could have used just a touch of very light bluish-lilac in the shadow areas rather than the stark gray.

The last piece I'm going to squeeze in is a little drawing of a valkyrie and an obviously outrageously dangerous spider. Yeah, there's some anatomy problems, but the piece (unless I'm mistaken) is a work in progress which clearly shows the detail that's required before inking, even on the machine. Even though it's not the style that he'll be working in, this is aimed at Chance, and the others who might be planning to do some tight comics work or just some nice inked drawings. For those of you who will be primarily painting over such a sketch, this is actually MORE detail than you'll need as an underpainting guide unless your painting is going to be an extremely accurate depiction of something like a commercial product or an historical event. Otherwise, you will have a tendency to be TOO tight in your final painting.

i have a few other pieces I'll refer to later, llothcat, but I want to get at least this up so you could see how little I really know about anything, and to give you a chance to run for it and find somebody more reputable, if you want. [grin]

You indicated (and i saw the sample of Sasquatch, obviously) that you were into serial comics. If you still are, a lot of the stuff that I put up for Chance will also be aimed at you, and vice versa. The fact that you use painter and I'm most familiar with PS shouldn't be a problem in theory at least, especially as far as color and color theory is concerned. I've already asked most of the others this, so here goes...where do you want to go with your art. You really have three slight disparate paths here, but each can complement the others, so I'm trying to find out if you have any particular thing you'd like me to stress...

alj

[Ilaekae]

Alright, all. I'm going to take a day or two to finish off some little demonstration/tutorial/reference things that might be useful for all of us to refer down the line. I'll be popping in to answer any questions and such, and seeing if anyone wants to run for it.

Other than that, check what I wrote to you specifically, and if you have time, see what I wrote to everyone else, and then, since you all think I've been so nice about this, get some coffee on and get a fresh stock of cigs or candy or whatever your poison of choice is, because on Thursday night, I'm posting an assignment. You'll have an extra day or two on this, because in the future, I'm going to post one (or more, if it makes more sense to split things that week into something aimed specifically at those of you who need a particular exercise) "assignment" every Saturday Night, with a week or less to do them. We'll operate on the basis of working around problems with holidays/school events/work/death as it comes up--we're all flexible...well...my right knee's kinda...

Screw it. You have all asked for a no-holds-barred approach, and I'm not going to argue with a majority decision, so starting Thursday night, your ass is mine. I don't like something, I'm gonna rip you a new one. I'm gonna want to know why you did it, what you were thinking, and why I should listen to your exlanations of why it's wrong...have a good night kiddies...this choochoo's rollin'...heeheehee

[Sepulverture]

First off: Thanks a ton for the personalized attention here. I know we're all receiving it, but it kicks all sorts of ass all up and down ass-kickery-lane getting such direct and constructive feed back.

Sepulverture...

I'm zeroing in on something that I think is causing you a lot of trouble right up front... when you sketch, I get the feeling you never met a line you didn't like. You just keep stickin' 'em in, one on top of the other. Seems like a minor thing, doesn't it? It isn't. It could be what's causing the structural problems when you shift over to painting.

When I do figure studies after a long period of inactivity with litho or pencil, I work large and I have a tendency to scribble until I "find my groove." then, suddenly, I'm not scribbling anymore--I'm putting down lines where they belong. I still scribble, but it's more controlled, and helps me develop the mass of the figure without having to keep looking over at my paper. When you sketch, instead of "looking for your groove," you seem to be intent on not missing it by putting down every possibility it could be, and then some. This causes a pile of "guidelines" that look right in the sketch, but suddenly become a problem when you have to decide where the painting's imaginary surface should change direction. You're driving to Tulsa with too damn many roads that all look the same on your map. Dude, that's a good way to end up in Finland...

But I like finland:(

Fine fine. Understood. I won't try to make excuses, or any other nonsense in regards to this, because I'm full aware of it. I don't like it, it bugs the crap out of me, and is a big reason why a lot of my pen drawings turn out shapeless, and sometimes too dark. I guess this is hwy I picked up the ink tools to begin with, was to try to teach myself to think more before laying down lines. I see it hasn't worked much yet, so I'm going to be putting more effort out to correct this. I suppose the "reason" why I do it to begin with is because I lay down a few lines in how I think the lightsource is going to cast light on the subject, decide what I just put down sucks, and try to put more lines down that will hopefully cover up the lines I put down in the first place which ends up being a big mess. I really took notice of this fact in one of the posts in my most recent update to my sketchbook, and in the second thumbnail drawing shown there I tried a different approach to it, which I think may be working, and will continue doing if it turns out to really be working.


The way to resolve this is to force yourself to attempt drawing something with a single line, or maybe two-ish, that are placed where you think they belong after you study the item you're drawing to determine where you think it belongs in relation to all the other lines you already have down. (I'm not sure that even made sense...I'll come back and see if I can describe that better, but I think you get my drift.) Try a rough LIGHT block-in of the structure, and then attempt to draw the final in with as few lines repeating as possible. It gets easier as you do it over time. Trust me.

I think I got what you meant where you weren't sure if it made sense or not. Although I'm not totally sure I get what you meant by suggesting using one, or two-ish lines. Do you mean just one or two lines for the entire picture? Or are you just saying to use as few lines as possible for things like the hatching and contours? If you're telling me just to use one or two lines for the entire picture then I will most definitely do it. In fact I'll go ahead and try to do some contour/line art only drawings without lifting my pencil from the paper more than a few times if I can help it.


The benefits are obvious. You won't have the little problem with the guy below that has one eye higher than the other (the unfinished painting of the face with the goatee) because you'll know exactly where his eye starts and ends in relation to everything else on his face.

I can see what you're saying I think, I guess time and effort are really the only things that will tell if I really "get" it.

You've got one hell of a nice solid approach to painting already. Nice skin tones, a pretty good sense of color, and the unfinished profile portrait, especially, has some nice clean confident brush work and nice color range.

Thanks :) (+1 to confidence)

Try not to lose the freshness by overworking the final smoothing of tones and shape. This will get you into anatomy problems quicker than anything else because you'll find yourself obliterating minor things like...oh...cheekbones, for example...and the edges of the eye socket. Nothing important...[grin]...

those cheekbones were asking for it, I swear! Just ask the lower jaw, he'll tell you...


I like the painting with no eyes, though the treatment of where the eyes belong bothers me a bit, but off the top of my head, I can't resolve my "bother" without a good bit of staring and thinking...

You know, I actually never finished that self portrait. The reason the eye area is the way it is is because I was prepping the area to paint the eyes, got discouraged because I suck the big one when placing and painting eyes, and it just turned into what it is. thanks for the compliment though.

BTW, this piece has a nice Thomas Hart Benton-ish thing going on. Was that on purpose or just great minds thinking alike? :) The color work here isn't as crisp as on the other portrait, but it's relatively easy to correct with a bit of playing. The shadowy areas are getting a bit muddy in places. I'd also like you to start experimenting a bit with textures...just subtle little things...to get away from the tendency we all have to make things too slick and smooth on the comp.

I had never heard of Thomas Hart Benton until reading your post here, and looking at his art I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not, because he seems to have a really goofy style (unless I'm viewing paintings by another T H B). I admit I'm terrified of textures. I've tried a few times to add textures and whatnot to my paintings and drawings and have failed most miserably, which I know is part of the process, I guess I just need some egging on to try again. Also I always feel like I'm going to fuck up an otherwise satisfactory painting by trying to add textures (satisfactory in this context refers more to the fact that I feel like I took something away from the experience more than it means that the painting really turned out good quality). I'm pretty sure I also know what you mean by saying the shadows are getting a little muddy. I've always been foggy on the *exact* meaning of the word muddy in this context, simply because so many people seem to use the word slightly differently. I guess though that you're referring to the fact that I had just changed brightness and saturation, rather than changing hue, or playing with temperatures. These are some of the things I really hope to learn from you.

i like the little guy in the boat. Ballsy color. And...all...those...lines... Okayokay...here they work. And they work for a reason. As you moved into the background, you inserted some relief from the hatching in the treatment of the distant hills. Nice. From a composition standpoint, maybe I would have moved the little boat to the right some, maybe to the point of the foreground reeds overlapping it. (And watch the horizon. Hills that flat wouldn't be able to drift down to the right like that unless you were on a planet the size of downtown Manhattan.)

When I was drawing this one I was really trying to make the lines work for the composition. The thought process I had throughout most of this drawing was trying to make the ripples in the river, the lines used for the grass, and the reeds lead the eye into the boat, although I'm not sure how well I pulled this off, that's just what I was trying to accomplish. Thanks a ton for the compliment on the colors, I was really fretting that because it was my first time using color ink brushes. I had all of the primary and secondary colors at my disposal for this one, and figured I could get a larger range out of them than I did, I neglected to realize that marker-type colors don't mix the same way paints would for example, and I started by laying down dark colors first which proved to cause a huge headache with the sky. Lesson learned I guess.



The little guy kneeling sketch: Nice use of hatching here. I can believe this guy is really squatting in my yard. There are some anatomy probs here and there, but the most obvious is his left hand--I think you got a couple of extra joints in there, because I'm not sure which direction his hand is facing.

Hands! for the love of all things melty and crunchy! Hands! I have the hardest time drawing properly proportioned hands, especially in perspective. I know this is something that needs to be worked out through repetition and practice, I really need to get these suckers nailed to the cross.

The evil bastard in the top hat: This is great. I would have liked a little more care on the background to give him some presence, and the values are just a tad too close. I played a bit with the contrast on this one to try to bring him out of the background a bit, and to give him a bit more dimension.


...and...letting me near a stick shift is a felony in nearly every civilized country on earth...except maybe Italy...and you don't chainsaw leprechauns, you weed-wack 'em. Didn't your daddy teach you anything?

No.

My dad died in a tragic leprechaun hunting accident.

You indicated you could use some help on more advanced color theory, a bit of help with line work, and composition. No problem on any of these. On the perspective thing, I can help here to, but I'll have to go back and give myself a refresher course because it's been so long since I consciously thought about it, I can't remember what I know, or if I knew it in the first place.

Now a question... Where do you want to go with your art? Nothing too metaphysical here, just a general kind of thing... You've got some good solid potential, but it will take a good bit of work to get up to speed...not because you have major problems anywhere, but because you have a lot of teeny little just-slightly-wrong things that pile up and cause problems just because they're there.

I guess the answer to your question is a pretty cookie cutter type answer. I wanna work in the games industry as a concept designer of some sort. I know that the chances of getting hired in straight away as a concept artist is pretty slim so I want to work my way in through other avenues to begin with. I like to do level design with some popular editors such as VALVe software's Hammer editor, and to a lesser extent unrealED. When I lived in Japan I got payed to do some anatomy studies, which was really cool (considering anatomy still isn't my strongest point) and I'd really like to publish a thorough, fully realized anatomy for the artist type book. I own 6 or 7 anatomy books right now by various authors that I'd purchased in china, japan, and here in the states, and all of them have left me with a lot of questions, so I'd like to publish an anatomy book that answers all the questions that I've had, while covering every relevant aspect of human anatomy for the artist. I've lived overseas, and honestly it looks like I'll be moving back to east asia sometime within the next year, and I'd love to be able to make a side income by doing street portraits.

I have no ambitions of being able to paint photorealistic quality, painting to photorealism takes all the heart and individuality out of art in my honest opinion. I would like to be able to accurately and realistically depict people and things from my imagination, but that's the extent of it - depiction, rather than replication.

Hope my response was satisfactory.

Edit: I just read your comment you must have posted while I was writing this, and it made me grin (irl yo). Also made me wonder: Where's your sketchbook? I've only seen a fistfull of your art, and never really seen your doodles and doodats.

[llothcat]

Llothcat...

We have one teeny little problem that shouldn't hang us up too much--I have Painter, but only loaded it about two months ago and haven't even had time to open it yet. So...you're going to be an excellent excuse for me to get off my ass and get into it. I can give advice generally for now, but not specific to Painter. Getting up to speed shouldn't be a problem, because we all know us guys in our...late-ish...20s...ummm...really learn fast. (First person to open their mouth or laugh is dead meat...)



Not a problem..I'm very familiar with PS, since that's what they had at school, and I used it for years before I dropped it for painter...and..um..Gimp.

I use Gimp for scanning and changing psd's into jpgs when painter gets glitchy. I tried to paint with it a while back and destroyed all the evidence. It weren't pretty.

Llothcat...

First, I like what you're doing in vector. The hyena, especially, is hilarious. I did spot a few nits that you should watch out for in the future because they could really mess up a nice piece...and they're all the kind of thing that's easy to screw up in vector because of the way it works...



Thanks for that...that piece was not the most liked of the stylized animal competition. I think it needed to be...I dunno...pushed even more extreme?

Llothcat...

Our chubby little "stripper": Cute piece. Good. Tangency problems. Not good.

Tangency is a biiiiiiig problem in vector, because it's so easy to do it without meaning to. It's where two or more items come together, or almost come together, in a clumsy way.


Yikes! you're so right.


Llothcat...

The upper right ribbon "almost" touches the border, the three pieces of ribbon at the upper left "almost" cover up the little bits of white behind the green burst, the center of her hair "almost" covers her head (overlooked mistake--just extend the top of the skull a bit...), her feet "almost" stand on the white star at the bottom, and the inner-most points of hair on either side just touches the ribbon edge/her arm edge.

Other things that might be worth a look--I like the stars at the lower right, but wonder if it would focus more attention on our little miss if we got rid of the small star she's standing on, moved the larger star over to where it was, and moved the other small star down and away from the ribbon. The only other thing that just slightly bothers me is the tights and ribbons. She just so sexy in that black thing, but the gray tones of the rest of her outfit kind of go a bit drab by comparison. Maybe an orange or something that plays off the hair and eyes, as well as the green background.



I'll try that.


Llothcat...

Deathcat: Love this little sucker. There are few nits again, in the area where the girl is. We're losing her arm against the background windows, the whip needs to be stronger/brighter, and the detailing in the ponytails looks a bit forced--it doesn't have the smooth flow of her hair's outer edges..

Evil Coffee: My coffee actually does this, but it's more bluish-green and glows in the dark. Strange surreal little piece, but there are two teeny items just obvious enough to be annoying--the bottoms of the legs on the water cooler just seem to be truncated helter-skelter, like somebody got pissed and kicked them around. And...the drain/electrical opening that the coffee is crawling into is just a tad skewed relative to the floor pattern. In real life, this is very unlikely to happen, and in a piece like this, where everything is so crisp and clean and architectural-computerish, it really stands out.



Again, you're so right.

Llothcat...


In the following pieces, I noticed a good many were done for various competitions here on CA, so I'm going to concentrate on compositional and layout problems instead of nit-picking anatomy and stuff like that because I assume you already got a good bit of that. I'll mention something that's really obvious though, just so you know I'm not asleep while writing this...

Let's sneak Sasquatch in before the painted pieces:

Good action, good expression, bad BAD tree. Right in the middle. Where everybody can see it...and it's nekkid. I'm gonna sit here drawing dirty pictures in the air with my cigarette to give you time to think of a good excuse as to why you put a tree...the same color as Sasquack...right in the middle of your drawing...sorry...times up. Don't feel bad. I couldn't come up with a decent excuse either... So...

How about we move it to behind the creature so he overlaps it somewhat. And maybe put a few black smaller trees in the same general area to give a moodier feeling. Spooooky woods... That means you'll have to add some to the character with the beard, which may not be a bad thing--like a slightly upraised arm with open hand facing us and something dropping from it (flashlight?) in shock. Where Sasquatch overlaps the tree, you can paint in a thin outline break so the black drawing of the trees separates from his body. This would give you a more powerful image and concentrate the reader's attention on the action.

You could even make this more obvious by moving the type to the top in the black tree area--just reverse it out without the boxes.

Dialogue-wise...your copy was just a bit stilted, so how about this?

"This will be hard to explain, so I'm gonna make it simple. My buddy and me actually ran into Sasquatch...

...and he didn't like it at all."

or

...and he wasn't happy about it."




gah! I forgot about that one. Chalk that one up to my writing skills stinking too. Which reminds me that I really should complete that project.

Llothcat...

Going through the painted pieces, I spotted some rather consistent problems that seem to fall into two distinct areas, so I'm going to concentrate there--composition and color.

Skull Island (eow): Actually a lovely little piece. Definitely needed some additional work on the trees in the foreground, but the biggest problem was one of "cropping." The massive moodiness to the right was actually starting to overpower your primary image, so I chopped a piece off to see if it helped without damaging the sinister darkness...


With this one I was attempting to make a panoramic shot for the first time ever, since it seems to be the popular thing to do in eow's. Probably the wrong piece to do it in. Where you cropped it is a big improvement.

Llothcat...
Sunbeams in the ruins: Again, my first reaction was that we had a balance problem with too much "dark," but here, it's the reverse. I'm assuming that the transparent bands coming downwards to the lower left are breaking beams of sunlight. If so, they really should be brighter, with a yellowish cast, and the items that interrupt them should be lit a lot more strongly and a lot warmer in tone also. This would solve the balance problem immediately and add a bit of warmth to what is tending to be a monochromatic piece right now.

I think I see what you're getting at there. I'll try it.

Llothcat...

The cute little assassin girl and squidman: Cute piece, but from the first time I saw it, something bothered me about it. And...I finally figured it out, I think. If I'm right, this is a good reason to work in layers more often. The two figures seem to be leaning too far to the right (pink line) when compared to what I think is the actual vertical where they should be, based on the background (yellow lines).


damn..wish I'd caught that one. Embarassing, I tell ya....Can't fix it either, since I've since collapsed the layers on that one.

Llothcat...

Couple in the dungeon kind of thing: I assumed something gruesome or devious was going on here, so the overall composition bothered me. There was so much background that the characters kind of lost some of their punch, so I pulled it in to see if I could kind of heighten the tension. An alternative maybe would be to really darken the upper section and background to an almost black mass with minimal detail in it, which would have the same affect.

Question: The texture on the blocks in the foreground--I know this wasn't finished, but is that pattern from a brush or is it an artifact of something gone wrong?



gah! Another one I forgot about. The texture was an experiment in painter gone wrong. The piece was properly picked apart in the critique center a while back ...which led me to focus more on anatomy at the time. The cropping solution was one thing that was NOT mentioned, though.

Llothcat...
Portrait dated 10-14-07: I love the "I've-got-10-pounds-of-licorice-and-you-ain't-gettin'-none" expression. The facial coloring is very pleasant, but maybe the white blouse could have used just a touch of very light bluish-lilac in the shadow areas rather than the stark gray.



Thanks. I may not post em, but I try to do one of these daily.

Llothcat...


i have a few other pieces I'll refer to later, llothcat, but I want to get at least this up so you could see how little I really know about anything, and to give you a chance to run for it and find somebody more reputable, if you want. [grin]

You indicated (and i saw the sample of Sasquatch, obviously) that you were into serial comics. If you still are, a lot of the stuff that I put up for Chance will also be aimed at you, and vice versa. The fact that you use painter and I'm most familiar with PS shouldn't be a problem in theory at least, especially as far as color and color theory is concerned. I've already asked most of the others this, so here goes...where do you want to go with your art. You really have three slight disparate paths here, but each can complement the others, so I'm trying to find out if you have any particular thing you'd like me to stress...

alj

I would love to get stronger compositionally..I know I have a lot of really weak pieces because of it. Mostly, what I want to accomplish is pretty simple..(um, sorta, now that I think about it): I want to improve.

I'm still into serial comics, BTW, and I'm very familiar with the small press end of the business. I would like to get good enough for a chance to work more often in that field. For pay, that is.

IRL a friend of mine mentored me in how to ink, as well as the "business" end of the small pressers...and I still hate microns to this day.

[Kronos]

First of all, WOWY mc WOWOW. You good sir, are a credit to man kind. Thanks you so much for the time you've put into looking at all our stuff and really thinking about how you can help us out. MUCH APPRECIATED! THANKS YOU!

ok, response to what you said.




I have good news and bad news: Your skills and basic techniques are at a professional level. ...heeheehee...


haha, thanks... however i'm pretty sure you didn't really mention any bad news :P all ego injection here.



I went through everything I could find of yours, and whatever the hell you're doing, KEEP doing it. I found small things that bothered me here and there that I'll talk about below, but you are not at the level where you need nit-picking to death--you passed that long ago.


Thanks again, yeah i think like you say i've pretty much got to the point where i can improve on my own, analyze and see what i've done wrong, or what i could do better in terms of skills/techniques. Theres still a LOT of things i know you can help me out on :wink:



Your pencil work is beautiful, and your sense of "character" is probably the best I've ever seen in someone at your age. There's a maturity to your work that tells me you spent one hell of lot of time working to hone those skills, and you've learned how to "see" in order to capture what's important.

And--if your head isn't already too inflated--you have a natural and subtle sense of humor that comes through naturally in your pieces, and they do more than just stand there as static figurines (the running monster and the rough pencil of the guy jumping.).


You really know how to sweet talk a guy huh <3



I'm guessing that, given your age and circumstances, that your looking for material that would qualify as portfolio pieces, whether you're looking for further education or work. If so, that we can do.


correct. I'm always going to be looking for further education untill the day i die, but yes i've (very) recently seriously decided i would love to try crack into the freelance illustration bizz. living in NZ theres really only one dream full time job, Weta Workshop. but i'm not going to even consider attempting that for at least a couple more years.

I recently applied for a few freelance things on the deviant art forums and i'm pretty sure i haven't got any of them, but i did get one little responce from one person, heres what they said.

“Your artwork is quite unique. It is very comical too. I could definitly see my Exies (the bad guys) looking like something along the lines of how you draw; however, I am looking for something a bit more, well I guess the right word I'm looking for is, straight. I want it to look a little less cartoony. Your work is amazing but it isn't quite what I'm looking for. 

Thank you for showing interest though.
(secret person)”

I’m not 100% sure but, maybe I need to flesh out my portfolio(very small portfolio :S) with some more generic stuff? Or do I do the defiant artist thing and say “fuck you” to tailoring my art to sell… haha, pretty sure that would not be a very economical thing to do.

I think another side of the fleshing out of my portfolio thing is just ACTUALLY finishing some images, I have a real nasty habit not finishing stuff as you’ve seen. Then theres the whole making an illustration with a story and a scene and all that. Up until now I just sketch characters, hardly ever thinking about what they will be before hand. So yeah I want to get to the stage where I can actually illustrate something. I suspect I won’t find it too difficult or anything I just need to actually do it.

Hopefully that gives you a better idea of what I want to do.



The guy in the pink tie: There are two things that really bother me here...

--the area directly under his chin seems to be either too light, or he has a double chin that isn't coming across clearly, and

--the right part of his skull around the part in his hair seems to be depressed to the left, even allowing for the perspective and angle. I can believe that it really IS like this, but it does look a bit strange.

The grinning monster with the single horn (pencil): I look at your other pieces and i see a good bit of planning going on, especially in the structural part of the anatomy. Here...I think...maybe you went to sleep just about the time you were getting to his legs. They don't have a solid-looking mechanism for walking. They appear to be more "flippery" or rubbery, without a real joint where the leg attaches to the body.


I could give excuses of why I didn’t draw them as well as I probably can, but in short, yes, you are right :)



The two creature sketches in color: Obviously unfinished, but I'm looking at the faces. The coloring, structure, and values are great. I'm asking here whether you stopped working on these before you finished the faces, because they lack that bit of "crispness" that your pencils have--like they're just a bit out of focus. It could be because you had more work to do yet, but I'm asking to make sure.


Yeah, if I worked on the whole image more I would have spent more time tightening up the faces I’m sure.



Finally, the little guy on the mushroom: I think there's a problem with the position of the body. If he's lounging back and slightly to our left, we're seeing too much of his left arm with his body in that position. If we assume his left arm is correct, then his entire body should be more to our left by a good bit. His left leg also needs a lot of work to get it into the same scale as his right one. I'm thinking either his thigh on that side should be tilted down a bit to his butt, or his knee should be a good bit further up in the air.


Hehe. The reason for the character being a bit messed up in terms of his body and stuff are that I drew him as a character in white space like everything else first and he was just walking. Then I went grr I have to put him in a scene and did that, but its weird to change stuff as opposed to just drawing it right in the first place.. anyway, excuses.



From a layout standpoint, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be (POSSIBLY) good to have something like another mushroom in the background to the upper right, going off the page at the top, and possibly something like a pebble or two, or another mushroom bud tucked up against the base of the mushroom he's sitting on, just to anchor it a little more firmly to the ground. Otherwise, he may end up looking like he just landed on his little flying saucer.


This is the kind of stuff that I am CRAP at. Your comments are genius. Simple compositional elements that make the image as a whole really work. In terms of education this is the area I would love to learn from you.

COOLNESS!




Now that you're all smug and self-satisfied, how about we talk about where you wanna go from here? You've got two very clear-cut and salable directions possible, one a bit hard-assed, into the adult illustration/creature/CA kind of thing, and the other, a softer but still monster/fantasy/funny thing that would easily open up the children's market. Off the top of my head, you could easily do both simultaneously and not even work up a sweat, and that doesn't mean that we rule out more "realistic" illustrations (industrial/eco/portrait/that kind of thing) We could develop some believably commercial "reasons" for you to do specific things that best use your skills to develop some portfolio pieces. I'm also guessing that you would benefit from a bit more work in the color area and some guidance in composition.


Reading this got me really excited :D. yeah I would love to be able to peruse all the directions you mentioned. I guess it would be silly to try for all of these at once? I still can’t say for sure which I would love the most they are all so appealing and I can see myself loving any opportunity to GET PAID to do any of this kind of work. Perhaps we can discuss this a little more? Do you have any inside stories or impressions you could relay? Are each of these in terms of a career pretty similar just drawing stuff a little different? Or are they all their own mini career subcategory?


Whoo… writing that made me need to thank you again for the time you have taken to do this for all of us. So..

THANK YOU MR AWESOME! YOU ARE AWESOME!

[Ilaekae]

Answers to random questions so far...

[A] Chance and Morrigana: A while back, you were talking about a ghurka knife. I think they're called a Kukri or Khukri. Kind of a wide curved blade at the front and narrow at the hilt, with a really strong bend angle so the cutting edge is on the "inside" of the angle. These are a type of machette, and I have two of them I use for gathering and shaving saplings for little projects. Nice to use because the weight is out where you need it. Also lethal as hell in a fight...

[B] TheGnoll: I missed this the first time around...

"Isn't the fact these pictures you examined are in a non-chronologic order weird? why is something like the dragon (i did something like a few months ago) is better than something "new"?there must be something wrong in this"

Actually...no. It's not uncommon to have stuff you did today look like shit compared to stuff you may have done a few years ago. It's simply more surprising when you're younger, because the progress you make in a few years of practice and maturity is so "obvious," for want of a better word. When you get closer to my age (and you will...mmbwahahahahahahahaha...), the level you produce work at tends to be generally more consistent, so when you have a bad day, it simply blends into the general tedium until you go back and compare things. Then you sit there like a moron and wonder what the hell you were thinking... Don't worry. At some point, senility kicks in, and everything you do looks absolutely gorgeous TO YOU and you smile and droll a lot... :P

[C] Chance: "Are there any good exercises I can do to build stroke confidence?"

It's obvious that 95% of what we do depends on some sort of line work. Even if we're painting a big mushy piece, we still start by laying in at least some sort of minimal guide with some lines.

There are two things that determine how effective our line work is--confidence in our sense of proportion, and knowing that a line begins HERE and goes to THERE. The biggest problem people have when they start to draw a line already exists the second they touch pencil to paper... "Now what?" Where is the line going, and where is it going to end? Not knowing the answer in advance is an invitation to scribble randomly until you find the "right" result by accident. We're better than that.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that we're drawing a quicky profile of someone. We look at the forehead, the nose, and lip/chin area very carefully to get a sense of how big they are, AND where they are in relation to each other (This is roughly twice that, this is right above that, these two things line up vertically, that part is this angle, this part is a bit less steep, etc.). I might start by putting down a light stroke of any length to determine the angle of the forehead. Then, starting at the hairline, I figure out where on my page I want my forehead to end and become the brow ridge. NOW I have a real starting point and a real ending point. When I draw my next line, I place my pencil where it will start in my mind, and then all I think about is WHERE it's going to end, and I simply "connect the dots." This is all drawing is--connecting imaginary dots that we can "see" in advance. After doing this with the entire profile, we check to see if the likeness is there, and go in and refine the details, like all the little bumps and glitches that make one face different from another.

What we have now is not a matter of "stroke confidence," but a matter of "start/end" confidence. Did that make sense? It doesn't mean that you'll end up with a perfect "one-line" drawing (because obviously, we're going to be making adjustments as we go), but it will be a drawing with as few lines as we feel WE need at that moment. From that point on, adding values is a piece of cake...as long as we remember that the edge of each value area is another imaginary line or point that we have to aim for. And "aim" is the right word here. Drawing with no idea of where your tool should go to get what you want is like trying to hit the side of a barn with a shotgun while you're blindfolded when you arrive. You really REALLY need an idea of where the target IS before you pull the trigger.

And before I forget, I left a little note in my post to llothcat, right near the end where I'm talking about the Valkyrie, that's aimed a bit at you, too.

[D] Sepulverture: Re the post/subject in the area after "But I like Finland." Take a quick look through what I just wrote to Chance in [C] above.

"Do you mean just one or two lines for the entire picture? Or are you just saying to use as few lines as possible for things like the hatching and contours?"

I thought I wasn't clear there... I meant to try to use as few lines as possible, thinking more about where each line should more or less be before you put it down. This is a lot better than slapping down 50 lines and picking the one that seems best. And get in the habit of working in stages mentally--rough block in of the main structure, basic refined line structure of the subject, with maybe a light "flick" where an area of value change should be, THEN go in and develop your values. That way, you're mentally aware of one specific area that requires your attention at a time. Less confusion, and less chance for bonehead mistakes.

"I had never heard of Thomas Hart Benton until reading your post here, and looking at his art I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not..."

I guess I should have explained myself better here. It's a compliment. Benton was a muralist whose work really doesn't look anything like yours, but he had a tendency to portray people in "heroic" positions, and the angle you did the portrait at reminded me of that... A little surprise for you if you didn't know it--Jackson Pollock learned to paint originally from Thomas Hart Benton. Kind of frightening where the human brain can go when it's allowed out, isn't it? [grin]

Re texture. I'm going to be doing a good bit on this as we go along, because I noticed it seems to be a major problem, especially with people who primarily learned art on the computer rather than as "painters" in the old-fashioned sense. It's actually a matter of knowing WHERE/WHEN to insert any texture as your piece progresses rather than a detail that's added last minute.

Re muddy. It's originally from watercolor. Keep messing with your colors at random hoping something nice will happen and you end up with dog shit color, or something that looks like the water in a bayou/swamp. Generally, it means the color being referred to isn't clean, looking like it was made by mixing two or more colors that just shouldn't be living together in the same apartment building, let alone be in one place on a painting.

"I have the hardest time drawing properly proportioned hands..."

Aaaawwww... I understand completely. It's not like they're around when you need them...like, wouldn't it be really cool if they were someplace convenient all the time...like at the end of our...arms...maybe... [grin again]

"My dad died in a tragic leprechaun hunting accident."

Amateur...was probably armed with just a chainsaw. They never listen...

"Where's your sketchbook? I've only seen a fistfull of your art, and never really seen your doodles and doodats."

This is embarrassing...but I never really got into the habit of using a sketch book. Kept losing them and couldn't afford to replace them when i was your age. I also developed a strange set of working habits that involved "jotting" drawings on little pieces of paper and napkins when I had time in a kind of visual "shorthand." Everyone else thought I was doodling. I'd stuff these in my pockets and when I got home, toss 'em all in a big box to refer back to later. A 9 foot high painting I did back in the 60s (destroyed in a fire) called "Cain's Black Madonna" started out as a 1" high squiggle of six lines on a Kleenex...heeheehee. I still have a lot of this stuff, so maybe I'll tack it all together into a set of pages and post it. I'm always game for a good laugh...

[E] Llothcat: "damn..wish I'd caught that one. Embarassing, I tell ya....Can't fix it either, since I've since collapsed the layers on that one."

If you knew how many times I've said some variation of that in my life, you'd give up now and become a brick layer...so I won't tell you... [grin]

Re portrait: "I may not post em, but I try to do one of these daily."

It's a great exercise. I wish more people did it, because the biggest problem I ran into when reviewing with some really nice portfolio pieces is how little expression or variation of expression there is on a lot of the work. I once worked as a cartoonist (still do, actually...) and my ugly face in a mirror and in my mind was my best friend. You should see the looks you get when you're doing cartoons in a restaurant and you forget you're in public and suddenly look up to see about 200 people staring at you making faces and snarling to yourself over a plate of eggs...

[F] Kronos: "however i'm pretty sure you didn't really mention any bad news"

Heeheehee...you sure about that? It really means "the bar" is higher for you, and there's no nice soft mat on the other side of the hurdle...hope you got lots of bandaids...

"I’m not 100% sure but, maybe I need to flesh out my portfolio(very small portfolio ) with some more generic stuff? Or do I do the defiant artist thing and say “fuck you” to tailoring my art to sell… haha, pretty sure that would not be a very economical thing to do."

Got that right, my little sheep-shagger. :P I think we can get some stuff together that would give you a some variation in your portfolio without sacrificing our virginity on the altar of Madison Avenue...

"I guess it would be silly to try for all of these at once?"

Oh, Yee of little faith...bite thy tongue strongly... :P

Bad old man allegorical story: Two homeless bag ladies are standing on opposite corners of an intersection. One has all her possessions in the world stuffed in one huge bag she guards with her life. The other has about fifty bags with various bits and pieces tossed randomly throughout them. Down the street are two thieves coming up fast, one aiming at each of the old ladies. They hit, grab what they can, and disappear down the street.

Now...which old lady do you think has a better chance of getting back to normal survival mode quickest? [Rhetorical question :P]

"re each of these in terms of a career pretty similar just drawing stuff a little different? Or are they all their own mini career subcategory?"

It's all the same thing. Requires the same mindset, tools, and abilities. The problem solving is exactly the same, and so is the production end. The only thing you have to worry about before you start on a particular project is "Who is this ultimately for?" Just the audience changes, the show is always basically the same, except maybe with cleaner jokes or less risque costumes...and maybe a joke about how stupid the local mayor/football team/drivers are...


Thank you all for bearing with my erratic schedule so far. This feels like it could actually be fun...

[Chance.]

Heck YES!! This is going to be muchisimo divertido!!!!

Connecting the dots makes more sense than any other advice I've ever heard. The closest concept, and the one that gave me the most confident lines, was where I block in a large polygon with no more than 6 sides. Then slowly start adding more "sides" and refining it into a more complicated, and accurate shape. This words especially well with difficult complex objects like heads and figures. Armed with this new concept of connecting the dots, I can't wait to see how I will alter my drawing.

Khukri is the name of the knife. You are right. Ghurka, is the "tribe/clan" of Nepalese people who invented that variation of it. The things have a very comfortable point of balance. Very fun to carry around at medieval festivals, or at the supermarket.

I've got more to say (surprised?) but I gotta go to watlz lessons. So more later.

You rock Ilaekae.

And to all my fellow students... THE COMPETITION IS ON. WHO WILL WORK THE HARDEST AND IMPROVE THE FASTEST? You better roll up your sleeves and get to work now cause I'm going to leave you in the dust!!!

No cheating by the way.

Oh, and some goofing around. Second one ain't finished yet.

[Majo_Neko]

Ok, so I finally got around to picking out a few piecees to show off here, although not all drawn by me and not most recent, Theese are what I consider my best work to date.

Drawn and coloured by me:
http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs5/i/2005/126/a/9/Demonic_Angel_by_felinia.jpg

Drawn by a friend coloured by me:
http://fc02.deviantart.com/fs13/i/2007/077/2/1/Stress_relief_by_felinia.jpg

Old pieces drawn and inked by me:
http://fc02.deviantart.com/images/i/2003/42/e/4/Dragon_staff_inked.jpg
http://fc03.deviantart.com/images/i/2003/45/0/2/Succubus_on_her_throne.jpg

I will gett myself to scan in a few more recent pieces when I get my scanner up and running ^^

[alesoun]

[QUOTE=Chance.;1518546]Heck YES!! This is going to be muchisimo divertido!!!!



And to all my fellow students... THE COMPETITION IS ON. WHO WILL WORK THE HARDEST AND IMPROVE THE FASTEST? You better roll up your sleeves and get to work now cause I'm going to leave you in the dust!!!

No cheating by the way.



No cheating? You're nae fun..... I'm the only person I know who cheats at Trivial Pursuit!! They think it can't be done.... they're WRONG! (boring game)!

[Ilaekae]

Why do I get the feeling I should pass out bullet-proof vests?

'Neko, I thought we lost you. I'll do a bit on your material over the next day or so. Do you have any more anywhere else? I don't care if it's on DA, either. I'm not one of those people who picks on DA artists, just BAD artists anywhere they end up. Before I get into your stuff, I'd like to see as much as you have handy--doesn't have to be your best, either.

ADD: Chance, keep something in mind while you practice... The "dots" are imaginary...and the line connecting them doesn't have to be straight. Think about block lettering. You've been doing it for so long that you don't think about it, but every time you do a capital "I" you're going from one imaginary point to another...in a straight line. AND when you do a capital "U," you're doing exactly the same thing--drawing a line from one imaginary dot to another, except this time, the line is CURVED. The magic is in knowing where to start and stop that line.

[alesoun]

*sigh* Okay, I'll behave, if I really have to...

[Ilaekae]

...and why exactly would you want to do that? You goin' into a nunnery or something?

...Sister Mary alesoun...mmm...mph...ahem...hee...hehahahahahaha. ..

...sorry...mph...:P

[alesoun]

Did I say I wanted to? Where's the emoticon for "sticks tongue out at Maestro?"

Sister Mary Alesoun? She'd be the one having a cigarette in the confessional box....

[Sepulverture]

Hands at the end of arms? What nonsense is this you goofy old man! Who's ever heard of such silly ideas.

Here's an anatomy study I'm working on right now. The head is tiny tiny intsy wintsy, something I'd have noticed early on if I had been more careful but I got too excited about rendering that I lost focus on fundamentals like proportion. I will do another one when I finish this one, I guess this is more geared towards getting myself back into the groove of doing studies than to actually learn anatomy (although learning more about drawing the human figure in perspective is something I really need to get better at). I really tried keeping the number of strokes in this image to a minimum, and caught myself more than onces getting carried away. I used my thumb to blend the graphite in liu (sp?) of a blending stump because i lost mine. I also really tried to make long flowing strokes for the contours, and tried to keep line weight in mind while doing it. I've also become aware of anatomical errors in the face itself, such as features not properly lining up, the lower jaw bones aren't matching angles when flipped upside down, his nose seems to be off center, and the right (his left) side of his lips seems to be slanting in a funny way. These are all things that I suppose I should erase and redo in this study, but I'm thinking to just leave them in there and nail them when I draw it for the second time.

Also my dad was using electric hedge clippers, not a chainsaw. Get the facts before you start slinging hurtful words like 'amateur" when referring to dead leprechaun hunters. He only instructed me to use the chainsaw so I wouldn't make his same mistake... psh.

I also tried to keep texture in mind with my treatment of shading, like leaving the hair in thick dark strokes, and the skin in broad "side of the lead" soft strokes, and building up value and then blending them along with some hatching.

Christ in hell his head is so small! How did I not notice this before?!?!

I blame those leprechauns. bastards.

Can't wait for your first assignment to be posted. Will you be handing out werthers originals with the assignment directions? Golly gee wiz I hope so.

On a side note, I think it's funny that you refer to yourself as a senile old cat. When I lived in Japan I somehow acquired the nickname "nekochan" which more or less translates to "little kitty', or simply 'kitty'. All my students, my ex and her family, and my friends all called me that and I can't for the love of all things melty and crunchy figure out how.

Meow.

[Ilaekae]

Hahahahaha... I'm sittin' here laughin' because the expression on this guy's face tells me HE'S figured out his head is too small, too... Don't do an erase. Just correct things when you try it again. I've spent many many late nights sometimes doing something over 15 times, trying hard not to get pissed as I went...

I like what's happening texture and value-wise in that left leg/left arm area. Very nice. Don't forget to allow for some highlights, which would be easiest for you probably after the fact with a bit of light eraser work where you need it. Values are not just levels getting darker and darker--they need the lights to actually make them look dark. That's why it's so damn hard to do a "close" value drawing, like something in really strong diffused light, or in a really dark room at the other extreme. You begin to lose your ability to contrast something off of something else.

[Ilaekae]

It's that time...

Your first project is an illustration. It doesn't have to be fancy (but you should push for the best you can do), it doesn't have to be done in a specific media, and it doesn't have to show a particular item specified by me. How easy is this?

Art used as an illustration is visual literature. It's meant to communicate, just like a bunch of words. Only, this way, we don't need to know a specific language or even how to read. What you will be communicating to the unwashed masses is the loose concept of "Curious," but in a very specific way...

Assignment 1: "Curious"
Format: Illustration
Media: Any you feel comfortable with.
Color: Anything from Back and White to Full Color
Style/Approach: Any one you feel is appropriate to the subject matter.
Deadline: Midnight anywhere in the world, Saturday night, November 17, 2007

Leave a bit of space or border at the bottom with space to put your name and the word "curious" in so we can keep track of things...

*************************

Visualize (as an example) a gorilla cropped so tightly that just about all we can see is his face (more or less). Visualize our hairy friend looking intently at something extremely small and delicate by comparison, like possibly a butterfly. There is an inherent feeling of overpowering awesomeness here that is side-tracked by something it finds interesting. There is curiosity, on both sides, and maybe some wonder, but NO menace other than that which is obviously implied by such a situation. Our friend the gorilla COULD do this... The butterfly COULD be so easily... whatever...but right now, that bad stuff isn't happening. They're both just...curious...

First off--no gorilla will be turned in. (...because I say so.) Other than that, you can use ANY two living things, imaginary, fantasy, or real--even a human--as one or the other, but one must be the "fragile/perishable" creature and one the "all-powerful/overwhelmingingly-huge" creature. These two elements are in a close interaction with each other that has a lot of implied possibilities.

The problems you are solving here are multiple.

1. You must convey the feeling of curious rather than menace, no matter how huge and ugly your big critter is.

2. You will determine the overall layout/composition and the positions that your critters take in relation to each other to best convey the theme. One can be facing away from us, while the other faces us. They can be sideways. they can be upside down in relation to each other. One can be sitting on the other (if somebody asks "which one," they're getting smacked)...

3. You will determine how much or how little color is used, and how it's used. You're also determining the overall "value" of the piece--how light, how dark, etc. This is where some really dumb mistakes could be made because you could easily "lose" the little guy in the big guy's image. Bad thing...

4. You will be dealing with critters of very different sizes, yet one shouldn't VISUALLY overpower the other too much IN IMPORTANCE from the reader's viewpoint, meaning I should know right away that we're dealing with TWO critters, temporarily facing each other as "equals." This is an issue of both color, placement and contrast.

I wouldn't go to an extreme proportion unless you absolutely need it. (There are practical reasons for this--unless you're doing an illustration to fit a pre-existing extreme shape, shapes that are too extreme are difficult to use when someone goes to layout their page containing your illustration.)

Use any technique you wish, any tools you wish, any approach/style you wish, etc. Keep the size within reason. When you make your final submission, it should be presented just as it would appear in final printing--not stuffed into the lower right corner of a big white sheet. It doesn't have to be a hard-edged squarish shape--meaning it could be partially or completely outlined (though with the subject matter, I'm not sure it's possible to do a complete outline.) For those of you not familiar with the term "outline" the way I'm using it, it's the technical term for what most of you do in your sketchbooks as a norm--a shape that has non-regular edges just sitting on a white page. It also applies to a head, for example, that pops upwards out of the rectangular "picture box" that the rest of your drawing is sitting in.

I would suggest posting some roughs or little thumbnails of what you're thinking of doing so we can all help each other catch any real bonehead ideas and problems up front. (...? Did I actually say bonehead there?...yup...I did...)

You have from RIGHT now until Midnight anywhere in the world on Saturday night, November 17, 2007. That gives you a week and a couple of bonus days up front. At that Time, I will post another assignment to cover the next week.

Have fun kiddies...post any questions you have here.

[alesoun]

A lazy plume of cigarette smoke curls into the air behind the log pile at the convent. Sister Mary Alesoun stirs, and a wine bottle rolls away across the cobbles.

"Where is that cat?" She wonders. "It's nearly Matins, and no sign of him!"

[alesoun]

HAH! There he is!

[Ilaekae]

Hahaha... I keep forgetting where on the globe your butt is perched.:yayca:

[alesoun]

Got four ideas; maybe 8 thumbnails. I'll ponder awhile, then sleep on it. Is it ok if the smallest grabs the eye most?

[Ilaekae]

Sure. It's probably going to be difficult to have it any other way and have this idea work...

[Chance.]

Be happy the head isn't too big. That is a far more common problem. as the below sketch demonstrates.

I've noticed that often, I like the looser earlier stages of my work better than the stages when I start tightening it up. I am somehow killing the life and energy in the art by overworking it I think. I want to maintain the spontaneous feel to my art even when I start adding details. I want to avoid getting tight.

I tried a quick thumb of the earlier digi, only in ink. I was hoping that the permanent nature of the ink would keep me from killing it by drawing, and then erasing, then drawing more, and erasing more and...
you get the idea.
It is different. I'm not sure whether I like it or not. My brush isn't the best for this, but it is the finest I have. Perhaps getting some better tools will help.

Also, I never like the result when I do any sort of under drawing beforehand. Again, I'm somehow tightening up.
And... (will he ever shut up?) ...I think my tendency to want to do everything with larger brushes is another part of the problem. I find myself avoiding the thinner lines, probably because I don't have as much control over long thin lines as I do thick ones. They wobble more and I want to "Ctrl-Z" over and over till I get it right. The curse of digital.

So Here are a couple of inks that I like and wand to be able to do something similar.

By ostrander (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=205023&d=1190225049) and by Blaz (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=220918&stc=1&d=1192743278)

Oh! Lots has happened since I started this post!

[Chance.]

Fun fun fun.

I love illustration assignments, they really get my brain cranking.

Thats why chow is so great.

I have come up with my most inventive stuff when I have limits.

And the lanky class idiot staggered off in search of his laptop so he could begin scribbling thumbnails. After tripping over his school books, and then his pillows, and his pile of clean clothes, he finally turned the light on only to trip over his pile of dirty clothes. This project was getting off to a spectacular start...

[alesoun]

Chance, I have the feeling this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodcut
and this,
http://1000woodcuts.com/1000woodcuts/1000.html
will appeal to you in terms of style, if not method.

[Chance.]

Woodcut prints are precisely what first interested me in this style. Often in my encyclopedias (published in the 60's) they will have woodcut illustrations for historical or mythological articles. I love them and am going to try my hand at that method someday, but it is too time consuming to be of profit at the moment (beyond the patience that I'm sure it teaches).

So this is something along the lines of what first hit my mind when I read the assignment.

Obviously I need reff for the creatures, I need to figure out my composition (that eye ended up in the center for this thumb, how typical of me), I need to decide how to handle the environment/background

Is this along the lines of what you are talking about Ilaekae? Beyond the stuff I noted above are there any simple things I'm missing? I'll try to spit out some more thumbs tomorrow maybe.

[alesoun]

http://www.animal-fine-art.co.uk/catalogueimg/gbf0jdewzauxutny4e0mkv5515012007183310
Dammit! I looked back before I went to bed! Look how fine woodprints can be! Get yourself some scoopey tools and try linoprint, then. Play!

My curious look is still gonna blind you! (Checks to see if nose is growing yet)

Gave you the wrong link above; corrected.

[Chance.]

:x
I have never seen anything like that... amazing

they can be very fine, maybe i should try that in digital.

I'm not sure what you mean by linoprint. I'm guessing scoopy tools are the ones you use to carve the (stamps? printy thingies?) whatever the original engraved obect is called.

[alesoun]

Yep! Tools with a melon ball shaped scoop (roughly, only more elongated)
Linoprint? Scooped out of Linoleum, not wood. You won't get as fine results.

Got a flooring centre near you? Make friends with them and beg for left-overs/castoffs. Linoprint is a good way to start. But money for nothing? Try cutting a potato in half and making a potato print. No fooling,- you can use a nailfile! (and you can get detail there, too )

[Ilaekae]

Actually, that's a rather creative approach. Doesn't really surprise me, because I never figured you for a COMPLETE idiot.:P

I'm guessing squid or something similar here? Good start.

Possible problems: I would definitely get the eye out of dead center. It's tending to turn the bear into a piece of the background.

The bear is starting to get lost against the squid, too, and this might get worse as you detail the squid. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth trying a thumb with the bear on a larger, higher drift so he was still close, but looking down slightly. This would help you with the large area of sky at the top. The horizon as it sits now is almost exactly dividing the piece in half horizontally--not a good thing. If you did this, I'd almost certainly push up the horizon a good bit too, which would allow yo to add even more mass to the squid, or even an arm or two coming foreward.

[Ilaekae]

Nice sites on the woodcutting. The linoleum is a special kind called Battleship linoleum. The version sold at flooring outlets is harder and not as easy to cut as the stuff you get from somebody like blick, but i've worked with both. You have to glue the lino to a piece of wood or plywood first, or it's hard to handle and could break.

The woodcuts are done on maple usually, if memory serves, and it's the endgrain that's actually cut into rather than the long grain. They just cut the planks up and glued them side by side with the grain facing up, then sanded and sealed the sucker down to a slab about an inch thick.

[Seedling]

Oooh, this is a juicy assignment Ilaekae! :)

[Ilaekae]

oooOOOooooo... We have visitors.

Thank you for the words, Luv. I tried to find something that wasn't either too hard or too easy and that would be kinda fun.

[Kronos]

Chance, Justin Sweet does some freakin kick ass stuff in a similar style as yours, thought you might want to take a look.

http://www.justinsweet.com/GALLERY/INDEXES/Illustration1.html

God damn is he rad

235813



really cool assignment Ilaekae, im gunna start some sketches now

[Edit] thought id give you a quick crit too.
Obviously I need reff for the creatures, I need to figure out my composition (that eye ended up in the center for this thumb, how typical of me), I need to decide how to handle the environment/background

Yeah i think the environment is a little confusing at the moment. Is it supposed to be a bunch of floating pieces of ice? I'm pretty sure that what your going for since that explains what the polar bear is on. With a scenario like that a crocodile maybe isn't the best creature, try making something up thats a little more monstery perhaps but that might fit in the arctic a little better. on first glance i couldn't tell that the polar bear was ON the crocodile, i thought he was further back in the background. and yeah, to add some drama to the image maybe you could have it a real low angle with some waves and stuff coming out from the big creature. anyway, early stages yet :P look forward to seeing some of your other ideas :)

[Kronos]

k, i did one quick sketch... i'll do some more tonight, got pizza now

235842

while i started this i remembered i already have a drawing that kind of fits this haha, obviously i'm going to do a new one for the assignment but just thought id share.

235843


and while i'm here, can i get a crit on this sketch? anatomy, pose and/or composition? thanks :D

235845


[Edit] Did another sketch, I didn't plan a lightsource so i got confused which made for a not so easily readable image. The little smudge on the mushroom is supposed to be a tiny gnome and the stuff on the right is supposed to be a tree the big guy is peering out from behind

235888

[Edit2]Added another, just having fun :P

236092

[llothcat]

rockin-baja-coolness of an assignment!

As I have yet another 12hr day ahead of me at work, my thumbs and sketches will have to wait...at least until saturday. I promise to not go ahead headlong into completion this time:D

[Sepulverture]

Question: My work schedule prevents me from turning anything in on monday of any day. It's now 1:06 a.m. (3:06 a.m. goofy senile cat time), and I just stumbled in the door from work. Will I get points deducted for turning in late? I'll try to have my submission in before I go to work on thursday, but on the chance that It's not quite done and I want to stare blankly at it for 8 hours and figure out anything that's bugging me before submitting can I turn it in late?

[Sepulverture]

Ok, I'm really taken by this assignment, and I started getting a flood of ideas the second I read the requirements. This one was my favorite, but it's only the first sketch I've done. I need to do a full set of thumbnails, which I will do while at work tomorrow to help pass the time during dead hours. I have never... NEVER ever even attempted to draw children before, so I know that this little girl doesn't look quite like a little girl, her legs are huge, her button nose is too defined, and her plump round cheeks aren't plumpy enough. Also, I think I drew the deltoid region too large, and the man is laying really funny, I'm gonna put a rock or pillow under his head, something to indicate he's just sleeping, rather than dead. the little girl in a tattered blouse and ballet shoes sees this man asleep, dressed like the other folks who ravaged her home, and is enthralled in the idea of investigating him upon discovery. I had a more innocent idea as well, which I'll have to sketch out.

I can see that her calves are ginormous, and am already fixing those. What can I do to make her seem less like a midget woman and more like a little girl?

Edit: updated image. I'll post the original plus the update.

[Majo_Neko]

I've been totally lost between work and school but I finally got around to kicking myself to post my stuff. need to get some more up on the interwebz

Looks like I dropped in just in time too, this assingment is mixing up all kinds of things in mah brain.

Also kudos on all the cool work everyone has been posting. It's fun to see all the different styles and to read your comments even better xD

I'll try and get some thumbs sketched out tomorrow

[Kronos]

@ Sepulverture, i did a quick paint over of the girl and changed the cropping a little bit. hope you don't mind/hope it helps. I think the thing about drawing girls is you have to be quite minimal in the strokes you use one their face and stuff, kids don't really have any wrickles at all and baby fat kind of fill out the difinition so all angles and stuff are very soft. i tried to figure out how the skirt might fall, i'm not sure if you have it right or i do :P maybe they both work. Also i made the man just a bit smaller.. kids may be small.. probably not quite as small as you have her though.

236086

HOWEVER, i think you missed one of the points of the assignment.
"one must be the "fragile/perishable" creature and one the "all-powerful/overwhelmingingly-huge" creature"
correct me if i'm wrong Ilaekae, but i think there is supposed to be a sense of curiosity portrayed in both characters too which is hard when one of them is asleep ;)

good work though, looking forward to what else you come up with.

[Sepulverture]

Thanks for the critique and paintover Kronos. That answered a few questions that I hadn't voiced, such as perspective for the girls feet and right arm.

I had been having trouble with proportions, although I'm not sure what was causing it. I may have misinterpreted the assignment, and if so I'm awaiting the wrath of cat-man. Regarding the cropping, that wasn't really my doing. My sketchbook is oversized (i can't remember what size it actually is) and it just doesn't fit on my scanner bed. Thanks though for extending that out, and hinting a background I can run with. I've got a few other ideas I need to work out before I actually run with this one.

Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever even drawn a female face outside of a few figure sketches

Thanks again, that answered some questions for me.

[alesoun]

Two so far. Working on more, but not happy with them yet....

236391

One of the ideas I'm working on is kind of a reversal of the theme. Ah, give me time.....

[Chance.]

Rethinking re-arranging and redesigning.

Taking our master's words into account.

Still need to grab some ref.

Kronos Yeah, those illustrations are awesome. The only thing that bugs me about them is that they don't read extremely well. The guy tries to cram too much detail in too small a space so that sometimes it's hard to tell what's going on.

You are still feeling it out so no comments yet on subject or composition. You might try throwing some hard edged brushwork into your thumbs in some places. Using all feather edged brushed gives everything a hazy appearance.

The flying ax dude looks good. I would have the guy in the foreground face the viewer, so you can feel his fear as he realizes he is about to die, but that's just opinion.

Sep - I think the assignment implies that there needs to be curiosity on both sides. The soldier can't be to curios if he's unconscious ;). Just a thought, Ilaekae correct me if I'm wrong.

Alesoun - Keep it coming, can't wait to see where you settle

-----------------

Okay, I'm liking this direction better than the other, but I'm having a difficult time composing it. There seems to be a lot of wasted space, and I'm not sure that it flows to the focal point well.
Please point out all of my dumb mistakes.

[alesoun]

That's sweet! Bear could be bigger, though, without losing the threat. Maybe 3-4 times as tall?

[Sepulverture]

Chance: I dig. I have been sketching up thumbnails of other things where both parties are displaying curiosity. I think you need to rework the facial expression of the dragon sea monster thing. Right now it looks like it's examining a tasty morsel.

[Ilaekae]

I'm in. Thanks for everybody helping back and forth. Seppy, I never thought I'd say this to anyone, but...you're thinkin' too much. Heeheehee...

Everybodies right. There's not enough contrast between the sizes of your two characters. And, the big guy's gotta be awake to be curious. So as not to waste the entire thing, possibility of making the chick a faerie? Teeny-tiny LITTLE faerie? On guys chest...and he's awake...lounging back...eyes open...

Nice start everybody. I've bee cruisin' in and out when I could. I have to get some sleep--been doing physical house repairs most of day. Will check in in morning and catch up all questions and suggestions. Generally like what I'm seeing, at least as a start. Early tomorrow we hone 'em down into something spectacular.

ADD: Chance, when you do bear, he would look most passive sitting like a little kid does--back legs straight out with toes in air. In that position, he neither looks threatening nor threatened. And if you go with something like the dragon, close his mouth so the teeth aren't showing. Makes him look neutral, even if he is smiling.

[Sepulverture]

OK... ALRIGHT... FINE FINE FINE. so i botched the first attempt due to a technically... stupid sleepy guy person thing... hope his children die in a car wreck... oh well, I've got a few ideas sketched up and ready to me poked and proded. I'm also posting an image that I was doing when you gave me your crits on my randomly randomness of my randomly random lines Illaekae. I took my time and tried placing lines more strategically here. It's really just a tiny little sketch I did as part of an exercise. What do you think Illaekae, is there any improvement here with my line placement?

[TheGnoll]

shit shit shit
i missed the latest updates in here!
i've had a very busy week with beginning of uni and other interesting stuff, but i hope to have some peace tomorrow
i'll post omething by next saturday for sure :D

ciao!

[Sepulverture]

Deadline is Thursday gnolly gnoll;)

[Ilaekae]

November 10...

Chance: "Sabotage. I know it's a quicky joke, but the overall layout isn't bad Just watch your anatomy, even when screwin' around. It helps you get in the habit, and you won't have to think about it after a while. Your crotch HAS got to be sittin' higher than where you've got it in that drawing.

Couple: Nice start. More later since you posted further versions. The worst thing I actually see here is just a bit of composition iffiness...see what happens if you take about 3/4" maybe off the right side--less problem with the large white mass and the girl falls inter a slightly better position overall.

[Post 95]: Getting somebody's head the right size is a real bitch for most people, especially when the person is in a pose that isn't a straight on "I'm standing here--I'm sitting here" thing. To the good, it means that you're experimenting with more extreme poses, where it's harder to gauge the relationships of one element against another. And the more you push the poses, the more possibility there is for needing foreshortened elements, like arms and legs. Don't let it get you down. This is proof that you're trying something outside your "safety zone." And that's the only way you can improve at ANYTHING you do.

I'm assuming the drawing in this post is done with a REAL brush and ink, so I'm guessing, yeah, the brush might be a bit big. It could also be a bit "rough" for ink work-meaning it's not coming to a nice point. The kind of brush used in top-grade inking is also the easiest to ruin with ink, so you have to really take care to keep them clean or buildup will cause them to flare and you wont be able to get a decent SINGLE point to them.

I want you to go back to ostrander and Blaz's drawings that you pointed out and compare them to your own, but in a specific way. Don't worry about "this looks better" stuff, but look at the basic structural masses. Both of them do the same thing, but Blaz's piece might be easier to see it in. After any basic drawing, the primary black structure is put in first. Then it's modified by either adding black brush strokes, or by DELETING black (using WHITE brush strokes). This is done along the "edges" of the value areas, as in where a muscle mass goes from solid dark to "gray" to solid white. The "gray" is the finer brushwork. This means they both started with something that is remarkably close to what you have going on in YOUR drawing. That means you're already halfway there. What we have to do is get you in the habit of laying in this base black a little more carefully, like in the spindles of the wagon wheel, and NOT adding in strokes that could be a problem later, like in the girl's crotch/belly section and the guy's tunic between his legs. this stuff that should be worried about in the "second" stage.

Very nice face on the girl here, btw. Minimal strokes, minimal detail, but a very comfortable likeness needing very little touchup to be finished.

Did that all make you feel better or worse?



Kronos: Thanks for the Sweet URL and pic. This guy is a god as far as I'm concerned when it comes to pen and brush work, but if you take a good look at his stuff, you gotta know that what he does to anatomy when he HAS to would drive most of the anal freaks on anatomy in the forum right up the wall and through the roof. [grin] He's a great example to study for basic technique, design and the proper way to use line and hatching for best effect. Possesses an incredible amount of control.

Your crits on Chances thumbnail were right on.

Your first thumb in [#107]: Good crop and approach/look on the larger face. I'm having a little problem with the girl. She looks like a friend to the big guy because she's "on his side." This makes her "friendly" rather than "curious." She might look more so in an adversarial way if she was moved forward and turned more toward the creature, and with less of a smile--maybe a blanker look, like where you do a little dot for the mouth instead of a line.

Good start.

Flying guy with the ax: I don't see any major problems with the guy in the air--maybe a bit of work with his right arm (looks a little "weak" or maybe short, not sure which)

There is a big problem though in the comp and relative sizes of the two guys. And there could be an even bigger one when you start to work in a bit of background.

The guy has just leapt from something, and judging from the angle we're viewing HIM, that launching point would be below him and to the rear a bit because we're obviously looking up to some degree. That means the guy in front is not only too far away (too close to us) for that incoming ax to do much damage, but the guy in front seems to be in a weird position, almost as if he were in bed or something and just started to roll up on his left arm. The only other believable option is that this sucker is dropping from a tree almost directly overhead--not a good thing to do with a 15-pound ax in your hands.

I'm wondering if you wouldn't have a better comp if the guy in front was maybe a bit over half the size he is now so we could see more of him, and that would allow you to still have him in the foreground, but closer to the diver and in a more vulnerable position fight-wise. He could literally be starting to fall backwards in surprise.

Second thumbnail: Also good, but the total amount of background might be enough to take away from the impact of the critters interracting...

I'd buy the last suggestion thumb if you had the little guy on the big guy's open hand, in roughly the position you have the hand now.



Sep [post 109]: Don't worry about the timing too much. Like I said up front, we're going to be very flexible. It's more important that you DO something at all than worrying about what time it is, gave or take a few years... (I didn't really say that last part after the comma--it's all in your imagination)

Sep [post 110]: The explanation you gave for your sketch was what I was referring to when i said you think too hard. Heeheehee--you were so intent on making something plausible sounding that you missed the less complicated requirement of extreme variation in size and the MUTUAL curiosity.

I'm posting this now so I can continue writing with a new post from here. Otherwise, it gets too hard to follow.

[Ilaekae]

Kronos and Sep: Post 112 with the drawover...seconding the comments. good work both of you.

Sep, you did slightly misinterpret the assignment, but I suggested in a quick post yesterday before I went to bed how it could be salvaged.

Female faces: They're like female anything. Round, soft, tend to be smaller rather than larger if there's a choice. The face specifically also has a tendency to have relatively larger-looking eyes, even when it's not true, because women use makeup to exaggerate that appearance. The younger a women is, the more pronounced her eyes become and the smaller her chin is. At some point going backwards, boys and girls both start to take on these characteristics, and at that point, their heads start to become larger and rounder in relation to their bodies.

Basically--less lines, less hard shadowing, less obvious "sculpting," less angular. And past a certain point, they have boobs. (...not on their faces...other places.)



alesoun: Both have possibilities. the one with the baby may be losing the sense of curiosity and becoming menacing due to the obvious open mouth.



Chance: The Dragon. Strong layout/comp. near classic placement. I think I mad a comment about having the bear nonchalantly sitting on his ass while studying the dragon. The iceberg is a good place for you to get some strong "jagged" shadow and texture in, rather than the "ice cream look."

That sun just screams to go there, doesn't it? Don't do it. It forms a bull's eye reinforced by the shape of the dragon, so everybody's eye is going to be drawn there, confusing the viewer. Try moving it to the upper left almost where that piece of lettering is cut off, but still keep it subtle. It will help in drawing the eye to the point of interest.

And I agree with alesoun--the bear could definitely be bigger without hurting you.




sep: [post 119] the sketch at the upper right is really an interesting possibility! I like the expression pretty much as it is--maybe a touch "softer"--and you would be in the major league ballpark if the girl was just as she is, except about half the size or less you show her now.

Re the line sketch. Bluntly--yes, there is tremendous improvement in your use of line placement especially in the hatching areas. there are still a few flubs, but the improvement is very obvious.

From a layout standpoint, since the leg pushing down is the main point of visual interest, it might be better to move the guy in the background either to the left a good bit so he doesn't conflict so much with the main image.

The weakness with this piece right now is in the value area, and part of that is probably because when you stuck the guy in the background in, his positioning made you want him darker than he should have been so he wouldn't fight the main leg in the front. Moving him as i mentioned above would allow you to lighten him up a bit, separating him from the background.

Now--we do have a problem in the background--IF--IF it's meant to be as you now have it. Or is it meant to be a solid black? The problem is the inconsistency of the direction of the hatch lines...at left and right, they match, but above the main leg and in the two shapes under it, they start to form a confusing perspective kind of thing because of the hatch direction change...

AND...Mr. Sepulverture. Would you please come to the front of the class and read out loud what I wrote on the actual assignment post, especially as far as DEADLINE is concerned.

It is Saturday next, NOT thursday... Your reading ability so far leads me to believe that if i wanted to wipe out the entire west coast in an extremely painful way, I should probably buy you a simple cookbook and a some money to open a restaurant...:P

[Ilaekae]

GENERAL NOTICE...

There are two things happening that might be of interest to all of you. Cody has finally put up the LAST MAN STANDING announcement, with sign-up starting this Monday. If you don't know what that is, check it out in the Lounge Section. Don't be afraid to sign up, and I mean this for everyone here. It's not a matter of winning or losing--it's a matter of really getting down and dirty and trying your best against some of the biggest guns in the business...head to head. There is no shame in losing in something like that, and a lot to gain, and you may surprise the hell out of yourself.

Second, I'm helping Seedling out in the Open School Project in this section, alternating weeks, and tonight I'll be posting a simple lesson assignent that has a bit to do with textures. If you get a chance, take a peek in, or maybe even give it a try if you have the time.

And remember--the deadline for our assignment #1 is next Saturday, NOT next Thursday.

[Sepulverture]

Good god Illaekae! You've uncovered my evil plans of western U.S. domination!

Also when I read your posts usually it's at 2 in the morning after I get home from work and have a snack:( My brain isn't samrt.

As for your assignment. I get a little red faced when reading in front of class but here goes.

Ahem: Draw little girls fondling big guys who apparently aren't big enough (i was keeping size ratios relatively low because my unsamrt brain thought you said not to make outrageous proportions).

yarg

Thanks for the crits and compliments about the sketch with the guy stepping down on the dude person. If it weren't pen I'd erase a bunch of crap and start over.

I guess the reason why I had to background lines going in different directions is because I've seen some of the other members do things like having their hatching going in directions that normally they shouldn't, or wouldn't do it and it just makes it more visually interesting. I failed :(. Oh well, next time.

and i could swear i read the word thursday somewhere... at some point...

[Ilaekae]

When you start to get red-faced in front of the class, do what I did when I taught...imagine everybody is missing their pants.

It took me three years to figure out they REALLY weren't wearing any, but by then, I had the hang of it.:wink:

[Chance.]

You gave me a heck of a lot of stuff to chew on, sensei. I'll respond more appropriately later. Good advice, I think I'm starting to see what the difference between where my inks are, and where I want them to be is.

as far as my brush for the second cart attempt. Yeah, it was the smallest one I had and a watercolor type brush, not an ink brush.

Thunderdome eh? I have some thoughts about that. More later...

[Ilaekae]

None of you have to hurry... We're gonna be here a long time.:$

[llothcat]

GENERAL NOTICE...

There are two things happening that might be of interest to all of you. Cody has finally put up the LAST MAN STANDING announcement, with sign-up starting this Monday. If you don't know what that is, check it out in the Lounge Section. Don't be afraid to sign up, and I mean this for everyone here. It's not a matter of winning or losing--it's a matter of really getting down and dirty and trying your best against some of the biggest guns in the business...head to head. There is no shame in losing in something like that, and a lot to gain, and you may surprise the hell out of yourself.
.

I was hoping you'd say that, cause I've been chompin' on the bit for the competition. I managed to miss out on the previous 2.


oh..and here's my quick sketch of the assignment in painter.

I really meant for the big guy to be one of those single-body-part kinda things with the mouth somewhere near the stomach area, but it turned into a kind of version of the rock crusher from the Never-ending Story. It works, I suppose.

I do more, too...I wanna get some vector practice in on this.:D

[Sepulverture]

Yo Llothcat. That digisketch you've got up there is looking good blocked in as it is, but it looks like the big fella is getting ready to cry big sad alligator tears rather than looking curious. That's a hard angle to depict curiosity from though.

[llothcat]

yeah..i admit i went a bit crazy with the highlights:D

[Sepulverture]

Ok, here's a small update. Just trying to flesh out size ratios.

I know, I know. Pathetic "update". Is this a little closer to what you want Illaekae, referring to the one on the bottom left.

Oh, and Illaekae - I was an elementary school teacher before, never really caught on to the whole imagining my crowd without pants thing ;) just didn't seem quite right. :perv:

[llothcat]

'twas blanking out for a bit..decided to a least get something done..corrections on the chubby anime thing...

I need to get some sleep now...

[Kronos]

Kronos: Thanks for the Sweet URL and pic. This guy is a god as far as I'm concerned when it comes to pen and brush work, but if you take a good look at his stuff, you gotta know that what he does to anatomy when he HAS to would drive most of the anal freaks on anatomy in the forum right up the wall and through the roof. [grin] He's a great example to study for basic technique, design and the proper way to use line and hatching for best effect. Possesses an incredible amount of control.

Your crits on Chances thumbnail were right on.


Yeah Justin Sweet is my hero, i really like what he does with the anatomy of his monster, its so believable even if it isn't necicarily plausable. And just kick ass epic scenes of badassery :tihi:


Your first thumb in [#107]: Good crop and approach/look on the larger face. I'm having a little problem with the girl. She looks like a friend to the big guy because she's "on his side." This makes her "friendly" rather than "curious." She might look more so in an adversarial way if she was moved forward and turned more toward the creature, and with less of a smile--maybe a blanker look, like where you do a little dot for the mouth instead of a line.

Good start.


thanks, yeah the girl bugged me when i drew her like i did, but i was lazy and didn't do anything about it. tsk tsk.

Flying guy with the ax: I don't see any major problems with the guy in the air--maybe a bit of work with his right arm (looks a little "weak" or maybe short, not sure which)

There is a big problem though in the comp and relative sizes of the two guys. And there could be an even bigger one when you start to work in a bit of background.

The guy has just leapt from something, and judging from the angle we're viewing HIM, that launching point would be below him and to the rear a bit because we're obviously looking up to some degree. That means the guy in front is not only too far away (too close to us) for that incoming ax to do much damage, but the guy in front seems to be in a weird position, almost as if he were in bed or something and just started to roll up on his left arm. The only other believable option is that this sucker is dropping from a tree almost directly overhead--not a good thing to do with a 15-pound ax in your hands.

I'm wondering if you wouldn't have a better comp if the guy in front was maybe a bit over half the size he is now so we could see more of him, and that would allow you to still have him in the foreground, but closer to the diver and in a more vulnerable position fight-wise. He could literally be starting to fall backwards in surprise.


thanks heaps for the great crit, i got another crit on that one too so i have heaps of things to improve on it.



Second thumbnail: Also good, but the total amount of background might be enough to take away from the impact of the critters interracting...


I see what you mean. if i were to persure that one more, what kind of things could help? cropping tighter on the characers? makeing either/both larger in comparison to the background elements? could i emphasize the characters with colour and let the background be a little more washed out? or lighting tricks or something?


I'd buy the last suggestion thumb if you had the little guy on the big guy's open hand, in roughly the position you have the hand now.


haha, does that mean i should persure that one? would it loose something if i ended up "painting" it? and if i moved the little fellah, would i have to change the crop?

ha, so many questions, sorry.

I think you convinced me to enter last man standing too. scary as fuck, but it should be some good pressure to make something cool.

[TheGnoll]

ok, just some very quick thumbnails here.
I over used the standard "big guy vs small guy", but meh.
The first dragon pics have some issues basically related to the fact its kinda hard to make the dragon look "curious"...he currectly looks as if he has found an easy meal.
Thats why i placed the boy so close to the dragon (even directly touching it), cause i thought it would add to the "curious" effect, but probably its just cause the boy is too dumb.In other thumbs, like in no3, it looks like the two already have a friendly relation.
I'm much more satisfied with the simple "big shadow vs small shiny creature", its simple (composition wise) can be simmetrical and i think even without showing the whole towering creature i can easil express his "size and appearance" by giving a strong contrast in lines (soft for the faery, hard for the monsta) and in texture (smooth for the faery, rought for the creature)
lets see wich one you like more, old cat, my personal choice would be no 6 crossed with no7...i like the simmetrical comp and the hand, but i also like the cat-like creature and the fact of showing a bt more of both creatures.The lightsource would be the faery itself, adding visual weight to it and balancin the light\dark.No 8 just doesn't make much sense, i kinda feel like the dragon is getting ead to burp in the kid's face.
Hope all this BS makes sense, tell me how to proceed please, cause i'm already stuck hehe :D

ciao

[Ilaekae]

Ran across an interesting new poster in the FINISHED section who might be of interest to some of you...some solid "ink" work and texture/color scattered throughout...

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82701

...and if any of you haven't yet seen what pro work really requires in the area of design, composition and line/color, check out the Guild Wars Eye of the North thread...

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=108591



llothcat: Great angle, but I agree, the mouth is a bit overpowering. Why not think about eliminating the lips and just make the mouth a "slash" type of thing that basically forms a line when it's closed? It would definitely simplify the lighting and get the image a bit cleaner where you need it. I'm thinking the kind of mouth a tennis ball would have if you cut it across and squeezed it like a puppet. It sure wouldn't hurt the character...


Sep: "I was an elementary school teacher before, never really caught on to the whole imagining my crowd without pants thing..."

I taught art school, and 60% of my class was female 18-25. What can I say...I was a dirty old man from the very beginning...

The sketch: I still like the one at upper right better. I did a really rough cut and paste/scribble to show you what I meant (down below). The creature could be even bigger, probably, in relation to the girl and still work.

llothcat: Chubby stripper. Good on the changes. I think the legs are getting lost though...value problem. What if her legs going skin color or something close?



Gnoll: "If i were to persure that one more, what kind of things could help? cropping tighter on the characers? makeing either/both larger in comparison to the background elements? could i emphasize the characters with colour and let the background be a little more washed out? or lighting tricks or something?"

I think cropping a bit would be your best bet, but not too much, because you want the scenery to be there to show the big guy is actually hiding somewhat. I'd chop a bit off the right, but not much (1/2"±), but would definitely chop the left just to the right of the window. Maybe if you still wanted a light source there, you could insert a dormer type thing lower down the roof. Great expression, btw.

The profile characters: "if i moved the little fellah, would i have to change the crop?"

You would probably want to, because most of the legs on the big guy would be wasted in showing a difference in size.



Kronos: I'm tending to something like 5, 6, 7 too. I like simple. Usually the most powerful image when it's simple. A thought did occur while I was writing here...dragons have snouts--long snouts...AND it's hard to look menacing when you're cross-eyed, which is what you'd be if "something" shiny was standing on your snout...might not even need a hand...

[Chance.]

So, last man standing...

Heres my thought. Wouldn't it be awesome if all of us (mentees), at least those of us who can fit it in with our schedules, had a go at it? Of course we won't be winning, but wouldn't it be something if one or some of us made it through the first round? It would be a tribute to Ilaekae. Anyway that's my thought.

By the way, are you allowed to have crits on your last man standing pieces? or is there some sort of honor code that you have to keep it to yourself till it's time to submit? I've never followed any of these so I don't know how they work, and there isn't much info up about this round yet.

--------
I'm thinking i'm straying too far into the realm of midtones. I want to maintain something of a graphic look, but I don't know how to communicate what I need to.
How to show that the iceberg is white, when the sun is right behind it and the shadow is directly facing the viewer. Same for the bear.

I don't think that the bear reads well right now. I like his contour, but I don't like the way I rendered him and am going to alter him.

Sea serpent hasn't been altered.

I noticed an inconsistency between the two characters. The bear is in complete profile, but the serpent is turned slightly toward the viewer. Is this a problem? Or will it work okay when I line the eye of the serpent up properly?

[Ilaekae]

On the LMS, thank you for the kind thought, but if one of you advances, it's because of YOUR work, not mine. Besides, you're all gonna lose because this year, I'M WINNING! HEEHEEHEE... But I really think every one here oughta try, and I don't see why we couldn't...ummmm...discuss some...stuff in here that just might be relavent to what you're doing...in the LMS... They don;'t pay too much attention to anything I do, anyway...[grin]

The bear is going to have a lot of reflected light off the berg he's on, so he's not going to be as dark as you think. Maybe strog shadows under arm and just down near the bottom center, but not solid.

I had to check what an iceberg looked like and got surprised. I would have thought they were kind of transparent, but the suckers are compacted snow, so the texture is more like broken plaster surface, like when you break a ball of plaster in half with a hammer and look at the rough side.

here's what I found below, including two of Sweet's version of a berg or at least a snowbanky thing. I'm thinking the thing is to do a controlled patchy hatch to indicate a broken surface. Take a look at how sweet handled his mountain areas--almost the same thing.

The position of the two critters is fine. I wouldn't worry about it.

[Sepulverture]

Hey you old goofy cat, thanks for the paint over (it's breathtaking hehehe).

I'm assuming since you repainted the chin on the demon monster man and repositioned the hand of the little girl you don't like how it was the way it was, but I kind of liked her turning his head with her own hands, correct me if I assumed incorrectly.

I was going to do a full page of thumbnails today, but I won't lie. One of my coworkers gave me a copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I started reading it... and read some more... and then after that I read more (and then more after that... :(... Also, I was in such a hurry to get to work I forgot my sketchbook and had to wait till lunch break to come back and get it.

Anywho. Here are the two thumbnails I DID get done, still getting size relationships down in a way that I feel can work. I just feel like if I make the demon too large then the pose isn't going to work any longer. I'm fine with trying different poses, but this one's working so far and I was to squeeze the life out of it before I move on to others (maybe that's a bad thing?).

I feel so out of the loop coming home around 1-2 AM, post, and know I can't get any feedback until about the same time the following day unless I have enough time to scan and post before i go to work... nightshift = hate

[llothcat]

you are not alone...hehe


its 2am-ish and i just got home. And I didn't get a durn thing done today either.

[Ilaekae]

Sep: "(it's breathtaking hehehe)"

You try drawin' anything with a trackball full of cat hair and let's see how good you do! :P

The positioning was an accident re the hand on chin. I just chopped the girl out and reduced her to show you what I meant about the size thing. I like what you did in the two versions, and I agree...in your case, if the girl gets TOO small, you'll lose a bit of the feel that made your first one nice.

[Morrigana]

I think I'll post some sketches, but I'm not sure if I'll actually be able to finish this assignment. In the last week I've proceeded to get sightly sick again, have a car die on me, and lose my job. Unfortunately (yeah, excuses and whatnot) that means my stress level is through the roof, and my time has to be spent getting a job.

But I have an idea or two for this illustration.

[Ilaekae]

WOOF! I've had entire years like that, Luv... Don't worry. Work on it when you can after you get everything else under control. I can always take a look at it later...

[Chance.]

great examples, I'll try to pull off something like that.

You found much better photos than I did. Google just wants to rant about some fake iceberg photo thats circulating right now.

[Ilaekae]

I probably spelled it right... :P

[Sepulverture]

So, I'm looking for some feedback so I can begin fleshing out some one of the thumbnails I've posted and begin my rendering so I can hopefully get my assignment done by saturday. This week is going to be stupid hectic, my work schedule is changing from 4 pm - 12:30 am to 10:30 p.m. - 7 a.m., and my mom is having her house sold (i'm staying with her for the time being) so there are going to be people coming through pretty much at random (well, random to me because no one ever gives me any information until whatever's going to happen is just about to happen) so I dunno when I'm going to have time to scan, post, or read posts.

Which thumbnail (s) do you think I should run with Illaekae? I'm thinking I may go with the original thumb of the demon and girl, or the second one on the last set of thumbnails I posted, do two or three sketches of those to flesh it out and refine them, choose one and start my rendering for it, do you think that's a good route? Or would you do it differently?

[Ilaekae]

I'd go with the last one, with the littlest girl, because it would fit the assignment best. Don't worry about the timing. Morrigan has some timimg probs, to, and I expect this. We're here to bat ideas and such back and forth, and to finish something that maybe we learn something from--it's not a foot race. It won't hurt if the assignments overlap or shift a bit. I would have no problem giving you guys an extra week or a couple of days on this one, if you think you can use it.

[Chance.]

I find you get more interesting results when you spell stuff wrong.

[Sepulverture]

I definitely want to have this in by saturday, teacher set a deadline and it's only in our benefit to learn how to finish our projects on time. Let's face it, I think all of us here have worked, or want to work as a professional artist, whether it be a concept illustrator for the games or movie industry, comic artist, or porn artist for playboy, and we all need to get adjusted to working on deadlines.

Your leniency is most MOST appreciated, I just want to try to get it in on time as a challenge to myself (i challenge everyone else to also;) Morigana excluded for obvious reasons).

[Ilaekae]

Yer right. I found this forum typing in "chili ingredients." :P

...and, Sep...you just jumped up about five rungs on the ladder to "Pro-dome." :P :P

[llothcat]

straight from the laptop.....

...on vector..it's really hard to just do a sketch. i keep wanting to continue to work on it:P

[alesoun]

Well, I took the dare and entered for LMS3, and it looks like I just slid in under the wire! I'd better get down to work tomorrow!

[Chance.]

Thats a long list and my eyes cross trying to read it. Did anyone else make it in besides Master and the two of us?

[Ilaekae]

llothcat's in, too. It's whoop-ass time...

Actually you three are going to enjoy this. The back-and-forth shit-slingn' is the best part. As for the art...Cody is NOT dumb. He's going to present something that is probably an abstract concept, and you're going to have to really think before you start any actual art. We can bounce ideas around in here, because I don't think anyone's going to pitchfork us if we do.

It's also going to be a real bitch to do this from an art standpoint, so you'll be pushing your skills to the limit. That means you can't wait til last minute or you'll get yourself in trouble. Just keep in mind, however you do, if you've done what you think is your best, you win. You're not going up against each other, you're going up against the real pros in some cases, including at least three people that helped establish Jason's Massive Black. That takes balls. The fact you signed up proves you got 'em. Everything from here on is cake.

Llothcat: Watch the eyes on the big guy They aren't looking at the figure. And I'm wondering if the little guy's pose is the best if we're looking for curious...maybe it would work better if his hands were both behind him a bit, or at least down at his sides in a more neutral stance. The posture here is hyper-critical, because your approach is eliminating any facial expression on the little guy. His posture has to carry the message. Any reason why you don't have him more directly in front of the big guy? maybe by spreading or decreasing the size of his nose/teeth or whatever those bumps are...

[Kronos]

ah crud monkies... i missed the guaranteed signup. just stuck my name in, here's hoping enough people pull out for me to got in!

[Ilaekae]

Still a good chance. Last year we had a shitload of droputs. I remember chaos was 9 or 10 on the reserves list and she wasn't the last to get in because of dropouts. I don't even recognize a lot of these names, and I'm thinking they're gonna sidetrack with shiney things easily...

[Sepulverture]

I like shiny things:(.

[Chance.]

So I just had to come up with my own art for the crap flingin.

2 hours after I got home from school I came out of my daze to find this on my computer screen.

Those poor guys (and Gals) that will be forced to face me, they just don't know what they are dealing with.

[Ilaekae]

Cody has just upped the Last Man Standing limit from 320 to 360 contestants, so anyone who still wants in, go for it.

[TheGnoll]

i had a few issues understanding who you were talking to in your comment post, (you talked about kronos usign my name, and viceversa), but i think i got the message.right now i'm really too buzy to do something, but i will do something ASAP
yeah i know, i'm a sissy hehe

ciao

[Ilaekae]

Shit! I switched names again? I do that all the time because by the time I get halfway through diddling with the keyboard, I forget who I'm talking to. Sorry about that. I called Romance Chaos for at least a month a few years back, and vice versa.

[alesoun]

Fixed the Bogey Man thumbnail

239532
and my reverse idea, where the smaller of the two might be the most dangerous....

239533

[Chance.]

Nuther sp

I need to work on my assignment

actually I need to study for a bio test tomorrow morning, but i'm brain dead right now and don't know what's good for me.

[alesoun]

Did you try to make a print yet, Chance? You could try with that last drawing. It's not the worst thing in the world if it doesn't work. (The worst thing in the world is my typing)

If you have the time, you might enjoy trying

[Ilaekae]

Alesoun: Like the changes to your original idea, BUT I really like the second possibility. It does flip the idea on its head in a nice way, and the layout is potentially much stronger than the other version. I'd maybe experiment with adding another small branch going to the left and up off the top of the page to tie the top of the drawing to the rest better--roughly above where the boy's right eye is--and maybe another popping off the top (and going slightly left) from the left side of the big upright branch at the right. This small addition(s) would prevent the image from accidentally visually cropping itself at the horizontal branch and the left edge of the big branch.

The look on the kid's face is nice if you can hold that expression through finish.

Chance: Do your bio homework or you'll end up dating 12-year-olds for the next 10 years. Even I couldn't take that, and I'm a professional dirty old man.

Nice expression on the face. Watch the shadow structure on the neck--it looks like you kind of lost your way a bit and didn't know where to put the shadow.

[alesoun]

Ah, I just rushed it. Purely imagination,- no model. I can't usually pull that off; making something from imagination. I think I can keep the expression, though. I meant to add a branch sweeping up from the right; didn't think abut adding one from the left. I'll get on it tomorrow.

[Ilaekae]

Amazing what y'don't know y'know, ain't it? :P

[alesoun]

Damn! I wish I spoke Ilaekae!

[Ilaekae]

No y'don't. People snicker a lot when I order at a restaurant...



...or were you serious?

[alesoun]

I'm one of the only two people I know who can spill red wine UP the sleeve of a short sleeved t-shirt. The other one has just been visiting, and I hope he reads this (he might)!

Yay, the Windy City! Might have been the curry, though......

[Ilaekae]

I grew up in an ethnic neighborhood in Pittsburgh call the S'Side (South Side) and have a really bad (my wife's term) Pittsburgh accent with with a lot of Italian/Polish/Slovak/German/French/Lithuanian thrown in just for confusion sake. Yinz hasta hear it t'believe it...sadly, I write the same way if I don't pay attention. The favorite response to my emails to my clients was "Say WHAT?!?"

[alesoun]

The Scots term is "Whit? Whit?

[chaosrocks]

yeha but Rob didn't mind

anyway. I started my TD piece when the topics was announced even though I was like 7th on the alternatelist... so when my number came up about a week later. I wasn't a week behind. I still got trounced though

wonder what'll happen this year?
crx

[alesoun]

The ladies are gonna do a variation of "These Boots were Made For Walkin'"

Just insert spherical objects for boots and kicking for walking......

[Sepulverture]

God damn. I've spent so much time drawing in tiny winy eye-strain bite size format that I'm having a hell of a hard time getting proportions and size ratios right on this damn thing. roar.

This isn't going to turn out very well thinks this one.

[alesoun]

Which one?

[alesoun]

:angel: This isn't going to turn out very well thinks this one

Why not? Ya still got a sharp pencil, don'tcha?

Ah! Okay! You're not as fast as me, and your pencils ain't as sharp. You still have time.....

[Chance.]

Studied for the test. Probably passed it, we shall see in a week or so.

12 year olds? Forever? HECK! Now I have a reason to study!! I simply could not handle that, I'd become a monk or something.
Girls that age don't make great conversationalists. They talk to bloody fast.
Besides isn't that illegal or something?

Neck shadows are for loosers! No one wants to waste time on boring stuff like that. So we fudge it, make it up, fake em. 'sides, I was supposed to be studying for a test, I don't have time for stupid neck shadows!

Yeah anyway. I was struggling to define where the line between all shades black and all shades white was. I probably should have whited the whole neck, but I wanted to somehow get the jaw line in there with out actually using a line

Those were my thoughts.

[alesoun]

Is this better, Top Cat?

240336

I tried the changes you suggested.

[llothcat]

llothcat's in, too. It's whoop-ass time...



Llothcat: Watch the eyes on the big guy They aren't looking at the figure. And I'm wondering if the little guy's pose is the best if we're looking for curious...maybe it would work better if his hands were both behind him a bit, or at least down at his sides in a more neutral stance. The posture here is hyper-critical, because your approach is eliminating any facial expression on the little guy. His posture has to carry the message. Any reason why you don't have him more directly in front of the big guy? maybe by spreading or decreasing the size of his nose/teeth or whatever those bumps are...


um..the "bumps" are supposed to be shoes. maybe i should rethink em, eh?

I didn't put the little guy dirctly in front of the big guy mostly because of the shoes being in the way. it looked as though the big guy was looking at his shoes instead.

[Ilaekae]

alesoun: Spot on!

llothcat: Sorry...about the...shoes...cough...

...maybe...just a bit...of rethinking...:P

Chance: Don't make me stuff you in the closet again...

[alesoun]

Looks like I'm going to be busy the next couple of days. I didn't see your thread in Classroom for All until late last night.

Ah, well. Busy is good....

[Ilaekae]

Sorry for the timing, guys. I've been interrupted all day long by crap and I'm still working on your answers. If this causes a problem for any of you, we can go an extra day or two to make up for my lack...

[Sepulverture]

Been a couple days since I posted an update. I've been having a lot of trouble with this render, and haven't got very far yet.

There are some structural issues with the underlying skull of this fellow, I noticed that after I began blocking in shadows, and they are popping up as I try to block in areas here and there so I'm ending up doing a lot of back tracking to fix things that I missed before.

Edit: I'm probably going to end up taking photos of my progress from this point on, being as my sketchbook is a few inches too large for my scanners scanning bed, and it crops weird when I try to scan. Downside to this: lost details due to photo quality (5mp digital camera but still doesn't take that great of pictures when trying to photograph my drawings).

[llothcat]

ot again today..was able to sneak in some art time though. Better?

[Sepulverture]

The gradient treatment of the eyes really clashes with the cel shading treatment of the rest of the body.

Just an observation.

[Chance.]

Alesoun - Nice variation of the theme. Concept is so important for illustration, good job on coming up with the most unique take.

Sep - Very nice, me likes it. You mentioned that skull structure is bothering you. Looks like you are getting a little lopsided with the cheeks. Look at the ridges of the cheek bones, the upper leftish one is further away from it's nearest eye than the lower rightish one. I think that this is what is bothering you the most.

Llothcat - Well I like the eyes, so there. You should change the rest of the image to match the eyes:D. One thing, the big dude is so dark that the shadows do not show hardly at all. I looks like this big dark shape with eyes and shoes. Perhaps if you lightened his base color he would read a bit better.

Master - If you do you know that I'll only escape again. When I do I will be mouthier than ever.

Allow me to tell a little story [widespread groaning occurs]
I attend a teen bible study at a neighbor's house. So imagine a bunch of teenage guys getting together to do some serious bible study. Inevitably we manage to go down some of the most abstract rabbit trails you can imagine. One day our leader had a great idea to keep us from going "off task". He assigned black marks to each person whenever the made an off topic comment. So what do you think a bunch of teenage guys would to in a situation like this?
Yeah, I always "won" by getting more black marks than anyone else.

The moral of the story is; censorship (by means of closet or otherwise) will always fall before the power of free speach, blah, blah, blah.

That was the most pointless thing I said today, but I'm going to post it anyway, cause thats how I am.

I might not be completely finished the assignment tonight, I had about 5 hours of sleep last night and have been at work all day, but I should have it done tomorrow sometime.

[alesoun]

Sorry! Scotland played Italy at footie today; we had a houseful. Scotland 1, Italy 2.

Run out of hankies and I got soggy paper and absolutely no peace!

Tomorrow for both assignments, I promise !

Edit: Oh, how I hate to see grown men cry!

[Ilaekae]

You're not the only one who needs more time. I just felt like I went through a wringer here and I just got back on the crits. Let's pretend today is Friday and go from there.

...and Chance, I think you really need help. And take alesoun with you. Just don't take the green pills they give you. They taste like shit...

[alesoun]

Green pills? The doc gave me white! Puts on comfy fitted jacket...

[Chance.]

Nothing more depressing than seriously needing help, yet being far beyond any help there is to offer.

I just need sleep I think, I've been operating off of a Vault induced caffeine/sugar high for the past 4 hours so it is unsurprising that I sound like an escapee from the local mental ward. (oh, and yeah, that was a LOT of vault hehehehehe)
I tried to shortchange a guy ten dollars at work, then tried to convince him that I was only shortchanging him 5. Not on purpose of course, I was so bloody tired I actually thought I was only shorting him 5. He wouldn't let me get away with it though. People are too observant when it comes to their money. I mean, how much does 5 bucks really matter in the large scheme of things?
I had better stop digging before I get stuck in my hole. Assuming I haven't already, that is.

[edit] And the mad young artist grabbed alesoun by the hand. Or tried, before he realized that they were hidden beneath the strangest white jacket he had ever seen. So he grabbed her by the hoody instead and exclaimed, "Master said to go get help, the fire department is usually the first people to ask! He said something about green pills, let's see if they have any!" So they skipped off to complete the mission their wise master had sent them on. That is until the young artist was sidetracked by a large vending machine containing many delicious and energizing, carbonated, stomach dissolving beverages.

[chaosrocks]

septurv.. forgive my butting in and the maestro can easily say im FOS
but I did a dirty shit PO.
its all
about value and light, and composing with in a field

runs for cover

[Sepulverture]

mmmmmmmm dirty shit. Tastes like rocky road.

[chaosrocks]

yeah yeah I know you ar a smart ass,, gotta be to be in this mentor thread its a prereq... but did you fget the fucking point?
roxie

[Sepulverture]

OH... right.. the point. Ah yes the point, the point is well not forgotted. But it's time for this one to go to work, so this one will post progress in the morning (progress might I add making use of the wontabulous critiques I've received... like that gargantuan cheek bone, and now I have a better idea of where to block in my shadows).

:heart:

[Ilaekae]

...and while you're at it, put his fuckin' nose back in the center of his face where it belongs. It's drifted a bit to his left, which may be why you're having problems with the facial planes...>:D :P:P

[Sepulverture]

Holy wow! I think I may have invented a new form of drawing (no bulshitting)!

I was working on my assignment, and I had an idea. I noticed that there is a lot of graphite from my pencils being wasted when I sharpen them, so I collected some of the pure graphite shavings, the really fine ones, and tapped it out onto the surface of my drawing, and using a course bristle erasing brush (kind of like a paint brush) started moving the graphite shavings around, and it was like painting but with graphite! I'm getting some really interesting results out of this, and am super happy now.

I wonder what I can do with some higher quality brushes? I'm going to go down to the art shop monday afternoon (monday is my day off) and purchase a few finer brushes and experiment with this. I just had to share my findings here!

[Sepulverture]

Ok. I said I'd post this morning when I got home from work, and this is what I've got done so far. It's bed time for this one, will work on it more when I wake up tonight.

Most of the actual rendering was done with the graphite painting method I described above, and I found it to be a quick way to get subtle variations in tone.

I used 6b and 8b graphite dust, hope the contrast is good enough.

[alesoun]

Tried this in various media, but they all looked pretty crummy except an ink effort and this pencil sketch. Of the two, I liked the pencil sketch best, so here it is....
242279

Still life tomorrow (I've torn up 2 already today,- my composition skills are zilch!)

[Sepulverture]

It really looks like you used just an hb pencil. It's hard to tell though, the image size is way too small. Try resizing it to around 800 pixels on it's largest side.

[alesoun]

It is just a pencil sketch, Sepulverture. I have had a tummy bug for two days and the smell of solvents or acrylics makes me want to throw up, so I can't use much except coloured pencils (looked horrible), digital (looked worse), felt tip pen (not great), or pencil (best of a bad bunch)

[Chance.]

Alesoun - I think what he meant was to scan it at a higher resolution into the computer so that it appears larger on the screen.

Mine is late shame on me.

I kind of rushed it at the end there, didn't get home as early as I intended yesterday.

[alesoun]

242974

Don't think bigger is better....

[Ilaekae]

But y'got it in just in time...

Alesoun, I can work with what you have, don't worry about re-posting. I should have comments for all of you by this evening. I just finished off the Classroom crits, and starngely, nearly all theproblems they encountered were with composition. Now...whodothunkit?

Anybody seen the Bobbsy Twins (Kronos and 'Gnoll) or know if they're going to put something in? :P

[alesoun]

I'da thunkit! Why do you think I haven't managed to do mine yet? (Apart from the 100 yard dashes I've been doing up and downstairs all day). Can I post it here if I ever get it done?

[Ilaekae]

Of course. Did you see the announcement/match ups yet? I was praying that none of us went up against each other, and I think it worked out, though I did get Arttorney from the school thread in my bunch.

[alesoun]

I did! Tried my best to scope out my opposition, too, but it looks like 3 of them don't post much!

Nerves ain't helping the 100 yard dashes right now!
(But I got a few ideas)

Wish I knew how to use a tablet, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.....

[Sepulverture]

Meow.

[llothcat]

....

i actually got thumbnails done for LMS...

go figure. will post as soon as theyre somewhat presentab;e. right now they're pretty much scribbles.

[Ilaekae]

I'm obviously way behind here. I'm almost done with the comments, so they'll be up tomorrow. I been running around because I frogot it was Thanksgiving and it's my turn to cook...

[Sepulverture]

Take your time Illaekae, none of us are going anywhere.

[Chance.]

I agree. It would be terrible if you burned something on account of us.:xpld:

Man do I love that smiley.

[alesoun]

Cooking, schmooking! He's working on LMS3!

[chaosrocks]

hmm Underneatht the turkey?... Idont think we wanna go there
sepu..u didnt get it..VALUE COMPOSITION. look at the whole page

crx

[llothcat]

still sketchy...but they're clean-er

first one is insired from the salem witch trials...there was this guy that was being crushed with boulders to make him say he was a witch, which of course he refused to do. His last words were said to be..."more weight."

the second..eh..a potty shot...and boy does it need work.

the third has to do with pre-conceived notions of how the world works. Back in the day, there was a belief that the earth was supported upon a turtle's back. Yep...those round bumpy things are supposed to be turtles. Anyhow, when confronted with modern theories There are inevitable arguements. Here's the Linkage for the whole story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down) and probably better written than I could blurbage out.


now...which one works best? Or is my ass kicked already?

[Sepulverture]

Oh where oh where is our senile leader?!

[Ilaekae]

He's standing here getting even more senile with each passing minute...if I quit moving, wait at least 24 hours before getting the shovels...

My sincere apologies for falling so far behind. I literally forgot that this was Thanksgiving week, and things got a bit out of control. I'll be posting a new project late tonight so you have it for Friday to see, due next Saturday (Dec 1?) We're going to do a bit more work that's strong on composition because I think it's our weakest area right now. Have a nice Thanksgiving if you're in the US...

[Ilaekae]

Sepulverture: You've actually captured a nice feel here. I wasn't all that sure it would still work when I first saw it (before you put the shading in.) I'm thinkin' there are some problems with his shoulder and back from an anatomy standpoint, but I'm not going to worry about that right now. Common sense tells me we could figure out how to correct it rather easily with a bit of ref in front of us. While we're up in that area, I think I would definitely think about cropping it at the top maybe a half inch or so. I like the white he "just leaned down from," but it's maybe just a bit too much as it is. Just a tad. Another possibility is to crop him right across the "shoulders" which increases the feeling of massiveness on the big guy...but it also might be claustrophobic--not sure.

The little girl is perfect, but she's starting to blend into his loin cloth, but this will resolve itself... Knowing he's leaning so far forward, the loin cloth is really completely under his body, which should make it a good bit darker, especially the upper two thirds of it. This would automatically make her pop a bit more.

her right hand is at a very inconvenient place tangency-wise--maybe extending the dark part of the loin cloth a bit would get her thumb out of trouble at least. I would also lighten the tip area of his left horn down by her hand and maybe extend it just a tad so it didn't end exactly on the fold line of the cloth.

I don't know what the hell you did with the nose, but it works now. When i first saw it, it looked too far to his left. The weakest single thing I'm picking up is the inconsistencies in the lighting/shadows. I think some of it's caused by various little anatomy problems here and there, but it could be the other way around. The thing that stands out most obviously is the inner muscle on his left leg. Wouldn't the upper part tucked up by his head be a bit darker since it's blocked by his head and neck?

If you worked a good bit on the anatomy--especially in the shoulder area, and played a little with the bits of confusion where the girl and loin cloth interact, this would make a really decent painted illustration. At that point, I'd add some to the bottom of the piece, so that the girls legs were complete to the feet, maybe even stretching up on her toes, with him "standing" on a rough stone wall to explain why his foot is so high in relation to hers. Well done, Seppy...there's hope for you... :P

[Ilaekae]

Chance: this actually came out quite nice. The bear's beautiful--just the right amount of shadow, allowing for the snow glare.The bergs could have benefited maybe from a less vertical stroke, with more of the varying angle groupings you have right under the bear and the light strokes toward the bottom of the berg.

I would definitely break the sun ring at various places to soften it a bit. It looks mechanical now--too perfect.

The look on Nessy is perfect. You captured just the kind of casual interest I was hoping for. There are a few areas on her body that would benefit from some work, though--allowing for the sun, the shadow under her eye is perfect. the speckled lighting below that to the lowest part of the head is also nice, because again, it indicates a heavy snow/water reflection. The problem occurs right where the head and body meet (at the darkest part of the jaw). The body should be a lot darker here, with most of the white hatching just barely still on the head gone, which would blend it more solidly into the neck. I did a rough little fill-in with a purple color to show what I mean. That area is pretty high up and not angled properly to catch the reflected glare.

There are a bunch of little purple dots on the neck at the right. This is roughly where your lighter areas should extend to because that area is actually more in a direct line with the sun. Watch the strokes at the lowest part of the upper neck--these should maybe be more like the hatching on the rear jaw--following the contour of the neck more to really give it a feeling of solidity.

I plunked a little arrow pointing to a bad "tangency." The berg ends almost exactly at the waterline, which makes it look a bit funny. It would probably work better if you extended it a good bit higher, maybe even breaking through the trees into the sky a bit.

The composition is strong and simple and gets our eyes where they belong. You can't ask for anything else. Nice piece.

[Ilaekae]

llothcat: i have to be honest here...I don't think the feeling of curiosity is coming through the way it should, and I'm not quite sure why...so I'm basically going to talk my way through this to see if I can figure it out...

The big guy is...nervous-looking(?)...maybe... He seems to be ill at ease or like he just fell back in surprise. Maybe that's it...if he were confidently sitting, he would have a butt flare coming towards us in the bottom edge of his leg directly under his right eye. This would plant him a good bit more solidly...and confidently. I think possibly his arms may be adding to this "surprise" feeling I'm seeing. What if his left arm was curved up (instead of down) to actually touch his head, as if he were scratching himself--more puzzlement then rather than surprise?

Little perspective problem on his left eye--since he's looking "in" and therefore in our direction to some degree, wouldn't the pupil area be just a bit more circular in relation to the other eye?

As I'm sitting here writing this, I just realized something that might be adding to the confusion...the little critter is closer to the edge of the page than he is to the big one. This inadvertently adds a tiny touch of "isolation" to the two figures. If the spacings to the little guy's left and right were magically switched, I think a completely different feel would result...more of a "cozy and safe" kind of thing.

The little guy has a really bad tangency thing again...you're slicing his head off with the horizon...heeheehee. Maybe move the horizon up a bit to maybe the halfway point of his head, or drop it to below his shoulders.

I'm thinking we should have spent more time on planning on this one before moving to finish. It doesn't fail totally, but it falls short of where I know you can be...

[Ilaekae]

alesoun: There's not much I can say yet about yours, but i like the composition very much. Some small things to watch for--the hand needs a bit of work--it's too wide at the palm and wrist area. And watch the limbs at the top--the two in the middle are starting to line up too mechanically. It would help if you tilted the one in the center just a bit more to the left. I'd like to see you finish this--it's got nice possibilities.

On the LMS--I actually like all three ideas. I'd love to see that potty one work somehow, but I have a sick sense of humor. From a practical competitive standpoint, I'd go with the one that would give you the most dramatic impact--the witchcraft trial. I'm assuming that the tall things are weights. Be careful here--these were hand-loaded, so I'm guessing what they did was balance boxes or some kind of container on the poor schmuck and then slowly fill the boxes with loose stones. Make sure they don't look like something that had to be "craned" into position...

[Sepulverture]

Thanks for the crits sir. I have today and tomorrow off work (even though I didn't want them off work) so I'll work on those things and post them up.

The back and neck and shoulder anatomy I know is off, it's way off, and that's been bugging the shit out of me, I poured through my anatomy books on tuesday to find a good shot of the area in perspective to do a study, and the only thing i could find was that figure study I did, and admittedly screwed the pooch on. I'll also work on the values over my little holiday here and repost. I guess I was so taken aback by my pleasure at having stumbled upon that neat little shading technique I used on this piece I turned a blind eye to things.

I really need work on lighting in general, I admit that I've begun to narrow down the thing that's causing my lighting to wind up all over the place - I get so concerned with all the surfaces to be noticed that I start inventing lightsources in places where I know they don't belong to try to show off things like muscles and whatnot. I fail:(

Anyway, back to the shiny new easel.

Happy thanksgiving old man, and the other american folks here in the thread.

[TheGnoll]

Old cat, i'm sorry.Art school + new girlfriend are keeping me really really busy (in a nice way :)) so i really don't think i'll be able to catch up with the assignments, but i want to thank you for the comments on my work and i want you to know i'm reading everything you are writing regading the other's work, and the tour is very interesting.I'll be back again to disturb, if ya don't mind :P :D

ciao!

[alesoun]

I've got to rework that hand! In fact, I need to do more hand studies in general; I find hands really tough.

Composition work? I have a lot to learn. Bring it on!

[llothcat]

llothcat:

The little guy has a really bad tangency thing again...you're slicing his head off with the horizon...heeheehee. Maybe move the horizon up a bit to maybe the halfway point of his head, or drop it to below his shoulders.



i actually did notice this one last night...and I already moved the horizon up in the vector file. It helped out the big guy's shoe too.

I guess I'm not too far gone. There may be hope for me yet:D

[alesoun]

Okay, Boss Cat, I'm still trying. Can't get near my kitchen table right now for other people's projects, so I spent longer than I care to admit working on this in digital. Erm.... this may be bad, but my first attempt (a line drawing) was MUCH worse!

Still a WIP. Go on, I know you needed a laugh: crit away....
245531

and, no, I don't know how to make it smaller!

*runs and hides*

[Sepulverture]

Alesoun - At this very particular moment in time the thing that I see that needs the most work is contrast, so we can see what is where, pull things closer to us and push things farther away.

[alesoun]

Aaaargh! Contrast again!

Okay! It's a wip and there's room for improvement! I'm trying! Honest! I'll push it as far as I can,- and then push it a bit more!!

*whimper*

[Sepulverture]

Worry naught little one, we have faith in thee.

[Ilaekae]

Sep nailed it, Alesoun. If you have this on your machine, put a new layer with some neutral color like brown, olive or blue-gray over the areas that ARE NOT the snake and the tree and vary the density (opacity) to see what happens. I'm guessing that at some point between 20% and 50%, the boy and background will recede to the background and the snake will move forward. It won't take much.

When I work normally with PS, I almost always work with all the major elements on sep layers so I don't get myself into problems like this--which is really easy to do, I'm sorry to say, no matter how experienced you are.

[Ilaekae]

i have a new assignment that involves composition/layout that has a lot to do with values, but decided not to put it up today because I want to post a little "primitive" tutorial kind of thing first that might be of some help to all of you before you actually start the assignment. I'll have both up tomorrow, and they won't involve as much drawing time as the last one, but might be a bit harder to think out first...

[Sepulverture]

Looking forward to it Illaekae.

[chaosrocks]

ok I gotta comment
Alesoun
that super saturated dark green BG is killing you
if you drop the whol ething into PS
and open the ADjustment sliders. Look at your graph just look at it. now drop your image into grayscale. look at the value composition. what differerentiation you have is all spotty. foreground back ground snake and tree all have the same proportions of value. . With this information in hand. you can change the big masses in the whole composition, the magnetey selection tool is your friend.
sorry to butt in. but its a simple way to check your value compositon. and if you values arent working. your piece wont work...
shutting up now....

roxie

[Sepulverture]

Update dealy doodat thing for our last assignment using some of the crits that the old one gave me. I snapped this one with my digital camera, because I've noticed my scanner kicks contrast in the dick.

Edit: My good friend pal person requested I post a conversation that we just had about this picture, because he found it to be amusing.

Ahem:

Twobit Boy: whatcha drawin.....?
nick k: doing some changes to the demon/girl and an anatomy study
Twobit Boy: you make his loin cloth a door way?
Twobit Boy: lolawesome
nick k: hell yeah
Twobit Boy: oo a new word
nick k: a doorway to his coconut tree
Twobit Boy: coconut trees have their nuts at the top
nick k: and>
nick k: he's a demon for fucks sake
nick k: it's supposed to be painful
Twobit Boy: demons dont have sex organs
nick k: yes they do
nick k: that's how they butt rape you
Twobit Boy: nuh uh
Twobit Boy: they use objects for that
Twobit Boy: angels and demons are tools and slaves
Twobit Boy: they dont need to reproduce
nick k: and they cum pure fire
Twobit Boy: youre silly
Twobit Boy has accepted your invitation to start photo sharing.

Twobit Boy: lol
nick k: shit dude if i came pure fire i'd run around jacking off all the time and aiming my deadly man paste at my enemies
Twobit Boy: call yourself quick draw mcgraw from hell
nick k: hellz yahz
Twobit Boy: you should name this peice Hell. Yes.
nick k: now why would I go and do something like that?
Twobit Boy: because shes coressing a fucking demon
nick k: maybe she likes fondling demons
nick k: you ever think of that?
nick k: HMM
nick k: no
nick k: you didn't
nick k: you judgemental fucker
Twobit Boy: i didnt know petting a demons chin meant fondling
nick k: god, how ignorant you are
nick k: that's where demons peepees are
Twobit Boy: god you should post this conversation on your thread
nick k: why? HMM
Twobit Boy: it's hilarious
Twobit Boy: just read it
Twobit Boy: ofcourse it makes us sick and messed up in the head though
Twobit Boy: Hide my name

[alesoun]

I'd love to be able to try everybody's advice about greyscale, layers, saturation and so on; but what I've got is Artrage free edition, and it just doesn't have anything like that. So, basically, I've had to start again....

246154

trying to follow advice as best I can. Until this I haven't spent more than 5 minutes at a time fooling around on the tablet to see what it/I can do. I don't like working in digital; which is an improvement, because when I started this at first I LOATHED working in digital. Maybe I should upgrade,- or maybe not...... I hate not being able to do stuff, though, so I'll probably keep trying.

Note to anybody I'm up against in LMS3,- I'm going traditional for that!

[Ilaekae]

I'll do comments on the new material you've all uploaded tomorrow.

Here's Assignment Two. I'm posting it now because i wanted to get it up on time so you could at least check it out. I have a "tutorial" or "bunch of tips and guidelines" that will help you with the assignment, but it won't be up til much later tonight or early tomorrow morning. It sort of grew bigger than I planned it, and got a bit out of control...wheeze...

ASSIGNMENT 2--WALL PLUS...
Due Midnight anywhere in the world on Saturday night, December 1, 2007

You will be doing a composition/illustration/piece of art that is relatively simple--a WALL with ONE DOOR and ONE WINDOW in it. To this incredibly complex image [heh!], you will add ONE OTHER ELEMENT of your choice. This element can be living (an animal, monster, human, tree, etc.), man-made (like a wagon wheel, mailbox, chair or table, robot, a potted plant, etc.) It can even be something painted on the wall as an image, like a sign or decoration like a hexsign or something similar that is centralized rather than the kind that runs just around the window and door frame.

I want this wall to be flat-on facing us, not angled or in perspective, and it should be relatively evenly lit and simple in pattern (if there is a pattern)--white/light stucco, white/light painted bricks, light colored wood siding of some kind, etc. The window and door can be as ornate or simple as you wish, but be careful here, because...THE THIRD ITEM YOU ADD IS THE PRIMARY ELEMENT of your illustration. That's what I want to see first. That's what I want to pop out at me when I see your piece. How you do this is up to you, but a lot of it is going to depend on how you arrange your elements (door, window, item) and how strong these different elements are in value or color.

There is no limitation on how you crop these items, either--all I need is enough to know "this" is a door, "this" is a window, and "this" is whatever. And there's no reason your "whatever" can't be hanging on the door or sitting in the window, or even be inside the house (as long as I can see it as the most important element).

Problems to look out for:

Composition is extremely important here. A bad one can kill you right up front, so really play with your ideas in lots and lots of thumbnails.

I've already mentioned value (and color if you use it) as having a major affect on your image, because there is so little to deal with that the slightest mis-step can be a disaster.

If your third element is in the foreground, be careful, because it's very closeness can make the viewer think of it as a minor part of the composition because we might feel you're using it as a kind of foreground "frame" for your wall, like looking through a fence for example. The fence becomes a minor element, not a major one.

I would suggest you simply think about this and not really start anything on paper tonight, because I want you to see the tip sheet I'll be posting first later tonight or tomorrow morning.

[llothcat]

I'd love to be able to try everybody's advice about greyscale, layers, saturation and so on; but what I've got is Artrage free edition, and it just doesn't have anything like that. So, basically, I've had to start again....


trying to follow advice as best I can. Until this I haven't spent more than 5 minutes at a time fooling around on the tablet to see what it/I can do. I don't like working in digital; which is an improvement, because when I started this at first I LOATHED working in digital. Maybe I should upgrade,- or maybe not...... I hate not being able to do stuff, though, so I'll probably keep trying.

Note to anybody I'm up against in LMS3,- I'm going traditional for that!

um..as far as i know, artrage doesn't have layers. You might want to dl the Gimp to do whatever. It's free, and it can't hurt too much. It's clunky as hell, but it'll do the photoshop-y things you want.

[Sepulverture]

:ilaekae:

MEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

[alesoun]

Shhhh....! You know he's just going to tell me to paint the boy and the snake again!

[llothcat]

got bored and i had some time on my hands....yeah, i avoiding the lms thing:P

anyhow..2 version, cause I'm not sure if the sunbeams will count as another element or simply coloring treatment.

am i somewhere in the ball park for this assignment?
if so, I will continue and clean it up...(as the pen tool i have fights with this monitor...thus the sloppy pen work:P)

[alesoun]

Okay, Boss Cat! Did you mean we should wait until you did the piece in "Classroom for all"? Or are you going to post something here? 'Cos I've got the day to myself tomorrow, and a clear kitchen table.......

*drums fingers*

[Ilaekae]

Damn...and I thought I was talkin' English there. I put it up in the classroom as a sep thread so we could bounce back and forth to it. Nice timing, anyway... I'm going through the stuff that was posted over the last few days and I have a couple of comments on yours...gimme an hour or less, luv...

ADD: I just went back and checked and I apologize. I didn't make it clear here that i was posting it in the Clasroom Section. I apologize for that. I want to keep crap like that out of our threads as much as possible because it makes it hard to find.

[alesoun]

I read the thread; might even have had it make sense to me,- but I won't know that until I try it out!

English? You speak Ilaekae, but I'm compiling a translation; I'll get there.

*sighs* Getting ready for umpteenth try at boy and snake.....

[Ilaekae]

Alesoun: the first one you did has a contrast problem, which has been pointed out already. All of the colors are equal in value except for a spot of green at the upper left. I'm not sure you can do this in your software, but if you convert to a grayscale version, you'll see immediately what i mean. What's happening is that with no contrast between the boy and the foreground, the piece looks like a decorative pattern because the bright coloring on the boy wants to come to the front, which confuses us.

Your second piece is better from a contrast standpoint, BUT...butbutbutbutbut...sorry,,,the values of the boy have dropped so low that the
image lost all its impact. The snake is better, but the tree is a bit light now.

Try this if you can...take your original with the "bright" boy, take the green background back just a tad to something more muted (just paint over the green). Then darken up the branches to a deeper brown a bit--leave what you have, but spot on bark-like daubs in a couple of different browns to punch it a bit without getting it brighter. Then--the snake--take it to the green that you used on the second piece, and add in some darker shadows and some yellow-green highlights.

[Ilaekae]

llothcat: Like what you've got started. Values are good and extreme as they would be under the circumstances.

On the one with the sunlight--sunlight HAS to be perfectly parallel or it's not sunlight. Real common mistake. Except for that, I don't mind the sunbeams at all.

The central window is off center to the left in relation to the door. Can this be corrected easily the way you have your art set up?

The one problem I'm having with the bird is that it's "locking in" to the corner so neatly that it's losing some of its flying "freedom." I'm wondering what would happen if you moved it about 3/4 inch to the left, and down if you have to to prevent it from lining up with the garage window (the angled one on the right). Possibly a really positive overlap on that window piece wouldn't hurt because of the contrast extremes.

[alesoun]

249809

Tried to do what you said. Can't get grayscale in this version,- I think I'm definitely going to have to upgrade, but I've muted the background, added more brown to the tree and made the snake green. I've also fixed a few things that were niggling me (like the top left of the boy's head being missing in the original)

Am I nearly there yet?

[Ilaekae]

It's definitely getting there. Lets work on the shading on his hand a bit to separate it from the face, as well as the shadows cast by the hand on his face. Try to get some of the darks just a bit darker under the fingers, etc., but NOT brighter. This is going to mean something that's just a bit lighter than the value and color of the shadow band across his head, but with more of a reddish cast to it.

[Sepulverture]

That's looking better Alesoun, but I think you're getting contrast confused with saturation a bit. You need darker and more varied hues, it almost looks like it's getting over saturated now.

I'd do a paint over but I'm exhausted from work right now.

EDIT: Looks like the old cat man was typing just as I was.

[Ilaekae]

Brain-dead minds think alike... :P

[Sepulverture]

Meow.

Hey, old one, what happened to that sketch book you said you were going to put together? Hmm? HMMM?