Figure drawing for Novbert

[funshark]

Ok, here my first mentoring thread.
I will have some others...

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Overture

First of all, i'd like you tell more about yourself : little biography and some favorite artists + goal(s).

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First assignment

I need to know more about yourself before giving you precise exercices and advices. So..
I ask you to do 2 more figure drawing :
- 1 with pencil
- 1 with photoshop

If you want to use others tools ( like ink, watercolors, and so on... ), do more drawings. It'll help me to know what you want to achieve.

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I think that's all for the moment.
I will continue when i'll receive the assignment.

[Novbert]

So let the fun begin! :)

I'm just a 25 years old hungarian guy, and I've been always interested in artistic self-expression (and in sciences too - I studied electrical engineering and now I've been working as an IT consultant for two years) but drawing is something new for me. I stated to draw only a few months ago.
I created some pencil drawings first, but I realized that I'd like to learn digital drawing rather than traditional media. So I bought a tablet and now I draw as much as I can. Unfortunately I don't have too much time but I try to practice every day.
Currently I learn (and want to learn):
- basics of drawing (shading, light, texture etc), drawing techniques, proper use of Photoshop and my tablet and so on. I appreciate any advices.
- everything about figure drawing

Favourite artist: Well... Giger, Dalí and lots of others. I have a terrible memory for names :P

Goals: It would be very cool to make a living as a graphic artist, but now I'm very far from that. I think I'm going to spend the first 4-5 years with learning and than I'll see if I have the chance.

Well here is my first submission (2 hours, photo ref used):

300756

very sketchy - yes I know. Detailwork isn't my storngest point.
I'll send the other piece later.

Edit: Now I see that there are some issues with the length of the legs and the arms. I'll try to fix them.

[Novbert]

Here goes the other one (one and a half hour approximately):

303015

[funshark]

Can you post the 2 photo ref used?
thanks

[Novbert]

of course, here they go:

303044

303043

[funshark]

Hi,

Here the crits and some advices.

I have understood that you want to focus on digital painting with figures, so i'm starting to give you some basic tools to work with.
These are not the perfect tools, just mine. But i think you can understand alot about brush settings and use in photoshop thanks to them.

download brushes (http://genshoku.net/conceptart/Funshark.rar)

how to install them :
- unrar the file anywhere
- open photoshop and open the "predefined tools" ( im not sure about the name in english )
- open the menu inside ( little arrow )
- choose "replace predefined tools..."
- search and open the file

Criticism

On the first drawing, i can see you use only the hard-hard side of photoshop brushes to paint values.
On the second one, brush is a bit soft and you try to use some finger tool (right?) to blend values.
The finger tool, with the default configuration, is crap. (imho)

If you want to achieve nice-looking realistic painting, edges and values are more complicated.

I've done a very simple schematic drawing to show you 3 basic tools to paint with. In grey, this is the name of the brush inside the brushes library i gave you.

http://genshoku.net/conceptart/brush_typeA.jpg

Assignment

Now, try to do one more figure drawing with the toolset i showed you.
Use the difference between the soft and hard brush and blend edges when you need to with the water tool.

[Novbert]

Thanks for the brush set - it's really cool. I hope you'll teach me how to use each and every single brush of this ;)
So here is my new drawing. It took approximately five hours to draw.

305399

I used only the hard brush, and the water brush. I don't really know, what should I use the soft brush for. I mean I think that a hard brush and a customized finger tool are more than enough for basic shading. I'd like you to tell me some examples, what to do with that soft brush.
I also need some tips about textures. I already know that texture effects can be achieved by using texture brushes, but what's the method?

[funshark]

Hi,

i've uploaded again my brushes set but this time in english ( more convenient for you i think )
HERE (http://genshoku.net/conceptart/shark_en.rar)

Below the complete screencap of the brushes list ( for reference )

http://genshoku.net/conceptart/photoshop_brush.jpg

About your questions :

- the soft brush ( round soft ) is not a completely soft one ( the "round very soft" is ). You can use it ( and it's better ) when you have to do soft transitions between colors or values.
Actually, you can use only the water tool, BUT, the result is not the same. Water tool tends to do flat and non-interesting "surface" if you do not use it carefully.
while the soft give you freedom about how you want the values are ( or colors... ). Maybe it's a bit difficult to use at the beginning ( i mean alone ), because you have to have a good feedback with the pen and master the pressure.
In conclusion, you obtain more "texture" with the round soft. ( but sometimes, it's not what you want )

- How to use textured brushes ?
You have differents way to bring texture into your digital piece. The most common are "by image texture" and "by brush texture".

Image texture : just open one textured picture of your choice, and copy-paste on a new layer, over the layers you want texture in. Change the layer blending mode into something like "overlay" or "soft light" ( most used for textures ). Play with the opacity cursor or feel free to erase some parts of the layer.

Brush texture : Choose one textures brush into the brush list i gave you. it starting with "+TEXTURE+". Choose one blending mode for the brush ( multiply, overlay, soft light... ) and paint directly on the layer that contains the pixels you want to modify ( or the blending mode will not work properly!! ).


That's the basics.
To go further, you can modify settings of the brushes like the texture scale, the texture blending ( inside the brush, it's not the same ), and so on.
About the textured pics, you can play with masks and mix many layers.

edit : I did some mistake in my previous post ( with the picture showing the soft brush ) > the soft brush in the pic is the "very soft" one, and i'm speaking about the "soft". The names into the new brush set are the good ones.
Sorry.

[funshark]

New assigment

Your last one was good : nice light capture and contrast ( some darkest values are missed but it's ok imho ). I think you can finish the face at this stage. :)


Now, try to add some texture into your painting, using brushes and/or pictures.

Here your reference image
http://genshoku.net/conceptart/Novbert_001.jpg
from jupiterimages.fr

[Novbert]

Assignment accomplished :yayca:

I tried to screencap the whole procedure, but the screencap app made my computer too slow so I gave it up. Anyway, I think it could be useful if I describe the method I used so that you'll be able to crit on it too.

I started with some linework, sketching the contours etc.
So this is how it looked after 15 minutes:

320573

Then I took a diamond shaped hard brush with size set to pen pressure, and started to define values. After another one and a half an hour the guy looked this:

320575

I might have spent too much time with using the hard brush, but I think it was useful when I started to do the refinement work with the hard brush you gave me. (I didn't use any blending brushes during the whole procedure.)

And after another four hours (jeez, I'm so slow!!) the guy looked like this:

320578

Than I added another layer and started to use a simple dot brush (for snow and ice) with some scattering I adjusted during the process.
And after another hour I got to this:

320581

I know it's a little off in some respect, but I'm kinda satisfied with it. I'm waiting for your crits.

And I'm ready for the next assignment. (But let there be some nice woman in the next reference picture, pretty please! I'll have bad dreams if I should draw another ugly guy. ;))

[funshark]

Criticism

1) Linework is ok. It's a good starting point.
If you know the picture you're doing is on a relatively dark background ( or is relatively dark overall ), you can fill the entire canvas with a mid-tone; and do your linework on it.

Feel free to clean up your line every time you can, to avoid intrusive value when you'll start them.

2) Ok, you chose to use crosshatching ( or some sort ) to obtain values.
The way you do that is not a good method, i think.
For the next assignment, you will start with value blocking :
- large area with main values first
- step down into details then with more and more small ones

You can use a simple brush with opacity connected on pressure sensitivity and fixed size ( or subtle changes ).

3) refinement step. you got it. But try to look at what you have to keep hard or smooth ( edges ).
Try different brushes if necessary.

4) Texture is ok.
Try to use some layers to control it, try to combine many brushes or texture pics if you need it.


New assignment

http://genshoku.net/conceptart/Novbert_002.jpg

[Novbert]

I started to deal with the last assignment yesterday. I thought that before blocking the main shapes I tried to draw some "as clean as possible" lineart.
Here goes the wip. I'll update soon:

344854

[allocco]

novbert you're really good but use more pencils and paper fo large size they help qhen you look at a photo cuz you have to enlrge the drawing and also the mistake ;)

[Novbert]

and here is the final with some "in progress" pictures (and it's colored, yay! :P):

346378

I liked this working method, I hope you like it too.

I'm waiting for the next assignment :yayca:

Edit: I started to use painter X recently, and this software is just awesome - but I'm a little confued 'cause I don't really know how to start learning it. So if you could give me some advices I'd be grateful. Or just some cool tutorials to try. Or just recommend some brushes to use. Or some downloadable custom brushes.
And I'm also eager to learn anatomy (muscles, bones and stuff) so it would be grate to have an assignment related to this topics (and Painter of course).

and alloco: I don't really understand what you mean...