Samurai WIP.

[Hexal]

Here is my first "Personal Project" of the month, along with a self portrait every day(hopefully). The idea of these projects is are come up with a character conpect, draw it, paint it, then models and skin it. I hope this will help me get better in all thoses aspects.

This is a Samurai Warrior, please crit the drawing cause im not very good at drawing anything so. And crit the coloring so far, now the face and skin im having a problem with :(the color is all off for starters,so if someone could help me with that it would be great.

Drawing
http://www.cedarcountyia.com/imghost/Ninja.jpg

Painting (so far)
http://www.cedarcountyia.com/imghost/Ninjap.jpg

[mime]

i'll try to help you but i dont think i'm extremely good at this ...

first you should check your proportions, the guy is a little short, right now he is about 5.5 or 6 heads tall, a standard guy should be around 7 heads tall, but of course you can have a shorter samurai.
The problem is that his legs are too short, the length from the head to the crotch should be about equal to the length from the crotch to the ground.
you should get some anatomy book with basics proportions, or you can go to this site : http://www.fineart.sk/anat.htm

the arms are weird, they are a bit short and thin i think, the hands are too small i think, his right forearm is too short (or the foreshortening does not give the right feeling)

the feets are well done , with good placement on the ground.

on the armor you should use a little more the perspective. the 2 shoulder pads are not int he same perspective, his right one shouldnt be this way if his arm is slightly backward like you have it (since the spear is behind him), the curved edge of the pad (the edge that touch the torso) should be curved the same way than the other shoulder pad, and not like you did it (i mean that we should see a little if the inside of this shoulder pad with this perspective of the guy)

and the neck might be a bit large.

i dont want to sound harsh, i'm just trying to say everything i saw, but i may be wrong on some points, i'm no expert at all.


for the colors you shouldnt try to add details too fast, you should block in large blocks of color, defining the planes, you have a light coming from the upper left of the drawing, so choose 3 or 4 colors for the armor first, and with an opaque brush apply large surfaces. for example a orange/yellowish-red for the parts in the light, a darker red for the parts still in the light side but not directly enlighted, some darker grayish-red with some green / blue in it for the core shadow, and another color, a bit lighter than the core shadow and less saturated for the reflected light (if you dont see what i'm talking about you should easily find a tutorial on this forum or on some other website about values on simple objects, like spheres or cylinder, and you should do exercices on simple forms in order to understand more how light affects objects before trying more complicated forms)

one other thing is that you should avoid using black and white mixed with your color in order to do the lights and shadows.
for light you can add yellow, orange .... and for the shadow you should mix dark greens, dark blues .... when you use too much black and white it looks muddy and dirty.


for the skin tones you shouldnt think of one color, but a mix of lot of colors. have a closer look of your face in a mirror, you will see tints of greens, blues, reds, pinks, violets, and a lot of colors that gave an overall impression of light orange/pink.
right now your skin tone is yellow, almost like those lego characters.

the "white" of the eyes is not white either, usually it is kinda "beige", with grayish-blues int he shadows
(your eye is also a sphere, only a part of it is visible, but it has to be treated like that, and not solid white)

I hope this can be of some help, it may be harsh, but dont quit, your drawing is a good start, and it will always help you to improve to draw again and again, always do you best and try to improve. Read books, go to life drawing sessions of you can ....

=)

[Hexal]

Thanks mime, i think what i will do is post a new picture of that guy, with all the things you said involed in it. And its good to be harsh because it helps you look at what you did wrong and try yo fix and improve on it.

:chug:

[mime]

I'm glad i can help Hexal, but that would be great if others people add something too .... All I have said may be not true, i wouldnt want to give you wrong advices ...

Drawing and drawing again is good (i should use more often this advice, i have a problem myself with quick sketches, i always want to get to something finished and i sometimes have troubles beginning a new drawing, so sometimes i keep mistakes and loose the line quality by reworking too much some areas, when a whole new drawing would be easier, faster and better ....)

Dont give up, and post your work :)

[Hexal]

Originally posted by mime
Drawing and drawing again is good (i should use more often this advice, i have a problem myself with quick sketches, i always want to get to something finished and i sometimes have troubles beginning a new drawing, so sometimes i keep mistakes and loose the line quality by reworking too much some areas, when a whole new drawing would be easier, faster and better ....)


I have the same problem, most of the time i think i have a good drawing going then i mess up on the hands say( i can't draw hands at all) adn try a thousand time to get it, but i ruin the paper and smuge every thing in doing so.

And i find people really never replay to any thin gi post in any forum for some reason, thats why this is one of the only forums i post in and at first i didn't want to cause i thought that would happen agian, but i saw the SP thingy and though i would try.

But thats a lot mime thats stuff helps me.