DSG 337: Creature: River guardian

[dsg bot]

Today's topic is: Creature: River guardian

[Cybot Floor]

I assume we´ll get through enough fantasy stuff... ;)

http://www.arcor.de/palb/alben/44/555744/640_6330373638363237.jpg

pencil sketch ~20min + 10min PS coloration.

[Thanoz]

http://www.astralmatrix.net/patrickdoran/Rivercreature1.JPG

I spent about 3 hours planning this out on 5X6' canvases, sketching it out roughly with markers and crayons. After I got through a good dozen or so canvases, and then burned the unwanted canvases that weren't used (to prevent them from decomposing). I proceeded to the next stage of design, which was research, to make sure no copyrights or trademarks were infringed upon, and that my creature in no way mimicked or copied any other known creature every to have been drawn. THat took me a good 6 hours, and a couple of phone calls with several lawyers. Then when the legal mumbo jumbo was finally knocked out of the way, I proceeded to step 8, scanning in the canvases with a drum scanner and drawing over them very carefully with a 27" custom Wacom board/flatscreen monitor. It was excruciating work, but it paid off, BIG time. I spent about 8 hours roughly on this final stage, with probably 7 hours of it relating to color correction in various programs, and also using approximately 30 filters in photoshop to achieve the appropriate photorealistic affect. Long story short, I have created a masterpiece, gaze upon it in all of its glory!

[edit: davi]
Please keep your image size down... also spend more than 5minutes on the dsg's.

[Miau]

lol Thanoz :D :D

[Juroot]

Hey this dsg is a cool idea. It's getting late and I only just found this so there's not much time for this sketch.

http://stuart.226-lab.com/dsg337.jpg

Stu

[Form]

simple, quick and illustrative. i really wasnt in the mood for drawing tonight but *someone* cough cough told me i had to or he wouldnt *grins*

so erm....

"Trollfish"

http://img16.photobucket.com/albums/v47/formsketch/MADFISHY.jpg

[Shea]

http://www.f1databaseconsulting.com/shea/images/big_image/water.jpg

[Gumdrop]

http://bluntedtaffer.50megs.com/DSG/DSG_337.jpg

[Cybot Floor]

http://www.arcor.de/palb/alben/44/555744/640_3166366634656563.jpg

Nice, Gumdrop... really nice.

[DraigAthar]

Quick sketch, hope to add color later.

http://thirdroar.com/dj/2004-01/dj246-riverguardian.jpg

edit to add comments:

m.a.t.t. that's a great sketch, I bet they'd love that one over in the coloring book thread. :)

[mjw4745276]

Yet another unfinished sketch by Moi. That's what comes of only having time to sketch whilst at work and in between doing I.T. Stuff... <grin>

http://194.200.166.50/mattw/DSG/riverguardian.jpg

[Kexe]

here a 20min photoshop...took some time away from my thunderdome picture again....not that original, but the image was stuck in my head, and i couldnt keep it there

http://www.halfeld.dk/dsg337.jpg

(it was a bit larger but I saw Davi's note just a sec before i uploaded)


nice sketches everyone!

[cjay]

had this stuck in my head all day but not much time to put it al together
http://img17.photobucket.com/albums/v50/indica/dsg337.jpg

[Wednesday]

http://img9.photobucket.com/albums/v27/footsies/riverg1.jpg

[SemL]

hi, I'm new here and dsg looks like a lot of fun:D this one was intirely done in painter classic in and was finished in an hour and fifteen minutes.

http://img17.photobucket.com/albums/v51/SemLae/river_guardian.jpg

[tumbra]

Nothing special but I had to submit something. About 15 minutes.http://img8.photobucket.com/albums/v26/tumbra/River_Guardian.jpg

[Carnifex]

http://img1.photobucket.com/albums/1003/fisite/riverguard.jpg

[sparky | emily]

Wednesday - I always love your sketches. They have such great light and mood.

[RETEP]

my first dsg:D
heres my river guardian http://img16.photobucket.com/albums/v48/dingoegret/river_guardiancolor.jpg

[RETEP]

mines more of a siren than a creature...oops:D

semL-that is really awsome
DraigAthar- cool dragon creature, i like it alot

[tumbra]

Good work dingoegret. I look forward to future postings. Keep up the good work.

[bbwolf]

Some messin around in ps with filters to create a reflecting surface. Guess I need to work out more.

First I wanted to come up with an asian dragon, then I ended up with some kind of trilobit in my head so here it is.http://www.highlight-comic.de/conceptart/dsg01/River-Guardian01.jpg

[jermainevl]

A quick sketch with paintshop and mouse:
http://www.angelfire.com/art2/jermainevl/images/dsg337.jpg
mm, low quality...:mad:

[tumbra]

One day I'll reach Warrior status.

[Iotrez]

Bribing the river guardian for the privilege of leaving the city in secret.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/simon.davies/RiverGuardian2.jpg

[Gridur]

Been lurking CA.org quite some time now, thought this would be the right place to loose my virginity ;P

Well here's my contribution 20-30 min in PS 7

http://www.znl.se/DSG/DSG337.jpg

[Dahsramu]

wow, awesome stuff here!!

Iotrez: love the idea! awesome angle and colors too!
bbwolf: nice!
dingoegret: Secksay!
Wednesday: moody!
Kexe: creepy!

Here's my river guardian... (my 3rd DSG so far!)

"Jimbo thought he would leave a little piece of himself in the river, but didnt realize he had 'pissed' off more than the fish! "

http://filebox.vt.edu/users/uarshad/art/conceptart/river_guardian.jpg

30 minute pencil sketch/15 minutes photoshop

Enjoy!

[Sapphire]

Iotrez...I really like the feeling of that one!

[JackalAnubis]

another in class doodle, think "spirited away", sorry I couldn't help myself

http://img12.photobucket.com/albums/v31/JackalAnubis/waterguardian.jpg

[Jane Radstrom]

Eep! As I came back to post I realized it specifically says "creature". :(

http://www.velondra.com/images/gallery/337riverguardian.jpg

Been awhile since I've had time for a DSG, I hope I can make time more often.

[eyebooger]

my river gaurdian, a giant frog with machine guns.

I know what a Blastoise and Naruto rip off - . -.

http://img12.photobucket.com/albums/v31/eyebooger/dsgrivergaurdian.jpg

[winjer]

http://winjer.kicks-ass.net/dsg1.jpg

My first dsg. sorry about the savage dragon rip off hairdo.

http://winjer.kicks-ass.net/dsg1ink.jpg

tried out some line widths.

[jasond]

Hi all, this is my first post on conceptart ever. Hope you enjoy.

This took about 45 minutes, I just started drawing without much of an idea. :)
http://img17.photobucket.com/albums/v50/monkeygecko/River_Guardian.jpg

[Railboy]

Hello, everyone. I'm finally back online! I missed some great topics while I was away, but oh well. Here's my river guardian:

http://www.atomicagedog.com/art/dailysketch/riverguardian.jpg

Cheers

[S.C. Watson]

Thought about doing Charon, guardian of the river Styxx, but nah.

http://img9.photobucket.com/albums/v25/Oregano/Concept1/337-rivergaurdian-copy.jpg

[Jianna]

hmmmmm, light source? what light source? I don't need no stinking light source!

http://img17.photobucket.com/albums/v51/jianna/dsg337_copy.jpg

ah well. i like the short hair, i almost never draw anything without miles of hair blowing around everywhere.

also, this is my first dsg, took about an hour and a half

[riq]

http://www.creativeion.com/riq/works/abyss2.jpg

my attempt.

[riq]

Everyone, great job.. There are some really nice ones here.

Gumdrop.. Beautiful.

Wednesday.. you paint a bit like me.. Only better.. I love what you did..( of course, I could have said "I paint like you", but the ,"only better" would've lost it's effect)

One more general question I'm sending out to everyone. Not meant as a slight or anything negative. I'm bringing this up as a point of interesting conversation. My question; Why is the completion time of a drawing important enough for some people to include it with their pictures?

Personally I'm more concerned with how good the picture is. And as a matter of fact, most great art takes lots of time! And, to me, the sign of a really good artist is one that can spend days, weeks, and months in order to take anything they work on to the next level.

Some great works do seem to sprout from the hand now and then, but for me most pictures take a lot of sweat, tears, depression, and other mental afflictions.

Give your pictures the time they deserve, and they'll teach you something new everytime you finish.

[Lyliani]

jianna- that is beautiful

[alex_86]

Arnold Sharkzenegger

I guard ze river yahh...

http://www3.telus.net/concepts/sea_guard.jpg

:D

[Antilight77]

Hello, his name is Waldo, he likes to fish, swim in the river (located right off his front deck) and on the strange occasion he finds some one else swimming in the river he will eat them, or… if they are a attractive damsel he might bring them home, cook them dinner and rent a movie. Waldo is a strange river guardian ////

http://www.digitalmack.com/Pages/TempPostings/river_garden.jpg

riq & Wednesday - I dig your coloring style, and use of hues, did you use PS or Painter?

[shadoman]

Thirty minute pencil sketch...
http://www.shawnadomanis.com/dsg/dsg337.jpg

Antilight - Creature from the black lagoon.
riq - That's an interesting perspective.
Oregano - That is freaking awesome!
JackalAnubis - Cool. If you painted that would the guardian be made of water or solid?
Iotrez - I agree, really nice point of view.

Til tomorrow...

[Form]

nice one shadowman, yours is my fav..

and happy camper, you have exatly 3 hours, 23 minutes to post or i will forever disown you.

:evilbat:

[D^Rise]

Iotrez
Your drawing style is unique, I love it!

[Pixie]

Just found this forum yesterday, what a great idea. Going to try and start doing one of these everday, limiting myself to an 1.5 hours, see if I can get some improvement/speediness happening in my work. Introductory babble aside, here's mine for today's...the River Guardian Beaver of DOOM. Poor little fisherman is in for quite a surprise when he turns around :D

http://img1.photobucket.com/albums/v40/piccolo133/riverguard.jpg

[Kanimator]

Just a quicky this time. I like these Daily Sketch activities, it's cool how many different interpretations and designs everyone comes up with.

http://studiodimensions.com/kelsey/TempandPost/riverguardian.jpg

[SABRE]

IM BACK.....

http://img6.photobucket.com/albums/v19/SABRE/RIVER_CENTINEL.jpg

THE RIVER CENTINEL.....INSPIRED ON THE "SIMBAD", AND "JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS" MOVIES...

WELL, ABOUT THE CRITICS...I DONT DO IT, BECAUSE MY LENGUAGE LIMITATION.... =(



BYE..............................

[Form]

reminds me of those two oracles in the "Neverending Story"....you can feel the tension of those guys on the ship, just waiting for the swordsman to creak into life!

thw hole face surface of the picture seems flat - the side of the castle, the cliffs and the ground at the bottom, all look flat. It may have been worth investing a little more time into putting some vegetation, or maybe some more towers relating to that castle just to break the surfaces there on the left .

And a minor thing - the lineweight on the sword hilt makes it a LITTLE bit too pronounced.

I hope the language barrier didnt mean my post is useless!

Enjoying this topic, hope the next one is as good.

Oh and yeh, i agree with mr C, its becoming a bigger problem in the DSG and on the whole of CA.

I dont want to seem authoritarian, but i think the mods and admins may need to figure out a way of taking real action to make sure criticisms are of high quality.

I think many people just post so they become known, because they want to be 'respected' and 'known', and they think that they can just do this by posting as often as they can.

Well, trust me from experience, it doesnt work that way!

;)

[Form]

for instance, i notice when more experienced artists post crits, they just write

Anatomy needs work here, here and here, could use some more variation in lineweight, and that shadow is off.

No "i think", "maybe", "i could be wrong but", "its a TINY LITTLE bit off" etc

This is a sin i too commit, but i am trying to eliminate this from my crits - it shows a lack of confidence in your own criticism, and if you arent confident about what your saying, chances are you arent really sure and your just posting for the sake of it.

[SABRE]

THANX FORM_N_FOCUS, I WILL TAKE INTO ACCOUNT YOUR YOU CRIT...

I TRY TO MAKE IT A LESS FLAT BUT THINK THAT DO NOT WORK :rolleyes:

WELL, I AGREE ABOUT 'RESPECTED' and THE 'KNOWS' GUYS, WHEN I CAME FOR FIRST TIME TO CA, I LIKE DGS FOR THE AMAZING WORK OF THE GUYS ALL THE DAYS, AND THAT INSPIRED MY ALL THE DAYS FOR WORK. BUT NOW, I THINK THERE IS LITTLE EFFORT IN SOME WORKS......I THINK DSG IT IS NOT JUST AS BEFORE...

I HOPE THAT IT HAS GIVEN TO UNDERSTAND ME, AND SORRY FOR THE ENGLISH...IT WILL TRY TO LEARN IT FOR MORE AHEAD :batman:


BYEE.....................

[jkior]

First post at CA in a while. Supposed to be some sort of rock guardian (creature, right? :) or something. Sorry for it being off topic, but I really wanted to do something on the DSG, and I got a little sidetracked while finding a subject matter.

http://palem.f2g.net/dsg_337.jpg

I'm not at all confident in color, so I went for an almost mono look here, with kind of an erie pale glow. (I wanted to do a single beam of sunlight, but the colors simply _did_not_work.

[mjw4745276]

I'm all for constructive crits, but brief comments on peoples work also encourages you to keep drawing and after all, that is how we will learn and become better. :p

I would recommend that people pass comment and crits in brief, don't go all out on breaking the DSG submissions down, at the end of the day some people spend 5 minutes drawing while others spend a few hours and critting someone of a 5 minute "Sketch" is not necessarily fair. I personally use DSG to get my creative juices flowing a little and keep my mind from preferring the left hemisphere of my tiny brain. ;)

Lets remember this is the “Daily Sketch Group”, not the “Daily Finished Art Group”.
And 5 minutes spent drawing a day is better than not drawing at all.

my five pennies worth :D

[JackalAnubis]

shadowman- I'd imagine it being water, I tried coloring it to illustrate that tonight but it looked like crap, I was having huge issues trying to get the effect of light coming through the water.......I think I'm going to have to start commenting on people's stuff, I feel guilty for replying to only certain people and not others, but I suppose replies are a sort of reward for time spent developing a creative approach to a dsg, execution, time spent on it, etc.

[shadoman]

Agreements are in order:

I too am guilty of only giving positive feedback, that is always nice to get. But criticism IS what helps someone learn and focus their skills. Sometimes the truth hurts, but if you take peoples comments for what they are, and learn from them, then the truth helps.

I KNOW that I need some, and that is one of the main reasons I joined the DSG. I am 27, have been out of school for almost 7.5 years, and have 2.5 kids... time to myself is VERY LIMITED. I haven't drawn seriously, outside of work, in a long time. The DSG is a perfect because you don't overwork something or get bored of it. It's always fresh!

Just in the 3 or so weeks that I have been here I have noticed some personal improvement, but I strive for much, much more...

[Iotrez]

I guess when you post you're design, people will be looking at it for the first time. So they are likely to notice any problems with the image that you may have missed.

So their criticism is very valuble.

Ps. Thanks Sapphire, D^Rise, Shadowman.

[Jane Radstrom]

I find it really interesting to know how long something took. I am serious about going into concept art professionally, and seeing other people's work as well as the time it took them to do it gives me more perspective. I feel that at the professional level you not only need to be really good but you need to bang out quality work FAST. Time is money; an old axiom. I love to see what other people have done and then know if it took them 3 hours.. 20 minutes... It puts things into perspective for me on how far I have to go personally. 2 cents from a most-of-the-time lurker.

[S.C. Watson]

Riq & Mike bring up a valid points about the DSG, as seen by the number of posts following.

My own thoughts are that I don't think it's really necessary to post a crit everytime you post something, but when you do post verbage, make it count. The "It's great" or "Cool" comments get a little old after a while. They're good to get, but point out *why* it's great, why is it cool.

As for the artwork, I don't keep track of how long it takes me to do something. I figure I have 24 hours on the daily DSG, so I'm going to use it as much of it as I can. No offense to those that crank out the 2 to 5 minute sketch, but it looks like it took you 2 to 5 minutes. If that's what you are after for your portfolio, that's fine. For myself though, and I dare say for Mike and a lot of the other people here, we approach the DSG like this was client work.

The work doesn't have to be complete - a sketch, even if it does take 5 minutes, needs to look good for a client.

If you are learning drawing, set your bar high. Let's see some progression. Take yourself serisouly. Spend some time on your work. Five minutes a day is better than none at all, but it takes a hell of a lot more time than that to get good.

Like Shadoman, I've got 2 kids, 2 cats a wife and a job, so my time is premium as well. But I spend *as much time as it takes* on my stuff, often throwing it out completely and redoing it.

Bottom line, all that I'm asking (and I think the others as well) is that if you are going to post here, don't dazzle us with how little time it took to slap some scribble together. Just take yourself serisouly and raise the bar for all of us.

I'll shut up now.

Oh, and Riq, thanks for bringing the time subject up. It's been annoying me for a while. :D

And Mike, yeah - what you said. :cool:

[riq]

Mike thanks for bringing up even better points than I started with.. And my last comments are that I love seeing everyone's artwork, even quick sketches( yet even a quick sketch can be worked to a finished level). But like someone pointed out before, it is important that your pieces look good. And I just want all the artists here to understand is that you'll always be judged by the quality of you work- whether it took a long time or a short time.

Of course faster is always better for commercial work. But in order to get to a professional level, we all have to work damn hard and without limit to make each piece better than the one we did before. And believe me; people will wait for great artwork!

I appreciate anything I can get as far as comments/critiques go(and sometimes, you know something in someone's picture is amiss, but have no idea how to fix it. Ultimately it's the artist's job to figure it out; especially when you're working for a client).. But It's hard to comment about an unfinished picture, because you know the person didn't finish it to their highest level of quality( so any comments you make can be answered with, well,"I usually do that, but I didn't have the time") And I'm not talking about nice sketches, even a finished sketch can be easily critiqued..

Later people,

Good luck on the Journey.

[eyebooger]

I didn't know quality was such an issue in DSG. Right now I don't even know what "sketchs" are anymore :( .

Like many of the people mentioned,most of the time I just don't have the time to make 4-6hours sketches a day, but I still want to motivate myself to make at least one sketch a day. thats the reason why I joined DSG. Don't get me wrong I also want to become better and expiriment, but im just trying to get by with a sketch a day.

After reading some of the post above, Ill try to be more serious and spend more time on my sketches from now on .

:)

[Gumdrop]

Some interesting points, but I thaught the idea behind DSG was to get people into the habit of finding the time to sketch on a daily basis. Spending 3+ hours on this doesn't seem to fit the bill. Maybe a member posts a sketch and is then inspired to go back and take it further - or do a series of sketches and post an update, but 3+ hours on a single sketch?
DSG FAQ/rules sticky...
...we strongly suggest around 1hr 30minutes a day- Reason being is that we feel if you are consient with your time schedule there is a higher chance of you staying faithful to doing the dsg's.

I have no interest at the moment in becoming a pro or full time artist, I am just enjoying a little dabbling in my spare time and trying to develop my style. For me DSG is a fun exercise... something to "have a stab at" if you will. I don't think people should tackle DSG with a portfolio material mentality. If it leads on to that then great, but at it's heart it should be about developing ideas and concepts quickly, and trying to express that idea in a sketch.

Ofcourse this is just my personal thaughts on the subject. :)

[SABRE]

HEY SOMETIMES ITS BETTER A GOOD CONCEPT, THAN A GREAT PAINTING.....BUT NOR THAT I SEE

IF SOMETIMES SOME PEOPLE DONT HAVE TIME FOR WORK, ITS BETTER THINK A GOOD CONCEPT, AND WHEN YOU HAVE IT, DO A SKETCH OF 15 MINUTES!!

WHEN I SAY POOR EFFORT I SPEAK ABOUT EFFORT IN OTHERS AREAS TOO, NOT ONLY DRAW OR PAINT!!




WELL



BYEE...............................

[DraigAthar]

Well, i meant to color this yesterday but then ran out of time, so I worked on it some today. I know it's late, but I figured I'd post it anyway.

http://thirdroar.com/dj/2004-01/dj247-riverguardian.jpg

[Happy Camper]

oppps, late! oh well. I guess I'm disowned then Form :rolleyes:. Sorry I was busy. Actually truth is I hated the peice and couldn't fix it so I avoided posting it but I promised so here it is.
http://members.optusnet.com.au/rpanetta/dsg/river-gardian.jpg

[terp]

i know it's wayyyyy late, but what the hell.
here's my river guardian made of old pieces of boat, cranes, etc....

http://www.miketerpstra.com/dsg/dsg_riverguardian2.jpg


wednesday - wow.