G's dumpscape

[goblinoffroth]

you're here now you may as well look...hehe

Quick overview:
I'm inept with anything mightier than a pencil (although have been known to use a rubber I dropped it too many times to be called proficient...). As you'll see my sketches are literally that...it's taxing my brain now just typing so you can imagine what I'm like facing anything hardier than paint (I looked it up and it counts as an art program so there!).

I'll try and get these all in chronological order, failing that it'll be alphabetical or chaological, please feel free to point out the anatomical, physiological and grimmetiacl errors.

Without further verbal diorrhea from yours truly:


this old badgers ancient history at least 5-6 years maybs longerer


ditto to this one, still really like it did loads more sketches of evil centaury thingies but cba to scan...


ahah! nearing dragon territory *sniffs the air appreciatively* sorry dragon fetish...


old skool but still cool, one of my bestes to date but before I learnt some masterful sketching techniques


some of these are in the amazingly inspirational 'draw a dragon' thread (really appealed to me )


The following are post afore mentioned 'masterful technique':

piss in a can with the wings but not everything is fluffy clouds and smooth lines...alas even masterful teachings cannot make a jedi, young padawan...oops sorry

aaaaaaaanyway...

love the motion, want to develop most badly *frantically googles crayon tutorials*


ditto!! nearly creamed my jeans after this pic and really want to do a poster sized full colour ass-kicking version with gradient colouring, reds, yellows, golds and burnt umber and even a background!! but I lack confidence...


ditto, I drew the big one first then thought 'methinks he doth require a companion' (I think in Shakespearean...nerd) and look ^ flying lessons!


chuffed with the wings on this beastie and it's a bit of an unconventional head for my style...

right I've rattled on long enough, enjoy/don't enjoy as you see fit, comment/flame/belittle etc

[goblinoffroth]

got quite a few anatomical errors up there with those first two (orc and centaur) notice the orc's hand tilted the wrong way and the weird muscle definition (if you can see it amongst the hair...) of the centaur, well my figure sketching has improved slightly without the aid of art classes just yet...although you can judge for yourself when (if) I post my people...don't hold your breath

[goblinoffroth]

this is my first rendering effort using ps, I got very carried away doing the clouds = very early bedtime tonight...and tbh I now prefer the clouds to the dragon...but I can just change the colour job on it and leave the background photoshop is so awesome!!



What I may do next time (or when I get the time) is use highlights on the dragon too, maybe use a slightly different colour for the body...looks a little childish what with the garish use of primary colours but it was worth experimenting. In fact it's the most fun I've had with my clothes on for ages!

all thanks go to Neondragon's immense tutorials: what a legend

[goblinoffroth]

I've edited my coloured diving drake image further and made another one
this is just with a gradient background (I think it works a little better, more realistic) still pity about the dragon but oh well:


This next one is done in the same style but I made a few mistakes with it and not too fond of the wings tbh...


oh well more to come but I should really be doing my work...

[goblinoffroth]

I developed this sketch of a hume holding a sword:


decided to try out some techniques so he ended up with a funky glowy sword, oh well:


#anyway, feel free to critise/advise etc

[ChillPill]

Dragons look good. You should study anatomy, and work more on making the poses look believable.
in the last one the shoulder/arm section is bent in a somewhat odd way.
+ front of the shield should be darker since its blocking out the light from the sword

[goblinoffroth]

wow! no way! can't believe someone looked at my stuff
cheers chillpill
when you said the last one's shoulder arm looks to be bent in a weird way maybe its the way I've done the lightand the upper arm and hand don't really seem to be connected this is ue to the bright ness of the sword but it still looks ood, i'll defo do some more shading etc thanks for the crits give me more

sorry really wasted atm it's 5 am and I'm trashed...

[goblinoffroth]

tbh I think the main issue with the last image is the torso; it looks like he's wearing a breastplate but it's twisting in exactly the way a breastplate wouldn't...oh well need to work on my shading not my anatomy, people are easy shading is not...

[goblinoffroth]

this is another hume sketch again with a sword:


this is a coloured version, anyone got any ideas fro backgrounds etc?

[goblinoffroth]

yeah yeah I know I need to concentrate on the faces etc ut cba tbh...

[goblinoffroth]

I can do detailed work but all of my recent stuff has been sketchy and half arsed (see orc and centaur top) I just really don't have time for drawing at the moment; life's a bit of a mess...but watch this space I'll get a scanner of my own eventually (and stop scabbing off of my parents) and I'm looking into these tablet thingies people keep talking about...what are they? *googles tablet/wacom etc* anyway big birthday coming up might be able to wrangle one out of it

[ChillPill]

hello again... one thing first, you seem to have a lot of quite pointless posts just bumping your thread. it doesn't bother me, but it bothers some
check the "rules for sketchbooks" thread).

to the art stuff. second hume looks mutch better. would be great to see the finished one.
I noticed your post on the torso on the first one. I dont know if this will help or if its only lame and boring (and maybe rude).
yes it's twisting wierd. what you need to remember is that slim armour (like yours), cant be done in one piece. look at mideaval knight armour,
it's one piece, but to give them the ability to move in
their metal boxes, the chestplate is given a beergut. what you should do is to break the armour into pieces and let the bits move between eachother.
I did a quick paintover to show what I mean

forgive my niggling, hope its helpful

[goblinoffroth]

Thank you for your comments Chillpill,
sorry about the pointless posts, I just forget the things I was going to say and make lots of little posts...maybe I should be a little more careful, thanks for the heads up.
I'm really grateful to you for the demonstration it's really helped. The plate idea had occurred to me but I wasn't sure how to implement it, I'm very new to photoshop and although I've played about a bit I'm not very confident with it yet. Practicing will help. The pointers you've given are great, just sketching them in like that has really made a huge difference to the image! Maybe what I should have done was coloured his top half in a different colour (non-metallic more leather-like) but with both of my humes the clothes look very flat and tight to the figures anyway. I probably need to have a go at colouring people with clothes on in the sketch...at least to begin with (might have a go with the orc in spite of his sword hand being wonky).
The way you've shown me is brilliant because it's much easier to be shown than to try and understand in words, I need all the help I can get and if you want to have a play with any of my pics please do!
I really appreciate the help keep it coming!

[goblinoffroth]

Just had a quick go at plate armour on the same image:

crap forgot to edit the shield (I'll have a proper go in a while...maybe)

[goblinoffroth]

k this is my first attempt with fur (used the slightly ancient drawing of an orc ^up^)
none too happy to say the least! I tried several tutorials on fur but many use tools I'm unfamiliar with on PS although I had a go anyway...
It would probably work better if I worked on it for a bit longer, put a bit more effort in and actually followed the tutorial...I really am my own worst enema...

so it currently looks like this:

but is subject to change without notice due to it's wip status
done almost nothing on the shield
the anatomy is frankly shoddy in the extreme and what is going on with that sword?!
The focus is on the fur, people, don't be distracted by the poor quality of the rest of the picture...

C&C would be much appreciated, pointers/guidelines/cheats on how to do fur I would be most grateful for too!

on a side note: how does one obtain a signature?

[PunkBoyLeech]

Alright dude, good job on posting and looks like your underway trying to paint in ps so that’s a good thing to learn. I have a few things that I would like to share on what I see.

1st: I was looking through them all and noticed the humans, and most particularly the latest human with the sword. The guy turned out pretty well when you painted him, but the pose and way of going about it is a little wrong (or so that is my opinion, so you can disregard it if you think I am full of bs). The pose, although pretty good, seems stiff and boring… you should get your base pose down (what you have right now) and then think, “what is he thinking at the moment, what is happening, then thumbnail out like 10 or 20 quick poses and see what you get, most likely in those 20 you will find that one jumps out at you and would be fun to work on, thus go with it. now, this leads to the drawing technique I noticed here. Did you do like a sketchy one using primary shapes and so on before doing this, and then traced over it? or was it a one pass drawing. If it was a one pass drawing you should really work at developing your people before moving on. I don’t mean you have to keep tracing, what I mean is you need to create the character out of simple shapes lightly, and then come over it harder and put in some detail. If you want great line art THEN trace and improve. The one pass technique is too static, I used to do it a long time ago until I realized the greatness of sketchiness… and have yet to look back.

2nd: Armored dude, great job, better then I could have done when I first started in PS, but there is definitely some things you can work on. First thing is lighting… you need to figure that out before you start anything you paint, or at least before you go putting different values to things. Since the light is from the sword then it the shield should be quite dark due to the sword not being in front of it. The light should slowly die off as it goes away from the sword due to how light acts normally, and also the shadows from the rocks on the wall and floor would probably be a lot more darker due to the sword bein the only light. Again on this guy I think you should have worked out multiple poses before choosing one, would have made the pose a lot more interesting. and lastly, you should google some different chest plates and see your favorite pros do with armor, and then use those as reference to get your armor made… right now it looks kinda dull… unless this is supposed to be a really amateur warrior, which I would then play off by having him in ragged pants, rusty crude armor and a beat up old shield. Keep at it it is getting better.

Lastly: Something you should probably work on right now is either five level painting swatches down or 9 level, and then plan out the color scheme of your painting. Having colors from all over the board normally looks funky, but it can work if use correctly. I would say that the dragon that is making that semi circle in the air is colored quite badly for such a nice background, but here all you need to do is work on is you color blending and shadows/highlights. Something I was taught in school that I have been using a lot now is how you contrast light between dark. Normally, when you look at dark things they are like blue or such, thus giving shadows that cool feel, and when there is light it normally is yellow and gives that warm feel. So I suggest making a new layer and adding those warm highlights and cool shadows too your dragon… it will make a world of difference.

Keep at it, and sorry for the long winded critique… I just happen to do that when I critique… hope it helps.

[PunkBoyLeech]

oh and to edit your signiture, just go to the "user cp" and go down on the left to "edit signature" and there you go, you can edit it.

[goblinoffroth]

Wow thanks for the C&C punkboyleech! given me loads to think about, I have developed my pose sketching quite a bit, my last few I did last night show '300' influence (ie they're mostly nekkid with spears and shields...) many of my sketches are are thought flow of just the same idea tweaked over and over (wish I had a scanner to show my more recent stuff!)
I'm not sure I understand fully about one pass drawings...is that where the first line is the last line?
for my people I used to just go for it and if it turned out spakky then so be it (mostly why I drew dragons/non-humanoids...my humans always look spakky unless I sketch the skeleton)
Now I sketch in a basic skeleton in the pose I want, just lines and cirlces for bones and joints etc then fill it out (applied this to all my creature/organic sketches and it worked a treat!)
this is kind of an example (note this just happened to be on a sketch I scanned, it's evolved and looks waaaay better now!) eg:

hope it's not too faint! This is probs a bad example because the people look awkward, merely showing the skeleton technique
Update: eep just realised I edited the skeles out!! see bigger image below...damn I'm a noob, and what is going on with his arm?! not don't comment I've developed this etc

And I'm far too lazy to trace things or pen them in (*warning: lie!* see sitting/squating dragon ^up^) mostly...I love sketchy pics too!

Re: Armoured dude,
That's a great plan giving him skanky clothes! didn't think of that! I'll have to have another stab at designing him, currently (irl) I've developed him to look more like a knight, full head gear, plate armour that looks like it was made for him etc, non-glowy sword but nonetheless expensive looking...watch this space I'll show you soon (gods willing)
Yeah that image has a whole load of shading issues and light source conflicts, I'll definitely keep in mind the light-source when I begin next time.
And the diving thing, had a lot of C&C about that but I'm yet to set the wheels in motion to edit it. Most people like the bg which is great; first ever attempt with ps = a fuzzy feeling ^^
but the dragon, oh dear the dragon...when I look at it I think 'give up on dragons kiddo, stick to backgrounds...'
I think I was taught the same thing about highlights and lowlights (yellow = warmer, blue = cooler) and I could add in other hues/colours to make it appear warmer or cooler, lighter or darker etc Good plan to make a new layer for high/lowlights, my biggest hiccough with ps is forgetting to stick to the right layer...I find i've done all the shading on the colour layer or vice versa...
Not sure what you mean by 5 level painting swatches or 9 level, could you expand a bit? (sorry I know you've written loads already and I really appreciate it!)
Thank you very much you've been extremely helpful (I like long critique I'm a bear of little brain so the more explicitly explained the better)

thought I'd tag this on at the end; the sketch page that the 2 figures are from:

as i say all these have changed as I've sketched on top of them (see below)

[goblinoffroth]

finally got round to scanning more of my stuff, I've been so lazy since I finished...completely not with it, haven't applied to do anything yet and struggling to get back on track, still kept up with sketching

to business:
the following are from the last 2-3 months mostly although there are a few from way back that I reworked, they're just pages from sketchbooks

slightly older one to start:


I want to trace this and make it larger then colour it on ps but who knows when I'll get round to it...


this is almost a complete pic, very unusual for me, not too happy with her face but that's just a matter of practice


love the stance here although I had trouble with the claws:


I'd like to point out the figure in the top RH corner, the main reason I scanned this page; I want to develop him more...feel there may even be a story there


quite liked the 2 drakes at the bottom of this page:


guess what I'd just watched before this?! My friend lent me the comic too and the art is immense! - oh yeah I really liked the little goblin dude too


quite liked the harpy but she needs work, as does the archer; I draw way too small


this is a figure sketch page that I worked over (see previous posts)
taken into account the overlapping nature of plate armour on the centaur


sorry I have an obsession with hybrids...this is a spider-human...kinda what spiderman's kids might look like?


a few dragons here; the limbs on the middle one are a little skinny and it's neck is enormous but maybe he's got a degenerative disease! The one at the top looks like it's running a bit which is what I was aiming for


this old badger is ancient history must be at least 6-7 sketchbooks ago (no I don't know what that equates to in years...)
It got here because of the severed head; grim but better than the rest


more to come, as always CnC is most welcome

[goblinoffroth]

this is a dragon that I drew whilst helping someone else draw dragons on another site:

I went through a kind of series of steps that I follow with most of my sketches
start with a skeletal figure and fill it out etc

also very happy with the dragon/ogre fight at the bottom

[goblinoffroth]

more pictures, I know I'm flooding but who knows when I'll be next to a scanner again?

onwards!

Another oldie that I re-vamped a bit, the sea monster was just a faint outline then I added shading and drooly bits, also sketched the hand holding the stick below him and the little guy in the corner looking up


the dragon would probably be a favourite if I could get his ruddy wings right and I hadn't drawn loads of other stuff on the page too...oh well, here's to tracing and developing it...



Really like the pirate, he worked out pretty well in spite of his goofy stance, the rest of this page is mostly scribbles although the weird figure in the middle has probs got potential


couple of better things on this side, liked the crazy looking guy in the cat-suit...weird I know but I maybe that's just one of my angles
and the monster at the top going 'Raaa!'


scanned this because I was amazed that I'd filled in the eyes - not a common occurrence in my sketches


enjoy and let me know if you don't

[goblinoffroth]

another sketch page, just some random dragons and stuff and some early figure trial sketches


I shall try and isolate the bits I like from all of the above and do some more colouring, I like using ps but it's quite intimidating sometimes...

[goblinoffroth]

here's my newest ps venture, I used one of the sketches from my '300' page and had a stab at colouring it, got carried away as I do and decided to lose the pencil lines (this was my overall goal but mostly I'm happy if it looks ok...)



turns out it worked a treat!



oh yeah I added a spearhead and some more shading too...the shading makes him look a bit old and haggard but I think the spearhead totally makes up for his missing leg and lack of hair!!

oh and it's still a wip (no background, surprise surprise...)