Pomato Soup's Cookbook [Updated 04/11/10]

[Griffonage]

Information

Pen Name/Alias: Pomato Soup
Gender: Female
Amount of Time Drawing: 9 years
Art Style: American and Japanese fusion (or just American, whatever floats your boat)
Influences: Naoko Takeuchi, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Jim Henson, Tony DiTerlizzi
Most Often Used Medium: Digital (the GIMP + Graphire4)
Occasionally Used Medium: Colored pencils (Prismacolor), watercolor, oil pastels, ink, pencil
Last Update: April 11, 2010

Link(s)

DeviantArt
Sketchblog

 

[Griffonage]

Link to old image
Comments

This is for a contest on deviantART (link), and I could really use some help with it. I'm thinking about shrinking the head, and I also wanted opinions on whether she should be looking at the "camera" or stay as she is. Suggestions on additional details to the outfit would be nice too.
Aside from that, from what I can see, I could use some advice on how to fix the arms, the feet, the back leg, and the hands. I see that something's wrong with these things, but I don't know how to fix them.

 

[Ishrie]

Her head seems fine to me-- I think that it's just her big hair that's making it look large.

I really like the outfit design and her expression. I haven't seen anything like the former before... it looks really cool. xd

One thing that I noticed right off the bat is that her left eye is lower than her right eye. I tend to do this a lot, too... it should look fine if you scoot it up a bit in the GIMP.

Her anatomy is good, very believable. I like how it looks like her body is reacting to being squished against the wall and against her clothes.

As for her arms... I tried doing that, and they don't bend that way. I think it would look better if you had her arms straight. Here's a redline of what I mean.

I think the problem with her back leg is that it's not straight enough. Due to the angle of the front leg, she wouldn't be able to put much weight on it (she'd trip). So, she needs one relatively straight leg to put her weight on... When standing cross-legged, I've noticed that the hip attached to the leg I've got my weight on is slightly higher than the other.

Lastly, I took a look through your DA gallery! Your drawings have so much personality... you do a good job portraying the mood of the characters. One thing that I noticed you could improve on is your coloring. It looks like you use different shades of the same color. (The real paint equivalent of this is having a color and adding black or white.) Remember that light almost always has color, and different colors will mix and react to light in different ways. I think that your shading would have a lot more depth if you used warmer tones for your highlights and cooler ones for your shadows. I talked about this in the second post on this page. Gorachi on DA also has an amazing tutorial that you should check out.

I hope that helped! biggrin  

[Griffonage]

Thank you so much! That critique was really helpful. Other people had given me the same critique about the colors, but you’re the first one to give me a link to a tutorial on it. I’ll need to experiment on choosing colors a lot before I can implement that in my works (still good advice, but it looks hard to figure out!).

Link to old image
Comments

Base colors and inks for the picture I posted yesterday. Thanks to the pose help I think the arms look better, and I think I fixed the leg. I would now like some advice regarding the color of the outfit (if it needs to change or if it’s fine as is), and what can go into the background (other than a bar I can’t think of anything someone would lean on like that sweatdrop ). Any further anatomy help would be appreciated, especially for the head because it still looks off to me.

 

[KotokoPlum]

Actually, it could be a bar. It looks like she's about to go swimming (well, other than those heels), and some swimming pools have bars to grab onto somewhere. xD;

...Or it could be a bar, like with drinks and all. xDD

I love her expression. O: <33  

[Griffonage]

Haha. That was the exact thought that went through my mind as I typed the word bar (with the two meanings and all). I didn't think of the swimming pool thing, though. It's a good suggestion, but I have a feeling I'll have a hard time finding reference. Oh well, I guess I'll wing it.

Link to old image
Comments

This is the shading on everything but the skin. I tried incorporating a new way of getting colors for shades and highlights and adding complimentary colors to add more contrast. Let me know if I need to fix anything about the shading styles because I was trying a lot of new things. Also, any tips on how to make shading skin less tedious because... augh -_-;

 

[Ishrie]

Your rendering is nice. I like how you defined the textures in the material. I can't really tell where your light source is coming from, though. I'm guessing that there's two, one on the upper left and the other on the upper right?

Her hair kind of bothers me... I think that there should be more highlights on the length of the hair, because right now it looks like a dark blob. Adding some highlights would help add definition.

As for the skin... skin's pretty smooth, and since your finished image isn't going to be extremely high-res and realistic, I wouldn't worry about drawing in every last pore... Just pay attention to your light source and the volumes of the body, and you'll do fine.
Here's a couple tutorials I found in regard to skin:
link
link  

[Griffonage]

Okay... it's been a while, but I just drew this and wanted some input.

Link to old image
Comments

I'm slightly concerned that everything is too green at the moment, but maybe I can fix that with changing the color of the shirt. The shirt, kinda obviously, is not shaded, there is no background, and I will create the final lineart when I'm done (I know it's out of order, but I just felt like coloring something). Any suggestions with how to improve this would be fantastic.

 

[Errol McGillivray]

I think it looks fine. I think it would help you a lot to go through magazines and just draw all the noses and mouths you see. But look at them as just shapes of shade. Don't draw any lines. It looks like you're not really familiar with the structure of the nose or upper lip.

 

[Griffonage]

Heh, yeah. I guess I don't really focus on the muscular structure of the lip, I just think "ooh, shiny!" sweatdrop

Noses are something I'm still not really sure on how to represent outside of pencil and paper with realism. Representing it with a few lines then shading it appropriately is kind of hit and miss with me.

Thankfully my crazy (former) housemate left about 50 fashion magazines, among other things, when she moved out, so I will have a lot of interesting references. Thanks for the tip.  

[KajinaTheSecond]

Uhmmm... I just wanna add (If someone didn't say it already, I didn't read all the replies xDDDD ) that if you used more values in the shading, it'll seem more dimensional. Like, you have it shaded a little bit but I feel like there should be more shading.
What I do with mine is that I'll use the same color I did for the base of the skin, lessen the opacity a little bit and then put the brush on "multiply" and shade that way. That way, you get darker and darker shades of the same color of the skin.  

[Griffonage]

I've been trying to branch out more into trying dynamic poses and varied perspectives. The following pose was taken from a 30-second drawing that I did from Pose Maniacs.

Link to old image
Comments

The main issues that I can see are in the hands and feet (little surprise there). The bottom part I feel like it could have been more exaggerated in how it was scaled, and her right arm seems a bit stubby. Any pointers on fixing those and any other anatomy issues before I begin shading would be fantastic.

 

[Griffonage]

I've been working on making still life drawings with pencil and charcoal for 30 minutes every MWF. This is mainly because I need to focus on value since I pretty much have always worked in color in the past.

I also take a picture of whatever I was drawing so that I can self-critique at a later date.

Link to old image(s)
Comments

Charcoal's pretty new to me, but I feel like I'm on the verge of getting the hang of it. I can post up a larger picture if anyone needs more detail to critique.

 

[no surrender]

Hello. :>
It's awesome that you're streatching your limits and working on your weaknesses, I can tell you that you improve HEAPs if you continue doing what you're doing.
I'll give you some tips with the dynamic pose, I can redline if you'd like, just ask.
Everything has a really nice shape, which shows you have a good knowledge of anatomy. The torso, from her waist to her shoulders is too big compared to the rest of her body. This would be because of the foreshortening which sometimes tricks us into exaggerating things too much. Her right arm is a bit to short, a way I remember is that the elbow comes down to the waist, and the forearm is the same length as the upper arm. Her left leg is also a bit short. Even though it's foreshortened it's still a bit longer.
Don't give up though, you've got some serious potential and you're well on your way.
The newest picture makes me all happy inside. Drawing from life is the coolest thing ever, and a lot of people just won't do it. It's also really good to take a picture of the thing to self critique later. (In fact I may just start doing it)
As for critique, I suggest making your shadows even DARKER. I know that can be scary, but try to make it really black in some places, as black as the charcoal will let you. Things like the inside of the top. If you have it really dark just where it meets the light, and then going up getting lighter and lighter, you will be able to create a real sense of form.
I suggest experimenting with differnt strokes and such as charcoal is a great medium to have a lot of fun with. Try smudging it with a rag, and going back over it with vertical strokes to create the texture of the top brown bit. Or,use little flecks to give the texture of the wood.
It's really unlimited possiblilities we're talking about here. I find it helps when working with traditional stuff is to google up pictures by other people in the same medium. Then you can try out their techniques and get some really cool effects.
Holy Crap that was long. Sorry, I just tend to talk a lot about traditional mediums. They are so undervalued. razz
You're doing well! Good luck!  

[Griffonage]

Thanks so much for the tips. I enjoy reading something so in-depth, and it was helpful. Also, if you do have time to do a redline I'd really appreciate it.

Strangely enough I never put any thought into looking up images others had done with charcoal or looking for tutorials. I always do that for the digital medium when I want to try something new, so it makes no sense not to do the same with this. I'll do my best to push the value contrast more, but I'm so scared to lose details. I draw these around 11 AM since that's when the sun's the most in my window, so I really should show the shadows for all that they are.