Yamiko's sketchbook updated 12/26/11

[Yamiko]

Brief info on me

Art galleries:
Mangabullet gallery
Old DA gallery

Art background: Pretty much a combination of random formal art classes in highschool and college in addition to lots of tutorial reading in books and on the internet.

Strengths: a bit of anatomy knowledge and knowledge of some CG programs
Weaknesses: Perspective, dynamic poses (everything seems so stiff for some reason), consistent style, backgrounds

My Objectives: Let's see, I want to improve my weaknesses and haven't had critiques in a reaaaally long time. Lately, my style's been swinging between realistic and anime. It can look weird sometimes.  

[Yamiko]

WIPS

Yamamoto WIP
-supposed to have a typical yakuza expression and beckoning people to fight him.
-Not sure about what background is appropriate. His right hand looks strangely realistic-ish compared to the rest of the drawing for some odd reason.

Kadar WIP
- I have no idea how to make his pose less feminine. He's supposed to be taking off his hood.
- This was an attempt at 3 point perspective on a figure. I don't know how to place his leg and foot correctly.

Redlines are loved. :3

6/24/2010: I think I'll go with just posting stuff directly instead. Got too lazy with formatting.  

[Yamiko]

Majima back study

Just a random study of a bare and muscular back full of tattoos. =.= I think that tattoos might have ruined the purpose of the muscle study though.  

[Yamiko]

Okaay...I really need some help with this before I commit this to traditional inking and coloring. I mirrored the image to make finding errors easier if necessary.

Hands are very challenging with foreshortening because I'm not sure how to make it proportional to the face. And off the bat, I can tell something's wrong with the thumb. I'm not sure how best to fix it because I wanted to make the curvature of the palm apparent at the same time. (It was all in an effort to make him look crazy and enthusiastic about dissection.)

If there are any critiques to add, or tips on how to emphasize a mad scientist sort of feel to this, please let me know.  

[Syrella]

Well, if you're going for the mad scientist look, I'd suggest really exaggerating. Probably more than you'd immediately think.

Things to play with:
Expression - Make the eyes crazier, make the mouth open wider, etc. Try studying some tensed hands. If you need to, take a photo of yourself doing your best mad scientist impression. biggrin Or get a friend to help out.
Perspective - If you'd want to stomach it, see if you can't get a slightly lower perspective so that we're looking up at the face. It'll make it seem more menacing and/or dramatic.
Lighting - Lighting from underneath will really help add another level of drama. You don't have to get too crazy about it, but even just some subtle hints and shadows would help, I'm sure. ^^
Colors - I don't know, when I think mad scientist, I always think of colors like red. But you could probably go with anything you want, so long as it fits the mood. If you want more of the cold/calculating type, you could try cooler colors and gray shadows.

I do like what you have got here so far. I just think you tried, you could push it to the next level and make it a really 'wow!' type of picture. ^_^

But yeah~~ as always, that is just someone else's opinion. If I weren't so lazy, I'd try to redline it for you... Sorry! sweatdrop  

[Spoggly]

I think you've already conveyed the 'mad scientist' effect quite well! You can give even more emphasis to his madness by doing some dramatic coloring with some blood spatters and a dark color palette. The line art looks great to me already, except for the thumb..

I can't redline the thumb right now, but I hope you can understand what I'm trying to get at: try making it face to the side, instead of pointing forward like the other fingers.. That way you won't have to worry so much about its foreshortening, and at the same time it'll look less awkward/stiff. Hope this helps! <3  

[Yamiko]

Thanks for the suggestions and critiques!

Syrella:
Well, no such luck at getting family or friends to pose like mad scientists for me.
I just went in front of a mirror and posed, discovering that I have no knack for acting. lol.
(It's good for getting the hand poses down though.)

Those suggestions are all so awesome!
I gotta play with some of them and use some in future works too.
(Especially perspective. Arrrgh, I'll get it down one day!)

Spoggly:
Eep! I gotta test run the dramatic lighting and splatter effects digitally.
(I'm still terrible with using copic markers. I miss layers and the undo button! D*: )

Alright, I just fixed the the thumb! I found out the original hand pose was weird because I looked at my hand from the wrong angle.  

[Yamiko]

Random WIP.
OTL I just want to make sure that the proportions of the legs are set before I detail them.
Also, placement of figures....I kinda worked on waist up and then expanded again.

I should really work on poses more. (And finish stuff too...Arrghhh)  

[Respirometric]

You're really good! The only problem with the med scientist thing is that I couldn't tell that he was mad or a scientist. Hand's really good though.  

[Yamiko]

I really should finish some of my old stuff. =u=;;;;

I know I'll finish this though cuz there's a deadline. The pose seemed alright initially, but after painting, the legs looked weirder.