Sebyth's Sketchbook

[Sebyth]

Hello, this is where I'll post pictures on which I'd like some feedback/critique. I do not have a mentor yet, and welcome any and all helpful/constructive critiques.

Usual Subjects:
I tend mostly towards human (or humanoid at least) figure portraits. At least, that's how I guess one would describe them. Either one figure by itself, or interacting with an object or second figure.

Problems Areas:
- Backgrounds. I usually either do a vague abstract-nothing backdrop that the character is placed in front of, or a minimalist sky-and-ground backdrop (maybe with a tree) which the character is again more or less placed in front of. I have trouble visualizing any kind of background other than those, and if I do, can never seem to execute them in other than amaturish form.

- Anatomy. Especially limb placement, foreshortening and hands. Feet I can't get right at all, unless they are in boots/shoes (and even then..) I have trouble sorting out where the limbs are in 3D space, which brings me to....

- Lighting/shading. On a simple picture with a simple, single light source, I can sometimes get it so that the light and shadows at least look like they belong and work with the form. As soon as there's any kind of cast shadow or the form interfering with itself light-wise, it falls apart. I can't keep in mind how the parts are situated with regard to the light source, and end up with the apparent light falling in different ways on different parts of the figure. Also somewhat related is....

- Value. I always seem to make shadows too light or too dark. I also seem to have some problem with highlights where I end up making everything look shiny. These are becoming more apparent as I try to move away from linework and the form having to be defined solely through light/midtone/shadow.

Some recent works:
March 5, 2007 - Ancient Era Jenova concept version 4 - Edit: Arg. Giving up on this one.
March 4, 2007 - Version 3 of Jenova concept - Background, skin repainted twice, face repainted five times (keeps getting worse), dress and hair unfinished flats.
March 3, 2007 - Version 2 of the Jenova picture from March 1 - changed arms, worked more on dress concept.
March 2, 2007 - Reworking an old 10 minute freebies thread doodle into a painted version (The character is blind due to cataracts):
old version
newer WIP
Finished (more or less) version
March 1, 07 - Reworking a WIP from '05 - Living Jenova from FF7 - concept
Feb 27, 07 - Picture used as sig
Late Feb 2007 to approx. current - Portraits from photos - thread  

[PinkGhost]

Very cool picture in your signature. I love the movement, and I especially love the wonderful way that you colored it. As for the hand, I can't do any drawovers at the moment...((I should be doing homework x__x)) but I would suggest making the pinky shorter and extending the palm. You may have the move the entire hand further out, to make room for a longer palm. Also, making the fingers thicker might make it more proportional to the rest of the body. :]

But...very very good job. o__o  

[Razmaz]

Here are some suggestions that I have for your picture:

1. The nose. His nose is somewhat large and bulky. I think that if you made it smaller the picture would probably be a lot more pleasing to the eye. This is optional, of course, and if your intention was to give him a large nose then great. There are people like that in real life, so there's nothing wrong with it. wink

2. He seems to have a bit of an underbite. I can't tell right now if that's because of the size of the nose, but you might want to try moving the lips down just a bit next time, or make them in less of a "v" shape.

3. The way you've colored his skin makes him look almost as if he were made of bronze or something. I've kind of noticed this as a frequent thing in your CG's. (After looking through your DA gallery, of course) I think this might be due to the fact that you're using a light tan color as the base for most of your skins and then just adding on darker shades of tan/brown in order to shade. A good idea would be to introduce other colors, maybe come cool grays or blues, or even some reddish or green tones. I myself can have this problem when I color, and many people do. Just think of more true to life tones when you color and I'm sure the image will benefit greatly.

4. His hair is nice, but I think the picture would look a lot better if you detailed it and added more black. It looks like he's losing hair because it just kinda fades off into nothing.

I read a post that you made earlier in the introductions thread about how you feel about your art and how you're just practicing for skill and not creativity. I swear, I was just having that same conversation with someone yesterday about how I feel the same way about my art. When I look at your gallery and your general art style it looks like you're trying to draw three styles at once - Anime, Fantasy, and Realism. That's great, but it's going to be hard for you to focus on what you want to get better at if you keep jumping all over the place. I myself am a skill freak and now I'm trying to teach myself to be more creative and the best advice that I can give you is to draw your inspiration from the things you love. Find an old TV cartoon you used to watch as a kid and that no one has heard about and do some funky fanart of it, go to one of your favorite hangouts and draw some of the regulars, if you have a job, draw all of the people you hate in goofy ways, find an old picture or sketch concept that you really liked and decide to redraw it and make it better. Do something that will inspire you to draw creatively because no one can make you do it but yourself. If you have friends who draw, get together with them and just draw. If you can't do that, find a paintchat somewhere or use OpenCanvas to draw with other people. Read a book and draw out scenes from it to get your mind going. If you want to be creative, you're going to have to push yourself and learn to visualize better. 3nodding

That's the end of my little soapbox moment. I hope you got something out of it. Trust me, I know exactly what you feel like and there's nothing wrong with the feeling as long as you recognize it and decide to make a change.

If it really bothers you so much, then don't draw UNLESS you have inspiration. I tend to draw out of habit, and I don't even have to be inspired in order to draw and this is VERY bad. I'm trying to teach myself to draw for fun, and I have been having fun lately so yay. XD

Oh yeah, and you might want to try checking out the forums at http://www.conceptart.org . They have so many different artsy fartsy things going on there and many of the people who go there are quite good. I recommend you check out some of the sketchbooks posted in the forums, especially the ones rated with 4 or 5 stars. So much inspirational stuff there. If you really like the site enough, you might decide to join and post your own sketchbook or do the daily drawings that they have... where one of the mods posts a random phrase like "black cat goes to the moon" and people have to draw it. It's great stuff. You can also join groups of people who want to improve in certain areas... like I ended up joining a thread called the "Peer Project Foundational Activites" which were activities posted by a user that targetted improvement of color perception.

So yeah, if you haven't been to that place I really recommend that you check it out!

Good luck, and sorry for the super long post. :B  

[Sebyth]

@PinkGhost: Thank you very much! That definitely sounds like it will help, I'll give it a try! :3

@Razmaz: About the nose, it is a more realistic nose so it is a good size. Most humans, especially caucasian people, have noses that size in relation to their face. I signed up with conceptart.org last week, and am lurking before I post to get the feel of their forums. Thanks for your input.  

[Wispered]

Your work is really spectacular, I love the textures that you get in the paintings, especially the fur collar on the newest one.
On the March 1st one, the one thing I noticed are that the arms are really long. I think it's mostly in the forearm. When arms lay lat against the body then the fingers reach around mid-thigh. Yeah, I looked again, the upper arms look fine, you just need to shorten the forearms some. That face is stunning by the way.  

[Sebyth]

Eejbeej

Your work is really spectacular, I love the textures that you get in the paintings, especially the fur collar on the newest one.
On the March 1st one, the one thing I noticed are that the arms are really long. I think it's mostly in the forearm. When arms lay lat against the body then the fingers reach around mid-thigh. Yeah, I looked again, the upper arms look fine, you just need to shorten the forearms some. That face is stunning by the way.

Ahh, okay, yes I get confused on limb lengths a lot. Is it one head-length for the forearm? Thank you very much! :3  

[Wispered]

A general rule is that the elbow should fall around waist-height, but I'm sure there are other measurements using heads and stuff...The heads thing never worked for me so I don't really know those rules.  

[Sebyth]

Okay, thank you. New version of it is now up, with (hopefully) fixed arms.  

[Wispered]

That looks better. Just watch where the elbow dents, flesh overlaps when bent so that dent should probably be filled in.
I can't wait to see this one finished though, I think it'll turn out great.  

[Sebyth]

Thank you. Halfway through painting, I think, I couldn't get the dent to shade correctly. Tried the shadow a few different ways and it just ended up looking like an elongated blob each time...  

[Sebyth]

Finished Jenova concept I think. Her arms look better at least. The hair detail is looking not so great, but I'm not sure how much more I can do with it due to the size of canvas I was working with (1:1 ratio with the size posted).  

[Wispered]

It is looking much better.
Things to remember for next time:
Breasts are built like domes more than spheres, domes that are affected by gravity. So unless there is some major leverage and support in the garment there wouldn't be much definition on the top of the breast. The slight sag you have right now would suggest there isn't major support.
Your arms are getting better. still watch the size of the upper arm compared to the forearm. The upper arm has more meat on it so should be thicker than the forearm, and in cases of foreshortening should probably be about the same size.
Last thing I'm going to mention is the eye hidden by the hair. You could probably get away with not even showing it and just darkening that area. It makes sense with the shadows, and right now it just looks a bit awkward.

But really, you're doing great. Can't wait to see more from you. ^_^  

[Sebyth]

Thank you. :3

Her breasts are supposed to be being squished by the tension of the ribbons winding around her dress and cutting across the upper-middle part of them, I guess I didn't define them enough/did it wrong.

Her eyes are supposed to be glowing red - I was trying to base it off the few frames in which she appears in FF7:AC, where her one remaining eye is glowing enough to shine through the murkiness. In that case I should probably have remembered to put reflected red light around them. x_x

Thank you for the advice on her arms, female anatomy is too difficult for me I think.  

[Wispered]

Nah, you're on the right track, so don't feel down about it.
I kinda though afterwards that the ribbon cutting in might have been what you were going for. Even with that happening there wouldn't be as much deffinition on the top. Instead put the emphasis on where the flesh folds around the ribbon, Have the skin bulge out slightly above and below so that the ribbon looks like it's sinking in a bit.

Hope that helps ^_^