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Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:26 pm
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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
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Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:41 pm
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:29 am
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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
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Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:14 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 9:57 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:11 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 10:18 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:18 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:39 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 11:46 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:37 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:18 am
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:20 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 1:19 pm
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