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Akuji

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If I had finished it, I would use ink and paintbrushes to do the line art. I love doing ink and brush illustration. It would just simply be a standalone concept piece. Not part of any comic or story. And yes, I typically clean things up in photoshop though i don't think i'd color this piece. It's just been collecting dust on my hard drive though. As I mentioned before the majority of my art these days is 3D / game / texturing work.

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If I had finished it, I would use ink and paintbrushes to do the line art. I love doing ink and brush illustration. It would just simply be a standalone concept piece. Not part of any comic or story. And yes, I typically clean things up in photoshop though i don't think i'd color this piece. It's just been collecting dust on my hard drive though. As I mentioned before the majority of my art these days is 3D / game / texturing work.
Cool. I can understand you not wanting to post work from your professional life, but it would be neat to see some more finished pieces. One question, is that photo a detail of your sketch or is it the whole piece? Seeing the wolf's front paws and a little bit of ground beneath them would help bring the sketch to life a little more, make the space read better, what have you. Don't mind me, though, for Pete's sake, I'm an art student who stopped painting... :D
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Cool. I can understand you not wanting to post work from your professional life' date=' but it would be neat to see some more finished pieces. One question, is that photo a detail of your sketch or is it the whole piece? Seeing the wolf's front paws and a little bit of ground beneath them would help bring the sketch to life a little more, make the space read better, what have you. Don't mind me, though, for Pete's sake, I'm an art student who stopped painting... :D[/quote'] It's a cropped piece of a whole scene done on 24" wide bristol board. My shitty printer/scanner couldn't fit the entire image and I'm too damned lazy to scan all the bits and stitch them. The rest is also very lightly sketched so I just focused on the best and most finished part. It's difficult to share anything I do because either it can trace me down to my employer, or via google image search can trace me to my real name and portfolio >.> Not that I have that much to hide but, yeah, I'd rather not! I don't mind sharing with people I know better and trust.
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It's a cropped piece of a whole scene done on 24" wide bristol board. My shitty printer/scanner couldn't fit the entire image and I'm too damned lazy to scan all the bits and stitch them. The rest is also very lightly sketched so I just focused on the best and most finished part.
Ah, ok. I'm in the position right now of having to photograph stuff with my phone most of the time, so I rarely bother anymore. I get it. I've enjoyed sketching on my phone and a laptop that I have with a built-in Wacom, but physical media - mostly pencil or pen - are far more satisfying for me. So I have reams of sketches that are either collecting dust, or giving in to the ravages of time - charcoal rubs off, paper disintegrates. I have a bunch of unfinished paintings hanging up around the apartment - my wife seems to like them but I can't really bear to do more than glance at them, so I rarely look at the walls. It's a weird way to live. I'm naturally nosy about other people's work, though; we had several hours a week for four years of classes where we did nothing but critique each other's work or professional exhibits, and the habit has stuck.:)
It's difficult to share anything I do because either it can trace me down to my employer' date=' or via google image search can trace me to my real name and portfolio >.> Not that I have that much to hide but, yeah, I'd rather not! I don't mind sharing with people I know better and trust.[/quote'] Aside from (poorly) maintaining the band myspace, and a very short-lived band facebook page, I've completely eschewed social media. It's only in the past year, staying home with my son, that I've really started exploring forums. I was on one years ago but only really used the messaging function... Anyway, I've run across a few people who do seem to prefer anonymity. I've never had any kind of professional conflict, so the issue doesn't cross my mind. I don't mean to be intrusive. Regarding my stuff, thank you, and yes, I use the only model I've had since I graduated: me. I typically sketch from my head, but finished paintings always see me in front of a mirror with some crappy light source and five brushes stuck in my hand, holding whatever pose for as long as I can stand there. I'd like to move away from that in my painting, and recapture some of the imaginative freedom I felt before I went to school, but I have a lot of practice to do first. It's nothing but endless barriers in my head. Eh. I'll see if I can photograph and post up some of my sketches, which hardly anyone has ever seen...
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Bloody hell, those look great. I've done a little more as well but it's really not as good... [ATTACH=CONFIG]843[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]844[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]845[/ATTACH] These are characters from an original sci-fi story I'm writing at the moment.
They're sketches! Sketches aren't supposed to look awesome, it's how you turn them into a finished piece that counts. I've never been a big fan of the manga style, but you seem (from your writing) to have a strong sense of character, and the sketches (especially the face shots) show expression and a grasp of body language, so you should be able to make it work for you. Got anything more finished?
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They're sketches! Sketches aren't supposed to look awesome' date=' it's how you turn them into a finished piece that counts. I've never been a big fan of the manga style, but you seem (from your writing) to have a strong sense of character, and the sketches (especially the face shots) show expression and a grasp of body language, so you should be able to make it work for you. Got anything more finished?[/quote'] Well, here's the thing, I do consider these finished... I do have more refined pieces but there are very few of them. They're also really small, which is something my dad's been badgering me about for ages. I do essentially all of my drawing on 8.5x11 paper and rarely do anything that fills the page because I'm kind of crap at filling that space. My sense of shape and proportion gets really buggered when I try to draw large photos. Usually I can't make it work for me. I've found, generally, that the more I seem to refine a drawing the more it turns into crap, (and the more FRICKING erasing graphite debris screws up the area) so if it looks good I just take a picture and move on. I had this one drawing where the expression was great but the girl's head was way too big, so I decided to alter the head since the body language was harder to replicate. Lo and behold the face turned out to be barely passable and not really what I wanted. Maybe this is something that will change with time, but I almost never enjoy making larger pieces. I've been drawing for more than ten years now and although I've tried it the only time large drawing really seems to turn out any good is when I'm just copying a photo: [ATTACH=CONFIG]850[/ATTACH] I was making a sort of combat-filled story inspired by the Screwtape Letters, and I really liked how those drawings came out: [ATTACH=CONFIG]847[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]848[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]849[/ATTACH]
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You need to move into other media. You're basically contour-drawing with pencil - not mass-drawing, just outlining - and refining the outline over and over is great way to get stuck in subtleties. You get so focused on details that the big picture disappears. Try something messy like big pieces of soft charcoal, and don't sketch in outlines. Draw silhouettes of entire figures. Lay out your whole composition quickly, then get in there and refine with a kneaded eraser and some smaller, harder charcoal. Also, you have a decent grasp of body language, but your anatomical intuition is very much guided by comic book art. Best thing I learned at school was how to see the muscles and bones as interconnected, interlocking shapes. Basically, it took me a lot of practice, but I turned my sense of drawing inside out. Contours are the last thing I deal with, now, most of the time. I used to be a small-scale pencil draftsman as well. It's nothing more than a habit you have to break, and it takes some effort. Good luck!

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You need to move into other media. You're basically contour-drawing with pencil - not mass-drawing' date=' just outlining - and refining the outline over and over is great way to get stuck in subtleties. You get so focused on details that the big picture disappears. Try something messy like big pieces of soft charcoal, and don't sketch in outlines. Draw silhouettes of entire figures. Lay out your whole composition quickly, then get in there and refine with a kneaded eraser and some smaller, harder charcoal. Also, you have a decent grasp of body language, but your anatomical intuition is very much guided by comic book art. Best thing I learned at school was how to see the muscles and bones as interconnected, interlocking shapes. Basically, it took me a lot of practice, but I turned my sense of drawing inside out. Contours are the last thing I deal with, now, most of the time. I used to be a small-scale pencil draftsman as well. It's nothing more than a habit you have to break, and it takes some effort. Good luck![/quote'] Well, I like comic book art so that honestly doesn't bother me unless it actually makes the given figure look worse. I have to ask, what do you mean by a difference between outline and mass? You recommended I draw silhouettes of entire figures but that sounds like an outline. I also don't quite know what you mean by contours, as contrasted with an outline.
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I'm using "contour" and "outline" interchangeably. As far as silhouettes, what I mean is basically "coloring in" (even if it's lightly) and then working into that, as opposed to drawing around the edges of it. It's more of a painterly approach. But any drawing is easier to finish if you work it all over at once. Something as simple as sketching in reference points for everything, before you start refining anything, can help you visualize the whole thing the whole time. It helps define your goals more clearly. And it's not a magic bullet. It takes a lot of work. I will try and post something simple later to illustrate the kind of approach I'm talking about. I'm not being condescending when I talk about comic book art; I grew up reading comics and some of that stuff is still really impressive. But a more fluid 3D understanding of the body isn't something you'll get just from comics and to be honest most anatomy books are crap about that aspect of it as well. I was extremely lucky to have a great teacher, in conjunction with studying a cadaver. Anatomical understanding will help you refine your drawings further, help you see potential weak spots that can drag your drawing down, and make the whole thing come together more quickly. It doesn't have to affect the overall "style" of your finished piece, The reason I'm saying all of this is because I went through that sort of transformation at school. I had a similar approach to yours. I had to do a lot of things that felt foreign to me as an artist, to get through it. I wish that I could have broken through my barriers without absorbing the dogma that's had me paralyzed, as a visual artist, since I graduated... but that's another story. If you have access to digital media like a Wacom tablet, that's a fine way to play around with different approaches; I'd also recommend life drawing, which is still one of my favorite things to do, though I do it so rarely.

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Usually with the bigger drawings I do actually make an outline first, and then gradually fill in more detail. More broadly, I like drawing heads so I do those first and tend to fill in everything else later on in proportion to the head. One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is trying to draw any feature on the human figure from below looking up. For the most part I still can't get it anywhere near right, and the chin is a particular bugbear for me. I have a hand reference book, so I do at least have a means for improving that. Another thing is that I really hate coloring. I'd love to do it, but when I actually get down to filling it in the drawing usually ends up awful. The thing is, I have gone to art classes on and off and typically I hated them because I do drawing for fun and fun only. There was one woman I spoke to who was excellent and I wish I'd spoken more with her, but on the whole I met with very little enjoyment overall. Whenever I try to do drawings on a deadline for someone they are without exception worse than my personal work, so as a result I've only ever really improved as my own demands became more rigorous. How long have you been drawing/painting/doing visual arts? If it's more than six years then maybe my ego won't have to curl up and die out of utter shame...

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How long have you been drawing/painting/doing visual arts? If it's more than six years then maybe my ego won't have to curl up and die out of utter shame...
I'm 34, and I've been drawing since I can remember. I started really loving it when I was six or seven and noticed I had a real knack for it by the time I was eight or so. Art school really kicked the shit out of me, though, shut me down almost completely. Not because I did poorly - I did very well - but because I completely lost confidence in my ideas. Didn't help that some of my better work got stolen on three separate occasions. I've had feelings of depression and worthlessness keeping a foot on my throat since I graduated.
Usually with the bigger drawings I do actually make an outline first' date=' and then gradually fill in more detail. More broadly, [b']I like drawing heads so I do those first and tend to fill in everything else later on in proportion to the head.
Not to make you feel bad, but that's a REALLY difficult way to approach a drawing. The words my first really helpful teacher used were, "stop being so damn precious!" Outlines had to go. They came back later but they're a very laborious and confusing way to start; and starting with the head can really set you up for failure. Here's something to confuse you: I almost always start a figure with the pelvis. (Take that as you will... but seriously, I start a figure drawing with the pelvis, sketch in bone landmarks, put the muscles on them... etc)
One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is trying to draw any feature on the human figure from below looking up. For the most part I still can't get it anywhere near right' date=' and the chin is a particular bugbear for me. I have a hand reference book, so I do at least have a means for improving that. Another thing is that I really hate coloring. I'd love to do it, but when I actually get down to filling it in the drawing usually ends up awful.[/quote'] Life drawing will really help if you're disciplined. Stand on top of one of those cheap door-hanging mirrors, or put one on a table in front of you, and draw from that. Also I know I said "filling in" before, and that's a useful way to think about making a quick underpainting, but a finished piece shouldn't have any "filling in" going on. That can really flatten your drawing out. I know that's how comics use color, but there's a lot more form to be found, again, if you're diligent with life drawing.
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Nah, I can see why you would start with the pelvis, it's equal distance to the feet and the head so that sets the midpoint for the drawing. Thing is, I rarely draw full bodies. When I start with heads I usually only intend to do a bust or maybe, if I'm feeling really ambitious, the full torso down to a belt buckle. Using this approach with full bodies has bit me in the butt before when I ended up drawing characters that had weirdly big heads. When I'm doing full figures I do actually just do an entire outline/sketch to get the position of the body down. Still, it might be well worth my while to try that since I'm not really that good at drawing hips, come to think of it. By the way, another thing is that my drawing is almost entirely based on my own ideas. I don't like to copy anyone's work completely, or at all, which might be why I have trouble getting acclimated to this idea of life drawing. I have occasionally drawn myself but it's not a frequent occurrence.

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Life drawing is such a great learning tool, and I find the practice addictive. I miss it horribly. I've never enjoyed copying drawings, but drawing from a real master can be fun, enlightening, and humbling. I really hate working from photos. There's so much more information in a model, a good sculpture, even a still life - all things I was opposed to until I really gave them a chance.

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Life drawing is such a great learning tool' date=' and I find the practice addictive. I miss it horribly. I've never enjoyed copying drawings, but drawing from a real master can be fun, enlightening, and humbling. I really hate working from photos. There's so much more information in a model, a good sculpture, even a still life - all things I was opposed to until I really gave them a chance.[/quote'] I suppose. Life drawing annoyed me (not that I ever did it more than about three times) because I couldn't have the object I was copying directly in my face -which is the level of proximity I prefer if using a reference. Like I said, I don't generally draw big stuff. Still, using my own hands as a reference has worked out pretty nicely for me from time to time. By the way, for doing large areas in harsh/graduated shadow on a large drawing what media do you recommend? I never really managed to fill the area with pencil particularly well, especially when drawing large, kind of featureless things like curved armor plating.
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I suppose. Life drawing annoyed me (not that I ever did it more than about three times) because I couldn't have the object I was copying directly in my face -which is the level of proximity I prefer if using a reference. Like I said, I don't generally draw big stuff. Still, using my own hands as a reference has worked out pretty nicely for me from time to time. By the way, for doing large areas in harsh/graduated shadow on a large drawing what media do you recommend? I never really managed to fill the area with pencil particularly well, especially when drawing large, kind of featureless things like curved armor plating.
I usually use my hands as a reference although I practice drawing them from my head as well. I've gone back to drawing from my head for the simple reason that I don't have time to set up anything real to draw from, these days. But I could have painted exclusively from life for a long time without ever getting tired of it. How's your vision? It makes a big difference. Although the most important thing I learned about painting was how to set one up, something I wouldn't have gotten without a good teacher. Waxing philosophical for a minute: Life study led me away from the painting as an image and towards the painting as an object. It sounds kind of basic, but my thinking at the time was that if I was creating something, the entire experience of which could just as well be had through a printed reproduction, then there wasn't much point to the object or the means I used to get it. All of this led me to paint and draw life-size for all of my finished pieces, and made me a lot more concerned with volume (mass) than with illusionistic space. I wanted to make painted objects that could be confronted as people, that would inhabit the same space as the viewer. So for practical purposes that means that I got used to working on a much larger scale; and that's where concentrating on surface details (as opposed to just "filling in") becomes really essential. I saw some people working on a large scale, but using small photos as reference, and their work had large areas of color with no detail in it, and it was pretty boring to look at; so the scale wasn't just arbitrary, it was detrimental. There should be a reason why something is made a particular size. All of which is to say that I don't know what you mean by a "large drawing" and you might be doing your work a disservice by thinking of plate armor as "featureless" - textures, battle scars, surface reflections, etc. could all add some interest. But depending on scale and your working methods, try pastels or conte crayons, perhaps oil pastels (though these require a bit of effort and commitment and get muddy quickly), ink washes/watercolors... many ways to skin the cat. Good-quality heavy paper makes a difference. And if you're getting too much eraser debris, really, switch to the kneaded rubber erasers, they're awesome.
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I am bespectacled and I wouldn't be able to see something satisfactorily unless it were about ten inches away from my face if I weren't wearing my glasses. I kept hearing artists rave about kneaded erasers, I never really knew what the fuss was about. I suppose I'll give it a look - although it's not really much of a problem with the eraser so much as just trying to do the same patch over and over again. Usually my problem is with small, dark areas like lips, or an open mouth. I really get pissed when I bugger up an eye as well, but that happens less often. By 'large drawing' I mean anything where the total drawing is 8.5x11 or larger. As for plating, I've often tried to put more interesting adornments on it, but what I was asking was more a matter of shading and lighting. Speaking of textures, d'you have any techniques for delineating between denim and cargo material?

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I am bespectacled and I wouldn't be able to see something satisfactorily unless it were about ten inches away from my face if I weren't wearing my glasses. I kept hearing artists rave about kneaded erasers, I never really knew what the fuss was about. I suppose I'll give it a look - although it's not really much of a problem with the eraser so much as just trying to do the same patch over and over again. Usually my problem is with small, dark areas like lips, or an open mouth. I really get pissed when I bugger up an eye as well, but that happens less often. By 'large drawing' I mean anything where the total drawing is 8.5x11 or larger. As for plating, I've often tried to put more interesting adornments on it, but what I was asking was more a matter of shading and lighting. Speaking of textures, d'you have any techniques for delineating between denim and cargo material?
I didn't start wearing glasses/contacts til after college. They would have been a huge help... Kneaded erasers are great because you can make them any shape you want, you can clean them by stretching them, they do less damage to the paper, and they don't leave residue. There aren't really any downsides as long as you can get used to how soft they are. For the size you're working in, colored pencils or conte crayons would be great, and you don't need to worry too much about texture, though some attention to surface reflections would be good. Blunt pencils work well with a light touch, also. Denim would tend to be tighter around the crotch and thighs (showing muscles underneath), be loose at the calves, and bunch up around the ankles; more smaller wrinkles, etc. It's got a lot of its own variation in value because of fading. For cargo pants, just make them wider, muscles don't really show through, draw the pockets on, and they don't really fade. But honestly this is another great place for life study. I know I'll start sounding like a broken record, but there really aren't any tricks, just observation. Even drawing from photographs might benefit you.
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Actually, the one drawing I did of the woman wearing the open jacket and black pants was sketched in blunt pencil for the most part. I've also done a general outline for a new drawing that this discussion has inspired using said pencil. One problem I frequently have with colored pencil is shading and erasing. Is there any good technique for lighting with colored pencils? I've been getting better at using them but I still rarely get a color that I'm really happy with.

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Colored pencils are really hard to erase. I always found that "watercolor" pencils were a bit softer and easier to blend, though it's brand-dependent and my favorite brand changed their formula ten years ago. A light touch is beneficial. And try using a substrate that can take more of a beating, like bristol board. One thing I'd do with shading was to (obviously) leave the more well-lit parts white or very light, rather than trying to erase into them for light effects; but then after I had basically finished the drawing, I'd go over most of the shaded areas with a white colored pencil. Work from dark to light, as a general rule, though you should also save your darkest darks for close to the end - think of it as a slowly developing photograph if that helps. Black is for details and for punching up important lines. Before I went to college, I drew a lot on wood with colored pencil and ink. Now, most of my paintings are on wood as well, partially because of my interest in medieval art and partially because I just like it better.

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Also, specifically as relates to lighting, try drawing on dark gray paper with lighter gray and white conte crayons or colored pencils. Sketch things in very lightly to give yourself a map, and then try drawing in the light. You still want to use a light touch and reserve the pure white for last, because you can't really draw over it successfully and if you put it over anything else it'll blend and not be as bright as it could. To make something feel a bit more natural, you only want bright highlights at a couple of points nearest the light source. Bright highlights throughout an entire piece can flatten it and make it look cheesy. So if your light is coming from above, highlights on the head, face, and shoulders of a figure will be brighter than highlights near the feet. Your piece should have an overall value structure as well as proper value relationships in individual areas. Jeez, I always said I wanted to teach painting... sorry if I'm being too pedantic.:D

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Jeez' date=' I always said I wanted to teach painting... sorry if I'm being too pedantic.:D[/quote'] So long as you don't go banging on about 'cool' and 'warm' colors I think we'll be fine. Comprehensible pedantry is perfectly fine with me, especially since it gives me something to work towards. I typically do put colored pencils on lightly, but what's a good technique for a piece of clothing that's a vivid shade of red, for example? Another thing: when making a piece do you delineate areas to shade and not to shade? I like the film noir style high-contrast art that puts a person's face entirely in black and white, so is there a technique for determining where to start the border of the shadow, or is this just something one gets from life painting under harsh lighting? One thing that has helped me a lot that I don't use anymore that I might want to get back into is blending sticks, very nice tools that I'm glad I learned to use.
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Life painting under harsh lighting is great for building an understanding, although it can be difficult to achieve your preferred lighting conditions and still have enough light on the piece you're working on. If you have Photoshop you can play around with contrast and brightness on black and white pictures and see what happens. Learning the individual forms that compose features is helpful, too. I will look for some drawings to post. Set up a mirror and a bright overhead light, and get your position right to do a "creepy lighting" self-portrait with interesting, well-defined shadow shapes. Try doing it on dark paper with a white pencil or chalk; draw the light in first. For starters you can just outline the shadow shapes and then fill in the light areas, though I like to use more gradients. But the takeaway really is learning about forms. The barrier I had to break through wasn't technical; I had to learn to think of things as three-dimensional forms at all times. So my best drawings, after a few years, came about not through visual copying (which is how I started, by using my head as a camera and just trying to do exactly what I saw), but through a better understanding of whatever it was I was drawing. When you think of the entire body in three dimensions, contours fall into place and lighting explains itself. The tough part is reconciling a 3D understanding with a good 2D composition. Color temperature never really meant anything to me either. it's too relative to be useful to me. Some of my teachers swore by it, and were really sensitive to differences in spatial depth between colors - something I never saw. Maybe I'm just dumb.

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