a hole-y ghost posted:

Havem't posted here for a long while, but here's an (early progress) crop from something I'm drawing. anyways I'm probably just gonna fly away again hope you all are doing well

Seri posted:

Finished this the other day, my second ever drawing. It isnt the best but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Took seven hours to draw and an hour to color...

Sharpest Crayon posted:

You can see from my furious diss that I do, in fact, love Odo.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Pixel art = pixellated = CLEVERLY HIDDEN SECRET BOOBS AND PENISES

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Shinmera posted:

My approach is probably very much geared towards the way I draw now, but perhaps it's still of some use.

I start with a line for the shoulders and then form it into a box for the ribcage body. This can be twisted for turns and stuff, so it's pretty flexible.



I then complete the upper body with another box for the pelvis.



Then I add legs and feet. I use very few, long strokes for everything so that the figure remains clear and fluid.



Next are the arms and hands, similar to the legs and feet. Note that a lot of the parts of the figure form out of S and C curves. Focusing on curves like that leads to pleasing shapes.



And finally I add the head and neck. I feel like doing the head last works better for me since I get a better idea for the overall body shape through the ribcage and appendages.



Of course extra stuff like clothes is just layered on top after that.



Again, not sure if this is going to be good for your skill level and your goals with art, but hopefully it at least stilled some of your curiosity. It's probably not too great to learn about volume since it leaves a lot left to you to imagine in that department, so it's probably a better idea to use more detailed skeletons first.

I also have some draw streams archived, in case you're interested in a live thing.

Vermain posted:

I have a fairly standard process when it comes to doing longer works.



From left to right:

• Gesture: Trying to capture a good gesture is critical for a good finished piece. I think this is where a lot of people who are new to art get stuck, because it's such a weird, nebulous concept. It's a rhythm that you only notice when it's absent, and its absence can turn even the best piece of draftsmanship into a dull rock. I start off with a fixed point (the head) and work from there, thinking about the relationship of the curves and angles. In this piece, I started with the head, found a basic line of the shoulders, found a curvature of the chest, and then used the bottom of that curve to create an angle into the legs. The important thing when drawing human gesture is to think about the alternating forms of the body: when one muscle flexes, its antagonist contracts; when one side squashes, the other side stretches. You can see this especially in the arms, where the curve of the deltoid follows into the curve of the tricep which follows into the curve of the bicep, creating a kind of stairstep or flow. This is where I'm least concerned about proportion or three-dimensionality; if the gesture is good, those two will naturally follow.
  
• Blocking: If I think the gesture looks good (or, in the case of a relatively quick piece like this, good enough), I'll start trying to better define the contour and three-dimensionality of the figure. I use simple, straight lines and hard angles, since this helps me to visualize plane changes better and helps me to determine overlaps that I can use to describe the physical structure of the figure in space. This is also a good place to catch proportion mistakes, inaccuracies, or an overly-stiff gesture. The gesture will naturally harden once you start turning it into proper forms, so doing this basic "blocking" helps me to figure out if my gesture needed to be looser. In the case of this gesture, I figured out several proportion mistakes (head, arm length), and figured out where I needed to improve the gesture (mainly the deltoids in order to create a smoother flow).
  
• Firming: Using the blocking stage as a guide, I start to better define the figure. If I'm not drawing from reference, I'll usually redo the blocking and/or gesture phase if I find issues during the blocking stage. In a case like this, since I'm drawing from reference, I feel more confident in simply correcting mistakes in the firming stage. This is where I start adding in anatomical features, creating smoother curves to replace some of the harder angles, and generally checking proportions and perspective to try and ensure it looks correct. In longer pieces, I'll usually spend a significant amount of time in this stage, checking and re-checking the features until I'm confident in what I've drawn. This is usually where a solid grasp of anatomy comes in most handy, but you can often get away with lackluster anatomical knowledge if your gesture is good enough. Unless we're looking up close at a highly detailed back or something similar, we tend to look more for the curves of the body, rather than individual muscles.
  

I did this one rather quickly as an illustration, so there's some goofs I'd go back and correct with more time spent (right leg's connection into the pelvis is weird, left leg needs better definition around the kneecap, could define the right armpit better, etc.). While it's important to strive for accuracy, it's equally important to not get bound up too much in making every piece perfect. If I'm just practicing, I only want to spend a few minutes at most with firming up the figure so that I can note my mistakes and move on to the next practice piece. It's more economical than sitting and fretting about the accuracy of a leg muscle for 20 minutes, because it doesn't give you the same amount of practice (and, thus, the same amount of confidence) that quickly doing pieces gives.

I should also note that I usually do the gesture and blocking stages a fair bit lighter; I darkened them here just for purposes of clarity.

Nude posted:

Just wanted to thank you guys for the write ups. Much appreciated.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Pixel art = pixellated = CLEVERLY HIDDEN SECRET BOOBS AND PENISES

Al! posted:

please don't blow up my spot like this

Al! posted:

please don't blow up my spot like this

Sharpest Crayon posted:

We all seen ur HUEG pink airship ((never forget))


Superfly, I don't wonder that dog got flagged as nsfw. It's not wearing any pants!


Grumpy kitties.