Jake Snake posted:

Progress. I think I fixed the eyes?

sigma 6 posted:

From this link? It is just Flickr.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/grey_hash/39775820432/sizes/o/

Sharpest Crayon posted:

You've got the main body of hair down pat, all you've gotta do is add a couple of sharp, errant strands that follow the curvature of hair, but stand out. Slightly more visible (thicker) than on the right eyebrow since , but that's what you'd want in the hair. Use a harder-edged brush so they don't come out too soft.

Al! posted:

pretty tired today

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Personally, I usually pick some parts of whatever I want the material to be, and add some definition by drawing texture here and there.
When doing texture, it's important to keep in mind the shape of the thing you're doing it on so it doesn't "flatten" you picture or stand out too much. You can get away with texture brushes if you use them sparingly or make them semi-transparent, but they will never show perspective or wrap around your objects. Depending on your style, you may only need to hint at texture here and there instead of covering your entire piece with a detailed embroidery of detail.

I highly recommend the exercise that Humboldt Squid undertook - they painted 100 material studies in the form of cubes, balls and this weird pestle shape. Just cubes upon cubes of fruit and bark and metals and stones.
I swore I'd do the same when I saw it but uh. I'm getting around to it. In a decade or so.

Jake Snake posted:

a hole-y ghost posted:

drawing apples is good for this since they have the stripey pattern, are relatively simple in shape, and also have the shininess going on, but honestly I'd say you would probably be better off at this point delving more into rendering shapes. putting texture or any other kinds of details on stuff will be much, much easier + natural when you already have a good handle on rendering mass with value.
This goes, I guess, with what Crayon said about having the shape strongly in mind while thinking about texture (lest you make things look flattened-out or inconsistent in terms of perspective, which is very easy to do)

Al! posted:

this is definitely a marked improvement from the previous ones you showed, good job i dont really have anything constructive to add unfortunately b/c this is well out of my wheelhouse

a hole-y ghost posted:

Poor choice of words, sorry—I just mean wrapping shadows around shapes. I must add though, you're definitely picking up exactly that really well and showing improvement with every drawing, I just think that in general, getting a good sense of 3D form should come before texture if you're going for a more painterly style.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

I had to put in effort this time 'cause y'all posting some quality poo poo and I obviously need to up my game.

Al! posted:

i went and took this one


and redid it

Jake Snake posted:

Aww, that's like the best compliment I've ever gotten. Thanks a lot.


Wow! Awesome job! These are such a huge improvement from the first piece you posted. Keep going! You'll soon blow me out of the water at this rate.

Btw as for the techniques I used: it's nothing special. I just use the basic round brush in Photoshop, but I check the dual brush option to give it more texture. I did use a downloaded brush for the fur collar though. It's mainly all about blocking in the shadows, highlights, and midtones, then gradually shaping them to make them look like whatever you're painting.


The colors are great, and I love the thick brush strokes. It gives it almost a creamy texture, like real paint.


More progress. I hate fabric.

a hole-y ghost posted:

venus

the gaudy colors on this are starting to give me a headache so I guess that means it's good to go



e: fixed something with composition that was really bugging me

Jake Snake posted:

It just combines two different brushes into one stroke. You can get some pretty cool textures and patters doing that. Example:



I'm not familiar with Krita, so I'm not sure if it has something similar. I'm sure there are a lot of different types of brushes you could make interesting textures with, and there's probably a way to adjust the spacing/shape/texture/etc.

Definitely don't depend on the brush to do the work though. I just like playing with the settings to see how I like the feel of it.


It's currently raining outside, and this is perfect.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

Hey guess what's the right time to do a hand study?

The answer is every time, all the time.
I hadn't done one in ages.

smallmouth posted:

There's been some great stuff posted lately.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

If I hear any more I will lose it I swear.

Sharpest Crayon posted:

I've found drawing people and/or pets I know is so much more difficult than those you've never seen before. You look at them so different! It's harder to pick out the traits that define them, although if they've got specific clothing they always wear, you're halfway there after putting those down. I'm just saying this so I can ask if that hat's one of them

Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

Been doing a drawing a day since january 1st (actually been doing at least 20 if not more),seeing how long i can keep going for,up to day 40 as of this post.




Please be gentle,also if i've posted too many let me know and i'll delete em.

a hole-y ghost posted:

Vitruvius Pollio's proportions from his books on architecture, while rather idealized in a Classical manner, are a very good starting point (it's a good idea to compare these measurements with real faces/bodies to see where real people vary, though):


e: Vitruvius writes of a head, from crown to chin, as one eighth of a man's total height. Note that in realistic proportions, this is somewhat uncommon (typically seen on tall men with smaller heads). Typical head-to-body ratios are somewhere between 1:8 to 1:6.5 for men and between 1:7.5 to 1:6 for women, as far as I can tell.

e:2 This is for people of adult height. Drawing kids with those proportions will look weird. Their head-body ratios will be more like 1:6 to 1:4

e:3 also for any anatomical proportion reference, compare it to yourself if you can to test if it's sort of accurate or off.

a hole-y ghost posted:

Eh, his books are primarily on architecture and unless you're studying architecture, probably not of much use on the whole. Also, his stuff is all available for free online (I copied that passage from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Vitr.%203&lang=original).

That passage I quoted was probably the most useful thing from him re: human proportions, but it's a pretty good one.

a hole-y ghost posted:

Hey, don't sweat it. You're learning fast, a lot faster than most, I think. Drawing's one of those things for which there is so much to learn that you certainly have no hope of learning even a significant amount of what you could want to in your lifetime. Some find that depressing, but I think it actually takes the pressure off.

e: wow that was a really odd sentence I wrote but hopefully the meaning comes across

a hole-y ghost posted:

e: Also, not totally relevant to d3c0y2's question, but for anyone else looking for drawing instructional material, I thought I might add:

In general on buying stuff to learn drawing, I'd say to keep in mind that, especially for the basics, a lot of the really good references will have been written by people who are long dead and therefore their stuff is in the public domain. Here is a list of public domain drawing instruction books I found: http://uncannycreativity.com/download-these-free-public-domain-drawing-books-for-artists/

In particular I'm partial to Ruskin, here's a free ebook of his: https://books.google.com/books?id=8SoDAAAAQAAJ&ots=HVa_OLBEyR&dq=The+Elements+of+Drawing+by+John+Ruskin&pg=PA102&hl=en#v=thumbnail&q&f=false

a hole-y ghost posted:

hey glad to help, friend

Also, sorry that I keep posting and not putting drawings here. So as to avoid angering the gods of the drawing thread (i.e. Crayon) here's a crop from an body study I'm working on now:

a hole-y ghost posted:

thanks friend!! Yeah... Ruskin is great, haha

my buddy Superfly posted:

Celeste is really good and I wanted to draw it.

https://twitter.com/rainbowfission/status/963536023782379520

a hole-y ghost posted:

yeah I don't really watch video tutorials either but for written tutorials I like handprint

e: oh and how could I forget, Gurney Journey!

e2: you know, I don't know why that is. I can easily spend an hour reading written guides but I get bored trying to watch a 20 min video tutorial

Al! posted:

my art education is i have a friend/mentor who every once in a while says "you should try this" and i try it and make a huge leap. posting itt helps too

Al! posted:

thats the thing i'm realizing from actually working at it this long, its all peaks and plateaus (that graph that someone (you?) posted earlier made me depressed but it's pretty correct)


anyways, heres another ghost gif..... i'm having a lot of fun doing these, u can call this my ectoplasm period

a hole-y ghost posted:

It'll happen again. Improvement comes in lurches. It's actually kind of a good thing, especially for exhibiting artists—this means you have periods of relatively consistent art instead of every piece being worse than the one that comes after.

a hole-y ghost posted:

Yay! Happy for you

The hair reminds me of Kai's hair from Lexx

a hole-y ghost posted:

eh for commission portraits and stuff like that to save time I usually grid em out—take the picture, crop it how you like and overlay a 9x9 grid, and then on your surface where you're drawing or on the digital canvas put a 9x9 grid (if it's on a traditional medium where you can't just delete the grid layer after, I'd just use a ruler and square and gently put down dots where the grid lines would intersect).
This way you can get a pretty accurate portrait, add a bit of your own flourish, and people will usually be pretty happy. Make sure they'll pay enough to make it worth your time, don't give them the finished product until you're paid, etc. Good luck!

Sharpest Crayon posted:

So hey how long has it been since I last drew a cyberorc? Way too long, yeah?



I'm very pleased with how androgynous I got the face, getting it juuuust right so you don't veer too far either side is a fun balancing act every time but it's hard.

Spinster posted:

Before I got to the text while scrolling I recognized Willem!

Spinster posted:

So a GBS goon has paranasal cancer and instead of doing my own Gina and Goody (lady version of Goofus and Gallant) thread I'm putting all the panels in his thread to try to get it views which might lead to donations.

His username is Carrion Luggage and here is how I introduced Gina...

Al! posted:

a hole-y ghost posted:

Take note of anything peculiar about his face, comparing where his features are vs. a more "average" face, and then find reference of someone with a similar head shape—try to draw that person but with the features and such fudged over to be closer to his particular features.
It may take a few sketches before you notice you're really getting somewhere with that, but that's sort of what I do (and it's a very similar thing for bodies where you can't find a full body reference you might want).