My failed anime drawing

[magister_negi_magi]

I'm positive that my scanner sucks. 90% of the time, scans come out as 1 pixelx1 pixel. After trying several times, I got this to work. Additionally, this is the best I can do on Microsoft Photo Editor alone.

So I heard you like Touhou.



I'll make it a smaller image next time...If you'd like, I have some other Touhou crap that I can pound my scanner into showing. For the sake of Touhou, if nothing else.

[SethSquall]

Originally Posted by Magnafiend

I find the scanner brings out the lines in my shading more than I'd like, or I have to put more preassure than I usually do to darken the lines just so they show up.
Try checking your scanner settings and make sure the quality is on max, or your scanner might just suck, but i rly dont know.

Draw in light blue pensil first. Scanners have a hard time picking it up. Then draw the outline. I heard that somewhere.

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm drawing some more, I'll post them later. I need to buy "How to Draw Manga" books and stuff. That's my problem, everything I draw comes from my head. I don't actually look at pictures of anime or guides to help when I draw. It all purely comes from my noggin'. I've seen and looked at some on the internet but I don't actually follow them lol. It's just all I can remember from the anime I watch and stuff. I think I should start reading the books and that now.

Oh and I love that drawing Magister. Highly impressed. I will say that some of the proportions like the arm and leg sizes are a tiny bit off I think. Other than that I think it's brilliant.

[jamuko]

Gah, I really wanna post but I'm gonna be late for class.

More later.

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by SethSquall

Oh and I love that drawing Magister. Highly impressed. I will say that some of the proportions like the arm and leg sizes are a tiny bit off I think. Other than that I think it's brilliant.

Whoo, thanks. I know Youmu's arm is off, but I never fixed it.

I scanned this Reimu TWELVE TIMES before it worked and didn't come out as 1x1, and even then...THE QUALITY, IT IS TERRIBLE.

Still, delicious armpits, I must lick them...

[Moogy]

post your stuff on the touhou image board for mega-yen

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by Moogy

post your stuff on the touhou image board for mega-yen

Where now? Can you give me a link?

I think I'm getting the hang of working this scanner. Still, I don't understand how I get magnificently clear lines. I made sure Youmu's lines were really clean, but it doesn't show up how I want it to.

Also, I don't like Marisa. I really don't. She stole my precious thing.

[Moogy]

http://www.pooshlmer.com/wakaba/

That art is better than 99% of English speakers who draw Touhou fanart, I assure you.

[jamuko]

Awesome pics Negi *_* it's a shame your scanner doesn't do them justice. My old scanner was a lot better at picking up pencil lines at high quality, but it broke randomly and now I'm stuck with my little freebie. It makes my lines look grainy (especially a problem with smaller drawings, which tend to be most of them :/ ). But still, it seems to be a lot better than that thing you've got. I recommend shopping around for something else too...

Wait, you just BOUGHT that scanner? o_O That shouldn't be happening then, unless you bought an old one off ebay or something. What model is it?

You might be missing some drivers which could cause the thing to hate you. Also, try playing around with the settings before you scan. If it's doing crap like scanning it as 1x1 it's probably a deeper issue, but it still couldn't hurt to try to get the settings better. I tend to scan at 600dpi (the highest my scanner goes without faking it) and adjust the brightness settings. For some reason it seems to like lowering the midtone values and it helps to bring that back up... and then after it's scanned I adjust Levels and whatnot in Photoshop a bit.

Originally Posted by SethSquall

Draw in light blue pensil first. Scanners have a hard time picking it up. Then draw the outline. I heard that somewhere.

I've heard this a bunch of times too, but never really tried it myself. It seems wrong that a scanner wouldn't pick it up. But I guess in any case, you could change the blue to white using that hue adjuster thingymajig in Photoshop too.

Originally Posted by Sethypoo

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm drawing some more, I'll post them later. I need to buy "How to Draw Manga" books and stuff. That's my problem, everything I draw comes from my head. I don't actually look at pictures of anime or guides to help when I draw. It all purely comes from my noggin'. I've seen and looked at some on the internet but I don't actually follow them lol. It's just all I can remember from the anime I watch and stuff. I think I should start reading the books and that now.

I'm just like this too. :/ I don't like drawing from reference... it feels like cheating somehow, so it's not as rewarding and I end up feeling like I shouldn't show it to anyone (despite logically knowing that people do it all the time).

Those "How to Draw Manga" books seem useful, but they never really helped me personally. I just couldn't learn from the typical methods of explaining proportion and whatnot... (plus, to be perfectly honest, I didn't care for the art styles of most of those books ^^; just personal preference though). I find it a lot more helpful to find artists I admire and obsess over their works for a while.

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by Moogy

http://www.pooshlmer.com/wakaba/

That art is better than 99% of English speakers who draw Touhou fanart, I assure you.

HUUUGE imageboard, even with the addition of RM...but I'm terribly afraid of being ridiculed by the whole internets.

All that's left in my folder(except for literally stick-figures with bonnets, bunny ears and pentagrams) is the Remilia concept crap I had, and I don't like how it turned out.

I've been doing a few Alice sketches and things on the back of schoolwork and stuff. I figure I better give her a full page, too.

[Moogy]

The post threshold is like a year so nothing ever gets deleted, lol.

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by jamuko

Awesome pics Negi *_* it's a shame your scanner doesn't do them justice. My old scanner was a lot better at picking up pencil lines at high quality, but it broke randomly and now I'm stuck with my little freebie. It makes my lines look grainy (especially a problem with smaller drawings, which tend to be most of them :/ ). But still, it seems to be a lot better than that thing you've got. I recommend shopping around for something else too...

Wait, you just BOUGHT that scanner? o_O That shouldn't be happening then, unless you bought an old one off ebay or something. What model is it?

You might be missing some drivers which could cause the thing to hate you. Also, try playing around with the settings before you scan. If it's doing crap like scanning it as 1x1 it's probably a deeper issue, but it still couldn't hurt to try to get the settings better. I tend to scan at 600dpi (the highest my scanner goes without faking it) and adjust the brightness settings. For some reason it seems to like lowering the midtone values and it helps to bring that back up... and then after it's scanned I adjust Levels and whatnot in Photoshop a bit.

The scanner is a LexMark X5150. I can scan at 300dpi maximum. I bought it when I saw a particular sticky for a particular H-game that I wanted to help with, but by the time I could get the damned thing to work, they'd already picked staff. Sucks. Delete this if it isn't worksafe.

[SethSquall]

Awesome picture Negi. It's like Jamuko said though it's a shame the scanner doesn't help.

I might go look at some scanners today. I've always needed one anyway, I'm going to need one for college pretty soon anyway. Anyone know what to look for in a scanner?

Originally Posted by jamuko

I'm just like this too. :/ I don't like drawing from reference... it feels like cheating somehow, so it's not as rewarding and I end up feeling like I shouldn't show it to anyone (despite logically knowing that people do it all the time).

Those "How to Draw Manga" books seem useful, but they never really helped me personally. I just couldn't learn from the typical methods of explaining proportion and whatnot... (plus, to be perfectly honest, I didn't care for the art styles of most of those books ^^; just personal preference though). I find it a lot more helpful to find artists I admire and obsess over their works for a while.

Yea, I know a few people who find an anime picture and just copy the proportions and the pose and stuff and just change the features like eyes and clothes and that. I think that's cheating lol, never tell them that though, they go through the roof. I mean it's a good way to get the proportions right and that but I don't think it's all your work. I prefer to draw from my head only when it comes to cartoons and anime etc (it's all from my imagination which I'm sure is fueled by all the anime and games I watch/play). I've always been like that. I do things through trial and error, look where I fail and experiment further with it.

[jamuko]

Hmm, I just looked up your scanner, and it doesn't look that bad at all. You should be able to get some better use out of it.

Here's the page for it: http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/produ...0.html?tabId=1

They have driver downloads which is probably likely to solve your problem, but if not there's technical support too.

Speaking of H games, I'm part of a new group making non-H visual novels. =D Our first short project is almost complete, and the next, bigger one is in the planning stages.


Edit:

Originally Posted by SethSquall

I might go look at some scanners today. I've always needed one anyway, I'm going to need one for college pretty soon anyway. Anyone know what to look for in a scanner?

The biggest annoyance I've noticed is how they report the scanner's capable dpi in the stats. There is a "real" dpi and another one (I forgot the term for it) that is much higher, which looks good on the box, but is basically useless. All those really high ones do is scan at the highest "real" dpi and then blow it up with poor quality like you could do yourself in any image editing program. Sometimes it's a pain to decipher what the actual quality is of the thing.

And I totally agree with you on the whole reference thing. x.x Also, I think it's probably better learning this way... you come to more of your own conclusions on how to do things rather than copying how someone else did it, and your style develops more personally this way too.

[magister_negi_magi]

Originally Posted by jamuko

Hmm, I just looked up your scanner, and it doesn't look that bad at all. You should be able to get some better use out of it.

Here's the page for it: http://www.lexmark.com/lexmark/produ...0.html?tabId=1

They have driver downloads which is probably likely to solve your problem, but if not there's technical support too.

I installed those drivers, and I think the overall quality increased, but it's definitely not something huge. Still, better than what came out before.

[Moogy]

Originally Posted by jamuko

Speaking of H games, I'm part of a new group making non-H visual novels. =D Our first short project is almost complete, and the next, bigger one is in the planning stages.

This topic is relevant to my interests, as I am a fan of VNs.

Mind PMing me information or something? All of the OEL VNs I've played (admittedly, this number is in the single digits) have been pretty terrible, but eh.

Lots of neat VN translation projects going on right now... I shouldn't talk about those, though.

[the_unda_doggz]

Uinbanned For A Second!

[jamuko]

Originally Posted by Moogy

This topic is relevant to my interests, as I am a fan of VNs.

Mind PMing me information or something? All of the OEL VNs I've played (admittedly, this number is in the single digits) have been pretty terrible, but eh.

Lots of neat VN translation projects going on right now... I shouldn't talk about those, though.

Sure. =D I'm not at my own computer right now so it'd be easier for me to get back to you later today, but I'll be sure to do so. (If anyone else is interested, lemme know too.)

I'm the character profile artist, meaning I design the look of the characters based on the story and handle the main pics of them (but not the special CG scenes that appear now and then). I'm not sure what the technical terms for those are but we've just been calling them "profiles" and "CGs".

Anyway, the author of the story is a big fan of AIR and Kanon, so the spirit of his writing is in a similar vein. We're using Ren'Py, and while I admit we are an amateur group, we're doing our best to make sure it doesn't suck.

Also, our music people backed out on us, so we were forced to use common license public works. :/ If anyone happens to like writing atmospheric instrumental music... we wouldn't exactly be opposed to hearing from you..... XD

More later.

[SethSquall]

What price range should I go for with a scanner. Obviously the more expensive the better half the time but whats the lowest price you'd go and be confident the scanner wouldn't be crap. I'm looking at roughly $75/$80 scanners right now.

Ps drawing lol.

[lord_carbo]

So I heard Anime sucks lolo

I pretended like I was on LSD when doing these:





These were for specific people, especially the first:

[Hwscottsmcgram]

good drawings but not really really anime enough