Show your sketching!

[Nullifidian]

Re: Show your sketching!

@Mahjix I think you should add some more ambient lighting as well. I notice you use a lot of black/inky shading but shading adapts to the colours of the surrounding objects/environment. You're also missing some spots that should be lit, like the underside of her bottom and the rest of her legs should be lit by the wand she's holding as it's very bright. And a quick trick to make an object appear further away you can use atmospheric depth

I did a bit of paintover on the legs and coins to show you what I mean


It's half assed but it gives you an idea

[Mahjix]

Re: Show your sketching!

Alright, I've made the necessary changes. I think it's a lot better than before.

[Nullifidian]

Re: Show your sketching!

Awesome, I really like the smokey green edges around the coins and tooth. I still have some remarks about the lighting though. I noticed you did a white rim of light at the bottom of her behind, but I don't see any of that back in the rest of her legs while I do see a green rim light. The star is brighter in value so it's weird that the green light dominates the brighter light of the staff. If the drop-off of the star's light is lower, then it makes no sense that her bottom is lit, but not the side of her leg or the side of her shoe which are closer in distance to the staff than her bottom. Same with her face. The face receives a bright white light from somewhere(?) but no green light from the tooth that is right by her face.

Another thing is the leg and arm that are in shadow. It's weird that the coins (which are behind that leg) still have details showing while the leg and arm don't. The star staff also appears to be in front of the leg (in world space, or at least side by side) but the leg does not have any lighting from this star staff.

One more thing I don't see that I mentioned in the previous post is ambient lighting. You still have shadows receding into black, but the top of her leg for example will receive lighting from the background (because the background is reflecting light as well) making it recede more into a pink/purple-ish shadow. Same with the jacket, the white ruffling, the round shapes on the belt etc. and especially the hair (since hair is not a thick mass, but thousands of small masses letting light through).

edit: also, the boot would reflect the coin in the front as well, not as a rim light but as a reflection on the front of the boot (since it's in front of the boot instead of next to the boot).

[Mahjix]

Re: Show your sketching!

Spitfire! Thanks for thought out critiques, I really appreciate it. I did forget to change that green rim light to white due to the wand. My mind was all over the place, hahaha! I did think about the green light close to her face but I didn't want it to detract from her face so I made the tooth brighter to sort of make the illusion that the tooth was shining more so than the green smoke.

As for the limbs in that deep purple, it was to be a sort silhouette effect since the coins are emitting light (like a sun setting and everything in front of it being seemingly black). Mine is exaggerated, however.

As for the black, I have it fading to black because I wanted to have her pop from the background as much as possible without adding a lot of highlights. I did, however, include the purple hue throughout just as a small indication that she is, somewhat, part of the background or belongs in the picture, at least, lol. As for the boot, the only shiny part of the boot is the bottom lining part. It cuts off at the first lace hole and becomes a microfiber/suede material. >.> Did I pass? XD

[Nullifidian]

Re: Show your sketching!

Spitfire! Thanks for thought out critiques, I really appreciate it. I did forget to change that green rim light to white due to the wand. My mind was all over the place, hahaha! I did think about the green light close to her face but I didn't want it to detract from her face so I made the tooth brighter to sort of make the illusion that the tooth was shining more so than the green smoke.

I realize you did that, but it seems unnatural looking to me, since the tooth itself is not glowing (and even has shadows), while the green edge gives an indication of it being a light source. Typically a light source is always brighter than what it's illuminating so technically it's not even possible for the face to have a brighter value than the green lights but that's ok if it's used consistently (which it isn't yet). The main point I was making though was that the light sources are in different spots in space, but do not seem to interact with parts of the body that should receive light from these light sources.

As for the limbs in that deep purple, it was to be a sort silhouette effect since the coins are emitting light (like a sun setting and everything in front of it being seemingly black). Mine is exaggerated, however.

I also realize you were going for a silhouette effect, but a believable silhouette only appears when there's a really bright light source lighting the object/subject from behind and no apparent light source from the front. This is not the case in your painting though, as you have various light sources (the coins, the tooth, the staff and an off-camera lighting that lights everything from the front). If you were going for a receding depth silhouette, it doesn't make much sense either because there -is- still a light source behind the leg (one coin) which separates the leg from the background. And for a receding depth silhouette, it most commonly takes over the color of the background it's receding into (ex. blue sky, mountains in the distance become blue too). Your color is a rich dark purple color while the background is a lighter desaturated kind of purple.

As for the black, I have it fading to black because I wanted to have her pop from the background as much as possible without adding a lot of highlights. I did, however, include the purple hue throughout just as a small indication that she is, somewhat, part of the background or belongs in the picture, at least, lol. As for the boot, the only shiny part of the boot is the bottom lining part. It cuts off at the first lace hole and becomes a microfiber/suede material. >.> Did I pass? XD

You don't need highlights around the edge of your subject to separate your subject from the background (which wouldn't make much sense anyway unless there's bright light sources behind it). If you have the right values (or the right color contrast) established, you can make anything stand out.
This is a quick and good example of what I mean:


You can see in this picture how the subject has an extremely strong silhouette regardless of the colors. When this artist added the colors it only makes sense to put the shadows in the same color scheme as the rest of the background. Colors (and values) are relative to whatever is next to it. Take a look at the inner sides of the legs for example. The side of the inner legs have a different hue shading than the front parts of the legs in shadow. This is because the legs reflect their light back to each other (as little light as they get, they still get light from ambient lighting).

I didn't even notice that lining of leather compared to the rest of the boot until you told me btw. A change in value could help differentiate between that but my point about the leather highlight still stands. There's a coin in front of the leather part of the boot but there's no highlight on the leather of that coin. Only of the coins on the side.

I realize you're going for stylization, but stylization only works in regard to fundamentals of realism (Lighting, composition, anatomy etc., or if you're going for extreme stylization of anatomy, have balance in the way you build the character etc. (which your character has)). I liked the drawing regardless though, it's not like you didn't pass yet, before my critiques lol. It's better than what most people put out either way with lots of dynamic and some storytelling in the drawing. Just pointing out things you can work on :J

[Mahjix]

Re: Show your sketching!

I understand what you mean. I guess if my initial mindset was a little more focused on accurate subtleties, it would adhere to all of your points on a larger scale.

[Nullifidian]

Re: Show your sketching!

*removed*

[bender5]

Re: Show your sketching!



Just got my first tablet. It's gonna take me a while to really get it all figured out, this was my first probably 5 or 10 minutes of playing about.

Now I guess I have no excuse to actually learn what I'm doing and harness the desire I have to cartoon all day every day.

edit: after playing for a couple hours I've got a couple more doodles. These are really fun to play around with. I'll get good at drawing realistically maybe one day, but for now I'm all about cartooning.









nothing too special, but oh man do I have fun doing it

[bender5]

Re: Show your sketching!

I hate to double post, but this is more of a different kind of doodle. I'm thinking about doing a silly internet cartoon and I'm trying to draft up different ideas for a character to base it around, living a simple life in the middle of the south. This was my first idea, I'm sure I'll add to this post throughout the day as I come up with other designs.





edit: ok I swear I'm done posting doodles (definitely not done drawing them) until I'm actually truly proud of what I'm drawing



these silly cartoons are way too much fun though

[Spenner]

Re: Show your sketching!

What kind of tablet do you have? Looks like you're having fun with it, keep using it~


On my last shift in the paint dept. at home depot there was nothing to do, so I took apart my safety knife and held the refill blades in the handle and tried to use it as a palette knife over some paint chips. Never painted with a palette knife before, but I can tell that this is my thing. This kind of style really connects with me, and the ideas I want to express. Gonna prolly buy some palette knives on boxing day and some canvases + paint















These were my favourites out of the many that I did. They were really fun to make.

[bender5]

Re: Show your sketching!

http://www.wacom.com/en/products/pen.../bamboo-splash

the response on it is awesome.

that makeshift pallet knife work is pretty sweet, it was always a concept of art I could never quite get the hang of

[Ohaider]

Re: Show your sketching!

These were my favourites out of the many that I did. They were really fun to make.

these are so cool haha, exactly the kind of artwork i'd want for an album cover

[Mahjix]

Re: Show your sketching!

What kind of tablet do you have? Looks like you're having fun with it, keep using it~


On my last shift in the paint dept. at home depot there was nothing to do, so I took apart my safety knife and held the refill blades in the handle and tried to use it as a palette knife over some paint chips. Never painted with a palette knife before, but I can tell that this is my thing. This kind of style really connects with me, and the ideas I want to express. Gonna prolly buy some palette knives on boxing day and some canvases + paint















These were my favourites out of the many that I did. They were really fun to make.

Yes.

[Nullifidian]

Re: Show your sketching!

made this drawing for a cartoony game project we're working on at school right now :J

[noname219]

Re: Show your sketching!

What kind of tablet do you have? Looks like you're having fun with it, keep using it~


On my last shift in the paint dept. at home depot there was nothing to do, so I took apart my safety knife and held the refill blades in the handle and tried to use it as a palette knife over some paint chips. Never painted with a palette knife before, but I can tell that this is my thing. This kind of style really connects with me, and the ideas I want to express. Gonna prolly buy some palette knives on boxing day and some canvases + paint

...pictures...

Those looks great. They look digitally made. My favourites are the first and the third. Did you only worked with white and yellow on earthy tones ?
(and lol, I also did work in a paint dept for almost three years, did some psychedelic stuff with colourant and cardboard but had not kept anything )

Btw Spitfire, that drawing is awesome. The monster is pretty cool, it looks like the kind of things you can found in the depths of the ocean.