.Luke's Roughs-To-Finished Art! =P

[.Luke]

Hey guys! It's been a a while since I've posted in the Welcome Wagon, I was preoccupied with skinning my own forum and that took a while. XD Still gotta make animated emoticons and stuff too, but I'm saving that monumental task for one weekend at a time. =P

Anyway, I'm finally posting here so I can have my art critiqued by more seasoned hobbiests and pros in the community, so I can improve and grow more confident in my own pursuit of the arts. I'm always eager to learn, so brutal honesty on my technique is greatly welcomed, and I will understand completely if you spend more time critiquing each art piece than saying anything nice it. Whether it has merit is already assumed, what I'm looking for is honest criticism and feedback to help me take my art to the next level.

I use a mouse and GIMP 2.8 on Xubuntu Linux, btw, just encase that needs to be said! I'm hoping that once I get better at art, I could go for commissions on deviantART and earn money for a drawing tablet that way. In the meantime, I still have tons of art paper, different ranges of pencils, and a scanner for things I just have to rough out or start with my own bare hands. (Well, I use a sheet of folded paper underneath my palm to keep my sweaty hands from smearing the paper, but yeah. XD)

So, let us begin! =P *dives head-first into shark tank* 56k'ers watch out, there's a lot of PNGs in here. XD

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"Would You Like Some Tea, Mr.Turtle?"





I'll start with one of my better pieces, (And no, I am not a brony! I think Flutteryshy is impossibly adorable, but I don't watch the show. Drew this mostly for a friend's birthday who loved Fluttershy too.) and although the end result came somewhat close, I fell short of capturing Fluttershy's eyes properly due to using fan art as a reference instead official resources. It's in my own style either way, but 1/15 of the dA groups I submitted it to aiming for quality probably rejected it because of the eyes.

Besides that, it took a lot of manipulating the original vector until I finally got the pose right, (Specifically the angle of the head!) which was the most difficult part for me. So I was way off the mark with the original construction lines.

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"Request Art : Even in the storm, I will hold you."





My only original Manga-styled piece so far, (Or at least the one that's finished! :#) this one was a huge learning experience, and a massive 100MB project file in GIMP. XD You'd have to download the full image on dA to see every little detail, though, I drew certain hair lines too small and it doesn't show up here, it looks like bad pillow shading. D: These characters aren't my own, though, they're farasan's OCs, Daniel and Flora, both of which I drew in this request art. ^^

As you can see by the construction lines, most of Daniel's is adding up thanks to all the planning I did beforehand, but what's going on with Flora's face here? Yeah, exactly my thoughts too; apparently I didn't do enough planning. I probably should have been happy with the face's initial lines before I started inking it, because that took a lot of mind-numbing trial and error to fix into what you see in the final piece. It's still hard for me to figure out how to draw certain facial features as opposed to whatever comes to mind, which I really need the most help with.

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"Windy By the River At Night"





This is actually the only original character of mine I've put on dA so far. XD (Not counting the fact that it's another dumb Sonic fan character, though. At least it's not another freaking hedgehog or fox, I bet nobody's done a tree before!)

I drew this traditionally years ago on paper, and recently revamped it digitally in GIMP. It's another reason why I want a tablet, because I did the whole sketch in maybe 3-5 hours tops, whereas it took me just as long to simply ink over it all with a mouse on the computer. I could be way faster striking in all those little details with a tablet, it's a pain doing all of that with a jittery laser mouse. (Not quite as smooth as the trackball! Whatever happened to those? I need to find a real USB mouse at a thrift store sometime. XD) I still have the path tool for vectoring the major stuff, but when it comes to little details, the mouse is a scary solution to me.

What I really want critique here, though, is on my digital painting techniques here. Let me quote my description on dA to describe what was used here. "No textures were used here at all; it was done entirely from scratch in GIMP on top of the original drawing. (Although I did reuse the river from that sketch to create the rippling water effect seen here.) It's made up of thirteen layers and no layer masks, with three dedicated layer dodge effects. Certain features like the grass were "painted" with a half-opaque brush and the smear tool. The original working resolution is 3200x2300, but down-scaled here for a cleaner look. Click the download button if you want to see this at half of its working resolution in PNG format."

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"My Turn!"





Only the mermaids are original characters here, this is fan art of a very obscure metroidvania-style series on the GBC and 3DS eShop, Shantae the half-genie. (I'd totally recommend it if you love Metroid, btw, lots of fun. =P) Looks like her flirtatious friend Bolo ran into some trouble with the mermaids! Shantae kept telling him not to talk to them, but oh well. xD

This is a slightly older drawing, so I was still using pre-made texture brushes at this point. (I have weaned myself off of them completely and prefer doing everything by scratch, or from my own custom texture or brushes sets. It's all a part of growing standards, I guess. =P) As you can see by the construction lines in Shantae, this involved way more planning than the previous one I posted. I think it's what made everything work right off without post-tweaking of the vector lines. Unfortunately this was drawn before I realized I could manipulate the anchors on path points, so certain features might little a jaggy. D: I've learned everything I know about GIMP the hard way. XD

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Random Practice sketches





Now for some fan art of Din the Dancer, and completely random practice sketches! I'm still a bit lost with designing hair, the hair on the girl to the right reminds me of ribbons. XD At least with this you get to see how I do things traditionally. Critique is still welcomed on these too.

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And now if some of you are willing to bear with me on this deathly cold piece, any tips on raw digital painting are welcome on this one.

"Death on his throne"



I drew this one for my cousin's birthday, since he loves Death and anything to do with him, so I came up with my own version of him. The armor is the real highlight for me, personally. It was a lot of fun making this, and when I get a tablet I will go nuts sketching all kinds of digital paintings things like this, assuming my skills improves a long the way too. =P

Jeez, you'd think I was posting a gallery here! XD (There's way more where that came from, believe me! I'm being as selective as possible here so as not to completely spam it all on my first post.) Praise is nice and all that, but I really, really need feedback on my technique, so I'm trying to get you all acquainted with my drawing style so you can be more specific in your critique. I don't expect most of you to even comment on these pieces individually, you can just tell me where I'm consistently lacking (Or doing inconsistently!) and what I should focus on to improve my technique.

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"I Can Do This All Day Little Girl!"



Now I need to show you all where I'm really, really super-mega-ultra-uber weak at doing : male anatomy. This is a Street Fighter fan art piece I intend to fix up and ink into a finished piece, but before I do that I need as much direction on realistic muscular structure as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if seeing this makes some of you cringe, cry out with horror, flip your desks and stomp your monitors flat while screaming "DIE, DIE, DIE!!!". This is bad, this is laughable, I have no idea what I'm doing, I need help. I would appreciate it if you chip in your 2 cents or just point me to an obscure tutorial that helped you out before, I'll take any level of insight I can get on this one.

Whoa, I hope this isn't too much all at once. o__o But yeah, this is my side of the Critique Corner, any criticism, i.e feedback, is appreciated here. ^^

[Blue_Dragon]

Wow, I like some the ideas you have for your images--you're not afraid to tackle different poses and scenes. That's a good trait to have :3

One thing you may want to work on in particular are the hands. You can keep them stylized, but you might want to give them a little more detailed/more flexible: they seem a bit static, even though they're moving/holding things, etc. I might also suggest you work a bit on the eyes: some of the 3/4 views have the eye on the edge a little too big, when they should be in perspective.

I love how you color your images! You give them atmosphere, and they're well done :3 Kudos for that! Keep it up

[corastaur]

Hello ma deah, you have some lovely drawings here. (especially the fluttershy one, so cute!!) I notice that you are not afraid to try more challenging poses which is awesome. I would recommend working on anatomy some more, its something that pretty much everyone has had to (and still does work) on. My main point here, aside from the general "work on anatomy" thing, is that the poses feel very stiff. I know that isn't overly specific and can be very confusing. For the moment I suggest trying to draw from life - figure drawing - and try to do some loose gesture drawings. (an awesome site for this is pixelovely)

Also toasty posted an awesome critique with some tips that are universally helpful in someguy's critique thread. It's on the first page. If I were you I'd go read it. Hope that was helpful? I didn't really look back at what I wrote, so hopefully I wasn't too redundant. Keep it up and have fun 'cause whats the point if you aren't enjoying yourself...

[.Luke]

The both of you have my thanks. ^^ I'm always trying different poses whenever I can, since my ideas almost always involve poses you rarely ever see those characters in! It's really tough for me to draw fan art because of that. Sometimes referrence art barely helps me. XD Now I know why, so thanks for revealing that to me, guys. ^^

Hello ma deah, you have some lovely drawings here. (especially the fluttershy one, so cute!!) I notice that you are not afraid to try more challenging poses which is awesome. I would recommend working on anatomy some more, its something that pretty much everyone has had to (and still does work) on. My main point here, aside from the general "work on anatomy" thing, is that the poses feel very stiff. I know that isn't overly specific and can be very confusing. For the moment I suggest trying to draw from life - figure drawing - and try to do some loose gesture drawings. (an awesome site for this is pixelovely)

Daw, thanks. ^^ True, I still need to do more studying on anatomy, so I'm starting to bump into more problems drawing males. XD I got the basics covered, but that's not going to cut it for the serious stuff I want to draw. =P I'm using too much guess work right now to make guys look right in my sketches. XD

I don't think you could be very verbose trying to describe the stiffness or dynamisism of poses, so as-is, it's a good point. I don't practice drawing unconventional poses enough and it is starting to show in my WIPs. I've bookmarked the website in your post, it looks handy and I'm going to try that later today, it looks like it's exactly what I need. ^_^ (And I'm glad it has a "decent" clothed option. XD ) Hopefully my poses will look more alive and organic with some practice.

Also toasty posted an awesome critique with some tips that are universally helpful in someguy's critique thread. It's on the first page. If I were you I'd go read it. Hope that was helpful? I didn't really look back at what I wrote, so hopefully I wasn't too redundant. Keep it up and have fun 'cause whats the point if you aren't enjoying yourself...

I'm still looking over that post since you mentioned it, wow it's informative! XD I swear, I've never seen a better explanation of tones like the ones he linked to! ^o^ It's amazing.

True that! Sometimes I don't find certain phases of a drawing particularly enjoyable, but I do greatly enjoy the results whether I did or not; the same could be said of any kind of work, really. XD That's the fruits of labor for you, it's all worthwhile with enough effort. ^^

One thing you may want to work on in particular are the hands. You can keep them stylized, but you might want to give them a little more detailed/more flexible: they seem a bit static, even though they're moving/holding things, etc. I might also suggest you work a bit on the eyes: some of the 3/4 views have the eye on the edge a little too big, when they should be in perspective.

I see what you mean with the hands. Fingers and thumbs are pretty time-consuming to handle correctly, and from what I've seen, that can really mess with how natural the hand looks in motion. I've been reading Polykarbon's tutorials on hands and it's really helped me get a better grip on how to structure them, so it's not as difficult as it used to be, but my hands in that request piece with Daniel and Flora were pretty weak. I mean, jeez, I have no problem with feet, but hands still get the better of me. XD I'll keep studying on fingers/hands and reviewing hand studies, then. ^^ Hopefully that will improve as I'm drawing a digital painting request. XD

And yeah, the 3/4 eyes thing is something I've only been recently grasping. I'm used to drawing Sonic characters, as you can see here : http://fav.me/d4mxivr

I've been drawing them since I was 15, and you know how badly that blue hedgehog and friends gimp up realistic anatomy! Outside of my interest in Sonic being dead, (Well really I was more a Blaze fan, but then that petered out. XD) I have been moving on to more realistic styles for nearly a year now, and haven't looked back; can't imagine not at least drawing a neck on characters now. XD

Anyway, your feedback helped me realize how similiar in width both of Flora's eyes are in my request art. o__o I tried to make sure Daniel's eyes looked right, but I didn't put the edge of Flora's right eye far away enough from the edge, oops. :# I'll make it more of a point to watch out where I'm putting the eyes now. XD

I love how you color your images! You give them atmosphere, and they're well done :3 Kudos for that! Keep it up

Thanks, I hadn't thought about my coloring style that way. ^_^ And I'll keep trying to refine it the more I learn about layer effects.