Curse

Charlie Dayman · Feb 14, 2011, 10:38 PM // 22:38

The spiral rings are what gave it away since anything bigger doesn't usually come in those kinds of bindings. That and I just now noticed the paint brush on top.

Unless it was a giant novelty brush or something.

Death By An Arrow · Feb 14, 2011, 10:43 PM // 22:43

hrm. yes, i suppose those would give it away ^^

though, the store I buy my supplies at sells them in one size bigger (it might be 12x16? which ever is the next ratio up.). Which is ridiculous for a sketchbook. o.o

And yes, that brush. It's actually 4 feet in length...
-cough- >.> <.<

Death By An Arrow · Feb 21, 2011, 05:56 AM // 05:56

UPDATE, HOORAY!
So i've had the busiest 3-day week possible. I had to do the most frustrating project on Sigmund Freud [one of my group partners crapped out night before it was due, I had to pretty much do two parts >.>]. But its over now, and I didn't get a chance to be with paints until today.

Lets see what changed... I added some trees, the sky, sort of worked on some shadowing on the grass. Ive established that the hill in the front will never look right as I didnt initially paint the angle right so the perspective is wrong, so im gunna tweak it until it feels right.

Aeronwen · Feb 21, 2011, 10:51 AM // 10:51

I love the colours, particularly on the trees.

Death By An Arrow · Mar 01, 2011, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Yay, more paint time. Lots of schoolwork, not lots of time for painting. Dx
... I also started working more intently on my 50/50 goal for the HoM. 36 atm, closely inching towards 40. >.>
You know, although I've only done around 10, VQ's really aren't as bad as I've heard. The worst is just when my internet lags and I wipe... but ive teld with that for 5 years so its not that big a deal anymore

Longer post in the landscape contest; essentially im getting close to finished. Want to fine tune the bottom two corners, and then little touch ups in the trees. Ill probably post one more picture after this for tweaks i may not have noticed, and then ill borrow my friends camera and get my submission picture ^^

I tried scanning it when it dried, but the colours were all too light. Parts of the hills were blending in with the sky. :s Another blurryish photo it was ^^

Death By An Arrow · Mar 08, 2011, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Alright; so an update.

My friend is letting me borrow the camera tomorrow and the day after, so that is when I'll be submitting my piece

Sort of got some wierd cold-flu hybrid... not quite the flu... more than a cold... just gunna tough it out this week (4 day school week; march break starts friday).

Pokemon Black/White came out yesterday... so much fun. o.o Anyone else get it?

Might take up more of my time... but ill still try and draw Dx

After my landscape, I plan on working on something for the Mantlecon contest hosted by Konig; I advise everyone tries to make something for it ^^ Might do another painting... not sure.

Then; its character edutainments.

edit: FINALLY. /Last Page WORKS AGAIN.

Charlie Dayman · Mar 08, 2011, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Looking good right now. Maybe you should try adding more neutral colors to the background to add to the feeling of depth. At the moment, it seems a lil' bit flat.

Death By An Arrow · Mar 08, 2011, 02:40 AM // 02:40

By Background, do you mean the sky or the farther back hills?

For the hills: When I originally painted them, I tried blending in the sky colour with the grass colour so I could (hopefully) get the colour I wanted. However, that didnt really work. I just painted on the sky-colour overtop of the hill in a sort of heavy layer, so that it was a significant change. It has to dry though; I don't want it to pool and swell and other such terrible watercolour mistakes Dx I want to do one-2 more coats to see how it would look. I think it does help push the waterfalls into the focus more, as like you said, it felt rather flat with no focal point.

If you meant the sky: How so would you suggest I do that? The sky in my refrence is a flat creme, with some white clouds at the top. So I don't know much more I could do to neutralize the sky ^^#

Death By An Arrow · Mar 09, 2011, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Alright

So I've got my friends camera; I've compared some photos I took today with my previous ones you can all see, and it is genuinely so much better. The colours are richer, and frankly the photos I've submitted all look grey-er in comparison.

Changed the photo to the one I cropped, as thats the one I am submitting

Updated with adjusted levels.

Ravenhawk · Mar 09, 2011, 11:26 PM // 23:26

oh wow..that does look a TON better *_*

Death By An Arrow · Mar 10, 2011, 03:34 AM // 03:34

I was actually surprised how much worse my camera was quality-wise when I compared the two side by side. Really glad I arranged to borrow a better camera ^^

Death By An Arrow · Mar 13, 2011, 03:42 AM // 03:42

With a few suggestions, I adjusted the levels of the photo to help make it more visible/bright. Enjoy ^^

(i updated my previous post)

Aeronwen · Mar 13, 2011, 08:10 PM // 20:10

Hmm so now you need to get yourself a decent camera.....

Invertation · Mar 13, 2011, 08:45 PM // 20:45

I should think scanner, more likely.

Death By An Arrow · Mar 13, 2011, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Oh yes, the camera is deffinatly on my shopping list. I want to get a Canon Rebel T2i, because weve got them at our school and I've used them before. They do take pretty awesome pictures when you get used to the camera. The one I used for this was my friends, and I only had about 10 minutes to learn to use it before the sun started to set Dx

Its on sale this week, so I might get it while Im off for march break.

Scanners are also an option, but I also want the camera just so I can have a nice camera when I go to the zoo or go on vacation.

In totally unrelated news;

Death By An Arrow · Mar 16, 2011, 11:25 PM // 23:25

-loud cheers and other such noises-

So my camera was on sale 170$ cheaper on Monday (new model came out) so I ordered it and it arrived today ^^ I got the Canon Rebel T2i (im sure youve seen the commercials if you're in the North America. They were REALLY popular during the holidays)
Im going to the zoo tomorrow to test it out, hopefully I can come back with some totally awesome results.

And to top of the cake, a coyote took out a turkey in my backyard today (i live in the country, so its not a surprising occurence. We have like 50 turkeys living in the forest near my house, it was bound to happen). Unfortunately, we didnt see the whole takedown (honestly, that would have made this the best march break ever); only the feasting. Which surprised me, because turkeys are loud when startled.

My mom wouldnt let me go outside to get a closer shot of the coyote with my camera, so i got some from my window. Cropped and zoomed full, they are actually incredibly clear O.O
Image in the spoils. I have a few with feathers and such in the mouth, but im uploaded a non-graphic one. No eating below.

Our yard is literally litered in feathers. They look like leaves.

IN TOTALLY ART RELATED NEWS:
Now that the landscape contest is in judging process, it is time to get working on learning to draw characters. I wont start just yet (because I just got my camera and wanna play with it some more) but i'm likely going to start off with nailing human form/shapes in general, then work on posing.

Death By An Arrow · Mar 25, 2011, 03:22 AM // 03:22

Alright. So I haven't had an opportunity to do anything art-related recently due to school getting pretty busy with assignments always being given out at the same time and due at the same time. The workload is kind of draining me from drawing, however I seem to have a lull in my schedule coming up

So now seems the best time to start with my big goal of character design/drawing people. As far as I've been driven to work in the digital medium by concept art, I've always been incredibly inspired by what I see being done with characters (and settings... but thats another topic

) and always thinking "Man I wish I could do that."

With, quite honestly, the greatest character artists I have some form of communication with I figured I would turn here to help/guide me. What I want guidance for is essentially just what I should be focusing on learning and when, as it really is a lot to learn with minimal knowledge on the topic. I also think it would be extremly beneficial, on my part, to sort of post a first attempt, and then try subsequent attempts after feedback/comments.

I plan on trying to get one topic/guideline tested out/feeling pretty good every week, with exceptions made if I'm unable to draw or again become swamped with school/work.

So here is my first request:
Essentially I've never drawn humans from my imagination, and only a select few times with refrences (literally all of my drawings of people that I have excluding one are readily available in this thread). So consider it as bare minimum knowledge. Where would you suggest I start with this? What would be the best first stage to really get a handle on?

I really think that one of the reasons I never learned to draw people/characters was because I never knew where to start, and as a result basic anatomy and general shaping/proportions were always wrong. It gets kind of frustrating continually failing at things that should be to some extent accomplishable (see: painting) Dx

Ravenhawk · Mar 25, 2011, 06:06 AM // 06:06

I don't really know if I am the best person to answer your question but I think Charliepai can help you with that. He's doing some character designs in his thread.

As for my method in designing my chars, I don't try to be original. In fact my characters start as somewhat cliche or having simple storylines and I just wing it from there. What's more important for me is that they have believable reactions to situations that they come across based on the personality/experiences I gave them. As for their costumes, I like to be able to explain why they dress up the way they do.

Example: Mina:
http://roguemina.deviantart.com/art/...tine-200204560

She was once a rich heir and her town got destroyed by the war (In GW, I had her narrowly escape the Cataclysm of Orr). So I gave her a somewhat nice pink dress. lol. The leather part of her armor and the worn out state of the dress that you see in her costume symbolizes her nomadic lifestyle since she lost her home/family.

Hope that helps even for a little bit.

Charlie Dayman · Mar 25, 2011, 07:59 AM // 07:59

In terms of drawing humans, I highly suggest learning how to draw anatomy first. And not just proportion ratios, but also skeletal structure/function and how muscles overly that structure. This is probably one of the most important foundations you'll need if you want to start drawing figures from non-references.

Find books to research on and do lots of studying. Also draw a lot from life whenever you get the chance. I have a good anatomy book somewhere in my closet that I'll dig up later on.

As for clothing and armor designs, it comes down to one thing. References. Lots and lots of references. Try to decide what style, era or genre of clothing/armor you're going for, and just do a ton of research related to your subject matter. References are a huge asset for artists. It's very rare that artists can make up successful costume designs completely off the top of their head with absolutely no prior reference or practice.

It's better to have reference on hand rather than assume you already know how something looks and draw blindly. Practice a genre enough, and you can get to a point where you can actually free-hand the subject matter.

As for personality, that comes later. Being able to express proper emotion or personality comes a lot through gesture or posing of a character. For my Character Design class, this is a lot easier since we're working more in an animated style and therefore don't have to follow the rules of anatomy. However, for realistic figure drawing, you'll have to have an intermediate understanding of anatomy since it's the exact opposite of breaking down characters into exaggerated shapes and forms to express their traits.

Ravenhawk · Mar 25, 2011, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charlie Dayman

As for clothing and armor designs, it comes down to one thing. References. Lots and lots of references. Try to decide what style, era or genre of clothing/armor you're going for, and just do a ton of research related to your subject matter. References are a huge asset for artists. It's very rare that artists can make up successful costume designs completely off the top of their head with absolutely no prior reference or practice.

This is so true. And thanks for the advice (not just the one I quoted) Charlie. I could use those as well