Artists' Progress Thread

[Tzu]

Derived from another thread.


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Post some progress, any and all, of your art.
Doesn't have to be kept up to date, just for fun.


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Tzu's progress:



oldest thing I can find, pen and markers, nothing digital. 2004-2005...


just beginning to go digital. mostly photobucket + burn (didnt know about the dodge tool before early this year) also, "lens flare makes everything better" >.>' early 2007...
no tablet.


first ever commission done, here in nolani. Probably one of the best I did at the time. Lineart and digital colour, early 2008. No tablet.


no tablet still, but it doesnt make a lot of difference when all you're doing in PS is block-colouring in between the lineart and burning the shadows. august 2008.


tablet aquired! Now what happens if I try to avoid drawing lineart? D8
... I fail, that's what. April this year.


hmms, guess I'll return to drawing lineart with a pen and paper, then colouring in PS with my new tablet...
june this year.


I open a freebie-thread here in nolani, and draw like mad for 2-3 days.
I do everything in PS, and just ignore all rules Ive ever obeyed about colouring within lines, amount of detail required to make a drawing look good, etc. july this year, probably.


more drawing in photoshop only, getting to grips with my tablet, late july this year.


september.



right now.

[BlueXIV]

Loool progress pictures. I'm at college, so I don't have that many of my early crap with me, but luckily for you guys, I found an old sketchbook from middleschool 8D.

I'll scan a few in for you guys to laugh at.

Editting post once my scanner stops being mean.

Posting in this thread then.


I think I was in 7th or 8th grade att.


Hahahaha early attempts at still life


...facepalm :| I think it was supposed to be a D2 necromancer? I think this was from 8th grade.


Portrait of my best friend from middle school. Done during class of course.


This was definitely in 9th grade, when I started highschool. I THINK it was supposed to be a frostfire dryder XD.


Early attempt at perspective. Still in 9th grade.


:| I have no idea.


I have no idea what this is, but apparently I got an A on it. (Could be a tentacle monster?)


Practicing anatomy. I think this was like 10th-ish grade.


TIME JUMP TO 2008!


I think this was spring 2009, can't be sure.


LOL BEWBS PAGE. Summer of 09 for sure.


I think this was a recent doodle done in class


as was this.



Yeah, they are all from a sketchbook. I can't really find my old digital paintings , and my old paintings are at home. :|

EDIT: OH WAIT I FOUND ONE.



I HAVEN'T CHANGED MUCH HUH? (this was from around 2006 I believe)

[Duranin]

Not reposting my progress pics.

@Blue - Hmm, I really like your pencil art. Especially the last one. The style looks quite different compared to your paintings!

[Verene]

I'm lazy, so I'm going to go digging through my deviantart to see what drawings I have on there. Later I'll see if I can dig up my sketchbook from high school and scan stuff from that - though sadly the best of my drawings from high school were destroyed.

I'll post some drawings, if you guys want I can post up some of my photomanips and stuff too, show my progress in those (that's far more pronounced as I work on those more than drawing).

Early 2004 - senior year of high school (pfffft so long ago now)

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...gress/Mana.jpg - project for my art class. Still one of my better portraits I've done
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2..._Dark_Jedi.jpg - character design when I first created Rianna, who quickly became my favorite RP character. I should draw an updated version, actually.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ess/Faerie.jpg - random drawing. Colored it with oil pastels.

2005

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...y_yanachan.jpg - another RP character sketch, this time my half-Elven animist, Ellothiel.

2006

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...y_yanachan.jpg - yet another RP character design, this time it was Mei version one (she got a huge design overhaul). I'd done some messing about with painting bits in Photoshop already, but this was my first real full digital painting. The background was just a paintover of a stock image.

2007

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ar/sketchy.jpg
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...y_yanachan.jpg - the first is the original pencil sketch, the second the digitally colored version. Random sketch which I decided resembled Rianna, and hence it became her.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...90152fb267.jpg - this was an entirely digital drawing that I did (textures used were mine as well) for my little sister.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...y_yanachan.jpg - another character portrait; this one is San, my Matrix RP character (and currently my oldest RP character, as she's been in play for six years)

2008

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...ba349b0cd1.jpg - self-portrait I painted to be my ID on deviantart...I haven't yet changed it
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...5c42ec2994.jpg - geektastic fanart
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...59a6ac3fb1.jpg - Rianna. Again.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...cabbitgirl.jpg - random anthro cabbit girl. I was bored

2009

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...6f605d7db7.jpg - random drawing inspired by a random comment on MSN.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...y_yanachan.jpg - Iseul, my Ritualist.

So, there we go. There's some of my stuff, displaying five years of work.

[Chicken of the Seas]

As you all know I don't draw but I did have a progressional dragon thing that I put up on my deviantart.

http://anxietypatient.deviantart.com...awing-65627192

I don't remember quite when I did each one but the last drawing was done maybe 2-3 years ago. It's been a while.

[Qing Guang]

Aw dang, ya beat me to it. I'll put up all mine when my dad gets home (I am fail at scanners). I think I got y'all beat, though - somewhere stashed away I got stuff from 5th and 6th grade (think I trashed all the 4th grade stuff).

...Then again, that's still not much older than some of the stuff you guys put up... >.>

[Perynne]

Yay, progress thread! I love seeing how people develop their style over time, and what stages everyone goes through when striving to learn.

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I started out drawing tons of horses and dragons. I didn't have a scanner back then, so none of that work is available electronically. I can't scan them in now either, because they are in Finland and I am in Australia. So, we'll have to do with what I've got right now.

My people-drawing stage really got off once I started watching Sailor Moon around 1997-1998, when it hit North American TV.


It progressed on to doing characters of my own. This was done with cheap children's markers as an attempt to learn how to colour sometime in... uh... 2000?


My first time doing a background! Blatantly stole the idea (and dragons) from a CLAMP manga. Notice how the girl's legs don't fit in the drawing. For the longest time, I was unable to get everything to fit on paper so a lot of my early works are of legless people. Sometimes they didn't even have hands if I got too frustrated at not being able to draw fingers.


One of my first computer coloured works, done with Paint Shop Pro. At least I'd learned something about inking already. This was at the beginning of my long, loooong stage of drawing pretty much nothing except super-thin prettyboys.


Some progress with colouring and background. Done with coloured pencils on A3-paper.


This was done in... uh... 2005? I learned a few things about colouring on the computer, and figured out how to use textures in Photoshop. I'd entered University to learn graphic design by then.


My first GW commission! Avalon's monk. I still relied heavily on lineart for keeping things together. Done in 2007.


2008, a drawing contest entry. I was heavily changing my style away from manga and into something else. Nothing wrong with manga, I still draw in that style occasionally, but I wanted to develop a style that was more me.


2009 sees a Christmas present to my then guild leader and now fiancee, of his D&D character Terra.


Drawing Terra and drawing the contest entry this week to Zamochit's challenge are pretty much the only completed works I've done this year. I've done a few small sketches and colour practices but never finished any of them. Hopefully I'll get something else finished this year as well, or else it's going to be a slow year for my art.



In summary, my linework went pretty much from this

to this

in the span of... uh.... 6 years? First one is fanart of a book character that I spent a couple of grueling hours getting finished, checking reference all the time. Second one is a sketch of my GW characters, drawn in the space of about an hour, with minor references to how their armor looks.
I was slow to develop, because I sometimes had months and months of inactive time when I would barely touch a pencil. The most significant changes to my drawing skills have happened in recent years, and I think if I had been a more active artist years ago I would be much better today. Still... I'm a procrastinator at heart. :P

[StarrTheInsane]

Oh now I really wish I was back home with all my stuff from before college

I did manage to scrape up some stuff from several years ago (and some bad cell phone pics of my paintings and whatnot).

Let's see, where should I start this. I'm not sure the years on these, I think they were from high school.

1) pencil, inspired by D&D 3rd
2) computer (way before my tablet), inspired by Magic: the Gathering

The next set is from 2001. I was in my first year as an art major doing your basic Drawing 1 type stuff.


1) oil pastels and charcoal - 15 minutes (had to hurry or miss 1/3 of the final grade)
2) pencil still life
3) charcoal and eraser

The next stuff comes from 2004, still no tablet. I apparently went through and anthro phase.


In 2005 I started sketching again from tabletop games, but still no tablet. I was starting to edit my sketches on the computer.

1) D&D 2) Werewolf: the Forsaken 3) Demon: the Fallen

In 2006 I finally got a tablet and most of my digital stuff can be found on deviantArt.
Minotaur
Half-orc, Take 2

I started playing Guild Wars the week of the first dragon festival, but didn't start doing fan art until the next year when I went back to school.
Design-a-Weapon
First try at my own toon
First Guru Contest even if the guy did disappear with a ton of art *sigh*
First Commission asking 10k or minipets
And a painting in acrylic from the same year.

2008 I stopped doing the commissions. During the summer I was doing free portraits for my alliance, contest, and surprise pics.
First Chaos glove attempt
Ally portrait
Contest 1 Contest 2
Wintersday
Acrylic painting from school

I've been pretty much out of things this year. The most recent things I have are some fan art of Nate from Abney Park, and my best attempt at Boa Hancock from One Piece. Yes, this is my year for freaking out. Between being sick all the freakin' time, moving to a new house, and getting new classes added to my schedule half-way through the semester, I am so far behind on doing what an artist is supposed to do, I could cry.

I'm hoping I can still dust myself off and make up for lost time.

[Qing Guang]

Ufff... like 4 hours of scanning later...

We start in ~4th grade. I am in the midst of creating an epic that will never be written (all I know now is that there was going to be a convocation of like 10 different races and then an assassination and the murdered First Elf was going to become a Hattesaa, aka a vampire... oh yeah and there was a cat-person pirate in it too). This is an example of a cat-person, or a Felin. I love the cat in the corner, it's a direct how-to-draw from an American Girl magazine. There's also a shadow of the stained-glass window I drew in a Hattesaa portrait on the other side.

Then, 5th grade. I am very much interested in the Belgariad, and apparently Mary Sues as well. This is my friend Helen transformed into a half-dryad Algar.

Finally, 6th grade. I am very much into .hack (I have no idea which name is which - it's the ones with the kids). (Actually, now that I think about it, this might be veeeeery veeeery early 7th grade - it looks .hack but I'm fair certain I didn't start reading that until junior high.) This is Polgara and Belgarion from the Belgariad. You can see a shadow of my sketch of Ce'Nedra on the other side of the paper.

I think we have now arrived at 7th grade. This is the first thing I ever drew in my first ever sketchbook. Weirdly, this is the year before I was obsessed with W.I.T.C.H., despite the similar color scheme.

My two best drawings from 7th grade: a young Elly, in a costume I still love, and Rhiannon, my Dunmer from Oblivion.

Here, I attempt realism with a portrait of Xu in her late twenties/early thirties. The nose and neck were my aesthetics at the time and I deemed the picture horrible. The giraffe neck stuck, though. Not even Guild Wars makes the necks long enough for the Ahnenjei girls.

Onward to 8th grade! Here I design a costume for an elven court. I drew a lot in 8th grade but I'm throwing enough pictures at you already and they were mostly costume designs anyway.

Now we fastforward to the end of freshman year... I am very interested in Guild Wars and have successfully wheedled my parents into letting me buy it. This is Qing Guang herself (oddly, she never used that staff because she's resto - my BM currently has one though).

A marked improvement over the course of a single summer, here are Qing and Gui (Gui's face was drawn about 80% without reference, a fact I am still proud of). I am playing around with developing my own style.

Sophomore year! I am designing outfits for my friends, and crystallizing my first fashion sketching style. This is a sundress for my (former) friend Erika.

This, believe it or not, is the end of that same year. I still think it is one of my best drawings, and much more in line with my current style. It's inspired by Rit armors.

Summertime! My People to People trip has me doing a lot of realistic stuff. The first is from life (yay!), of my friend Jackie. The second is my friend Brogan; it is from a photo but I am mainly playing with contrast. The last is horrible horrible obviously from a photo (yikes, midtone hell! and just direct copying, no editing of details as in the Brogan one) of Brogan's brother Colin.

This next pic happened... sometime in Junior year. It's a strongly HoMMV-inspired succubus. I would classify this one as pretty close to current, though the hands are wonky.

EDIT: Almost forgot this piccy! The one that inspired me to join Guru... for the "Evening with a Mesmer" art contest right here in Nolani. I still keep it sitting on my printer so I can see it. Fall 2008.

An example, from the same year, of my cartooning style. I'm going for strong contrast on this one, and a distinctive look. It's the second-in-command of my superhero squad, Pele (of the same ilk as Thor in terms of origin). I have actually been struggling to reach this again with my other superhero sketches, because I like it a lot.

It's the end of junior year, and I'm very excited to be playing WoW with my buddies from school (who later all go on "hiatus" until Cata comes out... blaaaah). This is my best pencil closeup in the past few years (amazingly, done in about 20 minutes while watching TV), of my Draenei shaman Kamalatmika (or Kamalamadingdong, as my buddies have dubbed her - they can't seem to handle the ethnic names I give my characters). Oddly, this is before I actually made the character or even looked at the creation screen - yet I found a face that looks exactly like the drawing.

Summertime! I do lots of sketches while watching TV. I come up with this while watching 1776 or something (usually my sketches are in some way connected to what I'm watching). It's meant to be Xu in a period costume, but somehow it morphs into Keira Knightley. A good reflection of my current casual drawings.

REALLY REALLY NEW: Drawn on Halloween while watching Corpse Bride (and intermittently getting up to give tooth rot to miniature extortionists). I still like to experiment with different styles and influences, as some of you may remember from my Makani-style portrait of Elly. This one is drawing heavily on Tim Burton (and this one WoW Comic Contest Honorable Mention I'm too lazy to dig up - it's the one about Sylvanas's old Nelf model, for anyone who looks at the HM gallery), and it's my new Forsaken Rogue baby that I love very much, Carlotta.


Whew! That's done. And super long. I would include my digital pieces, which I think are generally better than my sketches (as I put waaaay more time into them) but you've all already seen all my finished ones. And this is long enough already. So ya! *exhale*

EDIT: Wow, looking back I realize I totally spared you guys from having to see the depths of my Manga Dark Ages (junior high, mainly), when I had no originality or sense of anatomy until I hit freshman year and my art teacher metaphorically clocked me over the head and told me what was what.

[Tommy's]

Wow nice to see how everyone improved. Gives me good hopes for myself ^^ My whole drawing history is from this month, so don't see a reason posting it
Thumbs up!

[Baibai]

Blood splatter and Blue, an inseparable combination xD I played a little Dragon Age today and thought of you :P

Thanks for sharing everyone! It's really inspiring, I might see if I can contribute but I don't know where my old work may be (plus I don't think I have improved a whole lot over the shorter time-spans shown here xD) Would be a good nostalgia exercise though.

[Minami]

I have to scan in some old school notebooks and other things I can find
One that's done, I'll find my old 3D stuff and post them all together ^_^

[Morag D]

darn, I wish I had access to my ancient stuff now... but that's far far away. Best I can do is show some of my digital development over the past 3-or-so years... I'll edit this post when I get time to do that

ok. EDIT.

2004 - that was the year I did my A-lvls in art - dragon phase & did a lot of nature studies back then, but not really seriously (more like from pictures and stuff)


http://i38.tinypic.com/64eamd.jpg
http://fc00.deviantart.com/fs28/f/20...Deathspell.jpg
http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs31/f/20...Deathspell.jpg
http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs31/f/20...Deathspell.jpg


2005 - first year at uni. looooads of crappy random sketches from life drawing classes that I don't have to hand. can only show you the better stuff


http://img690.imageshack.us/i/akt1.tif/ NSFW
http://img269.imageshack.us/i/akt2.tif/ NSFW
http://img21.imageshack.us/i/akt3.tif/ NSFW
http://img687.imageshack.us/i/akt4.tif/ NSFW


2006 - more uni. lots of technical stuff. and first exposure to digital colouring




2007 - tons of GuildWars commissions & new tablet. lolfaces




2008 - stepping it up; mainly Eryn stuff and contests (and some shameful WoW >.<)




2009 - ArtNouveau, and more Eryn.


http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs40/f/20...Deathspell.jpg NSFW


photography went from this via this to that and that


should be it really. missing out loads of the crap stuff, but as I said, these things are buried in sketchbooks far far away

keep em coming!

[eeks]

Niiiice seeing others' progress. D:

Anyway, eugh.

More or less in order of which I've done these, I have a crapload. :|

'01 -

I was 11 at this point, scribbling crap similar to this all throughout my maths workbooks. XD



'02 -

Long-lasting Invader Zim phase kicks in at this point, haha.


x-x-x-


'03 -

I believe I got my first ever tablet around this point. It broke down in about a year and a half, though. :'(


x-x-x-x-x-x

'04 -


x-x-x--x

'05 -

A whole year of unfinished stuff, it seems.


x-x

'06 -


x-x

'07 -



'09 -

I got a tablet for Christmas. :3



x-x-x-x-x-x-xx-x

... Whew. XD

.. I must have been dead, or something last year.

[Hailfall]

Looking good guys!

Nice to see everyones art improve (for some reason i wanted to type approve dunno why)