Post Your Artwork Thread V5

[pineyappled]

hrk
e- whoops

[KrackoCloud]

Seein' those edits in real-time :UUU

Also woohoo guilty alices

[Merp]

Whaletree chan fanart

[AnonymousPondScum]

WHITE WHALE HOLY TREE(?!)

SPLIT YOUR LUNGS ON BLOOD AND THUUUNDEEEERRRR

[Sixten]

@Kinoko: That Alice looks great. You make it look easy.

First page of my Youmu x Reisen book: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/page001.jpg
For reference: http://jemilsbigeasy.com/

[pineyappled]

Urban Gensokyo? I love that idea.

[Puffy]

Not my artwork but a very special person drew this for me without a graphics tablet when doing shading/colouring and other pc stuff! The effort she put in was so cool ^__^

here

[Delfigamer]

So it's your turn to forget the picture? :3

[Moerin]

So, still working on that series of magical girl stuff (which I really would like feedback on, if anyone's willing to give it), and... Apparently this is what happens when I try to design a magical girl villain.  It's... Kind of NSFW-y, I guess, but... I'm really hoping it came off as more overly creepy than fanservicey.  Hopefully.  Would like to know what people think about her, and about the other designs I've done so far.  So, um... Yeah!  Thank you. >.<

[Puffy]

So it's your turn to forget the picture? :3

fixed!

[Moerin]

...Thinking of actually starting my own art thread, since for the first time ever I actually have enough stuff to justify one. ^_^  But, um... Yeah, another character concept.  I'd really, really like some feedback on the stuff I've been doing recently, so, um, yeah. >.<

[Kaze_Senshi]

@Kinoko: That Alice looks great. You make it look easy.

First page of my Youmu x Reisen book: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/page001.jpg
For reference: http://jemilsbigeasy.com/

Mister Big Easy lol

Not my artwork but a very special person drew this for me without a graphics tablet when doing shading/colouring and other pc stuff! The effort she put in was so cool ^__^

here

Cool, Reimu looks like a cocoon :V

...Thinking of actually starting my own art thread, since for the first time ever I actually have enough stuff to justify one. ^_^  But, um... Yeah, another character concept.  I'd really, really like some feedback on the stuff I've been doing recently, so, um, yeah. >.<

Maybe it lacks some shading effect, also I can't open NSFW works on DA because I don't have an account there :~

[Quad City QBs]

@Kinoko: That Alice looks great. You make it look easy.

First page of my Youmu x Reisen book: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/page001.jpg
For reference: http://jemilsbigeasy.com/

have I mentioned that I'm mad jelly of your perspective, I can never place characters against backgrounds for the life of me

[KrackoCloud]

...Thinking of actually starting my own art thread, since for the first time ever I actually have enough stuff to justify one. ^_^  But, um... Yeah, another character concept.  I'd really, really like some feedback on the stuff I've been doing recently, so, um, yeah. >.<

This is pretty good, imo.
In terms of character design, this and a couple other characters you've made look perfectly fine. I think you should mainly concern yourself with the presentation. Draw more interesting poses that reflect personality maybe, because right now I see lots of characters just standing.

[Moerin]

Maybe it lacks some shading effect, also I can't open NSFW works on DA because I don't have an account there :~

I'll pass on the message about shading, then.  Like I said, whilst I do the original drawings and characters designs, it's a friend of mine who fixes them up digitally (which mostly just involves fixing some of the more glaring anatomical errors and making their eyes not empty, soulless pits).  I kind of suck at colouring right now, so I just provide him with a colour guide for the time being.  Also:
 [nsfw]http://i.imgur.com/tfhcv3w.png[/nsfw]
It's honestly not that bad, just excessive cleavage and panties, but you can never be too careful.  Really do hope that the mask and the knife help cancel out the fanservicey effect and make her look more creepy than sexy.

This is pretty good, imo.
In terms of character design, this and a couple other characters you've made look perfectly fine. I think you should mainly concern yourself with the presentation. Draw more interesting poses that reflect personality maybe, because right now I see lots of characters just standing.

Ahah, right, yeah, I've been trying to think about that.  Best I've came up with so far is the one in the martial arts pose, I guess.  Problem is that I still need a lot of practice with different poses.  There was one I did recently where... I tried to draw her sitting down, kind of slouched down in a chair in a profoundly arrogant way, but I realised that not only could I not currently draw someone sitting down on a chair, I can't draw chairs either. :fail:  So I'm going to have to try again with that one.

Thank you, though.  I'll keep that in mind.

[SuperParadox]

@Kinoko: That Alice looks great. You make it look easy.

First page of my Youmu x Reisen book: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/page001.jpg
For reference: http://jemilsbigeasy.com/

have I mentioned that I'm mad jelly of your perspective, I can never place characters against backgrounds for the life of me

^ This

And speaking of  backgrounds, your landscapes are so well done.  :*

[Pirate]

@Superparadox: but if he would be cursed with a low aptitude in drawing humans...well, i don't know how much of a good trade off that is...

@Moerin I don't like how someone's doing the shading for you. Are you making time to improve your colouring skills yourself?

By the way, the mask is the only thing keeping her creepy. She'd just look a little erotic otherwise.

[KrackoCloud]

@Moerin I don't like how someone's doing the shading for you. Are you making time to improve your colouring skills yourself?

I would say this is pretty important. Even if coloring and shading are a real pain, you can always opt for something more minimalistic. Coloring a single color in between the lines is not particularly hard, and you can just shade in obvious dark spots, like right under the neck and behind bangs.
It may not be spectacular, but starting at basic colors and shading is a first step.

By the way, do you use a tablet, or do you scan?

[Sixten]

@Charles Barkley and SuperParadox: I am very happy that you like my perspective and background works. I sometimes get down on myself for not drawing characters as well as the artists here, so I'm glad to be appreciated for drawing the things I am good at. Although, even my perspective drawings suffer from embarrassing scale errors every now and then.

For what it's worth, I do admire how you two manage to do the gradient shading. I looked at some drawings on pixiv (about the same quality as Charles's), tried to emulate the skin shading, and failed hard. I can't get mine to look right, and almost always settle for flat areas of solid color. And I'm using the same Photoshop as everyone, I think. It's in the hand, not in the tools.

@NotaPirate: Yeah, not being that good at drawing people has been a big block for my professional aspirations, as I may have said in one of my deleted rants in this thread. That's why I'm a website programmer, while the people I went to art school with have become professional illustrators (and one even owns his own company). I just have to keep studying and practicing to overcome my people-drawing and shading weaknesses, despite my slow improvement rate in that area. The same goes for anyone's weakness, really.

[Pirate]

Well on the note of shading, i came across this tip of using only values to shade your drawings when you're starting out. That is, doing the whole thing completely greyscale. All you need to focus on is where the light falls, and where shadows are created (though i'm probably wrong about that, hah).

In any case, you won't have to bother with pesky palettes just yet with only values, and you can still form a sort of a 3d representation all the same.

[Quad City QBs]

I would say this is pretty important. Even if coloring and shading are a real pain, you can always opt for something more minimalistic. Coloring a single color in between the lines is not particularly hard, and you can just shade in obvious dark spots, like right under the neck and behind bangs.
It may not be spectacular, but starting at basic colors and shading is a first step.

This is correct. If you just do the lines, you're only getting half the story. Without trying to understand where the lights and shadows will fall, you won't get a sense for the actual shapes behind your lines. See attachment 1.

@Sixten - On the topic of backgrounds and architecture, how many points of perspective do you use? It looks like all the building lines vanish to one point. How about the lines on the truck, which run perpendicular to the viewer's eye? I assume those vanish to a different point on the same horizon. Which brings me to another question--how many guidelines do you draw, and how do you keep them accurate where the vanishing point falls off your canvas? A lot of the time, I find that my perspective gets undisciplined because I don't have the stamina to check every single line against the vanishing point(s). See attachment 2.

[AnonymousPondScum]

madokaclassroom.jpg

Markerboard Mami is watching you procrastinate? :V

[Sixten]

@Charles: I'm not as good at explaining as I would like to be, but hopefully this helps:

How many points of perspective do you use?
The "Misty's Big Easy" picture (http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/page001.jpg) has three vanishing points: one very near the left of Misty's head (it's still there on the picture), one to the far right of the canvas, and one far above the canvas. The buildings, truck, and sidewalk all respect those vanishing points. And no, I did not extend the canvas and draw guidelines from those vanishing points. I did it all by guessing, which is why the picture has a bunch of errors in the lines projecting from the far right point.

How do you keep them accurate when the vanishing point falls off your canvas?
By guessing well. I have a very strong memory of angles and somehow this comes naturally to me - I was able to do this three months into art school. In my experience, other artists who started art school at the same time as me have been able to develop this guessing ability - it usually took them longer than it took me though. And note that my guesses are sometimes wrong.

See attachment 2.
In order to perspective properly, you need to "see the unseen".

The first unseen thing is the camera. Where is the eye of the beholder? The lines in your picture appear to be confused as to where it is.

If your camera is a surveillance camera in the opposite corner of the room from the one you've shown, and is near the roof, then the picture would be like: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/classroom-topcorner-camera.jpg - note that the lines where the walls meet the ceiling are nearly horizontal. That's because the camera would be nearly level with those lines.

If your camera is the eye of a person sitting in the second tier of seats, the picture would be like: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/illusion/classroom-secondtier-camera.jpg

The second unseen thing is the sides of objects that are blocked from view. The two tiers of tables form a small staircase on either side of the teacher's table. See the dotted lines where the stairsteps are - they will help you position the tables properly.

The third unseen thing is the continuation of shapes. The tables are pieces of a circle (or ellipse). Imagining the rest of the circle will help you draw the part of the table that exists.

That's it for now. Please note, even if perspective stuff is where my "gift" lies, remember that I'm still learning how to do this myself.

[Pirate]

Dear god. I barely know what you mean. Like how the top lines of the buildings don't seem to connect with the vanishing point by Misty, and then the camera positioning part, it's all very hard to take in

I guess I can just practice and maybe get something right. Maybe.

[Quad City QBs]

Superb explanation. What are some times you've used more or fewer than 3 vanishing points?

[Sixten]

@Charles: I'll use some examples from my first comic, Miao Diary, which was a twisted spite-driven self-insert story totally unlike my wholesome Toho works. The character art is horrible, being from 4 years ago, but at least it got the stamp of approval from Establish Nechoes...

One vanishing point: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cannonpost/page50.jpg
The point is the black dot in the middle of the Return of the Jedi scene with cat ears. I generally use one point when looking straight down a street or corridor.

Two vanishing points: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cannonpost/page29.jpg
The top frame has two vanishing points: one far left off the canvas, and the other right next to the bus. Two points is the default for scenes inside a room from the viewpoint of one character talking to another character at the same level, but it works for street-level outdoor architecture as well.

Three vanishing points: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cannonpost/page57.jpg
The three points are all off the canvas, in a downward-pointing equilateral triangle with the top frame in the center. The third point is used when looking up or down at something.

In a picture that has several rectangular objects each tilted at a different angle from the viewing plane, you will need a separate set of vanishing points for each object. See: http://www.houseofsixten.com/stealth/cirno/gunsandroses/page000b_small.jpg. In this still life, the objects tend to align themselves with the pale green grid which is defined by two vanishing points, but some objects are rotated with respect to the grid and need their own set of points.

In general, you don't have an object governed by more than three vanishing points at a time (common objects are, after all, only three-dimensional at most). Even complex objects can be broken down into three-dimensional boxes. But when projecting through a spherical lens or a fisheye view, you may get curved perspective lines and many vanishing points, as anything will start to converge to an off-canvas point the more they move to the edge of your vision. But I say this theoretically of course. I haven't been able to pull off such a picture ever.

[Quad City QBs]

Interesting. Thanks for the insight.

[Pirate]

I wonder though, where do humans come into this equation of perception and them vanishing points? Humans aren't remotely square or blocky, are there any guidelines or is it just guessing?

[Sixten]

@NotaPirate:  Perspective certainly applies to humans - just stand on a balcony and watch people walk on the sidewalk below, or lie in bed and look up at your parents when they come to wake you up. Or try to imagine a martial arts fight from the point of view of one of the participants, about to get a boot to the head. Perspective may be based on blocks, but the rules that govern objects appearing larger as they get closer to you are as applicable to humans as they are to cars or buildings. But if I knew how to draw humans well enough to give a demonstration of how perspective applies to them, I would be a successful comic book artist instead of someone who gripes on forums about his lack of skill.

[Moerin]

Right, well, now that I've got my thoughts together...

The reason I'm having someone else do the colouring for me, aside from the fact that I'm still trying to get the hang of it myself, is because I kind of don't consider myself an artist, if that makes sense.  I'm just trying to get out some character designs I have in my head into a tangable form so that I can picture them clearer.  Thankfully I was able to find someone who could actually draw to collaborate with and to help fix up my rough designs, but I do suppose knowing that there's someone else to help me has helped my confidence grow, as seen by how much stuff I've gotten out lately compared to how much stuff I'd done in the past few years.  I'll admit that I'm probably getting better, but... Really, the whole point was less an artistic thing and more simply something to aid me in other ventures.  If that makes sense.

Anyways, um... Actually got that slouching pose to actually finally work, so... Here's something new.  Really like how the hair turned out, even if it does make her look like she's stuck in the 80s. :yukkuri: