Lemma Soft Forums

Spiralbunny wrote: I have to ask about your way of thinking, out of curiosity - the fact that a lot of people (and not just you and me, I know quite a few others) don't like eyes-over-hair doesn't mean that there's good enough reason not to draw like that?

I have no problem with that, I actually think that can look quite cute as long as the eyes aren't completely covered by hair. I know a lot of people who think the same way, actually, you are the second person I've ever seen saying anything negative about this. So in my eyes there are a lot of people who like it, should I go around telling people to draw eyes over hair?

It's a question of preference, really, no matter how many people like or dislike it.

Jake wrote:The other important point is that it's an entirely stylistic decision.

Are you saying that stylistic choices are categorically above criticism? If so, I'm going to have to disagree.

The artist generally has some sort of goal in mind for a picture - some idea or internal vision they want to convey - and makes stylistic choices to support that goal. It is quite possible for an artist to get some of these stylistic choices wrong - to draw the outlines too thick, or to choose colors that clash with the emotion the picture is supposed to convey, or even to use big manga eyes in a scene where they wouldn't be appropriate. That doesn't mean those stylistic choices are categorically wrong, it just means they are wrong for that particular picture, or wrong for the particular goal the artist had for that picture.

A critic has to determine the goal of the picture, and then point out which parts of it fail to support that goal. This includes stylistic choices.

Of course, it's possible for the critic to misinterpret the goal of the picture, in which case the critique is useless except to the extend that it indicates that the picture failed to communicate its goal. If the goal of the picture includes a particular style, then criticizing that style is useless. That doesn't mean that categorically all stylistic choices are above criticism.

Hime wrote:I know a lot of people who think the same way, actually, you are the second person I've ever seen saying anything negative about this. So in my eyes there are a lot of people who like it, should I go around telling people to draw eyes over hair?

I specifically said that I don't know which of the styles (eyes-over-hair or hair-over-eyes) is liked by the largest amount of people. The part which you're quoting says "a lot of people", not "most people". I know a lot of people who dislike the eyes-over-hair style, as well as I know a lot of people who don't seem to dislike it.

What you like is up to you, and what you go around telling people is also up to you. If you had written a comment to the artist encouraging them to keep drawing eyes-over-hair, I wouldn't care. So the answer to your question is "sure, why not". Of course, people don't neccessarily have to listen to you, just like they don't have to listen to me. And in this case, I'd of course hope that they didn't listen to you. But I wouldn't do anything about it.

I hate to expand on this off-topic discussion, but I've only seen the eyes over hair "mistake" in animation when they forget to put the hair cell over the face cell and the face cell somehow ends up on top of the hair cell.

Sometimes you can get away with leaving the outline of the eyes visible through the color of the hair (slayers does this sometimes), but usually animators and comic book illustrators choose to make the hair conveniently sway to the side a little if the eyes need to be shown. It's kind of like that one anime physics law that if a girl hops up while she's wearing a skirt, her legs are ever so conveniently!! positioned in a way that make her panties out of sight.

And to bring this thread back on topic, the girls:

Spiralbunny wrote: And, I don't understand what the point was of the "(...) and it probably wouldn't be manga-style at all" comment? Just curious.

I meant that if all artists ever did get persuaded by popular opinion to change their styles to match what most people wanted to see, then they wouldn't end up drawing manga-style art at all, because most people don't want to see manga-style art.

Spiralbunny wrote:

Jake wrote:Actually, I was stating an anatomical fact about human beings

Yes, exactly; that's what I had a problem with, since you already said that "manga style" isn't always anatomically correct. Thus your comment should be more personal-preference than general, in your opinion, and so you shouldn't have said it at this time.

... except that the manga style still is supposed to be representing human beings, and as much as it may not appear to at first glance, it still typically follows more human anatomy 'rules' than it ignores. One one hand, the typical manga-drawn human has huge eyes; on the other hand, those eyes are typically the same size and roughly symmetrical.

Sure, there will always be one-off exceptions here and there for individual artists, but one can only really speak about something as wide-ranging as 'manga-style art' in general terms.

Wintermoon wrote: Are you saying that stylistic choices are categorically above criticism? If so, I'm going to have to disagree.

Not really. I'm saying that when you're critiquing an image, there are things which are far more useful to mention than other things. And sure, nothing is absolutely, 100% never useful at all ever, but generally speaking things which are clear stylistic decisions on the part of the artist have been made because the artist wanted to make them, and thus they typically form part of the 'objective' of the piece of art, and the point of a critique is generally to point out things which could have been done differently to better reach that objective.

Sure, sometimes an artist makes stylistic decisions which contradict what their objective is, either because they simply didn't consider an alternative or because they weren't paying attention or whatever... but I doubt the action of drawing an eye above or below hair can be done while intending the complete opposite without noticing at all, and it's typically obvious at the sketch stage what effect it's going to have.

Really, what I was originally objecting to is the kind of critique which says "this looks horrible because you have made this stylistic choice which gels entirely with all the other stylistic choices you have made except for the fact that I personally don't like it". Because that falls at the same end of the helpful scale as "no your picture is crap because you drew a tractor and I only like looking at pictures of girls".

her legs ever so conveniently!! are positioned in a way that make her panties out of sight.

Apparently, you haven't seen Agent Aika or Aika R-16 yet.

Jake wrote:I meant that if all artists ever did get persuaded by popular opinion to change their styles to match what most people wanted to see, then they wouldn't end up drawing manga-style art at all, because most people don't want to see manga-style art.

Yeah, but I meant more like, "if that would happen, what does it matter that it wouldn't be 'manga style'?" But that's not important, anyway, so let's drop that and the rest of this and get an end to this sometime. I've almost never seen a discussion lead to anyone actually changing their minds and we're not closing in on that either (at least not from my side), plus we're off-topic and probably scaring people away from posting art. End it or PM, like I said. Agree?

Jake wrote:... except that the manga style still is supposed to be representing human beings, and as much as it may not appear to at first glance, it still typically follows more human anatomy 'rules' than it ignores.

Yes, yes, that's fine and all but, think about what it is we're discussing. I gave critique about something that is anatomically incorrect (even though that might not be what disturbs me the most about it), and you told me that your opinion is that while it is anatomically incorrect, that doesn't matter, because it's something that is okay when you draw "manga style". And now I'm saying, it's the same thing with chins, and thus that part of your critique is in the same class as mine. Get what I'm after, here? Some "manga artists" draw the same sort of chins no matter if they draw a man or a woman, and others think more about the human anatomy "rules". Just like some people draw eyes-over-hair and some don't.

Spiralbunny wrote: End it or PM, like I said. Agree?

I've totally given up on explaining to you what I mean, and I'm not entirely sure it's not the language barrier, so I'm guessing this will probably be the end of the conversation regardless.

But as it goes, I find the idea of taking it to PM objectionable. If I had moderation privileges I would have split it off into a different thread ages ago (this is the main thing I miss about newsgroups; nobody's yet come up with a decent branching-threads web-forum package), but I firmly believe that conversations started in public should continue in public, unless they diverge to a topic that suddenly demands privacy. Especially since other people have commented on the same thing; it would be rude to them to disappear off to PMs.

Jake wrote:But as it goes, I find the idea of taking it to PM objectionable. If I had moderation privileges I would have split it off into a different thread ages ago (this is the main thing I miss about newsgroups; nobody's yet come up with a decent branching-threads web-forum package), but I firmly believe that conversations started in public should continue in public, unless they diverge to a topic that suddenly demands privacy. Especially since other people have commented on the same thing; it would be rude to them to disappear off to PMs.

I'm giving up on explaining the things that still need explaining to you, as well.

The first time I suggested PMs, only you and me were discussing - I too was thinking that it'd be a bit rude to do so now; however, I really don't want to keep it in this thread anymore, and the idea of a separate thread hadn't hit me. But, as we both seem to be giving up on understanding each other, there's no need for a thread, either, so let's just call it quits.
I hope you understood that I'm only suggesting PMs so that we'd not bother the thread anymore - I agree with you about public conversations.

Being computer deprived gives you plenty of time for watercolour practice...I feel like I have a lot of catch up to do with this forum though.


The image has been cropped greatly, since I like only this particular from it.
Painting with green is particularly difficult for me:everytime I try it looks either too pale or too"loaded", even the leaves in this picture looks incredibly fake.
I do like how the trees fade to green and the water down there however.
But that you can't see, bwahahahaha!

Ren: I like the atmosphere perspective in that image. It would look even better, I think, if you add more layer of washes to flash out a little further into the background.

It's kind of like that one anime physics law that if a girl hops up while she's wearing a skirt, her legs are ever so conveniently!! positioned in a way that make her panties out of sight.

Hey guys.

Man, I just can't focus on one thing. :/
"The Empress of Twilight"
Click for larger version

A Magical girl (retired, but still magical, her catch phrase is "delicious cake, delicious magic", you know, she is a baker. However she doesn't actually need incantation to cast any magic.)

My baby sure has changed a lot since I first started drawing her. -w-

on the side note, the thing behind her is "The Hammer of Justice", its at the same time, a sky scooter, a vacuum(?), a cannon, and a mace/hammer roll into one. It changes configuration at the wishes of its user. It turn into a young English butler in human form, his name is Garek. (I am bored, lol)

@Mikan:
Pretty nice! I almost thought it was from some anime or something.

Well, I guess I'll post some stuffs here. I mainly do pixel art and I don't really draw characters.


Park. This one is 15 colors, took me about a week or 2 to finish. I like how the result came out.


Ninja Nonsense Gaiden! Instead of Hayabusa, it's Shinobu. This was made for a remake event. This is the original NES screen:
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4800 ... dennp8.png


Accidently resized this. This is a remake of the title screen for my game Paradise Blue. Digital painting in Photoshop. I'd call it a speed painting, but it took about 2 hours or so. I'm still trying to learn! Some speed painters achieve really awesome stuff.


Konata!


And finishing off with my favorite anime character, Shinobu from Ninja Nonsense.

Wow Ocean, nice to see you here
And nice work as always ^_^

magi : love the shoes (well, the magic runes they create :p). And yay for multifunction uh... thingie XD. Totally crazy, totally cool

Ocean : eee, pixel art! . This park is pretty amazing! Ohh, and if you zoom in it's all swirly!

"The Empress of Twilight" :She's awesome!I love both the design and obviously your technique.Drawing her from under is a bit tricky, eh?You also always choose some very fitting colour palettes and your anatomy skills are impressive.

Ocean:your pixel drawings are both adorable and amazing!The forest expeciaally is beautiful.Since you chose to use a warm colour in the background and a cool one in the foreground it really helps giving out a sense of calmness, I'll have to sav it and study it for future reference(which I rarely do, nowadays).

Well, it's great to come back and find stuff like this, thanks to the both of you!