Laniessa Art Thread

[Laniessa]

Reopening my art thread after keeping it dead for so long, haha. I'm hoping this will help to motivate me back into drawing more frequently.

Old art is all in the posts before, new art starts from page 2!

Deviantart and tumblr links are in my profile, for those interested. I post progress and doodles on my twitter.

27 Dec 2016:
I decided to update this thread with some stuff! Here's some recent stuff.

[Personal Illustrations]

[Persona 5 chibi! I'm trying to do a set.]

[Chomp Chomp art!]

[Without A Voice Sprites]

[Itwasneveradream]

Wow. Your art is absolutely gorgeous. Though your anatomy could use a little work. It's so nice to see someone using a somewhat painty style~

I think there are some good pose references and anatomy tutorials on deviantart. That's all I can say.

[Laniessa]

@Itwasneveradream: Thank you! My fundamentals are really shaky, unfortunately, but I'm always staring at anatomy tutorials! (All I need to do is actually draw some figures...!)

The more smooth / clean style never suited me, to be honest! Whenever I tried to cell shade something, I would always place gradients and soft-edges everywhere.

[SundownKid]

You have some good art. However, your coloring style seems a bit rough (for the characters). Perhaps you could blend it better and make smoother gradients.

[Laniessa]

@SundownKid: Hmm, thanks! I'll be honest, though; I like the rough paint style I have. I'm still developing my style, but I do want to keep it in the direction of being able to see changes in colour, seeing strokes and such. (I do use gradients and airbrushes, but I brush over them to try and lose the smooth effect, in fact!)

I think I do understand what you mean, but I'll just say it's my personal preference to use a rougher style. I will try softer shading for experiments, but I'm the type that likes brushing in all the shading with a hard round brush, rather than using a fluffy airbrush or using the brush / water-color tool to blend everything.

(...I really hope I didn't come off as a teenager going 'it's my style hmphhh'!)

Also! I've been working on a low-resolution image for once - here's what I have so far!

sakdjkl the eyes are really freakyyy

[SundownKid]

@SundownKid: Hmm, thanks! I'll be honest, though; I like the rough paint style I have. I'm still developing my style, but I do want to keep it in the direction of being able to see changes in colour, seeing strokes and such. (I do use gradients and airbrushes, but I brush over them to try and lose the smooth effect, in fact!)

I think I do understand what you mean, but I'll just say it's my personal preference to use a rougher style. I will try softer shading for experiments, but I'm the type that likes brushing in all the shading with a hard round brush, rather than using a fluffy airbrush or using the brush / water-color tool to blend everything.

(...I really hope I didn't come off as a teenager going 'it's my style hmphhh'!)

The problem is not that it's not a viable style, but that it's unfitting for that kind of art. It makes the character look dirty and gritty when the strokes are rougher, but what you need is a more soft-shaded, or perhaps cel-shaded look. I'm not telling you it from an artist's standpoint, but from the viewer's standpoint it just looks too harsh. I'm pretty sure that artists tend to use more than one type of shading in their art depending on the mood.

[Endorphin]

I actually like the "roughness" (it's not even that rough?) too--it fits your style and there's no need for you at all to switch to the typical mainstream colouring as seen in countless otome games. (Or mangas which I can't even distinguish.)

And naww, I like the hair in the last image, it looks so dynamic~

- En.

[Jod]

I actually quite like your backgrounds. The 'sketchy' part and stretches of colour could work very well when combined with the correct style for sprites, evoking the idea of the structure without spending too much time detailing it.

[JumpJump]

your use of colour (to me) is stunning, I am still trying to understand the best way to use it. I think that your work is a good example of it done right.

[arachni42]

I think I do understand what you mean, but I'll just say it's my personal preference to use a rougher style.

I kind of like it, kind of don't like it. Right now it looks a bit messy in a "bad" way, but I think with some refinement, it could look messy in a "good" way. Does that make any sense? I mean, it's like the way there are some people out there that can make "rough" sketches with "rough" lines, and they look great, but when other people do that, it just looks bad. In other words, it's not easy to pull off. To me it looks "pretty good" but it's not quite there yet. So keep experimenting.

(Also, I really like the redhead.)

[Laniessa]

Oh, wow! Okay, time to start replying.

@SundownKid: Well, the aim is to refine my skill enough to use this style and not make it look harsh. (I'm really in love with shilin's art, so that's somewhat what I aspire to - but I still want it to be a bit unique.)

Quick question, by "that kind of art", do you mean, well, manga / anime art? Or...?

But uh, okay, so I tried cel-shading / blending everything / using the brush tool yesterday (forgive me for the derp face), so:

Uh, yeah! From top to bottom, left to right; lines, cell1, flats, cell2, blend w/ watercolour tool, brush tool, pencil (low opacity)

Do you prefer the other styles in there? Or is it something other than that?

@Endorphin: c: Thank you very much! (It... doesn't look that rough, I hope. I can see why SundownKid would think so in the second image, but I don't really see that many brushstrokes in the first image...)

@Jod: Thank you - I still need to improve a lot on backgrounds, though! At the moment, I do think they're a bit too sketchy...

@JumpJump: Nononono trust me my colour theory is patchy and horrid ;u; Thank you, though.

@arachni42: Mm, I see what you mean! I'll keep trying, thanks.

I've also worked a tiny bit on the drawing with the redhead - I went a bit overboard with the floating hair, should I clump the strands up again?

...a bit... overboard...

[SundownKid]

I think both your cel shaded styles are very solid and professional-looking. Personal preference for the soft shaded ones - the one with the more detailed looking hair, since the other ones were a bit flat. I think my issue was with the shading on stuff like the legs in the first picture, or the girl's skin in this picture, which looked a bit roughly hewn.

[arachni42]

The color styles... I can quickly say that flats (and lines of course) don't look finished, and I'm not a fan of cell2. Brush tool is meh. Pencil tool is interesting because it adds some extra detail, but I wouldn't consider it the one I'd like the best. #1&#2 for me (tie) are cell1 and watecolor tool.... but it's not really the shading itself, but the detail and contrast it reveals. Cell1 seems too harsh, and watercolor tool looks nice but might benefit from a little more contrast and interesting detail. I really like the upper-right area of cell2 where the top of the hair contrasts with the darker side of the hair... the boundary looks nice! I just don't like cell 2 as a whole.

As far as the redhead... in some ways I like the hair of the first one, but I think because the first one still had the black sketch line, which added contrast to the hair. The clumping of the hair helped, but I could definitely get behind the number of strands in the second one with some more contrast and playing with the shapes a little more. The first seemed to lead my eye around, and the second not so much, particularly the lower 3/4 of the strands.

(Personally, I'm a fan of really complex things that lead your eye around, so I'd love to see a version of the second one with more artistically "purposeful" hair. Just in terms of which direction the strands of hair go and how they work together visually. Maybe a little more variety with the weight of the strands. On the left side, I think the second one could use a strand or two with some more weight, but the shape I like visually more than the first one.)

Anyway, very nice. I can see you cleaned up the outfit a bit, too.

[Laniessa]

@SundownKid: Oh, I get what you mean now! (Basically, skin should look softer and more round, and certain surfaces should be less jarring.) I'll keep that in mind the next time I paint! True, with the 'flat' feeling. I think I'll experiment with laying down a few more gradients before I shade the hair.

Also, thanks! I should try to practice cel-shading a bit more, too.

@arachni42: c: Thank you for the critique! I've always had a bit of trouble with contrast (due to my constant blending), but I'll keep that in mind. I'll try to add details too!

The lack of contrast on the second one is simply because I haven't shaded it, yet. I wanted to get the basic form down before I started.

...I think I made it a bit needlessly complicated, but I started shading it a bit to show you what i mean!

I tried adding a few 'thinner' lines, changed the direction of some of the strands, and shaded a few of them. Should I keep playing around with the shape of the strands?

[Endorphin]

I actually like the one on the top left the most, which is unusual for me.
I'd say that I like your technique in the softer ones (bottom right), but the contrast just isn't high enough (though you shouldn't use pure black, of course, but a little more contrast wouldn't hurt).

However, I really like the paintery style you got.
The redhead gets cuter and cuter. :>

- En.