[Jul 17-23]Deji's weekly themed practice thread

[Deji]

Something I came up with last night when I couldn't sleep x_X; Something I thought up to be for my own amusement and practice, but that I thought it'd be nice to share with others and maybe get them inspired/motivated to try the themes/tasks I'll be taking each week ^^

So, this is how it works:

I'll write two or three themes/tasks and then, during the week, me and anybody interested in participating and sharing the fruit of their practice will post their creations in this thread in the form of drawings, written pieces and/or music.
Hopefully it won't be just me dumping sketches and drawings here ^^;

The only rule is that you keep the fruit of your practice to one post per day. That is, if you draw/write/compose many things per day, post them all in one post by the end of the day. If you create more things the next day, post another dump by the end of the day and so on. Or you can just post everything you've done by Friday

Anybody, participants or not, are more than welcome to give their advice, tips and overall critic to whatever people may post here.

So, let's get started, shall we? C:

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Weekly Themes for July 17th to July 23th

Pretty Woman:
Your inspiration is a woman, older than 25 and younger than 50, with naturally curvy but proportionate body (think 90-60-90 -ish). She may have long hair and full lips.

*Remember if you draw her naked, keep it "barbie naked".

Small Town:
Your inspiration is a small and rather peaceful town~ Modern, medieval or of any other kind.

*if you're drawing this, you may draw a background of a small town or a scene (like an svent CG) that shows it takes place in one.

Mood Swing:
Draw/write a scene or compose a piece that reflects/communicates a certain mood/feeling: happiness, sadness, loneliness, anger, hope, etc.
Then, pick your creation and redraw (or recolor)/rewrite or rearrange it so it communicates a different emotion while still being basically the same.


No weekly pose this week, since I'm not at home right now D:

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Old themes~
Jul 10-17: Manly Man, Nature elements (leaves and flowers) and pose (girl with sword)

[Ren]

This is possibly more for PyTom than for you:
Would nudity be all right? I'm used to it, having been to figure classes, but I'm not entirely sure how it would be accepted here (would just hinted genitals be OK, for example?).

Do you think perhaps producing a few copies of said manly men from photos, and only after a few attempts at that try and come up with something from memory be productive? I know this is the way we used to do it in my figure class: I'd draw the model's head the whole (4 hours) lesson, and then come up with some sketches that I could reference from those drawings or just come up with with my own understanding of how the figure worked.

(It seems to me a lot of artists are totally adverse to ever copying anything, but I think for practice, especially on subjects we're not familiar with and at the beginning, it's better to use this "crutch" than to get frustrated because one still doesn't have enough of an understanding of how things work)

I might actually join you on this, and try doing stuff on paper during lunch breaks, and then posting something on Fridays, if I get the time. :3

(also, I'm researching for anatomy books, but it'll take me a bit to come up with some title I'm convinced about, I'm afraid, I will try to look for my prints from school to see if I can give you those - hoping my mother didn't burn them or anything)

[PyTom]

Since we have a hentai section, I think it's best that anything that explicitly depicts genitalia should go there. My gut feeling is we should probably be about the same as the manga section of a bookstore, when it comes to what's age restricted and what's not.

I do ask that people keep this sort of thread vaguely VN-related. Art is a more-or-less alien world to me, so if you tell me that all of this will help people become better/more productive/etc when it comes to making VNs, I'll believe ya. I just ask people make sure that this sort of thing doesn't turn into a community that's totally separate from the game-making side of things.

[Ren]

Perhaps (I don't want to over run you, Deji) we could make it so we try to produce free resources for game makers every now and then? Say I practice enough in drawing landscapes with natural elements as sshe suggested, I could say "In a month I'll produce three backgrounds and anyone can use them."?
And yes, I do think this would be very helpful for our productivity related to game making: I know myself I have so many flaws that make me much slower and reluctant to accept projects fearing that I migth screw them up.

So, regarding nudity, would it be enough to just put a black square over the genitalia, and leave everything else naked?

Thank you for the prompt reply, PyTom.

[Deji]

@Ren: I'm one of the people that believes you must burn/etch/engrave things in your brain before attempting to draw them by memory, so I'm all for copying things as practice. I also think its a good thing to produce a bunch of quick pose sketches to use as reference later ^^
(And thank you about the anatomy books, really <3)

@PyTom: I did take it into consideration when making this thread, actually, though it's not explicit as in "let's make art assets for VNs!"
As a person who draws, the first task was aimed for character creation based on appearance, that steps out from the vast comfort zone that are the pretty highschool kids/young adults that plague VNs and anime/manga art in general. goal is, be able to draw other kind of characters, starting from this Manly Man.
The second task is aimed to understand nature elements that may go in backgrounds, so when you get to draw a scenery with leaves or flowers on the foreground, tyou get them right.
The this one is to help with the"movement" of the body. This is aimed to improve understanding of human body and improve the areas of character drawing, either on sprites or on Event CGs.

I thought asking for VN assets every week would be too much, since some people take a long time to produce a single sprite, BG or EVent CG. Writers could make scenes that could turn to be a part of a VN, and musicians, well, the idea is to isnpire them (if any is willing to participate) into making music that fits a certain theme/mood, so they could create music for different games/scenes.

If you have any suggestion yourself about how I could turn this more towards VN creation, please let me know, I'm open to hear opinions! ^^
I like Ren's idea, for example, after a month of practice, people should use the material they've practiced on and produce something for everybody to use, in the case of artists and composers, and maybe a short game in the case of the writers? Though I guess that's up to each person ^^;

[PyTom]

So, regarding nudity, would it be enough to just put a black square over the genitalia, and leave everything else naked?

You know, it's really hard to draw a formal line here. Certainly, we don't want this to turn into Comiket, where people look the other way as to the content of a doujin because there's a black box there. And at the same time, the rule I articulated in the past post would tend to block out Michaelangelo's David, which seems kinda crazy.

Are there any art organizations that have guidelines as to what they consider the difference between artistic nudity and porn to be?

@PyTom: I did take it into consideration when making this thread, actually, though it's not explicit as in "let's make art assets for VNs!"

No problem then. In fact, I'm pretty sure this could be a good thing, and I support the basic effort. And it's nice to see how this could help to move EVNs away from simply being a niche of a niche of anime fandom. Pretty much the only remaining concern I have is the amount of time - but that's something for the various people involved to work out.

[Ren]

The first thing that I could think of is in the Deviantart policies, here.

To clarify, what I was talking about when I was talking about nudity was more among the lines of what I used to do in art classes (safe link: the girl there wears panties, and her breasts are hidden because of the position, just pretend she is totally naked, and you get the idea.
Unfortunately, you're asking about something people have been discussing for a while, but I'd say you could play it safe by perhaps putting some restrictions to the kind of rules Deviantart has.
A thing I could think of is to only draw Barbie/Ken like nudity, if you want to make the thread accessible to everyone: draw the lines that point down to the pubic zone but don't detail anything there?

I would allow drawing breasts though: it doesn't seem to me that you could call the depiction of breasts pornography EVER. I obviously don't have a problem with genitals either, but I understand allowing an accurate depictions of them would be more problematic, and it's not like not being able to draw them is going to be so much of an hindrance in our anatomical knowledge. :P

I'll try researching a bit more, though, see what you think of the DA rules, and perhaps we could start working something from there.

[dstarsboy]

Deji! I think this is a great idea for helping the developing artists here! I definitely want to take part in this, I know I really need the help.

So do we draw something based on your theme and post our work in this thread for critique before July 17th?

[IceD]

An excellent idea. If I only have enough time to sit a bit and produce anything, I'll gladly join your efforts This may be also a good way for me to brake my bad habits and try working on things constantly instead of from time to time.

I'll write two or three themes/tasks and then, during the week, me and anybody interested in participating and sharing the fruit of their practice will post their creations in this thread in the form of drawings, written pieces and/or music. Hopefully it won't be just me dumping sketches and drawings here ^^;

Yet, I don't see anything for musicans or writers now I hope you didn't forget about them, or do we need to write something about big, muscly men? I'd rather like to write about something more... groovy Also, mind that the subjects should be made in such way, they'll be appealing to everyone. They rather should be something drawing attention, maybe something extraordianry, interesting or just out of the blue, which people normally would work on very rarely. It will atract more participants this way

[LinWest]

Are there any art organizations that have guidelines as to what they consider the difference between artistic nudity and porn to be?

In devart, the general rule of thumb is if the genitals are aroused, then its porn. If penis is not erect then it is not considered porn and allowed to be posted, so David's penis is safe. For females though it's a bit more difficult to discern arousal or not, so there tends to be more leeway with whats allowed. I'm not 100% on how that works.

[Ren]

I'll write two or three themes/tasks and then, during the week, me and anybody interested in participating and sharing the fruit of their practice will post their creations in this thread in the form of drawings, written pieces and/or music. Hopefully it won't be just me dumping sketches and drawings here ^^;

Yet, I don't see anything for musicians or writers now :P I hope you didn't forget about them, or do we need to write something about big, muscly men? :D I'd rather like to write about something more... groovy :) Also, mind that the subjects should be made in such way, they'll be appealing to everyone. They rather should be something drawing attention, maybe something extraordinary, interesting or just out of the blue, which people normally would work on very rarely. It will attract more participants this way :)

The instant suggestion for musicians would be to create a piece of music well suited for a battle scene, or a boss scene, and one for a mysterious forest.

For writers, perhaps a variation on the same themes: create a story about a duel, or a fight (it could be the internal monologue of the swordsman before the match, culminating with his/her entrance in the arena, or the battle itself - which I'd find very challenging to write!) and perhaps a story taking place in the woods (it could be fantasy, it could be the memories of someone's holidays at their grandparents' house far from the city, anything!).

I find the choice of drawing manly men quite perfect as... I suck at them. Bishounens I can draw half decently, but men over 30 which look human... that's another story entirely, and I think it's a weakness of a lot of drawers, considering what I see around here and in internet galleries.

[Starling]

Ah~ What a good idea! This is something I should be doing for sure.. I'm terrible at coming out of my comfort zone until forced to and so I don't know how to draw as many things as I should be with how long I've been drawing. I will have to get started on these.

In fact all three of these themes are outside my comfort zone XD!

[Deji]

So do we draw something based on your theme and post our work in this thread for critique before July 17th?

That's the idea C:

Yet, I don't see anything for musicans or writers now

I think Ren said pretty much what I was going to say xD; It's a starting inspiration point. What does a manly man reminds you of? A wrestler? A warrior? A troop of tired swordsmen from old returning after a battle in which they lost half of their comrades?
Leaves and flowers could make you think of a forest, of a garden, of a flower shop (xd), of a room decorated with plants where something interesting is taking place... Maybe a fary tale? Maybe a horror story where a person is running through the woods to escape? Or a huntsman following the trails of their pray by the signals they left on the leaves, on the ground... Things like that

For musicians is the same. iw as thinking they would compose a theme for a tough guy, his main theme, or the theme of a battle, or a fight, or a wrestling match! Or maybe one that reminds you of spring, a forest, nature.... It's about creating a piece that lets the listener imagine something related to the themes given.

I'd like starting from basic and specific subjects, since it's always (for people who draw, at least, and I primarily started this thread for myself) to work on things starting from the basic elements, and then when you get to know them, integrate them all into a full composition.

Don't worry, I'll have moods and more general things later on.

[Jake]

I'm away from home all week, so you'll have to excuse out-of-focus free-hotel-ballpoint drawings snapped with a laptop webcam, but I'm having a go nonetheless.

Manly Man:
Your inspiration is a man (or many), older than 25 and younger than 55, with broad shoulders, a big chest (may or may not have hair) and thick arms and legs, with visible well-developed musculature. He has facial hair and a few scars all over his body.

Z...Zangief? Is that you?

Anyway, on a more serious note, I had a go at the Manly Man and Pose at the same time:

I think I failed to properly give the impression the near upper arm is moving back into the picture, making it look too short; probably this is a shading problem, but maybe it actually is too short. The hands got kind of messy just through a slight re-positioning without the benefit of an eraser. I definitely cocked up the hilt of the sword, positioning it too far to the right, and made a mess trying to re-centre it further to the left. I think I made the shading on the line of the spine between the two halves of the trapezius far too heavy. For that matter, I think his head should be a bit taller above the eyes (or more likely, the eyes downwards should be scaled down and moved down a bit). Also my anatomy's pretty sketchy at the best of times, and I'm without my reference books, so I probably made a horrible mess of pretty much all of the muscles.

(And yes, Zangief's forearms are definitely too long, he was a five-minute laugh. :P)

[Lekhaka]

Zangief the MANLY!

I think the reason the left upper arm isn't foreshortening convincingly is because the line that represents the armpit places it too far back...we see it as in front of the shoulder when it should be more on the side to allow it to extend back away from the viewer.

I guess I'll be the first to do the music challenge. I tried to make a short battle melody today...I think I have to play with the reverb settings more, it sounds too echo-y right now, among other things. Any suggestions on how to make this sound more battle-like would be appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6SRMyYNRtU