Attempting cg again...help needed!

[angeliza]

Hi guys! Angeliza here!
I'm new and such, so I thought I'd post a thingy I did today.^^
Alot of you guys are way better than me, so I'd like to hear your comments and advice.
(These are also examples of my art.)

Sketch:

Done with a pen on sketching paper out of boredom during school. One of the girls is messed up, (the one that says FAIL by her) so please ignore her...

Lineart:

I took the guy in the sketch and made a lineart of him.
Made in Illustrator using the pen tool, and the charcoal/pencil brushes.

Colored:

I colored the lineart from before using Photoshop.
I messed up in some places...
:/
_______________________
Edit: ...and here we go again!
I'll be posting images as I go so you guys can help me along...
The goal is for slightly realistic, glowy-skin, and super shiny, non-realistic hair and eyes of colorfulness!
XD

Here's the sketch I'm using. I drew it with a slightly more realistic style than usual because I think it'll make the realistic-ish skin look better, and I left a couple of my sketch-lines to help out with shading.
In the totorial I read for skin, the chick did not use lineart.
So, since I'm doing the skin first, I won't be using lineart yet.
...This may, or may not be a good idea.
Anyways...Let's start!
_______________________
1.

Okay, I did the background in white, than opened a new layer, used the brush to put a pinkish blurr around her, than earased the areas were skin showed and merged the layers.
(The sketch it's self is set to multiply on another layer.)
Than I opened a new layer and started a bit on the eyes. I likely won't complete them till later, though, since I'm focusing on the skin now.
2.

I changed the eye layer to invert so that it would contrast with the hair more, and cleaned up my sketch abit.
Than I opened a new layer, and started shading the skin in a light lavender set to multiply.
3.

I cleaned up the sketch some more, than went on another layer, and colored most of it with a pale peach, leaving highlights. I then merged the lavender layer with the peach one, and used the diffuse filter.
4.

Okay, I opened a new layer, did some light brown shadows on multiply, and merged it with the other skin layer. Than I opned a new layer, and used the same pinkish color that I used on the background to do the nose and lips, coloring the inside of her mouth reddish. Than I opened another layer, made some shiny spots with white, and merged them.

5.

Okay, I erased the sketch under the lips, and around the eyelids, than touched up both. Than I cleaned up the sketch and skin layers some more. I'm almost done with the skin, so I'll be moving to the eyes soon. In order to get ready for this, I selected her eyebrows with the lasso tool, and re-inverted them so that they're closer to the color I'll be using for the hair.
6.

I defined the lips and nose more with some faint shadows, and gave her some teeth. Than I went around to trace skin areas with the pen tool in the same color as the background set to multiply. After every line, I rasterized the line, using the erase tool to change and soften it as needed, than merged it with the layer I'd been merging all such lines. Ones done, I made a copy of the pen layer, than used the ink filter in the artistic area to make it black, than used find edges. After that, I erased the ugly blurrs, leaving only a neat, thin, outline. This outline I smeared and blurred as needed.
I than erased more of the sketch.
7.

I did an outline on some other skin areas that needed it, and colored a rough back for her hair using the lasso tool in the same color as her eyebrows. Although the layer is set to normal, it's still behaving like multiply, but I'll fix it.^^
8.

Okay, I've pretty much finished the eye...
It doesn't look right to me, though.
I'll keep working on it. I'm not going to bother explaining what I'm doing anymore.
Honestly, I have no idea WHAT I'm doing now. XD
I made her hair darker too, that's about it.
9.

I Fixed up the eyebrows, erased more of the sketch, and changed her hair color to a pale, greenish-blonde. I'm cleaning up her hair right now, but I decided I liked her eyes after all, and left them.

10.

I barely had any time to work on this at all today.
I desaturated her eyes abit, I'll work more on them later, changed the hair, and started cleaning it up.

Note: I decided to work on this during the weekends since I have other things to do, as well as school during the week.^^

[MaiMai]

You're off to a good start. Just draw more and I suggest taking a look at this list of CG tutorials in order to improve your lineart and coloring.

Are you particularly inspired by or have an artists whose work could be a goal for you? It'd be good to know what level you want to get to so we can help beyond giving the usual advice of practicing anatomy, perspective, colors, etc.

[angeliza]

I am inspired by Hyung-Tae Kim, KKUEM, Audrey Kawasaki, Aya Shouoto, Peach-Pit, and way, way too many others to count!
Hyung-Tae Kim has a painterly style.
KKUEM's style is simular to his, but she colors differently, (Hey, they're husband and wife!).
Audrey Kawasaki doesn't use computers.
...And both Aya and Peach-Pit have a bishojo style...

So, yeah...
I suppose I'll just have to keep experimenting!
More advice would be welcomed though.^^

[pineapplepocky]

Just because one artist uses a specific program to emulate what they like, doesn't mean that you have to follow their path and use the exact same programs or tools at all

You seem like you're off to a good start, just keep practicing.
As a challenge, try drawing something other than faces. Like bodies, objects, scenery, robots. Spice it up a little!
When you have more work to show, I'll give a better critique. At the moment, that's all I can say :T
Also, I find your written notes next to your images quite amusing.

[Taleweaver]

Threads that revolve around a single artist belong into Personal Art Threads.

Moving.

[sendo]

You want your lineart to be consistent. Use only the charcoal brush or the pencil brush, not both at the same time. In fact, I'd advice you use the pencil brush as it creates smooth lines compared to charcoal which looks a bit messy. Also, try using a consistent brush size. The hair lines are very thin compared to the rest of the lineart.

Also, start drawing whole bodies. The earlier you start, the earlier you get better. You're already off to a good start as the other posters said so try pushing your limits to improve.

For coloring, you need to study more about values (see linked tutorial by MaiMai). Also, try color picking the colors used by the artists you mentioned and try to study how they work together. You'll notice Hyung-Tae Kim's coloring uses a lot of neutral colors and vibrant colors to highlight his design while KKUEM mostly use a more saturated but balanced color palette. Aya and Peach-pit use a combination of flat and soft shading and saturated colors (as a lot of anime/manga artist do). Try to study them all and find out the coloring style you're most comfortable with.

Lastly, keep practicing and have fun!

[angeliza]

pineapplepocky:
I do draw more than faces, these sketches just happen to be a majority of faces!
XD
I'll post some full-body sketches soon.
Granted, I change my style at times to suite whatever it is I'm working on, so you might notice subtle differences in the style I sketch in.
edit: Thanks for the comment on my notes! Sometimes I write notes by the characters I draw either for fun, or to help me remember that when it comes to a certain character, something must be drawn a certain way.^^
(For instance; notes on build, facial expressions, personality, etc.)
Those were mainly all humorus except for the note reminding me that that one chick has a ponytail, though.^^

Taleweaver:
Whoops! Newbie mistake, I'm sorry.

crestforge:
Like I said to pineapplepocky, I'll scan and post some full bodied sketches soon!
Your descriptions of the different coloring styles of my favorite creaters are right on target...but I like so many different things, I'll have to keep experimenting!
As for the lineart, thanks for the advice! I'll be sure to use pencil only next time.^^

Thank you everyone for your advice.^^

[angeliza]

More Sketches!

These guys I drew yesterday because they're the three races from a project I got hired to work on!
(First project! Yay!)
...I got hired mainly to do backgrounds, but just in case I wind up doing a sprite, I thought I'd sketch these beforehand to get a feel for the different proportions of each race.
Humans: Pretty normal proportions.
Elves: Short and skinny with I-know-something-you-don't expressions.
(XD)
Animal-Eared: In between Humans and elves build-wise, but are as tall as humans, and I gave them curved in legs and long feet to add to their animal-like appearance.
I think they're rounder-looking than the other races.
(Mind you, this is just what I think the races might look like. Since I'm mainly doing background, I haven't gottan much information on the matter.)
I didn't bother doing fingers or toes since I was focusing on the proportions...
...actually, they weren't going to have faces or hair either...
...but bald, faceless people bother me...
XD

Today, I looked at my sketchbook, and realized that it had been taken over by the male gender...

...so I drew these ladies.
Each one is drawn in a slightly different style, since I wasn't drawing them with anything in particular in mind, like with the boys.
I sort of just adjusted my style to fit with the feel of each character, and then I got bored, so I made the word balloons.
Zelda is there, because she's the princess, and if she wants her head floating about on a sketch paper with a sad expression, by golly she's going to get an image of her floating head being sad on my sketch paper!
XDD

Comments/advice please?

[sendo]

Wow, you've got a lot of art up fast. Now on some critique (for the most recent one on the first post):

First off, the hands need work. I suggest you find a good reference for this. Or you can try posing like that in front of a mirror to see how hands look on that pose.

I see you're following a tutorial. But I'd advise you not to rely on layer blend modes until you have a good grasp on how to color properly. Layer blend modes are shortcuts. If you know how it works, then it WILL work. If not, you will produce something that will probably not look right and you'll have little to no idea how to fix it. Even if it did look right, you still wouldn't know how to arrive at that shade of color without using layer blend.

Let's take Multiply for example, and it's called Multiply for a reason - it Multiplies one color value with another. Now isn't that essentially the same as blending colors? I think that, in the long run, you'll benefit more by studying how to manually blend colors.

When doing light coloring, I find that I can check my values easier when I color it against a dark background, not black but something like gray. A separate layer under your colors will do and you can easily remove it later.

The eye color jumps out at me. The pale blue you used is a lot better since it matches the overall value of your colors. Values still need work though and it seems like you're pillow shading too.

But otherwise, it's really good keep it up.

[angeliza]

Thanks for popping in, crestforge!
Being able to sketch decently at a decent pace is something I'm proud of, my hands, on the other hand....
...are not.
Hands always give me trouble, and while I have improoved on them a lot, (thanks to a painting I did that had hands everywhere, I got a lot of pratice, ) they still need a ton of work. In the sketch I'm colorng, one is far too fat, and the other is really wonky-looking. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll keep working on it!
For the skin, I sort-of followed a tutorial... I kind of just took the basics of the tutorial and ran into the land of ....who knows really?
XD
I do get what you're saying about blending. I do use multiply a lot.
I wanted to try aproaching my cg like I do the water color paintings I do with traditional medium, though, and multiply does work simularly to that end. I should try without, sometime though, it would probablybe best.

Dark background layer, huh? I should try that! It'd probably help a lot.

You are right about the eyes, (they are waaaaaaay to bright, especially with allthe pale colors i'vebeen using! I'll try to dull them down a bit) and the shading, (pillows have taken over her hand and shoulders!) I really need to work on those.
:/

Once again, thank you very much for popping in and helping me! I'll be working my on the hair later, and I would apreciate you coming by to help wth more useful advice then as well.^^