Drew's Improvement Process [Critique Very Welcome]

[Drew]

Carassaurat: the paintover was really helpful - thanks again for taking the time to do it.

WIP continuing on the shading. I'm not sure if it's going in the right direction, I might need to take the layer off and start again with the angles of the face better defined.

Onwards and upwards...

Oh, and increasingly thinking I need to reduce the eye size, don't fancy doing it now from the way I have my layers, but once I've merged them a bit I'll give it ago.

[Drew]

Been working sketching from ref images for a month or so now. Felt like a change so I've started to knock some colours onto one of them.

I'd originally done it in greyscale then didn't like how it coloured up so I started again from base colour. mmm - not sure either are working but wished I'd kept the greyscale copy (live and learn). Aware that the shadow is very undefined currently I just banged some on to give some depth, I'll tweak it back and put a proper light source in.

I work on a laptop with a secondary monitor and the colours were always annoyingly different, I've calibrated the laptop (there's a Win tool in control panel - who knew?) so they at least match but I don't know what anyone else is seeing.

[sei.chan]

Not sure if someone has mentioned this but your coloring is on point. One thing I would say is her arm specifically her elbow remember elbows tend to be around the belly button and some of your characters arms are short or the elbow to high up. Are you going for semi realism? I would love to see more of your art and how you progress =)

[Drew]

Cheers Sei.chan - I'm impressed with your art (you seem to capture a nice... light?), so it's nice to receive your thoughts. I'm working on colouring so hopefully I can stay on point. I'll keep an eye out for the elbow thing when I next do a fuller view.

Yes, I semi realism is what I'm looking for, it seems the most efficient and flexible (not that this sounds like very 'arty' way of putting it - ha).

[Drew]

WIP: worked some more colour onto it and replaced the basic shading with something a bit more developed (and with and actual light source), upper right - so I guess I need some more highlights on the hair in that area.

[Drew]

Trying some of the things I've been learning on a different sketch I'd taken from a reference image.

WIP 01 - base sketch:

Also, I do (fairly nasty) warm-up sketches whenever I sit down to draw - guess they might be a decent performance indicator:

[Drew]

WIP 02 - line art progress:

[Drew]

Evening,
Yesterday's warm up sketch:

Current WIP, I'm not sure how my practice is going but hopefully it's of some use to other people who are just starting out.

Masking layers blocked in:

[Drew]

WIP 04 - basic colours:

[Drew]

Been working on some more stylised pieces that might suit better as sprites. Still working from references but not so closely.
Not sure if I've made much progress there - some are pretty ropey. Well it's all practice.

Peace

[Edit for spelling]

[Drew]

I've been really busy with work recently but I've managed to get 6-10 hrs of practice in a week. I keep thinking I'd like to give something back to the forum but other than posting 'Yay, you are good at being good' on other people's art threads I don't think I can add much at this stage, unless anyone wants any maths doing - ha ha.

I've recently been going a lot of practice from reference but needed a change so I've been working on some more stylised/less-realistic faces. I've tried to keep them... similar so I can chart progress and map things I think are working.

A lot have been a bit rub but I've started to colour a couple of the better ones.

See what people think, advice welcome. I won't upload all the stages, I don't think anyone wants to see that.

Cheers

-Drew

[Drew]

Been doing a lot of practice and work from references.

Some free hand practice:

Been working on the basics (a lot) and I think it is paying off, still a long way to go. Things like the hair, I've tried different styles/techniques on each side.

Happy Christmas/New Year everyone.

-Drew

[Drew]

Been a while since the last post, been busy.

But lent some time to a NaNoRenO project but as it was delayed I thought I'd put the art up here. I've not done scenes before so I cheated and used Sketchup, and as it was a NaNo piece I felt speed was better than artistic purity.

I think these are the better two that I had produced, I enjoyed doing the scenes so I might have to split my time between character art practice and BG practice.

[King-sama]

Liked the lightning in that last background! 8O it's not cheating to use Sketchup

[Drew]

Liked the lightning in that last background! 8O it's not cheating to use Sketchup

Ha ha - cheers. Well, maybe not totally cheating but I know I'm not good enough freehand, so I should be focusing on that rather than using Sketchup as a crutch.

Here's another one, I find I struggle more with scenes where there aren't clear shadows:

I've tried to capture a softer light for gas-lamps/candles but, mmm - not sure how well it works. Also I work on three different computers and they all seem to have different light-dark balance, even if I adjust them (boo). So the images often seem to be too dark.