Digital Doodles? Could use some feedback!

[Kampfisken]

So, hurr durr, yeah. :>

I've always been fond of drawing, though I've never concidered myself an artist (My definition of that word seems to differ from that used by everybody else - I'm just a bit picky about what I dare redeem as "Art", but that's a digression. :V), littering my path through workbooks, notebooks, and in my earlier years, walls, with doodles and scrabbles of all sorts.

Last year, I tried to get into digital drawing, starting out with Photoshop - which I, afterwards, deemed as nothing but an epic failure, spending too much time to produce too meager results. But, recently, I stumbled over a fancy little app, Sai Paint, which I'm quite simply loving to bits - lets me draw the way I usually would go about it with pen on paper, with a drawing tablet, and speeds up the editing aspects greatly. :>

However, I'm still trying to get that whole Tablet thing into my fingers, and my first picture has been a bit quirky, trying to get the lines and whatnot right - so I've made alot of large mistakes on that whole "Larger" level of consistency, of which I've rooted out some already.

But I'd still love some more feedback - since it's hard for me to spot errors I've made myself - and have them pointed out for me.

So, for starters, http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3702422/ would be the first WIP i would love some feedback on- though if I keep doodling, I'd be adding new content to this thread on a (Hopefully) regular basis. :3


TL;DR?

Imma try drawin' wif mah computah
Help plx!

 

[Smelge]

It's terrible, do it again but leave out the suck.




Is what I would say if it was terrible. It's a good style, solid linework. Keep at it, maybe experiment a little, but you're on the right track.

 

[Taralack]

Agreeing with Voidrunners. Would love to see this coloured.

 

[Karimah]

Wow, this is fantastic! I have no critique to give except, make more! XD I'm sure you'll produce more stunning work. Your anatomical structure is really great ♥. As Toraneko said, color would really show off this piece.

 

[Zydala]

I think the anatomy is pretty good! You have the smooth linework down, too, kudos. I love sai too it definitely makes things easy :>

The top of the hair looks a tad lumpy to me, though... you have fur texture down but make sure you don't just draw hair as big lumps. That's really all I have for suggestions, though! :>

 

[Kampfisken]

I think the anatomy is pretty good! You have the smooth linework down, too, kudos. I love sai too it definitely makes things easy :>

The top of the hair looks a tad lumpy to me, though... you have fur texture down but make sure you don't just draw hair as big lumps. That's really all I have for suggestions, though! :>

I agree - yeah, hair has always been an enemy of mine. I guess I need to practice more, it's just always a hazzle getting it to float naturally. =P

 

[Ames]

Aww, from the thread name I thought you were a fellow mspaint doodler like me

Anyway, great art

 

[Kampfisken]

H'ockay, I did get quite a bit of good feedback from here and there, and have corrected a few minor mistakes - although most of the comments have been noted down, as things I need to work on.

I'd rather see the changes from picture to picture, than polish and polish a single work for ages, until only the bony fragments remain! :3

I tried to compensate for lumpy hair with detailed brush strokes, but I don't think I succeeded too well - Hair has always been my nemesis, so I need to draw more of that. Also shrunk and worked on the eye/chin, to add a bit more depth.

All in all, colouring was more of a challenge than I thought it would be - but it's not that surprising, given that I've mostly worked with grayscales, I suppose.

Regardless - what could I have done different, and what could I have done better? o:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3718946

Much love
-Kampfisken

 

[Taralack]

Not too bad, though you could flesh out the shadows a bit to give it more body.

 

[Kampfisken]

Not too bad, though you could flesh out the shadows a bit to give it more body.

Mmhm. I think I got a bit too tangled up in the details - looking over it now, it's as if I changed my mind about the light source three times, as I were working my way around the body. CARDINAL SIN, and you're absolutely correct! ;>

 

[FireFeathers]

Try shading with colors other then grey. It gives a wierdly saturated-yet-not- look to pictures that's a common error. It's not horrible in any sense of the word, could use some interesting light sources on it, for sure. But try a color like a sort of hazy purple, or a deep orange for shadows. It'll start integrating some color theory into your work.

Anime hair always makes me giggle. Ease up a little on that highlight, unless your bunny is Oily-mc Pantene rabbit. Other then that, there's nothing really glaringly retarded about your picture. keep at it!

 

[Smelge]

Anime hair always makes me giggle.

The mistake a lot of people make, is doing anime hair for a one-shot piece or whatever.

I'm pretty certain the idea behind anime hair, is it's a simplification so that the same character can be drawn repeatedly without spending hours on the hair, which is ideal for comic strips that are on a deadline, and old-style animation.

So there are genuine uses for it.

 

[Smelge]

All in all, colouring was more of a challenge than I thought it would be - but it's not that surprising, given that I've mostly worked with grayscales, I suppose.

Regardless - what could I have done different, and what could I have done better? o:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3718946

Much love
-Kampfisken

Kill the hair.

One of the nicer ways to do hair, is to leave the hair as a seperate layer and leave it as a sketch. Do not ink it. Ink the head underneath a bit further under where the hair would go, too.

Then, on a new layer, using the hair sketch as a guideline, start with a thin brush of a dark colour, and just use long strokes to block out where the hair should go. Add a layer above, and a slightly lighter colour, long strokes again. A few more layers progressively lighter, then start to concentrate on highlights and scatter. It may also be worth adding a few extra darker layers too, in case you covered too much of the lower ones.

The idea is to build it up into something a bit more realistic. Outlines on hair just looks terrible.

And I am a hypocrite, because I use anime hair and outlines.

 

[Kampfisken]

H'ockay, studies have been keeping me busy, but I try to get some time every now and then for scetches and whatnot. :V

Been working a bit on hair, even though it irks me.

(Cropped for the sake of the sanctity of your mind, but still mature. >_>)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3788357/

Been working on this thingahmajjag, and the hair is what irks me. This is the base rough scetch I intend to use for the lineart, though I'm not sure if I could/should do the hair in another fashion? Some areas are obviously to-be edited, like the lumpy stream going down into the ear, but as for the rest...

I'm at a total loss. D:

Ink as is, and follow above mentioned tips on colouring and embroding of hair, or is there some fatal flaw here already, that I just can't see?

 

[Taralack]

It doesn't look too bad, just use a same size brush to do the hair as you did with the rest of the image.

 

[Zydala]

Lookin' pretty good! I like the hair, myself. I'd probably keep the lineart thin and to a minimum in it, because too many lines looks overworked sometimes.

If I may, since I'm an expert (lol), the chest part is bothering me. Gravity has a funny reaction to boobs, and when lying on ones back they usually squish down a bit on themselves and start sliding to the sides of the chest. The left nipple should actually be pointing more towards us instead of straight up, and the far one should be going the opposite direction (though it already sort of looks like it has that effect to me). That might solve the bit with the chest, too; I'm not sure if the inner curvature line should be that pronounced.

But really it's looking pretty good, and the angles look good too :>

 

[Kampfisken]

Shameless bump! (Not really. :V)

(NSFW. Bad me. D: )
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3847316

So, I've taken things a bit in over me, and tried to correct the following;
Fixed the anti-grav boobage, and tried to make less lumpy hair, though it's obvious that still needs a whole lot of more work. I'm not quite sure what about the hair I'm doing wrong - I wanted a "Ruffled" look of dark brown hair with bright coloured tips - but I'd imagine I didn't use a small enough brush (And bright enough highlights?)

Also been experimenting on using colours a bit more vividly for shadows and whatnot, as somebody mentioned that could be an idea. Granted, I did go a bit overboard, so the whole image might look a bit looney as a result of that. But I'm just playing around, and experimenting a bit, so I guess that can, to a certain extent, be excused. o:

This one is still a WIP, though a bit on feedback could, as always, be handy. :3

 

[Icky]

I thought this thread said "digital noodles".

I was disappointed.

 

[OxfordTweed]

Shameless bump! (Not really. :V)

(NSFW. Bad me. D: )
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3847316

So, I've taken things a bit in over me, and tried to correct the following;
Fixed the anti-grav boobage, and tried to make less lumpy hair, though it's obvious that still needs a whole lot of more work. I'm not quite sure what about the hair I'm doing wrong - I wanted a "Ruffled" look of dark brown hair with bright coloured tips - but I'd imagine I didn't use a small enough brush (And bright enough highlights?)

Also been experimenting on using colours a bit more vividly for shadows and whatnot, as somebody mentioned that could be an idea. Granted, I did go a bit overboard, so the whole image might look a bit looney as a result of that. But I'm just playing around, and experimenting a bit, so I guess that can, to a certain extent, be excused. o:

This one is still a WIP, though a bit on feedback could, as always, be handy. :3

I gotta say that I do not like the colour. All that orange and red makes my eyes hurt. Really tone it down. Try to go for more natural colours, rather than neons.

Something about her foot bothers me, too. It's cocked out at an extreme weird angle, and the taper on the toes seems too steep.

 

[Arshes Nei]

To be honest, I think you should study a painter like Frank Frazetta. He was really good about using color schemes for mood, and really excellent when it came to edges and shading forms.

RIP Frazetta...

For example, http://foxstudio.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/frazetta.jpg

What looks really complex is actually simplified. Notice how Frank uses a really warm neutral on the Ape Man's chest (he's using a compliment to the aqua on the face) but it's mostly painted as one mass because he's using the concept of Hide n Seek.

Your mind is filling out more chest muscles than is really there. Most of the detail is implied. He uses a lot of atmospheric composition to get you to focus on where is the "Story" He's fading out the feet for example but making the chest massive in shadow. The dark features of the face kind of give a looming presence. Obviously he also made the shadow lighter in value to show which one is in the forefront.

You can find more of his stuff here. http://frankfrazetta.org/

I mentioned Frazetta cuz like Bridgman he has a way of describing form without getting too mired in details. He is the father of Fantasy artwork as you can say, so for those who hate getting too mired in art history, he's a good start to study his paintings and learn how to use color in a way that works for your own style too.

 

[Kampfisken]

Thank you, Arshes!
I've seen Frazetta's works before, but never such a comprehensive gallery. I think I shimmied through all of them - he were a great artist.

The whole Hide and Seek technique is interesting - something I need to experiment more with.

I gave it a go (Kinda), as well as worked more on my hair structure. (Notably, the tail.)
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3911131

I realized, rather early on, that I were about to fall into the same trap Zeddish noted earlier on, regarding Neon colours, so I tried to tone it down a bit this time around.

The landscape itself, however, is fairly dull and poorly shaded, I must admit - I need the practice, but drawing oceans, mountains and skies just doesn't captivate me. :C

Regardless, what I tried to do this time around, was to work more on concise shading, using a varied (Non-excessive) colour palette, and hair. The latter is something I think I've gotten better at.

But, I'm more interested in hearing - where have I gone wrong?

 

[Taralack]

The background should reflect light from the sunset more. The colours on those still seem a bit too vivid.

 

[Jw]

[...]

The landscape itself, however, is fairly dull and poorly shaded, I must admit - I need the practice, but drawing oceans, mountains and skies just doesn't captivate me. :C

Regardless, what I tried to do this time around, was to work more on concise shading, using a varied (Non-excessive) colour palette, and hair. The latter is something I think I've gotten better at.

But, I'm more interested in hearing - where have I gone wrong?

Try putting a orangish filter or 20% opacity layer colored orange on top of the portrait to mellow out the colors and unify them a little as a quick fix. That should give you a more sunset-looking effect without a lot of added grief.

Hair and backgrounds are really similar in a certain way: when they are perfect, they don't steal attention from the actual focus point of the drawing (which here I assume it's the head). Also, they both require an unfair amount of attention to make them subtle.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Arshes Nei]

You tried to squish too much into the the picture with competing saturation.

An orange opacity filter won't help in this case. In fact, I highly advise against it because you have strong compliments going and when you put a compliment mixed with another it does neutralize it but you can also create mud.

Let's look at an actual sunset.

http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/after-sunset-mountains-62-lyle-crump.jpg

Look at what happens to the mountains...they're turning more purple as they're further back. Their edges are softer. What you have is a highly saturated green. That's not gonna work. That's not what happens with a sunset.

Also look at the water. It's not the deep blue you have, it's actually reflecting the sky. That's part of the reason water is "blue" it's mirror to the atmosphere. There are other factors why the water is "blue" but surface we can see it's reflecting the atmosphere.

Now this is when it's ok to have reference to understand what is going on in real life. There's a difference between copying those mountains and sky and posting them into your picture, vs looking and studying them to understand what is going on to create the correct effect.

 

[Jw]

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

This is a pretty cool interactive color wheel that may help some people without much background in color theory find a good palette on which to base their full composition. You can swap compliment modes and even export colors to PS and GIMP's palettes.

For the sunset style you're going for, this is the palette I came up with-- analogous, red based that would allow for some of the purples and oranges you want.
http://colorschemedesigner.com/#5C51UvKkkE8NK

Also, an accented analogous here, with the green intact.
http://colorschemedesigner.com/#5C61UvKkkE8NK

And a tetrad scheme you might like.
http://colorschemedesigner.com/#5C61UvKkkE8NK

As a little word of advice, though, the green, even after trying to "quick fix" you picture myself, it really looked like a quick fix anyway (proving myself wrong again, I guess, haha). The green is too harsh, and should be used really only to draw extreme attention to an object, or to be desaturated so it does not clash for attention at that saturation, and that's what is happening in between your foreground dragon and background hills.