Practicing some Art, need advise

[StolenMadWolf]

Hi there, with everything that's going on I decided to give a bit of drawing a try using a touchscreen laptop to give it a try. The thing is, up until recently I barely did any art at all to the point that stickmen was literally the only thing I could do.

So I followed a couple of tutorials and actually started getting the foundation of some kind of style in there, but I'm still hampered by a lack of experience and getting scales right. My ability to draw eyes from any angle other than the sides is also pretty damn pathetic.

Here is what I have done so far:

Spoiler: Current Practice: Wolf Heads

I've just looking for some suggestions, critque and tips to see what could be done to improve, especially since I'm not entirely happy with what I'm doing so far. Any thoughts on how the art style is developing would also be appreciated.

 

[RafflesHolmes]

Art isn't something you're gonna master over night. Similar to things like riding a bike or writing. It takes time to actually, get good at it and even than everyone goes about it differently.

But a few core principles stay the same.

You have to learn from your mistakes as an artist and keep on trying to fix them.
Learn what works for you and go from there.
Practice none stop.
Don't get mad at yourself for not mastering something fast. It takes artists years to become good and even than a lot of artists will say, "I'm still improving." because in the mind of an artist. They always think they can improve upon something. 90% of my friends are artists and I came from a family of artists and while I never became one myself. I learned how they went about things fairly quickly.
Have fun. The most important thing about art of any kind is having fun with it. So don't over stress yourself with it. Just have fun and good things will follow.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Art isn't something you're gonna master over night. Similar to things like riding a bike or writing. It takes time to actually, get good at it and even than everyone goes about it differently.

But a few core principles stay the same.

You have to learn from your mistakes as an artist and keep on trying to fix them.
Learn what works for you and go from there.
Practice none stop.
Don't get mad at yourself for not mastering something fast. It takes artists years to become good and even than a lot of artists will say, "I'm still improving." because in the mind of an artist. They always think they can improve upon something. 90% of my friends are artists and I came from a family of artists and while I never became one myself. I learned how they went about things fairly quickly.
Have fun. The most important thing about art of any kind is having fun with it. So don't over stress yourself with it. Just have fun and good things will follow.

I understand, though I guess I'm a bit perfectionist regarding it. Old habit of mine I suppose.

Thanks for the advice!

In other news, I did make some progress on a side profile:

Spoiler: New Practice Head

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Here is my current practice sketch, whilst I've got side profiles all down well, I just can't seem to get the eyes sorted on the frontal or angled profiles. Any suggestions on that or any ideas on how I can improve the sketches further?

 

[Ghostbird]

A wolf has a longer snout and smaller ears, he looks more like a husky

 

[Olivitree]

So, first things first, don't be too hard on yourself and be prepared to make a lot of throw away drawings (but, don't throw them away, the only person you should be comparing yourself to, is past you, and keeping old work is good for looking back on)
Starting at the age you are, is going to give you a couple more hurdles, but they are entirely of your own making and you can just ignore them rather than jump them! As adults, we have less patience for things that don't look exactly how we want them to, as kids, we'd just draw and say "its a dog!" and adults would go "woowww" even though it probably just looked like a scribble with eyes, and we were content with that, capture that energy somewhat! Cause you have mileage to put in.

A big part of learning to draw is strengthening your confidence in making lines so literally, mileage, the more lines you draw and work on drawing them how you want them to go down, the better your work will look in general.

The potentially biggest part, is draw from life, or if you can't draw from life, draw from reference, this will help you improve in leaps and bounds, you need to build up your visual library of what things actually look like (our brains will tell you they know, but they don't) and work on solidifying your hand to brain/eye network, so that your hand will make the marks you want it to easier rather than derping round and doing its own thing.
Observation is also essential, when we look round our world we don't really see it in terms of lines, shapes and colours, but those are the only things we have in 2D art to recreate a thing we want to draw, so re-learning how to observe the world is important.

Right, now, the controversial one, style, you don't need one, not to begin with, it will develop over time, if you look around other artists, see how they do something and blend it with your work, but take inspiration from all sorts of artists from everywhere to build your own personal style, but don't focus on it too much.

Learn the fundamentals first, make them strong and the rest will come easier.
(take it from someone who regrets not learning the fundamentals well enough and is having to double down on it now)
Get yourself some wolf/dog refs and work from those and really LOOK hard at them.

For motivation
Age 4, and age 27. It's just time and practice you can do the thing!

 

[StolenMadWolf]

So, first things first, don't be too hard on yourself and be prepared to make a lot of throw away drawings (but, don't throw them away, the only person you should be comparing yourself to, is past you, and keeping old work is good for looking back on)
Starting at the age you are, is going to give you a couple more hurdles, but they are entirely of your own making and you can just ignore them rather than jump them! As adults, we have less patience for things that don't look exactly how we want them to, as kids, we'd just draw and say "its a dog!" and adults would go "woowww" even though it probably just looked like a scribble with eyes, and we were content with that, capture that energy somewhat! Cause you have mileage to put in.

A big part of learning to draw is strengthening your confidence in making lines so literally, mileage, the more lines you draw and work on drawing them how you want them to go down, the better your work will look in general.

The potentially biggest part, is draw from life, or if you can't draw from life, draw from reference, this will help you improve in leaps and bounds, you need to build up your visual library of what things actually look like (our brains will tell you they know, but they don't) and work on solidifying your hand to brain/eye network, so that your hand will make the marks you want it to easier rather than derping round and doing its own thing.
Observation is also essential, when we look round our world we don't really see it in terms of lines, shapes and colours, but those are the only things we have in 2D art to recreate a thing we want to draw, so re-learning how to observe the world is important.

Right, now, the controversial one, style, you don't need one, not to begin with, it will develop over time, if you look around other artists, see how they do something and blend it with your work, but take inspiration from all sorts of artists from everywhere to build your own personal style, but don't focus on it too much.

Learn the fundamentals first, make them strong and the rest will come easier.
(take it from someone who regrets not learning the fundamentals well enough and is having to double down on it now)
Get yourself some wolf/dog refs and work from those and really LOOK hard at them.

For motivation
Age 4, and age 27. It's just time and practice you can do the thing!
View attachment 86041

Thanks for the advice! I'll try and keep taking that into account. I've already been trying to look at references which has gone forward to helping me out.

Whilst I'm at it, I better thrown in a few of the newer sketches. I'm still struggling with eyes but I've been able to improve my semi-frontal heads. And I'm beginning to become able to tilt the side profiles somewhat. A bit stylised I know, but it's doing me more favours as I can say, 'it's kinda like a wolf' which helps put up with my extreme perfectionism, which is why I never tried drawing that much even as a kid.

Spoiler: Tilted Side View

Spoiler: Multiple Heads

 

[mangomango]

Thanks for the advice! I'll try and keep taking that into account. I've already been trying to look at references which has gone forward to helping me out.

Whilst I'm at it, I better thrown in a few of the newer sketches. I'm still struggling with eyes but I've been able to improve my semi-frontal heads. And I'm beginning to become able to tilt the side profiles somewhat. A bit stylised I know, but it's doing me more favours as I can say, 'it's kinda like a wolf' which helps put up with my extreme perfectionism, which is why I never tried drawing that much even as a kid.

Spoiler: Tilted Side View

Spoiler: Multiple Heads

The heads are definitely getting better!

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Been a while, but I figured I might as well go for another update to see what people would say on this. I think after this image I won't be putting anymore into this thread and might just put them into a dedicated art thread.

I ended up doing a wolf head line art piece that I actually liked enough that I figured I would opt for a basic bit of shading.

Any thoughts?

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Okay, now that FAF has come back on, I figure I better show some of the progress I've made over the last few months.

I've started doing my sona, Kili Kingsley, if a few peices. So far I've managed to get two done, one headshot and one half body and have started to try a more complex full body. However, I'm having alot more issues with Kili's hands which I can't draw for the life of me, even if my eyes are getting alot better.

Spoiler: Kili Headshot

Spoiler: Kili Halfbody

Spoiler: Current WIP

How do all these look to you? Each one had about a month or so inbetween whilst the new fullbody has been a couple of months with myself being on and off with it.

 

[MissNook]

I like specifically the half-body since the face has a lot more volume (especially with the eyes better placed - the eye a bit hidden by the muzzle). I can see that you improved a lot on this for the past few months (I also count the head you send from July ^^)
I also like the shiny render of the eyes and the tattoo that gives a nice vibe to your character.

The last drawing is still on the sketch side, but I can see a lot of good ideas. The pose is a bit stiff but interesting. I like how you drew the head in this profile angle too ^^ In term of composition, you could reframe more around the character depending on how the environment is important for you. If it was a bit more cropped at the left, the character would be standing in one of the vertical of the rules of thirds (if you don't know about this rules, I'll put an explanation bellow) and it will give the feelings that we share the view of the character since he will look at his right and we will also have the environment taking the right of the picture.

Spoiler: Rule of thirds

The rule of thirds, is a way to structure your picture by cutting it in third

The intersection of a vertical and a horizontal is a good place to place something you want to have stand out. The horizontals help to structure your planes (foreground, middle ground, background). Making a character follow the vertical makes it stand out too.
It's a simplified rules that helps to design, it reflects how the eye can be attracted (it's a kind of ergonomic/design theory). It doesn't mean you have to stick at it, but it's interesting to know it and to try to use it and see how it works.

I hope that helps! Keep up the great art and improvements

 

[viivihal]

Great job on improving, there is already a clear difference between the start of the thread and now!

If you want my two cents, I would start by deciding what your end goal is with art. Do you want to enjoy yourself take it seriously basically If you want to be serious, I would suggest at taking a look at art fundamentals and studying those. There is a ton of videos and resources out there, I'll link one made by Sinix that breaks down the different types and what art types need which.
What are the Fundamentals in Art???

It will seem like a LOT (it is) to take in, which is why taking it slowly one at a time is great. Also, one will not be a master of it immediately, for example with anatomy one might learn a little at first and come back a month or a year later when they are ready for more (been learning anatomy since 2017 and I still feel like I just started).

Knowing your fundamentals will help you understand and see what to look for. This also makes using reference a lot easier (using reference is great and everyone should do it!)

I'm sorry if this was unnecessary, please feel free to ignore me ^^'

Most importantly, have fun!

 

[Ziggy Schlacht]

So I'm going to let you in on a dirty secret of the art world - steal like a bandit. Computers make it real easy to use references (even tracing) in order to draw something difficult. Basically, find a wolf head at the angle you want and trace it - or at least trace lines and similar to get the angles right. Even if you tweak it later, it's good to get started. A crappy looking Photoshop composite of a couple poses, trace over that, and suddenly the anatomy looks better.

(That being said, when I say trace, I more mean tracing the general form, not line for line transcribing it)

 

[uydbbg]

Here is my current practice sketch, whilst I've got side profiles all down well, I just can't seem to get the eyes sorted on the frontal or angled profiles. Any suggestions on that or any ideas on how I can improve the sketches further?

These are a really great start and your work since has been rapidly improving!

This is how you draw eyes:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1306025629473796096

As you can see, for an angled view, the outermost edge of the far eye should be rounded.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Thanks for the tips so far! I'll try and take them into account! I was mainly just doing the art for the eck of it, but who knows, I'm tempted to keep going.

I might leave that current full body for now, and work on just nailing things little by little.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

So far just been doing a fresh new sketch instead of the original full body so I have a bit of time to work towards that point.

Just laying out some ideas, though I will need to adjust the body a bit more, thin the arms, and desprately learn how to draw hands.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Welp, I have been doing this piece on and off for a while now, and I could try and throw in some more details for the overall piece, but I figured I might as well just get it finished up. Especially since I don't think I'll be able to do waves properly.

Basically, I went ahead and did my character out near the sea, and stylised somewhat so it's fairly similar to a place I used to go on a regular basis.

And here it is:

Spoiler: Kili at the Seaside

Yeah, I actually gave doing a full fledged background a crack.

Again, not perfect, but I feel as if I'm making progress! Any tips or pointers?

 

[Ziggy Schlacht]

So, you have a reasonably good contour to the body, but don't have any on the arms. Your forearm is roughly bowling-pin shaped, starting "wide" at the hand, narrowing for the wrist, flaring out for the arm, then narrowing again for the elbow. Your upper arm is, roughly speaking, a trapezoid, starting wide at the should and narrowing as you go towards the elbow. Depending on muscle definition, you should see a hump where the bicep is, and relative straightness on the opposite side.

Contouring the arms would add a lot to the anatomy. The other thing is the pocket on his pants should be proud of the pants. So instead of the straight line on the left, it should have a couple steps to define the pocket.

If none of this text is easy to visualize, I can give a rough sketch showing what I mean later. Just ask.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

So, you have a reasonably good contour to the body, but don't have any on the arms. Your forearm is roughly bowling-pin shaped, starting "wide" at the hand, narrowing for the wrist, flaring out for the arm, then narrowing again for the elbow. Your upper arm is, roughly speaking, a trapezoid, starting wide at the should and narrowing as you go towards the elbow. Depending on muscle definition, you should see a hump where the bicep is, and relative straightness on the opposite side.

Contouring the arms would add a lot to the anatomy. The other thing is the pocket on his pants should be proud of the pants. So instead of the straight line on the left, it should have a couple steps to define the pocket.

If none of this text is easy to visualize, I can give a rough sketch showing what I mean later. Just ask.

Thanks for the pointers. I see what you mean on the arms. I did try it at first but it just came out wrong. If you could show me both I would appreciate it.

 

[Ziggy Schlacht]

Junk not included, but I sketched over. Added some 3d to the face, and lowered the horizon. It was too high - rule of thirds says to keep it in the bottom third, not top half. I maintained your proportions as much as I could though.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Junk not included, but I sketched over. Added some 3d to the face, and lowered the horizon. It was too high - rule of thirds says to keep it in the bottom third, not top half. I maintained your proportions as much as I could though.

View attachment 96799

Thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind next time I do something a bit bigger!

 

[StolenMadWolf]

After some more rough sketching and trying to get different angles up on the head, as well as trying an actual bird head, I've gone ahead and given full bodies another try, using my sona as the basis again. I'm actually taking the extra effort to try and define muscles as such rather than just drawing blocks and getting the proportions all right. A few things do need tweaking but I'm happy with how I've managed to get it so far, even though it took looking at lots of references to help build up an idea of what an actual body looks like and lots of sketches and layers to get to that stage.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

And I have added the image above, for some reason the Forum didn't put the image up.

 

[TemetNosce88]

After some more rough sketching and trying to get different angles up on the head, as well as trying an actual bird head, I've gone ahead and given full bodies another try, using my sona as the basis again. I'm actually taking the extra effort to try and define muscles as such rather than just drawing blocks and getting the proportions all right. A few things do need tweaking but I'm happy with how I've managed to get it so far, even though it took looking at lots of references to help build up an idea of what an actual body looks like and lots of sketches and layers to get to that stage.

Looking nice! His back arm and shoulder are covered nicely by his chest, and the leg on our left is very well done.

The arm and leg on our right could use some work. Based on how he's standing, the arm and shoulder should be more in front of his chest/a little thicker. Similarly for that leg, his thigh should be a little thicker in the back.

Unless he's supposed to be standing pushing his chest out with his legs apart, in which case, ignore my advice.

 

[StolenMadWolf]

Looking nice! His back arm and shoulder are covered nicely by his chest, and the leg on our left is very well done.

The arm and leg on our right could use some work. Based on how he's standing, the arm and shoulder should be more in front of his chest/a little thicker. Similarly for that leg, his thigh should be a little thicker in the back.

Unless he's supposed to be standing pushing his chest out with his legs apart, in which case, ignore my advice.

Thank's for the tips!

Well, the right leg was supposed to be facing towards the viewer, and the body was slightly twisted towards the left.

Is this better?

I still need to work on the hands and right leg though at first look over.