My journey to improvement...

[Kirtaro]

Well, like some of you might already know i'm trying to learn digital art. i don't have a wacom tablet, yet. hopefully i'll be getting one by the end of next month. but that doesn't mean i can practice with a pencil and some paper. and to do digital i can use a mouse, even though it's insanely hard...

well i'm a dark souls fan so i guess i'm used to things being difficult...

anyway why i'm posting it all here? cause what better way to improve than to get feedback from the people who will be viewing it? tips, criticism, advice and praise (if well deserved) are all welcome.

Thanks all.

This is the first anthro image i have ever drawn. drawn in pencil and used a scanner to have it digitalised. It's a concept drawing for a character from my book, her name is Kaylana. this was drawn using another image as a species reference, since i've never drawn a sabrecat before and had no idea what i was getting into, i mean i know what they look like but couldn't focus on the key aspects. so she might look familiar. The collar she wears was a last minute addition and is embedded with sabreteeth, a small tribute to Nidalee from league of legends (my mid lane main)

[Randall]

Pretty good well done

[Leeward]

Very nice. My tablet bombed out and I don't really want to get another so I use a workaround: do your concept with pencil and paper, then scan it and run some line-enhancing filters on it until you've got some nice lineart (crank up the contrast, tweak the levels and curves, run a threshold, etc), clean it up if necessary, then do your colouring, shading, and everything else with a mouse. It works pretty well for me.

[Kirtaro]

@sonic2k thanks

@Leeward thank you. i just have very little patience with a mouse. so i end up making a lot of mistakes.

also i suck at both coloring and shading. I usually just end up using the bucket tool. but I tried it anyway.

this is my 1st attempt at shading. I know I made a couple of mistakes. but that's how we learn, isn't it.

[Leeward]

For a first attempt, I'd say that's pretty damn awesome.

i just have very little patience with a mouse. so i end up making a lot of mistakes. [...] also i suck at both coloring and shading. I usually just end up using the bucket tool.

In that case, perhaps you'd like do a collab with me? You do lineart and I'll colour and shade. I'll even record it and make a tutorial if you like.

[Sev]

The only real complaint I have is that the lighting looks a bit unnatural, but, other than that, good job.

[Leeward]

the lighting looks a bit unnatural

Welcome to cel shading. That is precisely why I prefer soft shadows. They're just a shit-ton more work to do.

[Kirtaro]

@Leeward, thank you.you are too kind also i'd love to do a collab sometime.

@Sev, i know. but i am practicing though. hopefully it'll become easier when i get my wacom...

at the moment i'm trying to draw a male lion face, opposite direction then the already posted pic. but without using a reference image. and i can already see one mistake. POSITIONING. unless i remove the mane, a piece of the top is cut off by the edge of the page and i have too much empty space at the bottom of the page.

[Leeward]

Rather don't try and change it now, it tends to make things worse. You can always add bits of mane hair digitally. As my dad always says, "Better is the enemy of good."

[Kirtaro]

well here's what I've got so far. i vectorised the scan to get rid of the light lines (previously erased lines) that the scanner still managed to pick up.

Think if i can't get the shoulders to work, then i might just close the bottom with an abstract mane like structure, make it look like an icon, or perhaps just fade or smear the edges?

not a major fan of the eyes, but its the only style i know without using a reference. and like i said this is supposed to be a completely imagination-drawn sketch. so it also doesn't look as good as the 1st image i posted.

EDIT: also see how high i drew it? i am bad with POSITIONING when trying to draw from imagination. haha

[Leeward]

Not bad at all. I'm also terrible at positioning, don't worry. Maybe a pendant of some kind would frame it nicely? Once you're happy with it I'd love to colour and shade it.

[KinkInZA]

good job Kitro it looks real good.Im trying for a long while and am still no good hehe.

[Kirtaro]

@Thanks. I've never seen any of your work. would like to see some of it sometime.

@Leeward thanks. sure can if you want to. be nice to see what it would look like when someone with skill does the coloring and shading

well i kinda went a little overboard...
something about it seems a little... uhm... off? maybe its the angle or the heads too big for the shoulders? or it might just be the armor angle? meh. nothing an eraser can't fix though

EDIT: you can see some of the lines that I wasn't able to erase... i was in such a trance whilst drawing that i forgot to check how hard i was pressing... haha my bad...

[Kirtaro]

so the neck has been bothering the hell out of me. other than moving the entire head, the best i could do was lengthen the hair to hide more of the neck. a slight change but i do believe it makes a difference.

[Leeward]

Try moving the left edge of the neck a bit more to the right?

[GalacticCanine]

so the neck has been bothering the hell out of me. other than moving the entire head, the best i could do was lengthen the hair to hide more of the neck.

That's like my number 1 art hack ha! I have quite a few hacks I use to make my life easier (even though most of the times it's the lazy way out)

I say it looks good! Your proportions seems pretty good too! I usually work from a skeleton to help me get my posing right (mostly to determine shoulder and body length)

[Kirtaro]

@leeward, i think it looks better now, still not happy but its the best i can do without completely reworking the armor. also turned the pendant into a necklace instead of a collar. that's the biggest problem with pencil, erasing doesn't always remove all lines.

@galacticcanine i use that hack as well haha. but i should probably use a skeleton as well. i just start drawing an outline of what i want and fix whatever bothers me afterwards. its like the "winging it" in drawing. its a horrible way to draw, but its the only way i know how.

[Leeward]

Yeah that looks much better.

[GalacticCanine]

its like the "winging it" in drawing. its a horrible way to draw, but its the only way i know how.

lmao are you kidding me? Most of my more successful drawings started with me just blindly drawing and it eventually turning in to something decent ! Art's all about experimenting, but it's also about finding ways to make things easy for you. If you have a method that works for you then no one can really tell you it's right or wrong! I'd say the most important key to improving in art is training. If you can train your hand to do all the thinking instead of your mind, then you'll be very happy with the results! A lot of people (including myself) tend to over think things and this usually leads to a fear of experimenting and with out experimenting you'll never be able to find what works for you.

Also referencing. Lots and lots of referencing. I take screenshots from my favourite animated movies and try to deconstruct the characters, almost like dissecting them to learn all the neat tricks the original animators used to draw these characters. God it's helped me so much!

[Leeward]

I took the liberty of doing a cleanup on your latest upload, hope it's ok.

[Kirtaro]

@Leeward. how did you clean it up so... perfectly? that's amazing. and it looks great thanks

@galacticcanine i love re-drawing other pieces of art or characters. it's a good way to practice. my biggest problem right now is fixing mistakes. like i can see mistakes i've made, and i know of a way to fix them. then when i try a little voice in the back of my head says:

"What the hell are you doing?" "you know that once you erase that part it's gone forever" "and you know as well as i do that if you try and re-draw it... IT WILL NEVER BE AS GOOD AS YOUR ORIGINAL ATTEMPT"

the i just stare at the image long enough and say: "on second thought... this is fine"

major reason i want to get a drawing tablet like a wacom is for 2 major functions. i can draw with a pen, not a mouse, and i can make use of layers and opacity...

[Leeward]

@Leeward. how did you clean it up so... perfectly? that's amazing. and it looks great thanks

My pleasure. I'm busy fiddling with colours so if you want a specific palette just throw it my way and I'll change it.

For cleanup, I find this is the fastest:

1. Crop to cut out paper edges and binding.
2. Levels: black goes up, white goes down, gamma goes down. Play with it until it looks nice. Alternatively you can use Curves, in which the best result will probably have a ___/‾ shape.
3. Crank the contrast all the way up and brightness down to 1.
4. Desaturate by luminosity.
5. Threshold with black at 1 and white at 255.
6. Use Lasso Select combined with Fill Bucket by selection on any solid dark areas left.
7. Use Eraser to clean up any specks left over.

[Leeward]

I may have gotten a little carried away...

[Kirtaro]

@Leeward looks great i see so haha. saw your message a little late. Mane is actually darker shade of brown or black. armor was leather but i can now see how it's mistaken for steel haha

but still looks great thanks. would love to see how you did the shading and coloring in a tutorial.

[Leeward]

No worries, it's all layer-based so the colours can be changed post facto. How's this?

If you PM me your email address I can send you the GIMP file so you can fiddle with it. I forgot to record this so I'll have to make a video on something else.

[Kirtaro]

there we go. that looks awesome.

[Kirtaro]

@Leeward thanks for all your work. I also appreciate how great you did it whilst only using a mouse and in the short amount of time, i mean holy crap, i didn't think that was possible with a mouse, and if it was i though it would have taken days. and here is credit where credit is due (top left corner). i didn't know weather to call it color or paint so i checked how other people give credit and it looks like color was the way to go...

think i'll try a half-body or full-body tomorrow... hopefully i'll be able to do better. I've always been a fan of the more edged style. the rounded styles need perfect proportions to be as good. like the style anime shows use. nothing is ever rounded. everything leads to en edge or tip or a spike. that made little sense but hopefully you'll get what i mean haha

[Leeward]

@Leeward thanks for all your work. I also appreciate how great you did it whilst only using a mouse and in the short amount of time, i mean holy crap, i didn't think that was possible with a mouse, and if it was i though it would have taken days.

Haha no sweat man. Yeah you don't need a tablet for anything but lineart and paint-style colouring really. For toony style colouring like this I just use the Lasso Select and Fill by Selection tools on a layer under the ink, which is really quick. There are quite a few ways to do shading/lighting but here I stuck to something fast and simple: one Overlay mode layer with black and white puffs of the Airbrush tool to give it volume, and one Normal mode layer with yellow Airbrush highlights to give the impression of sunlight coming from the right. I swear I'll do a tutorial sometime... XD

[Kirtaro]

New look design idea. not finished yet. this is what it looks like thus far.

[Asbjorn-phoenix]

All very cool.

I can hardly draw even just with pencil.

Was given a Wacom Intuos by my brother, not used it enough yet to say I am improving or not, but hey fun when I do play with it. Just doodles at the moment though.